Massive Craziness

Massive Craziness
Some a ya may have heard that I have embarked on one of the crazier fantasy football journeys of the season. Or any season, for that matter. In a moment of (actually, about 4 weeks of) absolute madness, I somehow accumulated a total of 67 fantasy football teams. That's right, sixty-seven. It started out innocently enough after pretty much taking last year off from all football related activities, I decided to get back into the swing of things by volunteering as commissioner in three yahoo leagues for some golf and poker buddies. Minor stuff. Standard rosters, straight forward scoring and serpentine drafts. That, combined with my duties as the GM of a high-dollar dynasty league team (which brought me here, to SportsOutlaw, in the first place almost three years ago) usually was my limit. Generally, that kept me busy enough until I sold the interest in that dynasty team to a guy, whom it turns out, may have contributed to the current stock market and banking industry collapse by trading in those mortgage credit swap derivatives that are at the root of our demise, (I'm not sure, but those pictures of him, in St. Barts, on a 130 foot yacht with one arm wrapped around a 60 year old bottle of scotch and the other arm around three women who's combined ages may not add up to the age of that scotch, pretty much confirm my suspicions) leaving me with some time on my hands.

Obviously, too much time. Of the 67 teams currently under my stewardship, 62 of those are ESPN auction drafted teams. The idea of skillfully assembling a team through money management instead of the luck of the draw is not new but because of the constant availability of live auctions on ESPN's fantasy football site, it became intoxicating, to say the least. The overwhelming urge to put together the perfect team became relentless. Every night, for over a month, I would sit at my PC and go head to head, on line, with nine other people in a battle to outlast and under spend. It became a chess match to out maneuver, outflank and outthink the others. To lure them into traps. To hip fake them into making one last bid on someone they really did not want but thought you did and wanted to make you pay. To relieve them of their cash early so that they had to round out their roster's with junk, late. It was addicting. And for awhile, never ending. Or so I thought.

The auction process was fairly straight forward. Each of the 10 participants starts with 200 imaginary dollars. The draft order is randomly set. The first in the order nominates a player to be bid on for a minimum of one dollar to the max he can bid which, at the beginning of the draft, is 185 dollars. I saw this, a max bid at the beginning, happen just once. I don't recall the league and don't really know how's it's working out for them but the first five players nominated all went for the maximum amount of 185. LaDanian Thomlinson, Brian Westbrook, Adrian Peterson, Randy Moss and Tom Brady went bang bang bang, leaving those five managers with the minimum 15 dollars to spend on the rest of their rosters at one dollar per slot for the remaining 15 roster spots. Generally, there was considerably more restraint amongst the participants. Usually, the top tier players would come up for bid early, but not always. Sometimes lower tier players, borderline starters and those less likely to contribute to a winning fantasy team would be thrown onto the auction block to test the skills and knowledge of those in the draft. In early auctions, Adrian Peterson, the Chicago Bears running back would hit the board early in the auction. A few managers got trapped and bid high amounts before ESPN, I believe, removed him from the player pool. A Steven Jackson clone was also a favored scam for awhile. Sometimes just a quick, "where you from?" in the chat box would be used to test your regional loyalties and vulnerabilities. No one was above talking smack to get you to overbid. Women and children and grandmothers and hardcore fantasy players, all trying to gain an edge.

The key difference between serpentine and auction drafts is obvious. You are not at the mercy of position in auction drafts, as you are in serpentine style drafts. The possibility of having LT AND AP AND Brady AND Moss is within your grasp if your style was to "go big or go home." (up until this past week, in LT's case, that same grasp would have been used to choke the living crap out of LT and Brady and Moss and yourself for that strategy).

