Sharing my joy

The powers that be say the best way to gain readership is to make a blog personal. So I was racking my brain trying to think about the best possible way to make these postings a little more personal.

Then, after watching my teams destroy on Sunday, I hit upon it. I’ll share my joy and pain with you the reader and hopefully show how I build a team, maintain it through the season and, hopefully, win a title. And since we’re at the midway point of the season it seemed like the perfect time to start it.

The biggest part of all this is to start a conversation, so please comment below or send me an e-mail. If you want to pass along some tips I can use to win my leagues, please do, I’m always appreciative.

First off this past week was probably the best fantasy week I’ve ever had. I went 4-0 and was the highest scoring team or second-highest in all of my leagues. That’s not what usually happens, but you’ve got to take it when you can.

So here it goes. I’m in four leagues, all are money leagues to a varying degree and I try to approach each team with the same attitude. I’ll break down a team each day the rest of the week, starting with the leagues I’ve been involved with the most and then work forward.

BROWNS

I’ve shared a team with my co-owner Dan Bauer (from the podcast) in the Nobach Fantasy Football League since the pre-Internet days, a time when you had to wait until Thursday to receive your league newsletter in the mail to find out exactly how everybody did in the league.

It’s a straight forward scoring league with no flex play, but an option to go wishbone (3 RB) or run-and-shoot (3 WR), and 100- and 300-yard bonuses and some big-play bonuses. It’s a half-point per reception league and QBs get five points per TD pass. Pass and rush/receive are all point per 25/10, respectively. Pretty straight forward.

Every year we stack up on running backs and this year is no different. We’ve got Maurice Jones-Drew (keeper) and DeAngelo Williams as our main two, but we’ve also got Ahmad Bradshaw, Knowshon Moreno and Cadillac Williams on the bench. We also have Chester Taylor in case Adrian Peterson goes down.

Our wide receiver spot is a two-man show with Wes Welker and Roddy White. We’ve got Antonio Bryant (close to being dropped) and Mohamed Massaquoi on the bench.

Tight end is locked down by OD (Owen Daniels), our kicker is a rotating door at this point and the Packers defense rounds out our starting lineup.

Our quarterback spot is a little shaky. Jay Cutler and Carson Palmer are both playing well, but both are capable of throwing up stinkers and neither are going to put up the kind of numbers Tom Brady or Drew Brees put up this Sunday. We may need to address this going forward.

In the standings, we’re 3-3 and tied for third place in the AFC Division. The power rankings, however, rank us second in the entire 10-team league because we have scored the most points in the league so far (of course a lot of that has to do with last week when we had MoJo Drew, Williams, Welker and Daniels all go off).

Well that’s a primer. Right now we’re about 50-50 on our squad: happy with some but not all of our players. In fact two weeks ago we threatened to trade the bunch of them. One move we are considering is dealing for Panthers WR Steve Smith. One of the problems with that is possible playing time. With Welker and White, when would we play Smith?

Stay tuned.

Coming tomorrow: The Friends League