NFL – NFFC and Daily Joust

I’m switching things up this Monday. With fantasy football season approaching quickly, I thought I would do two things today.

(1) I’ll present you with an opportunity to join a league at DailyJoust.com in which you can have a shot at winning part of the $1500 Free Roll — for free (it’s in the title).

(2) I’ll review the team that I drafted for the National Fantasy Football Championship because I’m always about transparency with my fantasy squads.

DAILY JOUST – $1500 FREE ROLL

I’ve been telling you all about DailyJoust all baseball season, but you know they also do basketball, hockey and football, right? Here’s an exciting option for the 2012 NFL Season.

DailyJoust is offering a $1500 Tournament in which $1500 prizes are available (top prize is $150.00, and the top-200 places receive a prize as well).

The best part about the tournament is that it is FREE to sign up.

Obviously there is no reason on earth that you shouldn’t take a few minutes out of your day to sign up for a free game in which you can win real cash. Not to mention the fun that accompanies cheering on your fantasy squad as you demolish the competition. So get over to DailyJoust and make it happen (you can easily sign up from the link that takes you to the BaseballGuys/DailyJoust partner page).

NATIONAL FANTASY FOOTBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

On Saturday I was part of a 12-team league in the NFFC 12-team Online Championship (I wrote about the league in Beat Ray Flowers, Win $100,000?). Today I’ll review the squad (you can still sign up for leagues with the NFFC so go ahead and head that way when you get a chance).

League Rules

12 teams, 20 rounds, #10 draft selection
PPR
3rd round reversal (more on that below)
KDS (more on that below)
Starting lineup: QB, RB, RB, WR, WR, WR, TE, Flex, K, DEF
6 points for all TDs

QB: Philip Rivers (7th round), Christian Ponder (16), Tim Tebow (17)

RB: Darren McFadden (1), Adrian Peterson (3), Fred Jackson (4), Roy Helu (8), LeGarrette Blount (10), Ronnie Brown (12), Mike Goodson (14)

WR: Larry Fitzgerald (2), Jeremy Maclin (5), Darrius Heyward-Bey (9), Kendall Wright (11), Danny Amendola (13), Alshon Jeffrey (15)

TE: Fred Davis (6), Heath Miller (20)

K: Matt Prater (18)

D: Atlanta Falcons (19)

Quarterback: As I say everyday on Sirius 210, XM 87 on The Drive (Mon-Fri 7-10 PM EDT), I’m not going to go nuts on the QBs early. This league was a perfect example of that. I’m a huge fan of Matt Ryan and Tony Romo, but they went in the 4th and 5th rounds. I happily waited for Rivers, the 10th QB taken. I grabbed Ponder late, like the foot/arm combo, and then took Tebow. I don’t ever draft three signal callers, but two things. (1) This league drafts 20 players, an extremely deep total forcing more aggressive drafting with so little left on the waiver-wire. (2) I’ve said this since before last season, if Tebow is starting he’s a top-10 QB option every week. I’m not sure that Mark Sanchez will hold him off for that starting spot all year, an if so I got me a great late round bargain, or at least blocked someone else from getting the chance to grab a potential starter at the end of the draft.

Running Back: If DMC and AD are healthy this will be the top duo in the league. If DMC ends up injured and AD lacks his normal boost coming back from knee surgery, my team is in trouble. Go big or go home I say. F-Jax gives me the best RB3 in the league. All this nonsense in Washington — Helu is still the most talented back there. Blount has been undervalued because of the Doug Martin hoopla. I think he carves out a bigger role than most. Ronnie Brown could get a couple of starts while the always brittle Ryan Mathews heals that shoulder. Goodson was my must add handcuff for DMC.

Wide Receiver: My weak link. Fitzgerald is amazingly consistent, and I wouldn’t be shocked if Maclin ended the year as a WR1. I like DHB but would have preferred his teammate, Denarius Moore. That’s a decent trio that I like a lot, but DHB doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies even though he had some excellent games last year. Wright could be big as a rookie with Kenny Britt’s woes, and Amendola may not score but he catches passes (85 two years ago). Jeffrey was my go for broke late selection. He has the talent, and opportunity, to be a big player as the season progresses.

Tight End: Fred Davis, as long as he stays healthy and away from illicit substances, will be the breakout player at the tight end position this year. I would have preferred Rob Housler as my backup over Miller but Housler shares the same bye week as Davis.

K/DEF: Per usual, I just waited and grab the best available options at the end of the draft.

This league was a Third Round Reversal (3RR). What that means is that after the first two rounds the draft order flip flops.

