Week 7 Recap – Canton Heroes vs. KU’s Only Football Hope

1-6, pretty much time to throw out any delusions of making it to the Shiva Bowl.  As such, I’ve entered into rebuilding mode with a pretty good amount of success over the past week.

Last week I added Brandon Jacobs and just 3 days later traded him away for a 6th round pick.  I then used that empty roster slot to add Green Bay Wide Receiver Jarrett Boykin, who had a very solid first day for my team although he was on the bench.  He’s going to be pressed into duty for the Heroes this week though because I’ve dealt away DeSean Jackson for a 4th Round pick (which is the first round after the keeper selections in this league), Cecil Shorts isn’t healthy enough to be really trusted to play, though you may see him in my starting lineup this week, Percy Harvin is up in the air as to whether or not he’ll play for the first time this season on Monday and I’m not enthusiastic about going with Mike James or DeAngelo WIlliams against each other tomorrow night (also, I’ve agreed to trade DeAngelo WIlliams away for a 6th and 12 round pick and am waiting on that trade to be processed sometime tomorrow afternoon).

New additions since my last update – Jarrett Boykin, Mike James, Cowboys D/ST, Graham Gano, Eddie Royal

Departures – DeSean Jackson (Trade), Brandon Jacobs (Trade), Lions D/ST, Blair Walsh, Bernard Pierce

I go with Gano this week primarily because Blair Walsh is far from healthy and the Vikings offense is on the skids.  The Cowboys have been very impressive the last two weeks against the Redskins and Eagles, so I’m excited to see if they can hold up one more week against Detroit.  Mike James of course takes over for Doug Martin at Running Back in Tampa due to Martin’s torn labrum (shoulder) that may keep him sidelined for the remainder of the season and Boykin gets the chance to shine in Green Bay’s awesome passing game with Randall Cobb out with a fractured leg and James Jones’ return still in question for this week after he sat out last week. Eddie Royal has been boom or bust this year, but I like he chances to have a couple of more boom games, especially with matchups against the Redskins and his former team, the Broncos coming up the next two weeks after his bye this week.

Week 7 Box Score

Canton Heroes – 60.2

– QB – Robert Griffin III – 25.4

– RB – Ray Rice – 7.4

– RB – DeAngelo Williams – 5.9

– WR – DeSean Jackson – 2.1

– WR – Greg Jennings – 4.1

– TE – Charles Clay – 6.7

– Flex – Coby Fleener – 9.8

– D/ST – Lions – -1

– K – Blair Walsh – 0

KU’s Only Football Hope – 88.6

– QB – Andrew Luck – 29.9

– RB – C.J. Spiller – 0.7

– RB – Eddie Lacy – 16.8

– WR – Demaryius Thomas – 14.2

– WR – Steve Johnston – 6.1

– TE – Tony Gonzalez – 3

– Flex – Brent Celek – 0.3

– D/ST – Chiefs – 12

– K – Ryan Succop – 5

And while some might think my roster is somewhat depleted after trading away Jackson, Cobb being injured and potentially trading away DeAngelo Williams as well, it’ll be well worth it when I put together an incredible team next year with my amazing draft picks I’ve gotten in return for Jackson, Williams (pending) and Jacobs.  Here is what my 2014 draft looks like currently

1st Round – Keeper Option

2nd Round – Keeper Option

3rd Round – Keeper Option

4th Round – My Pick

4th Round – From KU’s Only Football Hope

5th Round – My Pick

6th Round – My Pick

6th Round – From Marshall Law

6th Round – From KU’s Only Football Hope

7th Round – My Pick

8th Round – My Pick

9th Round – My Pick

10th Round – My Pick

11th Round – My Pick

12th Round – My Pick

12th Round – From KU’s Only Football Hope

Yeah, the idea of having 2 4th Round Picks (First Round after Keepers) and 3 6th Round Picks (Third Round after Keepers) as well as having my entire team drafted by the end of the 12th Round (16 Picks), is pretty darn exciting.  I have a lot to look forward to for next year.  In the meantime, I’m going to hunt the waiver wire to try to field a competitive team each and every week and try my best to avoid the toilet bowl game at the end of the season (our version of the Sacco, for my fellow fans of The League).

