A Historical Look

I was trying to explain fantasy football to Tina last year, and she got around to asking how long we had been doing this for.  I had a vague idea, but I'm glad Yahoo! has faithfully kept track of all of our previous seasons.  So I thought it'd be fun to rewind a little and see who has won in the past seasons.  By the way, what I consider our first fantasy football season was in 2004, even though it wasn't until 2005 when we all met at my house after church one Sunday and did an actual live draft.  That was fun.

2004
Regular season:
1. gnateinnoc (Gabs)
2. Tim's daddy (David)
3. BIGjellyPwnzaLLinFF (Eric)
Playoffs:
1. BIGjellyPwnzaLLinFF (Eric)
2. RelientK (Laura)
3. gnateinnoc (Gabs)
By the way, Tina found Gabs's team name amusing.  My, how things change..

2005
Regular season champ:
1. FLAWLESS VICTORY (Luke)
2. bigjellypwnzallAGAIN (Eric)
3. odoyle rules (Tim)
Playoff champ:
1. FLAWLESS VICTORY (Luke)
2. odoyle rules (Tim)
3. Manly Men (Mike)
Back when Shaun Alexander and Larry Johnson dominated the league and took Luke to victory.  This was the season we all had a for-real live draft.

2006
Regular season champ:
1. Manly Men 2 (Mike)
2. The Debbinator (David)
3. Wheeeee! (Lan)
Playoff champ:
1. Manly Men 2 (Mike)
2. The Debbinator (David)
3. Wheeeee! (Lan)
This was the only season where the regular season and playoffs top 3 were exactly the same.

2007
Regular season champ:
1. The Crapinator (Luke)
2. odoyle rules (Tim)
3. Arodbagelsall (David)
Playoff champ:
1. The Crapinator (Luke)
2. odoyle rules (Tim)
3. RelientK (Laura)
Luke and his classy names.

2008
Regular season champ:
1. Sick of Losing (Jeff)
2. Pirates (Khoa)
3. iOWNchubs_bottomline (Eric)
Playoff champ:
1. Pirates (Khoa)
2. RelientK (Laura)
3. the nose picker (Luke)
Interestingly enough, the other Pirate in our league (Laura) ended up with a 5-8 record, but was runner up in the playoffs.

2009
Regular season champ:
1. Arodbagelsall (David)
2. InToWin (Khoa)
3. odoyle rules (Tim)
Playoff champ:
1. Arodbagelsall (David)
2. InToWin (Khoa)
3. choubacca (Aaron)
I don't remember much from this season, probably due to dental school keeping me occupied.

2010
Regular season champ:
1. FavreDollarFootLong (Khoa)
2. Linovo (Luke)
3. Arodbagelsall (David)
Playoff champ:
1. Arodbagelsall (David)
2. The Rainbow Warriors (Jeff)
3. JUSTINA OWNS (Justina)
This was when Jeff's 2-11 team came out of nowhere to get runner-up in the playoffs.  And Justina finally breaks in to a top 3 list!

2011
Regular season champ:
1. aaronisyourdaddy (Aaron)
2. JUSTINA OWNS (Justina)
3. Rainbow Warriors (Jeff)
Playoff champ:
1. JUSTINA OWNS (Justina)
2. Spider Pig (Luke)
3. aaronisyourdaddy (Aaron)
Hopefully it's fresh enough in your minds that you all remember what happened.

Just some stats:
Regular season winners:
Luke - 2
Gabs - 1
Mike - 1
Jeff - 1
David Lin - 1
Khoa - 1
Aaron - 1

Playoff winners:
Luke - 2
David Lin - 2
Eric - 1
Mike - 1
Khoa - 1
Justina - 1

"Medalists" (finished in top 3 either in regular season or playoffs - includes winners from above lists)
David Lin - 8
Luke - 7
Tim - 5
Khoa - 5
Eric - 4
Laura - 3
Mike - 3
Jeff - 3
Aaron - 3
Justina - 3

Gabs - 2

Lan - 2

Interesting things to note:
-I'm just going to go ahead and get this out of the way: David Li does not show up on any of these lists, but in all fairness, he only has participated in one full season thus far.  It took Justina 6 years before she achieved top-3 status (give or take a few years, since she probably wasn't in the league for some of those six years).  So don't count him out!  But everything else I write after this doesn't include David Li into consideration, for obvious reasons.
-Outside of Luke winning twice during the regular season and playoffs, there has not been a clear-cut manager that has dominated our league from year to year.  Furthermore, I question Luke's two years of winning on the basis of him being commissioner and, on more than one occasion, using his powers in a suspect manner.  On the occasions that he was caught, he turned the wrongs into rights, but I would not be surprised if a few of his actions were not picked up on, especially since those were the years when people did not pay as close attention to our league as they do now.
-I do believe, however, that David Lin's two playoff wins are legitimate, and are a testament to his managing skills (and plethora of time to waste back then).  Also of note is his "medalling" 8 times, which is the most of all the managers thus far. I also attribute Lan's two-time "medalist" title to David, because I was fully aware of who managed Lan's team that year.
-Tim and Laura are the only two managers that have yet to win a regular season championship or playoffs championship.  I was watching the ESPN show 30 for 30 on the origins of fantasy sports (specifically, fantasy baseball, which started it all), and according to the show, the guy who invented fantasy baseball, and subsequently, fantasy sports, has yet to win a championship.  Not to say that I'm as important as he is, but I find some comfort in that.  Plus, I think we're well overdue for some sort of reward.  This season just might not be the one for us, though..

Conclusion:
It's pretty neat to look back and see that we've been doing this for 8 seasons and going in to our 9th season.  We've lost some people and gained some people along the way, but we've still got our core group of relentless managers who come back each year ready to conquer.  At least we've lasted longer than the XFL.