TonyTimes: Draft Day in South Dakota

On Sunday night, I made the drive back over to South Dakota to participate in yet another fantasy football draft. This draft is a little different from the one in Minnesota in certain respects -- like this is the third straight year that I've been with these guys. It's highly competitve (like staying up late or getting up early to drop injured players or pick up the player who gained mucho points) and the pay out is pretty good, just as long as you have a good finish by the end of the year.

Again, it's 12 players in the league. But instead of sticking with Yahoo! Fantasy Sports, we went with ESPN Fantasy Football. Fantasy football with ESPN is pretty interesting, especially now that we've split up into three divisions -- 4 teams in each division. The downfall, yet again with 12 teams, is that the competition is really stretched out. There will be some weeks in which I will have to play completely useless players, hoping that they would score just a few points while your big name guys (probably only 1 or 2 of them) score the majority that week.

The three division set-up will increase the owners chances of making the playoffs. Last year, with all 12 teams in one division (through Yahoo!), I was lucky enough to make the playoffs. This year, it could make or break me.

Thus, my team for 2005 (in order in which they were drafted) in the South Dakota Fantasy Football League.

I had the 11th overall pick (out of 12, obviously).

Tom Brady, QB
Rudi Johnson, RB
Nate Burleson, WR
Marc Bulger, QB
Jeremy Shockey, TE
J.J. Arrington, RB
Deion Branch, WR
Byron Leftwich, QB
Larry Johnson, RB
Braylon Edwards, WR
Nate Kaeding, K
Washington, DEF
Rodney Harrison, D-Player
Daniel Graham, TE
Brandon Lloyd, WR

As far as starting line-ups go, we start 1 QB, 2 RB's, 3 WR's, 1 RB or WR, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 DEF, and ! D-Player. Just by looking at my line-up, talent is few and far in-between.

Overall, I'm not really happy with what I got, since I kind of got screwed over because of the 11th overall pick. Nobody is really standing out this pre-season (except for Daunte Culpepper -- oh, that's right -- I don't have him).

For this season, I'm just going to have to pray for lots of luck.