It's been, like, eight months: Another fantasy update

In years past, I did a more regular update of my fantasy team's progress throughout the year. So you might be forgiven for immediately assuming that I didn't write anything about this year's fantasy football teams until now because I had a couple of duds. Still, you'd be wrong.

As it turns out, I ended up with what I can only call a fairly "idiot-proof" lineup in both leagues. And while I would like to boast about how this demonstrates my own genius, in truth, this year I just ended up being lucky more weeks than not.And remember, being lucky is always better than being good.

So for posterity's sake, I'll be posting the usual screencaps of my dominance (and the one week of really, really bad luck) below the fold. Join me if you're the least bit interested in this sort of stuff, but as I've indicated in the past with this category, I certainly understand if you don't.

The collage there above is a collection of some of the more regular and most prominent players between my two teams this year, with the six individuals in the middle there actually appearing on both squads. The five guys on the far left all played productive roles for my NFL.com fantasy team started up by a fellow on Tumblr. Last year, I made to all the way to the championship in that league ... and lost.

This year, I once again ended up atop the standings in the regular season, but this time had the highest-scoring team in the league. Matt Schaub was my initial starting quarterback for a few weeks until I realized what a steal I had gotten in drafting Cam Newton in the 18th round, 214th overall. Darren Sproles, taken in the 12th round and 142nd overall, proved to be a perfect complement to my first pick, Ray Rice. I picked up both Victor Cruz and Laurent Robinson quite early and, along with having drafted Larry Fitzgerald, I basically never worried about receivers again for the rest of the year. Because kick return yards counted in this league, Randall Cobb also proved to be a solid flex play.

So anyway, the team kicked ass fairly routinely. As the week-by-week results list to the right there shows, once the winning streak got started, the whole thing turned into a weekly blowout. By the time I got another team that could crack 100 points, my team cracked 200. It almost felt unfair.

In truth, this league seemed to be more the victory by attrition than is typical in fantasy football leagues. I basically got whichever player I wanted off the waiver wire every Tuesday with no real competition. Even whatever made me drop David Akers right before he set a 49ers franchise record for points scored in a regular season didn't come back to haunt me since somebody decided to drop New England's Stephen Gostkowski mid-season. That, and we're talking about a kicker.

So anyway, here's how the tournament unfolded:

And here was the ridiculous championship game summary:

And my obligatory congratulatory screenshot:

And gave me three trophies to start a new trophycase feature (at least I assume it's new since I didn't see that second place trophy from last year):

Now over in the Yahoo league that the brother-in-law runs, I drafted Michael Turner for the third year in a row. But I also got Maurice Jones-Drew. And Steve Smith (the Carolina receiver).

Oh, and in this league, I had to pick up Cam Newton up early off waivers, but just like the Tumblr league, I nabbed Cruz and Robinson before the others.

After losing my first three games, I went on to win 10 of my final 11 regular season games. And following some unexpected turns over the final weeks, I finished in first place in this league as well.

Uncertain about whether I'd qualify for the "championship bracket" until basically the second-to-last week, I felt reasonably good about my chances in this league by the time I was locked into the top four. (I did admittedly feel a little bad about possibly keeping sis out of the bracket, but she started choking her spot away long before my team came along.)

The playoffs in the Yahoo league, however, got off to a rather rocky start. By the conclusion of the first set of Sunday afternoon games that week, I only had my kicker remaining to add points to my 16 point lead. The opponent also had his kicker—and four other players:

Amazingly, even with his three guys playing to my one, I increased my lead to 19 points by halftime of that second Sunday afternoon game:

Going into the Monday night game where he would have two guys competing to my zero, I held a 13 point lead:

And so I sat there Monday, waiting to see when I was going to be nosed out. By halftime, my lead had nearly been cut in half:

By the end of the third quarter, I was hanging on by a point:

Then in the fourth came the PAT that forced a tie ...:

... before Heath Miller put him over the top:

And the really frustrating part about that loss? Tony Gonzalez had a pass intended for him in the endzone that Thursday night that was taken away by Roddy White for a touchdown. The result cost me six points, and thus, this fantasy playoff game. Which is precisely why nobody should care.

I suppose that the injustice I suffered this year will only justify my reason for playing yet again next year, presumably in both leagues. I highly doubt I'll ever have a year as easy as this one was, which is too bad if I ever get roped into wagering money on this type of thing. (I still maintain I would never even think of it.)


Still, this marks really the first mention I've made of this successful fantasy football season. By now, you'd have assumed I would have posted something about it to Tumblr or Facebook or Twitter or ... well, no. What else can you say about winning your fantasy football league anyway?


No confidence pool victories to celebrate this year, so I guess these will have to suffice. NOTE: It's been more like nine or 10 months since the last fantasy update, technically.