Monday, August 24, 2015

Monday Lulz

And for our first installation of Monday #LULZ for the 2015-2016 season, brought to you by my team's new mascot.


Remember that time we did an auction draft for the second time, and still none of us knew what we were doing?  Our "Uh... What is going on... I think I just peed my pants a little... hehe #lulz" face:



This was me the first 34 picks:

"What to do what to do what to do... Marshawn for $67?  Too high.  Eddie Lacy for $68?  Too high.  AP for $69?  Too high.  Le'Veon-out-for-2-games-cuz-of-drugz for $69?  Too high.  OH SNAP JORDY FOR 38???  STEAL.... wait a second....  #LULZLULZLULZZZZ"


And then Eric aka Comic Sans calls me out for my inactivity.  There was a collective

"Ohhhhh snap" in the Google Hangout.  And then a subsequent overpaying for Andre Johnson and Brandin Cooks on my part.  You know, ego stuff.


Oh, and did I mention that time Andrew Poon "thought" he bid $2 on Jordy Nelson, when in fact he bid $38?  Okokokok so I understood why Aaron bid $37 for Jordy, being on Autodraft and all.  But I can almost swear that it took a good 3 or 4 seconds before Andrew bid $38, AND HE WAS IN THE ROOM.  #LULZZZZTOTHEINFINITY  He just might never live that down.  ACLs can be partially torn, right?  Like, just your minor ACL, not your major one.  Right?

Oh, but this face can apply to a lot of people, let's see...

Aaron - Seattle D for $5 and Duron Carter for $4??


D.Lin - 39-year-old-Peyton Manning for $30??


Jeff - Nelson Agholor for $24??  (I'm not sure a player is considered a "sleeper" anymore if he's the WR you paid the most for in the draft.  But then again, he might just end up being your best WR, considering your other WRs.  Or he might just turn out to be Cordarrelle Patterson v.2.0)


Gabs - Not-a-starter-yet-Ameer Abdullah for $21??


Me - Victor Cruz for $15 and Alfred Blue for $12?? (But in my defense, I had moniez to spend.  But still, the face applies.)



And in case you didn't see Aaron's scheming troll face:

The trolling ended his team up with Le'Veon Bell, DeMarco Murray, and Andrew Luck.  Not too shabby, if you forget to include the part where his starting WRs are Duron Carter, Eric Decker, and Steve Smith Sr.  Seriously, though, I Googled Duron Carter, and I'm still not convinced he plays in the NFL.


Finally, how we all felt afterwards:

Wake me up in two weeks when the NFL season starts.


So who drafted the best team?

In my opinion, Abraham, with Luke as a very close second.  Both managed to grab quality WRs with at least one solid RB and a QB that can get the job done.

Worst team?

Aaron, hands down.  If it were a league where you only had to play 1 QB and 2 RBs every week, then he'd win by a landslide.  But it's not.  I don't think I have to explain much more.  Thanks for the $20, Aaron.

Shoutout to Justina for the best team name.  It works on SO many levels.  I can't even start to describe.

Thursday, August 20, 2015

FF 2015 Thoughts

I really debated as to whether I should take up this blog again.  I mean, having a kid is kind of a game-changer, but after looking back at last season, I couldn't help but fondly reminisce about the good memories made by all the drama, mishaps, making-fun-of, etc.  I'll be honest, that was probably my favorite blog entry to write all season.  And reading it again made me literally lulz.

Of course, taking all the credit for these blog posts is short-sighted, self-centered, and inaccurate.  All the team managers provide the material, whether it be Eric's waiver-wire follies, Jeff's unhealthy obsession with a QB whose name rhymes with Shady, Justina's impeccably-timed-and-perfectly-chosen GIFs, Luke's (sometimes lack of) analytics and charts, or Andrew's immediate and much-welcomed integration into our league's smack talkery - it's all golden to me.

I also took some quick metrics at how last year's blog went, for those of you who may be interested:
  • With my attempt at bringing in extra revenue, I've made a whopping $3.72 off advertizzzles.  That's actually more than I thought I would get.
  • The blog got 6,347 page views from August 2014-July 2015.  That's up from 5,767 during August 2013-July 2014 and 5,055 during August 2012-July 2013.  An upwards trend.
  • The most viewed post was my analysis of the Joique Bell-Kelvin Benjamin trade with a modest 93 page views.  Which, by the way, is no where near Justina's masterful piece on Points Against - the all-time champ of posts with 1,321 total page views.  For reference, the next most-visited post is my Mock Draft 2012 piece, which only has 863 total page views.  Justina wins at blog writing.  But back to the Joique Bell-KB piece - my theory on why it got the most page views was because I tweeted it out and tagged both Bell and Benjamin in my tweet, so maybe they got freaked out that they might get traded and actually visited my blog.  One can hope.

So in spite of the meager earnings and lack of popularity in terms of comparative page views, likely due to the entries having little relevance to the rest of the world wide web, I opted to take a page out of Charles Barkley's book and totally ignore these analytics.  So, in going with my gut, I decided to pick up the burden of blogging again in 2015.  At least for now.

I will not make any guarantees regarding consistency or quality, but I will do what I can, given the circumstances.  It might mean nixing the predictions (which help you all remember to set your rosters anyway) or stripping the content of any valuable Fantasy Football commentary (which was mainly uninformed and misguided banter).  But nevertheless - my first post!


Let's start by updating our wiener's list:

Regular season champions:
Luke - 3
Jeff - 2
Aaron - 1
David Lin - 1
Gabs - 1
Jen - 1
Khoa - 1
Mike - 1

Playoff champions:
David Lin - 3
Luke - 3
Eric - 1
Gabs - 1
Justina - 1
Mike - 1
Khoa - 1

"Medalists" (finished in top 3 either in regular season or playoffs)
David Lin - 11
Luke - 9
Eric - 6
Gabs - 5
Jeff - 5
Tim - 5
Khoa - 5
Justina - 4
Aaron - 3
Laura - 3
Mike - 3
Jen - 2
Lan - 2
Abraham - 1
David Li - 1
Duke - 1

Italics indicates the owner is no longer in our league.
Highlighed names indicate the owner earned this in 2014.

As you can see, David Lin is now tied with Luke for playoff championships, and all of our sophomore (and 3rd year - I see you D.Li) teams are now medalists, so a round of congratulations is due.


Looking forward, each new Fantasy Football season brings a clean slate for all, and this one is no different.  We've retained most of the core components (people, scoring, draft format, FAAB), but two main factors have changed: commissioner and the stakes.

Regarding commissioner, we can rest assured knowing we won't have to deal with any more of this:


Let us never forget.

But regarding the stakes, if a person wins the regular season and the playoff championship, he or she could potentially get a 750% ROI.  That's big time.  I read somewhere that if you put some money into some mutual fund and let it sit for 20 years, it would DEFINITELY turn into, like, a million dollars PLUS.  So suffice it to say that Adeline's college fund starts HERE and NOW.

Honestly, though, I'm hoping the added stakes element brings another level of excitement to it all.  Not surprisingly, I've already seen glimpses of it:

While for others, I'm not sure what they are feeling:



But let's be honest, who is the real loser this season?



No, seriously - who is it??  I guess we'll have to find out.

I'll try to live tweet this auction draft.  It helps me remember all the silly things people do come draft day.  There's more than pride on the line this year.


Happy drafting!