Fantasy Football - Weeks 10 & 11

I've picked up some hours at my day job, which is good news for my life and bad news for blogging. Week 10 was a bit of a joke. I went 2-0 - by virtue of my opponents not really competing.

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The worst part is how narrowly I won.

I made the mistake of maintaining my faith in Reggie Bush. I'm a big Dolphins fan, and I really thought Bush was coming into his own after hurting his ankle earlier in the season. Not one, but TWO bad games in a row.

Week 11, notwithstanding major score adjustments this week, I went 1-1. Again, my victory was handed to me by my opponent, rather than me actually winning through clever decision making skills.

Click to Embiggen.

Click to Enlarge - Here, my roommate trashed me. 

All season, whenever I needed BJGE to perform, he hasn't. Then this week, I didn't really need him in the NFL league, and bam, he gets points. I had a bad feeling about the Monday night game, but the Bears did decently against the Texans, and I felt that the 49'ers weren't as good.

I'd say that I was wrong.

The upshot is that I am likely to make the playoffs in both leagues. I'm pretty sure that's by virtue of my receivers.

I have no plans to trade or hunt the waiver wire this week; I was going to pick up the MIA defense, but now I'm not so sure - I'm going to see what the analysts say and how the schedules look this week.

Unless any of you have some good ideas?

Fantasy Football - Week 9

The good news is that my sinus infection seems to be going away (a little). The better news is that I'm down to less than 2 cigarettes a day. The bad news is that I'm cranky and want to go on a murdering spree.

Also, I'm now working 6 days a week.

And the poor, innocent blog suffers.

But not my fantasy football teams. Hell no, Angry Bill went 2-0!!

NFL League.

Click to Enlarge - Oh, there's a reason I won.

I suppose it wasn't much of a victory. Poor guy probably lives in the northeast and had no power or something, so he forgot to move his players around. But, let's face it, I had a good week - and even with his bench points, he wouldn't have beat me. There is now a 4-way tie for 2nd place in this league.

I found that I didn't need any depth in my RB position, so I traded Daryl Richardson for Jermaine Gresham this week. The biggest trouble I had in this league was the tight end position, DEF, and the Flex spot. The flex spot was just a matter of who to put there - between Law Firm, R Wayne and Mike Williams, I'm solid. Just a matter of making the right choices. Miami softened up in the TE spot, by giving Clay the TE TD for the week. And their DEF did pretty badly - first week without any interceptions, fumble recoveries and only 1 sack. But, I see that as a hiccup and I'm going to keep them.

ESPN League.

Click to Enlarge and see my triumph!

This week, I took down the #1 seed! Primarily because NE was on bye and he made some bad decisions for who to play - and also, when my guys do well, I'm pretty hard to beat.

I traded Shayne Graham for another kicker and I dropped Cecil Shorts - I don't need any depth at WR position at this point. Brandon Marshall and AJ Green are within the top 5. I'm going to hold onto both DST at this point, the Giants have a bye in Week 11. I'm hoping Amendola comes back and plays for my starting Flex spot. That will allow me to read the matchups and shift RB, TE positions around.

There's been a lot of trade activity, but no one's made me any offers, in this league. With playoffs coming up, I'm middle of the pack in the standings - I pretty much have to win from here on out.

*

I'm glad the elections are over - I am so weary of hearing the negative ads. It's going to be what it's going to be with our government - we still live in a country where people have the most freedom to make the most impact upon their own lives. For that I'm thankful, because - whether this blog reflects it or not - I have a bunch of things I want to do, and those things will get done no matter who the President is.

Also, after a string of bad purchases and refunds on Ebay, I believe I finally have a package coming this week - it's seriously been like 3 or 4 months, between waiting for a package, getting a refund, buying something else, waiting, getting a refund, etc. etc. Which could mean another post.

Fantasy Football - Week 8

I apologize for the lack of content. I'm still fighting a head cold, and some other distracting issues, which make it hard to be creative. But at least we have this. Went 1-1 this weekend.

I'll add some commentary later.

NFL League.

Click to Enlarge - and cringe.

Waiver claims: Anthony Fasano for Kyle Rudolph. Miami Dolphins D/ST for Vikings D/ST.

ESPN League.

Click to Enlarge and breathe a sigh of relief on my behalf.

Waiver claims: Dropped Brandon Gibson, Andy Dalton, and Blair Walsh. Picked up Shayne Graham and Dolphins D/ST. Moved Danny Amendola from IR to bench.

Fantasy Football - Week 7

One of the downsides of taking Cimzia is that it weakens the immune system. I've been a bit congested lately and I thought it was probably allergies, so I opted to take this month's dosage. This morning, woke up with a scratchy throat and now I've got the sniffles - guess I was fighting off a cold after all. I feel as if an elephant is sitting on my head.

In my continuing efforts to be consistent, let's talk about fantasy football instead of snot.

