Ministry of Pain
Footballguy
Surprisingly it took me many years before I finally gave in and tried a best ball league. A dynasty best ball league nonetheless. I was one of those people that felt the only way to play this game was to pick out who was going to be in my starting line up each week, even though it was painful to watch guys blow up on my bench, it was OK because everyone else was running the same risk. Even though I felt I could evaluate players better, draft stronger, predict trends coming, after awhile of watching my bench points far exceed everyone else’s…I knew there had to be a better way.
Also I am now 34 years old. I had a lot more free time when I was younger. Many of us have been posting in here since the old yellow board and believe it or not that was about 10 years ago…yes it was. I can still remember everyone coming into here frantically during the 9/11 attacks in New York. But the real point of this is simple…many of us have moved on and gotten big jobs in big corporations, or settled down and got married, and some of us even have little ones running about the house now. Still, we want to continue playing and competing in a hobby we have grown to love from a sport we have long admired since we were children. Who has the time needed to really sit down and crunch stats, projections, and prognosticate the same way we used to 10 years ago? And the answer is we can’t. You can’t keep a wife happy, be a good dad, and be a great worker while trying to spend 15-20 hours a week reading up on football all the time.
Now Footballguys has become a best friend for a lot of us as many of us allow Joe, David, and the entire staff to do most of the dirty work for us but I still think you have to absorb everything you read and if you read everything FBG releases each week…let’s just say it can be very time consuming too.
So what are the options? Friends, I want all of you that have never played in a best ball league format to consider trying one this upcoming season. I have never had more fun, felt better about showcasing my ability to draft, and had less to actually manage once the season starts than I do in my best ball leagues. I don’t wake up on Sunday Morning and sit on the computer screen for 4 hours, listen to the entire 2 hour Sunday Kick Off show on ESPN, and try and tune in national radio syndicates in order to figure out if the guy that is questionable with a hammy is going to play or not. I don’t worry about it because he along with my other 19 or so players are all eligible to be in my starting rotation…because it’s best ball. No more fretting all week what BB is doing with the NE injury report, or Shanny moving RB in and out of the Denver line up, none of this matters in best ball.
Some of you will say that it takes away form the in game strategy…and I say bullspit to that. The strategy is being implemented at the draft. You know what you are going to do and what the gameplan is for the season at the draft. It puts all the weight on what you do that day…and that is what we work so hard in here to try and get ready for. You can still make trades, work the WW, all those things during the season but what you do at the draft, and especially in rounds 8-15, and especially those very late picks to round out your team in rounds like 16-20…those can make or break a team. Anyone can pick up a magazine, log in to here, and put up an all star team thru 6 rounds…everyone has done that…but in best ball, I can even that playing field out by drafting strong and deep well in to the later rounds of the draft.
I am going to be doing a series on different angles and current relevant keys to a good best ball team in the coming weeks. We do have some pretty good examples in the mock draft forum from the winter leagues and the SSL I-IV which just finished up recently. I’ll show some subtle differences in dynasty vs redraft, and I will also show a couple of leagues where they play both dynasty and redraft with the same 12 owners year in and year out.
This is the 1st thread in the series, and I would like to get some feedback on what people think about best ball that play in a league and also those that shy away from it, or just plain don’t like it. I feel like the old way of setting your starting rosters each week is a lot like 7 card stud in poker…on its way down. And best ball leagues are a little more like Texas Hold’em or even Omaha in poker.
Thoughts on best ball leagues?
Also I am now 34 years old. I had a lot more free time when I was younger. Many of us have been posting in here since the old yellow board and believe it or not that was about 10 years ago…yes it was. I can still remember everyone coming into here frantically during the 9/11 attacks in New York. But the real point of this is simple…many of us have moved on and gotten big jobs in big corporations, or settled down and got married, and some of us even have little ones running about the house now. Still, we want to continue playing and competing in a hobby we have grown to love from a sport we have long admired since we were children. Who has the time needed to really sit down and crunch stats, projections, and prognosticate the same way we used to 10 years ago? And the answer is we can’t. You can’t keep a wife happy, be a good dad, and be a great worker while trying to spend 15-20 hours a week reading up on football all the time.
Now Footballguys has become a best friend for a lot of us as many of us allow Joe, David, and the entire staff to do most of the dirty work for us but I still think you have to absorb everything you read and if you read everything FBG releases each week…let’s just say it can be very time consuming too.
So what are the options? Friends, I want all of you that have never played in a best ball league format to consider trying one this upcoming season. I have never had more fun, felt better about showcasing my ability to draft, and had less to actually manage once the season starts than I do in my best ball leagues. I don’t wake up on Sunday Morning and sit on the computer screen for 4 hours, listen to the entire 2 hour Sunday Kick Off show on ESPN, and try and tune in national radio syndicates in order to figure out if the guy that is questionable with a hammy is going to play or not. I don’t worry about it because he along with my other 19 or so players are all eligible to be in my starting rotation…because it’s best ball. No more fretting all week what BB is doing with the NE injury report, or Shanny moving RB in and out of the Denver line up, none of this matters in best ball.
Some of you will say that it takes away form the in game strategy…and I say bullspit to that. The strategy is being implemented at the draft. You know what you are going to do and what the gameplan is for the season at the draft. It puts all the weight on what you do that day…and that is what we work so hard in here to try and get ready for. You can still make trades, work the WW, all those things during the season but what you do at the draft, and especially in rounds 8-15, and especially those very late picks to round out your team in rounds like 16-20…those can make or break a team. Anyone can pick up a magazine, log in to here, and put up an all star team thru 6 rounds…everyone has done that…but in best ball, I can even that playing field out by drafting strong and deep well in to the later rounds of the draft.
I am going to be doing a series on different angles and current relevant keys to a good best ball team in the coming weeks. We do have some pretty good examples in the mock draft forum from the winter leagues and the SSL I-IV which just finished up recently. I’ll show some subtle differences in dynasty vs redraft, and I will also show a couple of leagues where they play both dynasty and redraft with the same 12 owners year in and year out.
This is the 1st thread in the series, and I would like to get some feedback on what people think about best ball that play in a league and also those that shy away from it, or just plain don’t like it. I feel like the old way of setting your starting rosters each week is a lot like 7 card stud in poker…on its way down. And best ball leagues are a little more like Texas Hold’em or even Omaha in poker.
Thoughts on best ball leagues?