Week 5 Recap – Canton Heroes vs. Narnia Creations

I played Peyton Manning this week and he beat me almost single-handedly.  It happens.  We move on to the next week.

I knew Peyton was going to be in trouble against Dallas and my own QB, Robert Griffin III was on a bye week, so I needed a QB who could deliver in a shootout.  I ended up choosing Brian Hoyer.  If he doesn’t tear his ACL because nobody in Cleveland could teach him how to slide properly, I probably come out of this week 2-3 and 1 game off the playoff pace instead of 1-4 and 2 games back.  That Bills defense is exactly as bad as I thought they were, as evidenced by the fact that they gave up a 37-point game to a team whose quarterback tore his ACL on his team’s second drive of the game.  However, had I stuck with Geno Smith or Ryan Tannehill, I still could have won this week.  That’s just the way this season has gone the first five weeks, even when I gauge the situation correctly, I still end up on the losing end.

I also played the wrong Tight End this week.  Sunday morning, I decided that if the Colts were going to beat the Seahawks like I thought they would, they were going to need a big game from Coby Fleener, so I started him over Charles Clay.  End result, 11.2 for Clay, 1.5 for Fleener.  Judgment – BAD move.  I should have just slept in instead of waking up early and deciding to make that one line-up change.  I lost by 7.4 points.  If Clay is in instead of Fleener, I win by 2.3.  But those kind of what ifs, I don’t like to fall back on because the other guy always has guys on the bench that scored better than the guys that he played also, so if you get into that what if game, it only causes you more headaches.  The best advice I can give any of you and take myself is to not think that way.  Don’t dwell on it and move on to making your team the best it can be for the next week.

Speaking of which, my team is stacked full of great matchups this week.  ESPN projects my total at 113 points, but that could end up being very very light if Ray Rice and the Ravens run the ball like they did last week.  And they are playing Green Bay, so that’s not that much of a stretch so long as they don’t get bombed early by Rogers & Co.  They learned from the game against the Bills that no matter what the score is, throwing the ball 50 times and running it 9 times is never going to win you a game no matter how bad the other team is.  If the Ravens had committed themselves to giving the ball to Ray Rice against Buffalo, even when they were down 2 TDs early, they could have probably salvaged a win.  (I mean Bilal Powell did run for 120 yards against the Bills, they stink at defending the run.)  But instead, the Ravens played into their hands and lost by a field goal.  Lesson learned – Ray Rice got 27 carries against the Dolphins in Week 5 and 2 TDs.  Expect more of the same moving forward, my fellow Ray Rice owners because Mr. Harbaugh is not a stupid man.  He must have had a massive cerebral flatulation Week 4, but that isn’t going to happen again.

As for my team, look at what some of my key players have coming up.

QB – Robert Griffin III vs. Dallas, Chicago, Denver and San Diego the next 4 weeks.  The Bears defense is far from what it once was (as the Lions and Steelers both proved recently) and the rest of those teams have been terrible against the pass this year.  Sure, the Broncos will still get some interceptions and usually salvage a positive fantasy score (and usually put up double digits going into the 4th quarter until garbage time TDs drag them back down to the 9-10 point range for the week – I would know since they are my defense, though this week they just flat out sucked, Peyton not only killed the Dallas defense, he killed his own defense as well as they struggled to keep up with a pass happy Cowboy attack.)  But, back to RGIII, the only bad week he should have left on his schedule is Week 12 against San Fransisco (maybe Week 14 against KC).  Plus, he has Atlanta and the Cowboys again Weeks 15 and 16, which in this league are the last two weeks of the playoffs.

RB – Ray Rice vs. Green Bay and Pittsburgh the next two weeks, DeAngelo Williams against the Vikings and the Rams, MJD against the Broncos and Chargers.  All 3 of those guys returned to at least decent form this week and Ray Rice put my team on his back and would have carried us to victory if not for pesky Peyton and the game where nobody played defense.