NFL League. I won, so that puts me at 4 - 3. But it wasn't pretty.

Click to see full size. 

Well, if the Bengals had a bad game, at least the Bears did better. Truly, Drew Brees (and the Viking defense) pulled me out of this one - and I feel comfortable starting him for the rest of the season. I thought to hold onto Christian Ponder to prevent someone else from picking him up - but he did so miserably that I dropped him in order to put in a waiver request for LaRod Stephens-Howling, who had a great game. The Cardinals have a decent defense, but their QB and offensive line are just falling apart this season. The way it seems to work is that the less talent you have at QB, the more you rely on the running game. Howling is as good a guess as any at this point, and BJGE has not scored a TD in 3 or 4 games now.

Also, my kicker is going on a bye week, so I put in a waiver request to pick up Robbie Gould.

All in all, going into the final stretch, I'm feeling confident. Once AJ Green comes back from the bye (this week), I should be in great shape. I'm in 3rd place in this league, behind two teams that are 5-2, so I'm only one game out.

Meanwhile, in the ESPN League, I took a thrashing.

Click to Enlarge and thus be able to mock me.

The biggest problem with this week was that the bye weeks forced me to rely too much upon the Bengals and that just went poorly. All my Bengals had their worst (fantasy) game of the year, more or less. Also, my bench did way better than I would have guessed - not enough to have won, unfortunately. Analysts were saying that the Panther defense was a sleeper and that the Giants defense would be in trouble against RG3. Boy were they wrong. I think I was right to be nervous about LaFell, Santana Moss was a lucky pickup, and I didn't expect Andre Roberts to do so well against the Vikings. But I'm rather pleased with my bench and it gives me some trading power (at the time of this writing, I've dropped the Panthers defense and picked up Pierre Thomas at RB).

Now my top receiver goes on bye this week. However, there's active trading in this game, so I'm going to try and fill my deficit at the RB position by trading away a little of my strength at WR. Because, as of right now, I have the #1 and the #6 WR's and after this week, they won't have any byes. My QB has already had his - I'm sitting pretty for the rest of the season after this week. I'm weak on the TE position and I've got no depth at RB, so I can't play the matchups.

This league will be much harder to make the playoffs. I'm 3-4 now and the top two opponents are 6-1. Based on Peyton Manning's return from a bye week this week and AJ Green coming back next week, I should be able to win from here on out, with decent play at the flex position. It'd be nice if Danny Amendola makes a return before then. But if those top guys don't get some losses, I'd say I'm out of contention.

We'll see what happens. Off to down some Vitamin C.

Collection Reflection - wk of October 20 2012

A few months ago, after my near-death experience, I decided that I needed a solid alternative/retirement plan. It's not that I don't have great faith in my writing - it's that publishing is a hard business to break into, and I wanted an alternative 'win strategy', as it's called in Magic: The Gathering.

Essentially, I wanted a hobby that would pay off in 20 years or so. I'm confident that my health will hold up until then, but I'm also realistic about what my limitations will be after a colon resection, when I start to get near to 60.

Initially, I began with Magic: The Gathering. I have accumulated a healthy bit of cards in 2 years, but I don't play much - so, as noted in my update post, I'm just striving to complete the sets, 4 of each ideally, with more than that in cards that have value beyond bulk pricing (as per starcitygames.com).

For my birthday, I got an amazon gift certificate, so I used that to get the new Duel Deck (Izzet vs Golgari) and then a 1000 card deal. Unfortunately, the 1000 card bulk deal wasn't all that impressive, and I forgot to set aside the rares / higher value cards.

Izzet vs Golgari - Because you can never really go wrong with a Foil legendary creature.

Although, I will admit, the 1000 card deal had a bunch of 3rd/Revised cards with it. I may have to save up and get some more 9 pocket pages, and add Revised to my inventory. As of right now, Revised are the oldest cards I have in my collection. 

Also for my birthday, I got a money card from Mom (my Mom rules), so I did indulge in a Return to Ravnica Fat Pack. (Normally, I pick up a booster box for each release, but times are tough, so that's gotta wait.) 

I haven't valued / inventoried Return to Ravnica yet, so here's a few that caught my eye. 

Ironic, since I already have one of these from the Duel Deck.

I do like Green. Not White so much. I wonder sometimes if the cards I find are trying to tell me something.

I don't think this card's going anywhere anytime soon. Plus, I got one in Foil. 

My collection plan has a 3 prong attack. The third prong is signed photographs. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten any, yet. But I am following a bunch of playboy models on twitter. LOL. This is one of those things I'm keeping in the back of my mind; investing in social icons is slightly more speculative. Still, if I accumulate 1000 signed photos in the next 20 years, that's going to be worth something. (But getting 50 a year would be awfully expensive, that's one a week, and they average about $50 each). I'm still in the planning stages, let's say. 

