Hmmm...yeah I guess I'll give it a go.

So after my little night of being a Jets fan in the early 80's, some time passed until my next encounter with the gridiron.

I truly had no "team" growing up, NFL or college. In the 8th grade I made friends with a great guy, still one of my best friends today and his father had a team. My buddy's dad is the biggest Michigan fan I know. I spent a lot of time hanging out with their family and I was educated and baptized into everything Michigan.

I'd say about a year later I started watching a healthy amount of the NFL. My NFL watching lasted for about four years. My watching was later reduced to the Super Bowl only.

At my 10th year class reunion from high school, my other good friend asked me to give something a try. I was asked to join his fantasy football league. I'd never looked into FF, I didn't watch the NFL anymore. He thought I'd like playing because of the competition. As an added bonus the league was full of other friends I had grown up with. I told him I was in.

Having committed to this FF thing I started off by buying a magazine, like so many others do. I later found magazines to be full of outdated information. So with my magazine in hand I attempted to learn as much as I possibly could.

My friend's league wasn't a standard draft either and my magazine didn't really address this, it was geared towards the standard serpentine draft. Our league was of the auction variety. In my opinion, the auction draft is highly superior to the standard draft. I find auction drafts to have more strategy and opportunity/freedom to make your team. If you were in multiple standard drafts and your draft position was the same in each you would find it a lot like one of my favorite movies, Groundhog Day. Just like how Bill Murray found himself stuck in a loop, repeating the same day over and over, the same can be said for standard style drafts. If you picked 4th(I hate picking 4th)in a STD draft and the three teams in front of you grab the top three RBs you at best could pick the 4th best running back. Then you have no say in what takes place after your pick until it's your next turn. If you do another STD draft, picking 4th you have a very big chance of having the same three players go before you and you either pick the same guy you did in your other draft or you try and force something else to happen. In short, I find it to be very inferior to the freedom of auction drafting.

Auction drafts don't start from the top players and work down to the DEF and Kickers. Sure the best player could be nominated first but the next person nominated could be a kicker or DEF. You have a budget of normally $100 or $200 (fake money) to build your team. So you'll have a shot at getting the best RB but how much are you willing to spend?

Here is what I was willing to spend this year in my buddy's league. Meet my 2013 FF team, $200.

Tony Romo $12 *he also looks a lot like my brother-in-law Chris.

I have no problems with Tony, in fact in my second season of FF he helped my team to 10 and 0 start! Tony was a value pick with the other QBs going for much more. I also was able to put together something I believe to be big for me and it will be big in the NFL this year...

Dez Bryant $74

Dez had his share of problems when he came to the NFL. I'm hoping he was able to mature and put his off field issues to bed. Dez was a beast during the second half of the season in 2012 and I hope he continues to dominate. Dez could dethrone Calvin Johnson as the best WR in the NFL and if he does, I hope it's this year(on my team). Pairing Tony with Dez is a bit of a double edge sword. I hope I can cut more with it than it cuts me!

I've never gone with a rookie WR to be a starter but I believe this next young man is the real deal. With electrifying speed and quickness I give you...

Tavon Austin $9

Tavon's build is about that of Percy Harvin. I believe the Rams will also use Tavon's skill set to the fullest. Tavon is going to line up all over the field, inside, outside. He'll be taking some snaps from the backfield and he will get kick return duties(this league rewards points for receptions and for kick return yards).

My RB1 is on the wrong side of 30 years of age but with his new team comes new opportunity!

Steven Jackson $38

Jackson had played with the Rams until moving to Falcons this season. Jackson saw a lot of eight men fronts and that wont be the case in Atlanta. With a great passing game those eight men attacks wont be like they were in the past. Last year Atlanta used a broken down Michael Turner and he was still able to score 10 touchdowns and 800 yards. Jackson will have at least 10 TDs and he has great hands that will yield more points with catching passes!

RB2 is....SHANE VEREEN!!! $10 (Don't worry if you don't know who he is, you'll know him by the end of the season)

Shane is another RB with great hands and with the killer TE in jail, stop it!, you know he's guilty. I digress, Shane plays in a great offense(NE) and he will see a boom in production with Aaron Hernandez gone!