WR – Randall Cobb takes on Baltimore (the team that gave up 7 TDs to Peyton) and Cleveland and has a pretty easy schedule against the NFC East and the rest of the NFC North the rest of the way.  DeSean Jackson of course gets to play everybody from the NFC East again and although he gets stranded on Revis Island this week, he’s got Dallas, Cleveland, Oakland and Green Bay coming up.  Greg Jennings and Cecil Shorts are both good plays this week against Carolina and Denver respectively, but they after that Jennings gets the Giants and his old team the Packers while Shorts gets San Diego next week (he plays the 49ers the week after that, so he’ll probably be on the bench that week although he gets lots of balls thrown to him regardless because the Jaguars are always throwing the ball because they’re always behind.)

My Broncos Defense gets to pick on Jacksonville this week.  They are projected at 9 points and while Shorts and Blackman will probably score high, the rest of the Jaguars (including MJD) probably won’t because Henne is going to throw interceptions gallore and MJD probably won’t get a lot of carries because the Jags will be down 3 scores by the end of the first quarter probably.

Here are the roster updates.  Brian Hoyer is gone because he’s out for the year and even if he wasn’t, he was just a one time only play while RGIII was on his bye.  Sebastian Janikowski is also gone, not through any fault of his own, but because Blair Walsh of the Vikings was sitting there and he’s averaging double digit points per week while kicking indoors for a team that has a very very strong running game and he already had his bye week.  You can’t do much better than that.  I also picked up Jonathan Stewart a week early since he is eligible to come back next week against the Rams (not that he will for sure), but since I have DeAngelo and have not been able to rely on MJD and Ridley continually, another option at RB was welcome over adding more WR depth like Terrance Williams of the Cowboys or Rueben Randle of the Giants who were my next two choices.

Updated Canton Heroes roster

QB – Robert Griffin III (my only QB from here on out barring injury or a very stupid dropped QB by my counterparts)

RB – Ray Rice, DeAngelo Williams, Maurice Jones-Drew, Stevan Ridley, Bernard Pierce, Jonathan Stewart

WR – Randall Cobb, DeSean Jackson, Greg Jennings, Cecil Shorts, Eddie Royal, Percy Harvin (IR)

TE – Coby Fleener, Charles Clay (Bye)

D/ST – Broncos

K- Blair Walsh

Even though I’m 1-4, I don’t feel like it this week.  This team is capable of keeping up with Rob’s 5-0 Alderaan Players (a name I gave him BTW) for the rest of the way so long as my Running Backs (Ray Rice in particular) don’t go back to putting up 2-3 points per week.  With the matchups my guys have going forward, we are still very much a threat.  The hard times are OVER.  Everybody else better beware.

Week 5 Box Score

Canton Heroes

– QB – Brian Hoyer – 2.1

– RB – Ray Rice – 20.2

– RB – Maurice Jones-Drew – 8.6

– WR – Randall Cobb – 10.7

– WR – DeSean Jackson – 19.2

– TE – Coby Fleener – 1.5

– Flex – DeAngelo Williams – 6.9

– D/ST – Broncos – -2

– K – Sebastian Janikowski – 12

Narnia Creations – 86.6

– QB – Peyton Manning – 35.2

– RB – Arian Foster – 11.8

– RB – Ronnie “Weaksauce McFumbles” Hillman – 5.9

– WR – Torrey Smith – 12.1

– WR – Andre Johnston – 3.9

– TE – Scott Chandler – 4.9

– Flex – Sidney Rice – 0.8

– D/ST – Ravens – 8

– K – Nick Novak – 4

Week 2 Recap – Canton Heroes vs. Fear the ROO

It don’t matter if you win by an inch or if you win by a mile.  Winning is winning.

That’s right – I just quoted Vin Diesel.