The basic money management strategy was to limit what you would spend on anyone of the top 5-7 players in the auction. 45 for a top runningback, 30-35 for your number two RB, 25 for a QB, 20-25 each for front line wide receivers. Knickle back took on a new meaning at the end of the auctions as you tried to fill out your roster with productive players for 5 dollars or less. The trick was to fill the required positions and be broke at the end. It was a cardinal sin to have any money left. For most, 70 was the limit for LT and AP, which was often reached. Westbrook trended in the high 40s and low 50s as did Brady and Moss. Frank Gore and Marion Barber usually went for around 40 and up along with Terrel Owens. QBs tended to trend in the 20s. Brees could be had anywhere from 18-29. Peyton Manning would get as high as 35 and sometimes higher and in the later auctions, as the season neared, as low as 19. Top tier tight ends, Antony Gonzalez, Jason Witten and Antonio Gates would go for as much as 15. I saw the Bears' and Vikings' and Chargers' defenses go for as high as six and kickers like Dallas' Nick Folk, for three. Most managers followed a sort of ADP (average draft position) chart on the draft site that kept an updated amount of how much a particular player was going for in previous auctions. The point was that if you didn't get carried away early or fall in love too hard you could buy a team at auction that you would never have had the chance to draft, conventionally.

Another strategy had some managers sitting back, watching and waiting and hoarding their cash until most of the others had only minimal amounts left to fill their rosters after having overspent on MJD and Ryan Grant and Fast Willie Parker and then swooping in to grab players like Brandon Marshall and Matt Forte and Philip Rivers and Matt Schaub and Chris Johnson for 15 and under, usually a lot under. It was comical sometimes watching these guys try and out wait each other. Sometimes they waited too long and the strategy would backfire.

My strategy was a mix of all of the above. I would go big early to get Westbrook, who is on 30% of my teams and usually got him in the low to mid 40s. I would stop if he hit 50. I targeted Clinton Portis and Steven Jackson in the 40 range and Larry Fitzgerald, Anquan Boldin and Calvin Johnson were favorite targets at or around 20-25 and higher, at times. Drew Brees was my number one target at QB. I own him in better than 50% of the leagues. I went after rookie running backs like Slaton and Chris Johnson and Matt Forte and Kevin Smith. I did manage to get both LT and AP in one league...I'm 2-5-1 in that league...at or near the bottom...I went big so now I get to go home for the playoffs. For the most part I tried not to get too emotionally attached to a player. It would happen, though. I went after Ben Rothsliberger in too many leagues, paying upwards of 20 plus at times. And I had it bad for Braylon Edwards, going into the 30s to get him. Often. I broke my rule about players from Ohio State and wasted tons of play money on Santanio Holmes. Joseph Addai was another frequent target that has not worked well, yet. There were others. Plenty of them. For the most part, though, my most successful teams all have the same core: Brees, Westbrook, Fitzgerald, Marshall, Marshwan Lynch, Chris Johnson, Calvin Johnson, Boldin, Colston, Rivers, Schaub, Slaton and Clinton Portis. It is amazing how many teams that I have that look very similar and as the season neared, how my focus changed on who to target. My later drafts, you would think, would have been some of my better drafts...wrong. The last 5 teams I drafted are all 4-4, having won three in a row to get them back to even. My worst team at 2-6. My first auction team is at 3-5. The middle auctions seemed to bear the most fruit and are all centered around Brees, Westbrook, Portis, Lynch, Boldin, Marshall and Fitzgerald. I bought Brady in only one league and Moss in 2 and I stayed away from Reggie Bush and Housh and Ocho-Cinco and Palmer and KC and Miami. I did and didn't pay attention to bye weeks figuring that I could trade overstocks and work the waiver wire to fill as needed. As I approached 30 and then 40 teams it started to dawn on me what a monumental task that would be.

