By Dalton Del Don – Senior Writer
Folks, fantasy football season is fast approaching, and this blog has ignored it long enough. It ends now. With my fantasy baseball teams making a huge surge midseason (and hopefully yours too) it’s easy to forget August is almost here, and by now, multiple fantasy football mags should have already been devoured. RotoScoop will soon be unveiling rankings, strategy and all other sorts of useful info. First, let’s start with an industry auction I partook in Monday: the results can be found here. And more on it can be found over at Yahoo!
But I’ll throw my two cents in here. Believe it or not, this was my first auction, ever. In any fantasy sport. Getting thrown into the fire in an “experts” league probably isn’t an ideal way to pop my cherry, but that’s the way it worked out. In the end, I became a big fan – affording everyone the opportunity at every single player is simply a huge advantage over drafting, when position in draft order precludes that. Unlike a draft, it’s essentially your turn with every pick, opposed to once every 10-14 choices. I’m not sure I can ever go back to the prehistoric method of drafting after this, especially when considering how an auction allowed me to assemble this squad: ($200 salary cap)
QB-Vince Young ($14)
RB-LaDainian Tomlinson ($80)
RB-Maurice Jones-Drew ($54)
WR-Reggie Brown ($15)
WR-Braylon Edwards ($9)
WR-D.J. Hackett ($6)
TE-Ben Watson ($3)
K-Stephen Gostkowski ($1)
D-Denver Broncos ($1)
B-Vincent Jackson ($6)
B-Michael Turner ($5)
B-Jerry Porter ($2)
B-Brandon Marshall ($2)
B-Alex Smith ($1)
B-Oakland Raiders ($1)
My $80 bid on Tomlinson was my first and it came about five seconds into the draft. In the end, I think he’s worth about 40 percent of your budget, especially since I was able to later pair him with Turner at an affordable price.
The $14 Young bid was my favorite of all. Guys like Drew Brees and Marc Bulger went for $29 and $28, respectively. Donovan McNabb went for $15, while Brandon “Big Board” Funston acquired Jon Kitna for the same $14. I probably should’ve secured a better backup, but mark this selection down as the S.O.D.
I’m big on MJD this year, but I probably went a little high on him at $54. I got into a bidding war with one other guy, and the back and forth ended up costing me around $8-10 more than I would’ve liked to have spent. Joseph Addai only went for $3 more.
I wanted Antonio Gates, but again got into a pissing match with another owner, finally giving up when his price tag reached $27. Instead, I looked to fill out my receiving corps with undervalued guys like Brown, Edwards, Hackett and Jackson. Those names won’t jump out at you on paper, but I’m actually pretty happy with them.
The one time that your “draft position” matters is late in the draft. Typically, when it was my turn early on, I’d call out a name of someone I had no intention of bidding on and hoped others jacked up the price and spent excessively. But when the auction was winding down, having the ability to call out the name did make a difference, as most had spent all of their budget, so throwing the name of a $1 kicker or end-game defense would most likely result in you getting them, because few were willing to up it to $2. Nothing worse than finishing the draft with money still to burn.
Ultimately, I like my team, but this league has some strong competition, and I’m extremely thin at the running back position. Hopefully Porter or Marshall pans out, and I’ll look to pull off a trade eventually. Anyway, are you ready for some football?
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