And thanks to the Seattle Defense completely shutting down Anquan Boldin for the first 50 minutes of Sunday night’s game, ending with only 1 catch for 7 yards on the night, I was able to squeak out a victory in Week Two to put my first one in the win column of the season.  Other special thanks goes to my opponents’ kicker, Randy Bullock of the Texans, who actually posted -1 points.  If he hadn’t gone up to kick any field goals during the game against Tennessee last week, I would have lost.

I found myself in a set of very rare circumstances as two of my three running backs in the starting line-up left their respective games early with injuries (Ray Rice and Maurice Jones-Drew).  Thusly, my leading point scorer for the week out of my three starting running backs (who I used my first three picks on) was Stevan Ridley with 4 points.  The three of them combined together for just 9.3 points.  Then factor in my Tight End Fred Davis only posting .3 points and that’s 4/9 starters combining for under 10 points.  And yet, MY TEAM STILL WON THE GAME.  Who else can say that they picked up a win under those kinds of circumstances?

Carson Palmer matched Tom Brady’s score exactly at 10.8, which was key.  Any time your QB doesn’t get outplayed against one of the elite QBs, you kind of feel like you dodged a bullet.  The Patriots Defense he played pummeled the hapless Jets for 17 fantasy points, but my Broncos defense came up with some key interceptions that kept that category close.  And then my WRs, Randall Cobb and DeSean Jackson were able to carry my team on to victory with scores of 18.8 and 25.3 respectively.  Janikowski came up big for me also, kicking for 13 fantasy points, compared to Bullock’s -1.

I was very proud of my team’s depth this week. I had my 7 bench players go off for a total of 73.1 points.  The 7 guys on my bench would have beaten the starting 9 of 2 other teams in the league this week.  That’s some significant depth.  Plus, I just picked up Eddie Royal to add even more receiving depth and switched around my tight ends.  This week the Canton Heroes bid farewell to Tight End Fred Davis and Wide Receivers Rod Streater and Dexter McCluster.  Welcome to the team, Eddie Royal, Charles Clay and Coby Fleener.  Depending on the health of Ray Rice on Sunday, I may be plugging Eddie Royal in at the Flex this week and I’m plugging Clay in at TE right away against the Falcons porous pass defense.

Next week, I face the team I pulled off a preseason trade with, acquiring Stevan Ridley for Brandon Marshall.  That team is now known at Marshall Law.  Right now, it looks like his starting line-up will feature Matt Ryan at QB, DeMarco Murray and Chris Ivory at RB, AJ Green and Brandon Marshall at WR, Antonio Gates at TE, Vincent Brown in at the Flex option with Matt Prater doing the kicking and the Packers defense.  His team is the only 0-2 team in a league that has had a lot of parity over the first two weeks of the season.  There is only one unbeaten team out of 12 and only one winless team with everybody else falling at 1-1.  The race to the playoffs is going to be a tight one.

Week Two Box Score

Canton Heroes – 91.5

QB – Carson Palmer – 10.8

RB – Ray Rice – 2.5

RB – Stevan Ridley – 4

WR – Randall Cobb – 18.8

WR – DeSean Jackson – 25.3

TE – Fred Davis – 0.3

Flex – Maurice Jones-Drew – 2.8

Defense / Special Teams – Denver Broncos – 14

K – Sebastian Janikowski – 13

Fear the ROO – 91.2

QB – Tom Brady – 10.8

RB – Chris Johnson – 9.7

RB – Reggie Bush – 6.9

WR – Dez Bryant – 20.1

WR – Jordy Nelson – 18.6

TE – Owen Daniels – 8.4

Flex – Anquan Boldin – 0.7

Defense / Special Teams – New England Patriots – 17

Kicker – Randy Bullock – -1

(Updated Canton Heroes Roster)

QBs – Carson Palmer, Jay Cutler

RBs – Ray Rice, Stevan Ridley, Maurice Jones-Drew, DeAngelo Williams, Bernard Pierce

WRs – Randall Cobb, DeSean Jackson, Pierre Garcon, Cecil Shorts III, Eddie Royal

TEs – Charles Clay, Coby Fleener

D/ST – Denver Broncos

K – Sebastian Janikowski

Week 1 Recap – Canton Heroes vs. Chudley Canons

So, you had a bad day week one?  I sure did.