Picks 1-12 are then followed by pick 12-1 as always in snake drafts. However, in round three the order is reversed so it ends up looking like this: 1-12, 12-1, 12-1.

Since I had the 10th pick I ended up with: pick #10, pick #15, pick #27

Since everyone knows I’m not gonna take a QB or TE that early, I felt like if I ended up with a pick at the end of the first round I would be able to grab a runner in round one, a pass catcher in round two, an another runner in round three. Guess what? I did exactly that.

How did I know I was going to end up with a late first round selection? Because the NFFC allows you to bid on which pick, #1-12, you want by use of the Kentucky Derby Style process. In this setup, each player submits their list of preferred draft slots (in my case, I went 10, 11, 12 etc.). Players names are then randomly drawn and they are assigned their highest preference on their draft list based upon which spots remain. Luckily for me I got the spot I wanted at the end of the round and my strategy played out perfectly. Now we’ll have to wait and see if my strategy was sound or not.

*** DON’T FORGET TO GET YOUR COPY OF THE 2012 NFL FANTASY FOOTBALL GUIDE.

 

By Ray Flowers

Thursday Has a Feel

Thursday is an odd day. It’s the middle of the week and it certainly has a palpable feel to it as the anticipation of the potential fun of the weekend starts to seep into ones consciousness. Maybe that’s why I’m all over the map today.

NL Playoff Thoughts

So sad to see the Dodgers fail to advance to the World Series. Not. I said it all along – there was no way a team that was counting on guys like Randy Wolf and Vincente Padilla could make the World Series. For the sake of Philly fans hopefully my other prediction that they wouldn’t be able to win the World Series with Brad Lidge pitching the ninth won’t come true. We’ll certainly have a chance to find out.

That Shane Victorino kid is a player. Did you see that sweet stroke on that long home run he hit last night? Beautiful.

Thank goodness the offense for the Phillies is so strong, because for all his production, that Jimmy Rollins is an out making machine of epic proportions. I know he produces strong fantasy 5×5 numbers each year, but my goodness does he rack up the outs. He owns a .286 OBP in 120 plate appearances in his playoff career, and this season he posted a simply hideous .296 OBP. Since he was awarded a full-time job in 2001, Rollins leads baseball with 4,496 outs, 219 more than the next guy (Orlando Cabrera). Last time I checked getting on base and avoiding outs was the name of the game for a leadoff hitter. Averaging 109 runs per 162 games in his career, can you imagine how many runs Rollins would have scored if he merely gotten on base at a league average rate?

Random Baseball Thoughts

At least we know that The Sporting News isn’t populated by idiots as they awarded Tim Lincecum and Zack Greinke their NL and AL Pitcher of the Year awards. I expressed the same views a while back in my NL Cy Young Race and AL Cy Young Race pieces. Now we’ll have to wait and see if those that vote for the Cy Young award are as smart as TSN and myself.

Steve Phillips of ESPN was recently outed in the press for having an affair. I know we are all about 24 hour news nowadays, but really, is that any of our business? I say we leave the guy and his poor family alone.

The Mets finally got some good news after a dreadful season where seemingly everyone on their roster spent at least a night in the hospital. It’s official, the Mets actually made money off the Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme, $48 million worth to be exact. Finally, some good news.

If Bobby Valentine ends up returning to the States to manage the Indians, will he bring with him his Super Mario Brothers’ disguise?

Brandon Inge, a tremendous human being who goes out of his way all the time to help pretty much any charity that contacts him, fell flat on his face in the second half this year because of a wonky knee as he hit just .186 after the All-Star game. Turns out things were worse than we thought. Both of his knees were hurt. In fact, Inge will have to undergo surgery on both knees this offseason, though he should be ready by the start of the season. This is one guy who is in your corner Mr. Inge, even if I would be extremely reluctant to place my faith in you in standard mixed leagues.

Football Thoughts

Darrius Heyward-Bey is ninth in receptions — on the Raiders. He has two receptions on the season. Another stellar draft selection by the Raiders.

My over/under on Michael Crabtree this week, his first NFL game, is 27 yards. Any takers?

Am I the only one that found it laughable that during the Patriots annihilation of the Titans over the weekend that they actually put a “countdown to the Super Bowl” clock on the television screen? It was something like 111 days. How dumb is that?

Why is there a rule that NFL teams have to share injuries with the public/press, a rule they openly flaunt? Have the Patriots ever been truthful with their list? If you think they have, guess what, I got this new fangled elixir that helps to attract hot ladies to average looking guys. How many bottles you want?

By Ray Flowers