Week 1 Fantasy Team Recap

I copied all my starting rosters into a spreadsheet, looked up the Yahoo default scoring system points for each player and formatted everything all nice and pretty to show you. I just can't figure out how to get an Excel worksheet into an image file of some sort to be able to insert it here.

The executive summary is this:

1) the Redskins team, consisting primarily of Redskins players, stunk in week one;

2) two teams that drafted QB first had mixed results and the difference is that the better team focused on studs at other positions, taking the 'dregs' left to it at RB (DOWN WITH THE STUD RB LAW!!!);

3) the autodraft teams, where I signed up and walked away, actually performed well, though I think due to some unusual fortunes;

4) my two RB/best available teams were average and poor. I blame the poorer of the two performances on the fact that I doggedly used the nfl.com default rankings to draft my starting lineup, and finally;

5) the two teams I care about performed very well - this includes an auction drafted team and a pick 'em drafted team.

Some interesting details:

I drafted all Redskins because I was in a league once that was won by guy who drafted all Packers. This exercise is largely academic - you have to hit the right team on the right year to have a chance. I should have tried this with the Steelers, but never got around to it.

My highest scoring team, 116 points, was an autodraft on Foxsports. I don't expect that to continue. I mean, do you really think Burress will score 32 every week? This team also had Romo, who scored 35, and Mcgahee, who scored 10. Everyone else scored less than 10 points.

In order to test the Geezur's point about not sticking to drafting a stud RB in the first round, I drafted two teams just prior to kickoff last week, taking QB and WR first and second on both of them. The team with Peyton Manning scored just 79 points. HOWEVER the team with Tom Brady scored 111. The reason the Brady team is better, I believe, is because I went after studs at other positions and selected the consolation RBs, Lynch and Brandon Jackon, both of whom actually performed pretty well. On the Peyton led team, I tried harder to get running backs and the studs at other slots were taken before I could get them. For week one, at least, the lesson is if you aren't sure the best available RB is a stud, take a stud at another slot.

Observations on my players:

With Brandon Jacobs injured, four of my rosters are impacted. I have decent backups available, such as Tatum Bell or Ronnie Brown, but they don't have the ceiling that I envisioned for Jacobs. The next four or five weeks I'll be limping at RB on a few teams.

I am very pleased that TO, Chad Johnson and Reggie Wayne, who are on a lot of my teams, lived up to my expectations.

I am very disappointed in Deion Branch and Reggie Brown, both of whom I frequently counted on to be steals at the WR3 and WR4 draft slots.

Chris Cooley also let me down - he's the TE on the two teams I most care about. I was looking for value at the TE and letting people take the bigger named TEs, hoping that after Gates, there were a pile of TEs, including Cooley, who are all pretty much interchangeable. If Cooley continues this trend, there will be some butt cheek clenching going on. If does pick it up to the Shockey/Heap/Winslow level, I'll be ahead of the game. The good news is that I have Witten on my auction team. If Witeen keeps it up, that team will be way ahead of the curve at TE.

Vernon Davis, ditto what I said about Cooley. My expectations weren't as high, but he's on a couple of my teams as the top TE.

Kitna, so far, is a steal.

Romo, who I had to take after losing Kitna on my main Yahoo team to a coworker, is also so far a pleasant choice. We all know he CAN make throws, but we all saw him melt down late last year, so Romo wasn't on anyone's short list for a QB1.

New England, about like I started to fear just before the season started, didn't perform well. Thankfully I played the matchups for my auction team and started Pittsburgh, who netted me 20 points compared with the 6 New England would have scored for me.