When you use your first three draft picks on top of the line running backs, you expect for them to put up more than 20 total points between the three of them.  With Stevan Ridley getting benched in the first half after a fumble to end up with 2.6 points and Maurice Jones-Drew suffering from the Jaguars overall horrible offensive week one output for just 4.5 points, I was in a huge hole that the rest of my team was unable to pull me out of.

So, overall I don’t think I have anything to be worried about.  With Shane Vereen out until Week Eleven with a broken hand, Ridley is far and away the most reliable ball carrier the Patriots have to rely on and they should be running the ball quite a bit in Week 2 once they build up a lead against the hapless Jets (who somehow managed to not stink up the field as badly as Tampa Bay did in Week One for a 18-17 win.)

I have several things to be happy about.  Randall Cobb and DeSean Jackson both showed in Week One that they will be integral parts of their teams’ passing attacks this season and while Pierre Garcon and Cecil Shorts were a little disappointing, my late round wide receiver picks (Dexter McCluster and Rod Streater) I think showed a lot of promise and will be integral parts of offenses that will not be nearly so bad as they were a year ago.

Carson Palmer put up numbers I was very happy with against a very respectable Rams defense.  In fact, he outperformed my opponents QB Cam Newton and he should continue to perform well enough to keep me in contention barring getting exploded on by Peyton Manning, Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady in future weeks.

Tight end is looking like a definite weakness early with Fred Davis being my only guy at the moment, but it’s too early to panic and there are some decent options on the waiver wire if it looks like Davis isn’t going to be able to put up decent numbers.

Vernon Davis having a big week against me (21.8 points) vs. Davis’ extremely sub-par 2.2 points, plus my running backs being abnormally unproductive in week one lead to me posting just 87.2 points, the third worst week one score in the league.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint.  I’m in pretty good shape moving forward.  Look for Ridley and MJD to not disappoint nearly as much next week against the Jets and the Raiders respectively.

Week One Box Score

Canton Heroes – 87.2

– QB – Carson Palmer – 17

– RB – Ray Rice – 13.1

– RB – Stevan Ridley – 2.6

– WR – Randall Cobb – 17.4

– WR – DeSean Jackson – 16.4

– TE – Fred Davis – 2.2

– Flex – Maurice Jones-Drew – 4.5

– Defense – Broncos – 10

– Kicker – Sebastian Janikowski – 4

Chudley Canons – 120.5

– QB – Cam Newton – 12.8

– RB – Matt Forte – 15.1

– RB – Frank Gore – 12.5

– WR – Larry Fitzgerald – 20

– WR – Steve Smith – 11.1

– TE – Vernon Davis – 21.8

– Flex – Miles Austin – 7.2

– Defense – Rams – 11

– Kicker – Justin Tucker 9

Week Two Match-up – Canton Heroes vs. Fear the Roo (Tom Brady, Chris Johnson, Reggie Bush, Dez Bryant, Jordy Nelson, Owen Daniels, Anquan Boldin, Patriots, Randy Bullock)

Draft Recap – 2013 Let the Wookie Win

Coming in, I was set up really well at Running Back with Ray Rice of the Baltimore Ravens and Stevan Ridley of the New England Patriots, but with the way RBs ran off the boards with the rest of the keeper selections, I couldn’t let Maurice Jones-Drew of the Jacksonville Jaguars pass me by with my 3rd round pick because despite all of the injuries last year, there seem to be very little doubts that he’s all set and ready to reclaim his elite status, so in a league where you can start 3 running backs – why wouldn’t you take him in the third round if by some miracle he was still there?  So, I did.

Following that, I was really hoping people would be passing on Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals in the early rounds and I might be able to snag him with the 2nd pick of the 4th round, but he was taken one pick ahead of me and I went with option B – Randall Cobb of the Green Bay Packers, who if you watch the show Firefly from which my team draws it’s name, you can’t really have a Heroes of Canton team without a man called Jayne, or barring that the best player in the NFL who shares Jayne’s last name – Cobb.