Which brings us to Tier 2, football cards. This has basically boiled down to picking up cards on a whim and sticking them in penny sleeves and putting them in a box. My roommate has hundreds (thousands?) of cards, and most of them are either autograph and/or jersey (memorabilia) cards. I'm following three teams this year: Miami, Tampa and Carolina. 

When I started off, I focused on finding Cam Newton rookie cards, but as the year went on, the good cards were already out of my price range. But, as I pointed out recently, I paid attention to the draft and the analysts this year. Truly, while there are some veterans that are great - the last two draft classes, particularly in QB's, has been pretty awesome. It's still possible to go out and pick up a 2011 pack and get lucky. Which  I do on occasion. 

But, for the most part, when so inclined, I scour EBay for good 'lot' deals and take my chances. I recently sold a bulk pack of Magic cards, so I had a few bucks to spend. I grabbed these: 

Ryan Tannehill rookie numbered Jersey cards. 

He's getting better with each game, plain and simple. The last rookie QB that the Dolphins drafted in the first round? Dan Marino. I know there's not a lot of Dolphins fans out there in the universe, but Tannehill is smart, stays poised under pressure and can take a hit. He doesn't repeat mistakes. Yes, he's still learning, but his passer rating is high and consistent. You really can't want more out of a rookie quarterback. Those cards might be the best $14 I ever spent. 

I spent the rest of my Ebay sales on another bulk pack, so we'll see if it shows up next week and if there aren't some good cards in there. Until the next, have a great weekend! 

Fantasy Football - Week 6

So, as I mentioned yesterday, I have a couple of Fantasy Football leagues. I suspect that serializing these posts would make more sense and be more interesting (from a historical and progression perspective), but that's not going to happen.

Let's dive right in.

NFL League. This league is completely random. I don't know any of my opponents. I just got tired of seeing the ads to join their FFL so I joined.
Carolina Coyotes (3-3). Here's how this weekend went.

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I got lucky, because my high scoring guys did poorly. But my opponent did worse, by leaving 50 points on the bench. I watch NFL Fantasy Live daily, and they were pretty enthusiastic about Christian Ponder, so I went with him while Drew Brees was on a bye week.

Since my defense goes on a bye, I'm going for the Cleveland Defense on waiver wire pickup. Joe Haden's return changes their usefulness. Along those lines, with my receiver core doing so poorly, I'm dropping Davone Bess and Martellus Bennett and going to try and pick up Mike Williams. I'll stick with Drew Brees for the rest of the season - but I'm going to hold onto Ponder so that no one else can pick him up.

ESPN League - Gridiron Battlegrounds. Carolina (Kickin YoAss) Coyotes. This one is more meaningful to me - there's some good friends involved in this league. They are also die-hard, experienced fantasy players who know way more than I do about players and stats. I'm 3-3 in this league as well.

Here was my last game. You're going to see some of the same players; I've traded and picked up and waived players somewhat sporadically, in both leagues, up to this point.

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I'm a big Miami fan, in case you couldn't tell. I thought that with Daniel Thomas out (concussion) that Lamar Miller would provide relief for Reggie Bush. I expected the Rams to be strong against the pass - I didn't expect them to stop the run and for Miami to get run over by Steven Jackson and Daryl Richardson. 

Fortunately, I caught a break with AJ Green having an amazing night against the Browns (which was somewhat predictable - it was shocking that the Browns won), and then I clinched it with Peyton Manning's Monday night performance. Also noteworthy, if my opponent had played Greene (Jets) and Hakeem Nicks instead of Michael Crabtree, he would have won. 

This league doesn't have waiver wire priority (like NFL does), so earlier today, I made the following trades. I dropped Lamar Miller, picked up Brandon Gibson (someone has to replace Amendola). Dropped Dennis Pitta and picked up Anthony Fasano (with Miami going on a bye week, this may have been a mistake. It just seemed to me that Tannehill finally found some chemistry with Fasano, and Fasano was reliable clinch scoring last year). Lastly, I dropped Davone Bess and picked up Santana Moss. 

This league is much more active and competitive, and the waiver wire is seriously slim pickings. With Miami going on bye, and Chicago coming off their bye week, I'm feeling pretty good about my matchup this week. I've got Andy Dalton starting, and when you consider he's got the #1 receiver in the league in Green, it's not a terrible choice, despite the Steelers being a decent team. Coming off that loss to the Browns should hopefully be inspiring. I'm wavering a bit on Brandon LaFell - I gained him in a trade (for Eric Decker - I'm so kicking myself now), unless someone catches my eye, I'm going to see how he does as #2 receiver in Carolina this week. At some point, the Panthers will get it together, but sooner would be better than later. 

I'm increasingly anxious at the TE position, in both leagues, and I just dropped Antonio Gates this past in one of the leagues (and Jermichael Finley in the other). The RB position is pretty much blind faith at this point. 

First post on this topic - not sure what to elaborate on or what to omit, so I'll leave it there.