What your fantasy says about you

Oops, I meant to type "What your fantasy football drafting strategy says about you". My mistake. Anyway, since we are getting close to both real and fantasy football, here's an article by Mike Tanier over at the very best NFL site on the interwebs, Football Outsiders.

This one's the best, because it's so true (and I just love the name of it):

Strategy: RB-RB-TE (The Gates Guy)

Style: You are always the first guy to grab a tight end. You also pick a kicker around Round 8 and a defense in Round 9 or so, two healthy steps ahead of the curve. This year, it’s Antonio Gates, Stephen Gostkowski, and the Bears. Ten years ago, it was Shannon Sharpe, Jason Elam, and the Panthers. Your quarterbacks often stink and your top wide receiver for five years was O.J. McDuffie, but you are always strong where you think it counts: the peripherals.

Personality: You’re the guy who outsmarts the system, and you consider yourself a master of market inefficiencies. You dabbled as a day trader in the 1990s and a real estate speculator five years ago. You now own 20,000 shares of Boo.com and a $300,000 duplex in the Heroinville neighborhood of Addictowne, but that doesn’t dissuade you of your genius.

Other Traits: You like to collect curios and oddities. You prefer vinyl to iPods, and you’ll argue to the death that it’s better to have slightly improved equalization and stereo separation than the ability to walk down the street listening to music. You enjoy fads that involve over-complicating things that should be easy, like soap making. You still brew your own beer, even though it went out of style a decade ago, and your friends politely swill the latest batch of J.W. Wittenlover Select even though it tastes like a blend of Guinness, WD-40, and rotting grass.

As an aside, I am about 1/3 done with their annual book, and it's by far their best yet. Every team chapter's article is about team-building, which is a change from prior years (and much more similar to what the guys do with Baseball Prospectus.) I highly recommend it.

Next year's fantasy football team name

Courtesy of IASIP this week, it clearly should be either Electric Dream Machine or Chemical Toilet.

Or maybe I need to stop sniffing silver spray paint out of a sock like Charlie.

UPDATE: How could I forget The Pecan Sandies?

Nobody wastes an 11th round pick like me

Looks like Byron Leftwich is going to be traded or released. He's only my #2 QB so I'll hang on to him for a while and see where he pops up.

This smacks of Jack Del Rio making decisions based on a player's faults as opposed to his strengths. David Garrard's faults are going to become very apparent, very quickly.

Shaun Alexander - Sports Guy vs. Football Outsiders

Bill Simmons' column today is his list of the top 50 fantasy football players this year. He has Shaun Alexander #3. The Football Outsiders have him around #90. Here is their explanation.

We'll see who turns up correct, but I suspect FO is right and Alexander will have a fork sticking out of his back all season.

My REAL fantasy football team

Here is my team in the other league, the one that's going into its 9th year. 12 teams, 1 QB, 2, RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 D, passing TD's worth 4 points:

RB LaDanian Tomlinson
WR Reggie Wayne
WR Marques Colston
QB Vince Young
RB Ladell Betts
WR Donte Stallworth
RB Ahman Green
TE Ben Watson
WR Muhsin Muhammed
WR Ronald Curry
QB Byron Leftwich
RB Michael Turner
RB Brian Leonard
RB DeDe Dorsey
D Packers
K Stephen Gostkowski
QB Tarvaris Jackson

Here are a few of my thoughts, knowing I used the Football Outsiders' projections:

With the 1st pick, I had a while to wait before my 2nd and 3rd picks. I could choose between 3 basically equal QB's, all of whom were the best available players. One of them was VY, and since I needed another RB I would have taken Betts with my 3rd pick. Reuter convinced me to hold off, since both were likely to be undervalued by others. Also, with 3 starting WR's, they are more valuable than in most leagues. So I got my top remaining WR's and then on the rebound got the 2 guys I wanted before. The Reuter Gambit worked.

I'm not huge fan of my RB depth, but with Tomlinson, how much do I really need? Plus, since there wasn't much left in the middle rounds I went with some high-upside backups later in the draft when there wasn't much to choose from. It was especially delicious to spite Arlinsky by taking Dorsey (since he has Addai).

I'm not usually a fan of 3 QB's, but VY could have a down year since he's still fairly young (pardon the pun) and Leftwich could lose his job to the silly whims of Jack Del Rio. Jackson is going to play in Minnesota, and FO likes him more than Grossman and a lot of other guys (mainly for his running). I figured he was worth taking a flyer on, especially since there were no other decent WR's or TE's I cared about taking.

This draft is heavy on FO's picks, so we'll see how it works out.

Office fantasy football team

Since everyone loves to hear about other peoples' fantasy teams, I'll confine it to this space. 10-team league, 1 QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, 1 flex, 1 TE, 1 K, 1 D. Also, passing TD's are worth 6 points:

RB Brian Westbrook
RB Maurice Jones-Drew
QB Donovan McNabb
WR Donald Driver
WR Anquan Bolden
RB Ladell Betts
RB Jerious Norwood
TE Alge Crumpler
WR Donte Stallworth
QB Brett Favre
WR Muhsin Muhammed
RB Michael Turner
WR Ernest Wilford
D Steelers
RB Brian Leonard
K Stephen Gostkowski