After that, I was thinking that I might be able to get a good quarterback in the 5th round, but I wasn’t really expecting any of the ones I would take that early to get back to me (Colin Kaepernick of the San Fransisco 49ers, Robert Griffin III of the Washington Redskins, or Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts for example).  Instead,  I selected a second wide reciever, DeSean Jackson of the Philadelphia Eagles with the next to last pick of the fifth round.

Then, in the sixth round I made a questionable choice, taking a fourth running back in a league where you can only start 3 running backs at a time.  However, I consider having a fourth running back with a starting job on lock down to be a great trade piece later in the season.  Perhaps once some of the teams who waited too long on Running Back will look at my 4 starters and decide that my fourth running back, who happens to be Deangelo Williams of the Carolina Panthers, is looking pretty good and they might want to trade for him after watching the teams with 2-3 solid running backs run roughshod over them in the first few weeks of the season.  By the way, Williams no longer has to sit behind backfield running mate Jonathan Stewart because Stewart is injured and out for the season.

In retrospect, I probably should have taken Matthew Stafford of the Detroit Lions or Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks over Williams to fill my quarterback position, but I thought at the time that with so many QBs already off the board via keepers that there were some other teams out there waiting back on quarterbacks and one of them might make it back to me.  But since I had no intention of drafting either of the next two QBs on most people’s boards – Tony Romo of the Dallas Cowboys and Michael Vick of the Philadelphia Eagles, I probably should have pulled the trigger on Wilson there instead of Williams.  We’ll see how this plays out over the season, but if Maurice jones-Drew winds up not being over his injury or if Bill Belichick goes back to thinking he can win a Super Bowl without a running back who goes for more than 600-700 yards in a season, I will wind up being very happy that I have Williams sitting on my bench and ready to step up.

Fast Forward to the next to last pick of the seventh round, and of course Stafford and Wilson are both off the board, but sitting there is Washington Redskins receiver, Pierre Garcon, who I very happily grabbed to go along with Cobb and Jackson.  I followed up three picks later with another receiver, who despite having to catch his passes from Blaine Gabbert, should expand on his breakout season last year and that’s Cecil Shorts III of the Jacksonville Jaguars.  And if MJD winds up returning to his elite status of old, he’s going to take a lot of heat off the skittish Gabbert and allow for an even bigger year for Mr. Shorts.

In the 9th round, I couldn’t afford to wait on a quarterback any longer, what with Romo and Vick going off the board, leaving no more buffer between the quarterbacks I couldn’t let get past me any longer and the out-of-towners on autopick who would take them out of my starting line-up and place them on their bench without even realizing it.  So, I grabbed Carson Palmer, of the Arizona Cardinals, who I look at this year like an older and only slightly less desirable alternative to Matt Stafford since those offenses figure to be among the most pass-happy in the league.   Not to mention the fact, that he now has Larry Fitzgerald to throw too, which gives him a far greater weapon than anything he had to work with in Oakland last season when he still managed to be fantasy-relevant.

In the 10th round, I played it safe and backed up Ray Rice by taking Ravens’ back-up running back Bernard Pierce, as he was nearing the top of the basic best available boards and would be autopicked before making it back to me 20-some picks later.  With 4 starers and a handcuff for the best one, my running backs were more than set for the season.

In the 11th, I figured that since I was the last one to take a quarterback and since some teams had in fact selected two quarterbacks before my one, I thought it would be prudent to grab a backup quarterback, something I might not normally do.  So, I grabbed Jay Cutler, thinking he could have a big year or at the very least provide a serviceable tag-in for Palmer on weeks where Palmer faces a tough defense.

After that, I played to get around the autopickers again, taking a defense higher than I normally would before the out-of-towners started grabbing back-up defenses.  I got the Broncos defense, which ended last season ranked number 2 at the position.  They’re an older squad for sure and have depreciated in value, but with 6 games against the other 3 struggling offenses in the AFC West (Kansas City, San Diego, and Oakland), I figure that’s 6 weeks of decently easy games for them, which translates into plenty of points for me and some of those divisional games will be coming in playoff weeks.

