NOW what am I going to do on Sundays?

On this, the final Sunday of the NFL regular season, I feel like I ought to commemorate the end of my fantasy football season, which wrapped up last week. Fantasy football is a pretty big deal to me, so I figure that this blog post might assist me in the mourning process.... mourning that the season has sadly yet inevitably come to an end ... as well giving me an opportunity to bemoan the fact that, in spite of unprecedented effort and dedication on my part, I failed to win a single league championship this year.

Perhaps next year my obsession with Maurice Jones-Drew will finally bear fruit.

+ =

I was in 4 (and a half) leagues this year, all hosted by Yahoo! Sports. Once you're involved in more than 2 leagues, it becomes much more complicated as you routinely find yourself cheering for players in one league, and against them in another league. But it's well worth a little confusion... Anyway, here's how they panned out:

League: Liga Guadalupe
Team: The Fudge Pact
Result: 4th place of out 10 (8-8 record)
Created and managed by my friend Michael, the Liga was fairly competetive, with some bizarre twists in terms of rosters and scoring (2 starting QBs, 7 WRs, 4 RBs, and minimal bench room) intended to encourage/mandate maximum player movement and very "deep" rosters. I started off this league with a fairly disastrous draft (highlighted by an accidental pick of injured WR Bobby Engram in the 3rd round), and I never fully recovered. Although I held the second-place position position for much of the year and led the league in roster moves, I finished outside of the top three. poo.


League: The Frerotte Fur Yacht
Team: The Flaming Moes
Result: 2nd place out of 8 (13-3 record)
My third year in this league of CCU buddies was my most successful to date, although I'm pretty disappointed at losing the championship game after entering as a clear favorite. Oh well, at least I beat Bmer.


League: Bottle Rocket
Team: The Shrieking Eels
Result: 2nd place out of 8 (11-5 record)
This was my first shot at setting up and running a league, and it turned out to be pretty fun. Most people in the league (including my dad) were fantasy virgins, and I think I got a couple people hooked for life! Alas, Jonny Z was just too powerful in the end... His Harry Back was carried to victory on the shoulders of ... unbelievably ... Cedric Benson.


League: That's What She Said
Team: Big Tuna
Result: 3rd place out of 12 (11-5 record)
In this "the office"-themed league, I had a good run, but ultimately fell short, due in part to my tendency to "homer"... starting Jay Cutler, Eddie Royal, and whichever uninjured Broncos running back I could find for most of the year... and Marion Barber's end-of-the-year disappearance certainly didn't help things at all.

I was also in another quasi-league, invented by my friend Brian as an experimental inverse-league of sorts... which rewarded poor play and punished good play. The Yahoo! scoring restrictions made the overall results less-than-ideal, but it was fun to start players like Brodie Croyle and Jamarcus Russell and watch your score plummet. I finished in second place, with a score of negative 728.7.

Countdown to next year's draft = ~8 months. You really ought to think about joining my league.