This was my first Fantasy football year . When I decided to play fantasy football I did not think much except to learn American football. I was a little clueless to the whole game. I started out reading about the whole rules in wikipedia. Love wiki for this kind of stuff.
We had two divisions in our league which was run by Dave savage. The Alpha and Omega division.
The first hurdle was draft . With not too much knowledge on players I put the picking up on Autodraft. Sometimes I trust the statistics too much and infinite computing power or AI . Ever read Kasparov vs Deep Blue . I knew I was not going to get the best pick knowing statistics are not always up to date but I would get a decent pick. I came away from the draft with a couple of decent player but some of them were prone to injuries as I later discovered.
My initial 2 weeks went without much ado and I won them . From week 2 I saw injuries to Trent Green . Thereon I started managing my roster a little replacing players on bye with players from the bench .
Week 3 had me playing with an eventual division winner from the Alpha division .I was on omega division. The guy had L Tomilson who I guess is going to be the Most valuable player in the NFL this year with career numbers . I lost week 3 .
I had a 4 week winning streak after that . By this time I have started actively managing my players due to loss of key players like Trent Green . Clinton Portis , Daunte Culpebber , Lamont Jordan. But I had Donavan Mcnabb and Ravens Defense earning me my bulk of my points . Then a low phase followed, In the following weeks I had lost 4 of my 6 games and I lost Mcnabb to add to my growing troubles . But this low phase really helped me research and pick out future stars. I won the division with an 8-5 which got me a first round bye.
Week 2 into playoff I played Thomas ( The Edge guy) and that was a tough match up .He had key players but most of my new picks were now peaking into form this included Ladell Betts and Jeff Garcia whom I picked from Free agency when they were starters. That week going into sunday night game I was up by 5 points with one kicker scores yet to come in for both of us . The game saw Thomas kicker score 12 points and lead me by 7 points. So I needed my kicker to get me 8 points to win the knock out game on Monday night . That was an exciting monday night game. In the game where Cincinati struggled against the colts my kicker came up with 10 points.
So won that that by the neck with 3 points.
I was in the final and interestingly the division leader from other division
. I had lost to Ray before in week 3 and I knew with him having LT and Frank Gore and a star studded line up it was going to be tough . I made some radical adjustments to my roster by playing lower ranked players but potentially peaking players . The move paid off I won the final 139-119 . LT did not have a great game that week which contributed to the margin.
So I got awarded the FFL champion of the league.. :-)
All said and done you need to manage your roster go with some of your gut feel and above all need a little luck to go your way . Wishes to everyone who played