At this point, I still don’t have a starting tight end or a kicker, but a kicker picked before the last round is a wasted pick, so I took Fred Davis of the Washington Redskins as my starting tight end, figuring he could wind up being a break-out star at a weak position across the boards and if not, I can find a replacement off the waiver wire to tide me by.

Then, we reached the part of the draft where people start taking a flyer on random players that probably 10-out-of-12 team owners in the league probably weren’t even thinking about taking.  My 14th and 15th round flyers were both Wide Receivers since I figured my 5 running backs were stacked and there was a greater potential for letdown at receiver.  So, I took Dexter McCluster of the Kansas City Chiefs and Rod Streater of the Oakland Raiders.  McCluster is the kind of weapon Andy Reid can make great use of and Streater is a guy that has caught the attention of some experts while winning the number two receiver job in Oakland where he could become a favorite target for quarterback Terelle Pryor.  I also think that if anything happens to Jamaal Charles, given Knile Davis unproveness in the league, we might just see McCluster get a long hard look at the job.

I finished up with my kicker, Sebastian Janikowski, “The Jankster”, of the Oakland Raiders and my team will probably feature a variety of kickers over the season until I settle on one for the playoff push.

Here’s how my team lines up.

Quarterbacks – Carson Palmer, Jay Cutler

Running Backs – Ray Rice, Stevan Ridley, Maurice Jones-Drew, Deangelo Williams, Bernard Pierce

Wide Receivers – Randall Cobb, DeSean Jackson, Pierre Garcon, Cecil Shorts III, Dexter McCluster, Rod Streater

Tight Ends – Fred Davis

Defense / Special Teams – Denver Broncos

Kickers – Sebastian janikowski

The Return

Saturday, I step back into the world of Fantasy Football after a 2 year long hiatus.

Why did I stay away from the game for 2 whole years, you might ask?  Well, I’m not entirely sure why myself, but I know that I was feeling burnt out on the NFL in general at.  I still watched the games from time to time and still participated in a weekly pick ’em game with my friends and family back home (in which I picked the most games correctly for the season last year), but I didn’t have that same enjoyment I’d always had watching the games.  I guess the most significant factor in my absence might be that I was tired of obsessing over the stat lines during the games and wanted to go back to the way I used to watch football games back before I knew what fantasy football was.  And it was a welcome change.  But now, it’s time for me to come back to what was at one time one of my favorite activities for passing the time.

I’m entering my friend Rob’s league on ESPN’s League Manager, where I am inheriting a team in a keeper league that was originally meant to be mine before I pulled away from the game.   It’s a 12-team standard league with a 3-keeper maximum.  From the team of misfits that I inherited, I managed to find 2 gems worth slapping the keeper tag on – Baltimore Ravens Running Back Ray Rice and Chicago Bears Wide Receiver Brandon Marshall.  I then pulled off a terrific pre-draft trade, sending Marshall to the Bears fan in the league in exchange for New England Patriots Running Back Stevan Ridley.  In addition to Rice and Ridley, I go into Saturday’s draft with the number 2 draft position in the 3rd and 4th rounds (since my two keepers replace what would be my picks in the first two rounds otherwise).  So, overall, I’m very happy with how things have turned out so far in my return and my quest for the Chewbacca trophy (our league is titled Let the Wookie Win and most of the teams feature names from science fiction pop-culture).  Maybe this is the year of the Canton Heroes (my team, from the short-lived but fantastic space western adventure series Firefly and also a play-on the NFL Hall of Fame located in Canton, Ohio.)

And if I do manage to win the league in my first year back in the game, don’t be surprised to see me publically and  randomly burst into a rendition of the Hero of Canton.  Here’s to me drafting a team of Big Damn Heroes on Saturday and the same to you, readers, in all of your fantasy endeavors.