Each of the 62 auction leagues are identical. Ten team redraft leagues. Head to head weekly match ups. A 13 week regular season, with a 4 team-4 week playoff format. Standard rosters...1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 WR/RB Flex, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 D/ST with a seven player bench. Standard scoring...4 points for Passing TDs and 1 point for every 25 yards passing, 6 points for a rushing TD and 1 point for every 10 yards rushing. Simple and easy to remember, which is very important when the realization of how to manage such a large amount of teams sets in. Very important. After pretty much going into denial drafting my 10th team and realizing that, unlike Yahoo, ESPN does not limit the number of teams you can have under the same ID, the march was on to find out exactly how many ESPN would let me have before stopping me. I never did find that limit. Pity, too. Because now the real fun begins.

How do you manage such an overwhelming tide of information? Some of you, who have competed in leagues against me, know that I am not one to just sit back and rest on the fruits of my initial labor. I won't lie to you and tell you that I have not drafted a team and abandoned it, I have. But not very often and never on purpose. The contrary applies, actually. Many of you know that, if nothing else, I tend to lead the league in transactions. I do not believe that I have managed a fantasy baseball team yet that where I have not exceeded 100 transactions. Ever.
That kind of devotion, certainly, has cost me a relationship or two or three...and certainly caused my golf handicap to reach double digits...but once I'm in...I'm in.

As we reach the halfway point in the NFL and fantasy league seasons it is time to take an accounting of my lunacy.

Of the 62 auction teams I am managing, I have averaged a stunning 23 transactions per team, through the first eight weeks. That means I have churned a 16 man roster one and a half times...already. There are a few teams in the 30 transaction range and one or two teams with less than 15. Over 1400 transactions(waiver wire claims, add/drops and trades). That does not include roster modifications. Setting my line-ups after acquiring the player. That number is beyond my calculation. Well over 2000 and probably closer to 3500, I'll wager. Projected over the course of the rest of the season that would mean close to 3000 transactions and 7000 roster modifications. Massive Craziness.

Now for the results:
Currently, I have one undefeated team at 8-0. I have 13 additional teams at 6-2 or better. Those 14 teams all went undefeated last week. There are 16 teams with 5 wins and 17 with 4 wins. That's 47 teams at .500 or better. 75% of my teams are positioned to make a run at the playoffs. I have 12, 3 win teams and 3 teams with 2 wins. I have tied 5 head to head matches...twice in the same league. I have 558 opponents that I will play a total of 806 games against, not including playoff games, which would be an additional 130 some games with the number of my teams currently 4th or better in their leagues. In terms of time, you ask? Well, three to five hours on Sundays. Probably closer to four. Usually spend three hours on Tuesday to check the scores and league standings plus bye weeks and set line ups for the following week. I work the waiver wire to fill as needed and to scoop up the flavor of the week. I can't remember a week where I did not drop/add at least one player on every team. I'm sure there has been...but not many. Thursday, I spend another 2-3 hours processing successful waiver claims and finding fillers for the unsuccessful claims and then I, "best guess" set my lineups based on match ups and injury reports and instinct or osmosis. Usually I don't even look at them again until Sunday morning unless a trade offer processes or there is early injury(or arrest) information that is concrete. Even then, when I do get solid intel, I have to systematically open every team because aside from grouping them by record, I have no matrix or spread sheet cross referencing the 992 rostered players I have and what team they are on. Some of it I have memorized but honestly, most of it is just a blur.

As you can imagine, game time decisions are a real pain in the neck and back and butt. I'm quick but not near quick enough to catch them all. It has cost me a game or 2 or 22. Having to root against yourself is fairly common also. I'm not sure what the tipping point is, in terms of how many teams you have, that at some point during the season you end up rooting against yourself in one league in order to win in another league...that happens to me every week.

Granted, these are free leagues and the amount of attrition is probably over 30%, it's still competition and that's what got me here in the first place. The competition to best my fellow gamers in what was just a lark initially and now has become a sort of mission. or an obsession. or a mania. Or, I really need to get a life.

Oh yeah, those other five teams? If you happen to know where I left them...please keep that information to yourself, thank you very much...I'm kinda busy, right now.

You think maybe Guinness has a record for most Fantasy Football Teams managed to completion or complete destruction in a year?

__________________