Sixteen For The Money

Held my fantasy football money league draft yesterday. It went much better for me than did my first league draft. I originally was set to pick 14th in a 16-team league; we had two drop-outs, lifting me up to 12th pick in a 14-team league. So I wasn't expecting too much.

In such a big league, running backs had to be the priority. So my first two picks were RB-RB, giving me Travis Henry and Willis McGahee. Shaun Alexander almost dropped to me, which would have been nice, and I was hoping to pick up Maurice Jones-Drew in the 2nd round (we get points for return yards, and he is predicted to do well there), but he ended up going at 1.14. So nothing spectacular here, but as they say, you can't win your league in the first round, but you can lose it - and I didn't lose it here.

There was a long wait between picks 2.03 and 3.12 - a lot of WR went in that stretch, but I was still able to pick up Lee Evans and Andre Johnson at 3.12 and 4.03. Evans was not a bad pickup as the 10th WR selected. Johnson was a little more of a stretch, but Javon Walker (who was still available) had a bye week conflict with Evans, so I gave him a pass.

Rounds 5 and 6 actually saw me getting in front of some runs, instead of trailing as usual. I got Matt Hasselbeck at 5.14 (his ADP is 4.07) and Jeremy Shockey at 6.03 (ADP 4.12). Here's where ADP really helped - I knew I could wait on QB for another round.

I lost out on some players I was targeting late, but I ended up filling out the starting roster with DeShaun Foster, Terry Glenn and the Dolphins defense in the next three rounds. Based strictly on the projections, I've got the third-highest scoring team in the league, but the main issue I have is depth. Not having any better choices available, I ended up handcuffing both of my RBs with Mike Bell and Mike Anderson. I'll have starters if my main men go down, but nothing much left if they just suck.

At any rate, I need to finish in the top six out of fourteen to get in the playoffs, and I think I have a reasonable shot at it. Now to find another couple of throwaway leagues to fill out the rest of my time.

QB: Matt Hasselbeck, Trent Green
RB: Travis Henry, Willis McGahee, DeShaun Foster, Mike Bell, Mike Anderson
WR: Lee Evans, Andre Johnson, Terry Glenn, Muhsin Muhammad
TE: Jeremy Shockey, Bo Scaife
PK: Olindo Mare
DT: Miami Dolphins, Arizona Cardinals