Here's my favorite TE in the game...Jimmy Graham! KEEPER =$0

Jimmy is absolutely a beast! I wouldn't be surprised to see him put up 100 rec, 1,300 yards and 15 TDs, he's that good! Jimmy also plays in a great offense with the Saints. I believe the Saints missed having their coach Sean Payton on the team last year. Jimmy played hurt last season and was still able to put up the best numbers(85 Rec, 982 yards and 9 TDs) of any TE.

My friend added a new FLEX position to the league this year. FLEX can be one of the following RB/WR/TE.

Opportunity, opportunity and more opportunity! Darren Sproles $48 is just that, opportunity.

Darren is a PPR (point per reception)machine! I've wanted to have Darren on my team for some time now but for the past two years he's been someone's keeper. In this league you may pick one player to keep and now that he was available I hope to cash in!

Here is my bench players.

Alshon Jeffery WR
Fred Davis TE
Andre Roberts WR
Knile Davis RB
Kendall Hunter RB
Percy Harvin (hope he makes it back this season)

I won't get into kickers and DEF because I don't want to waste time with them. I'll cut them and pick up others throughout the season.

My first sports love

I'll start with a little history about myself, seeing this is my first blog post...ever.

I didn't grow up in a home where sports were watched often. My father's favorite sport of choice was boxing. I however didn't share his love of the sport. I eventually grew to like boxing. Watching boxing on lazy Sunday afternoons left me with good memories. HBO/Showtime title matches on Saturday nights were a lot of fun, but then this thing called Pay Per-View came along and put a serious dent into how much boxing was able to be watched.

I tried to watch football and basketball but neither made much sense to me. I understood the obvious parts of each game, I just didn't understand the finer points to each sport.

I was probably about five years old when I made an attempt to watch a Jets game. I thought I could like the Jets based upon their team name and colors. Glad I wised up to not picking my teams on such things such as names and colors. My one night of being a Jets fan was my last football experience for many years. 

A few more years passed by and I wound up falling deeply in love with America's pastime(I believe the NFL holds this title now). I can still say I love baseball...but maybe it's more love of memories and players no longer in the game or alive. Baseball gave me a desire to read, and read I did. My favorite books were about some of the greatest players to ever play the game.

One of my favorite players was Ty Cobb, The Georgia Peach.

In my opinion, Ty Cobb was and still is the greatest hitter to ever play the game. He was known for being a mean, intense, a fighter, physically fighting players, umpires and fans. Cobb was one of the first millionaires in baseball, investing in General Electric and Coca Cola. He used his wealth to care for players who were down on their luck or in need.

Mickey Mantle was another of my favorite players. I read two books about Mickey, my favorite of the two books was about the summer of 1956 when he won the Triple Crown.

This young, charismatic, powerful switch hitter from Oklahoma was one of the most beloved players of his time and still today. Sadly Mickey suffered from alcoholism. I'm not a big person to play the "what if game" but I do wonder what if Mickey took care of his body. Mickey did hurt one of his knees early in his career and had countless nights of drinking and partying with his buddy Whitey Ford.

Before we had ESPN at my parent's house there was a sports channel that gave scores and small write ups on players. I would read the scores and write ups all day, over and over. I was so into the statistics of the players. I would comb over my baseball cards like a greedy Ebenezer Scrooge did his money inside his accounting house.

To close this first post up I'll share some short versions of good memories, baseball memories.

-Playing Little League, winning the game ball on May 14, 1985 for a game winning catch at second base.
-Car rides to Detroit to watch the Tigers.
-The cartoon Tiger video after a Tigers' win
- Listening to Ernie Harwell call games on the radio for the Tigers. I loved how he called a third strike on people, “Strike three called, he stood there like the house by the side of the road.”
- My grandpa Jim telling me about how his teacher would allow the class to listen to the Tigers' World Series games in the classroom.
- My grandpa also telling me about meeting Marv Owen of the Tigers in a hardware store in Detroit.

I know this first post didn't quite match up with the title of my blog, I wouldn't have felt right skipping past it. Sadly with all the drama in baseball, steroids, the all star game tie in 2002 and the strike pushed me away. I've regained my love of the game but it will never be as it was. I have recently been able to make some great new baseball memories with a very handsome, kind and loving kid, I'm so proud to call son.

I love this little guy so much! It's so fun to see him progressing with each new season!




Future posts may vary from time to time but for the most part I'll focus on football and my love of FANTASY FOOTBALL!!!