sdsjr3
Footballguy
I've been a member on here since the "old" days but I don't post too often, I enjoy reading the posts more than anything. always great stuff here.
I notice this year, however, that there is more panic and knee-jerk reactions that I remember in the past. To date (that's 2 weeks BTW since the season started) I've seen posts such as LJ is a bust, SA won't be dominate, FBGs screwed me with their rankings, etc. You know what I mean because you've all seen them.
All I'm saying in this post is that in week 2, unless you've lost half your roster to injury or simply didn't know what you were doing when you drafted...you should have no reason to panic. And that's not a knock on anyone by the way. We ALL started as guppies at some point. I'm certainly no expert and I made plenty of mistakes this year and throughout the 12 years I've been doing this. Perfect example for me this year is Plummer. I waited till late in almost all my drafts and took him as a "value" pick. Hey, it was my choice. FBGs didn't make me do it, nor did the fantasy gods. It's rebounding from that mistake that makes the season successful and fun. A flyer on Pennington or Alex Smith suddenly I'm not so disgruntled anymore.
Naturally when there is money involved in many of our leagues and that adds to the stress level but a PERFECT example was last year in my 14 team redraft. I took Portis and despite going 1-4 out of the gate I built the team up around Portis, because I wasn't going to get his actual value in a trade at that point, with 1 or 2 shrewd trades and WW pickups. I ran the table to the championship game. Of course I got my butt kicked. Yet the season was a success to me.
I'm not trying to brag about anything here, I'm just saying that I see guys all the time dumping very good players for questionable at best guys on the free agent market and screw themselves by doing so. Patience in this game takes a while to acquire because it always seems like "I NEED to make a trade RIGHT NOW", but the reality is you don't. Probably 80% of the time (I'm guessing so don't blast me for that number) the cream tends to rise to the top if they start slowly (See Portis '05). And usually 1 or 2 of the flyers you took either late in the draft or off waivers in the first few weeks will pan out to be a solid performer.
And finally, and most importantly I think, I've seen plenty of teams over the years that started 0-3 or 1-4 make the playoffs. So again, being reactionary instead of cautious is a good way to ruin a solid team even though it may seem this week that the fantasy gods hate you and you have to trade Caddy NOW before his value goes even lower.
I notice this year, however, that there is more panic and knee-jerk reactions that I remember in the past. To date (that's 2 weeks BTW since the season started) I've seen posts such as LJ is a bust, SA won't be dominate, FBGs screwed me with their rankings, etc. You know what I mean because you've all seen them.
All I'm saying in this post is that in week 2, unless you've lost half your roster to injury or simply didn't know what you were doing when you drafted...you should have no reason to panic. And that's not a knock on anyone by the way. We ALL started as guppies at some point. I'm certainly no expert and I made plenty of mistakes this year and throughout the 12 years I've been doing this. Perfect example for me this year is Plummer. I waited till late in almost all my drafts and took him as a "value" pick. Hey, it was my choice. FBGs didn't make me do it, nor did the fantasy gods. It's rebounding from that mistake that makes the season successful and fun. A flyer on Pennington or Alex Smith suddenly I'm not so disgruntled anymore.
Naturally when there is money involved in many of our leagues and that adds to the stress level but a PERFECT example was last year in my 14 team redraft. I took Portis and despite going 1-4 out of the gate I built the team up around Portis, because I wasn't going to get his actual value in a trade at that point, with 1 or 2 shrewd trades and WW pickups. I ran the table to the championship game. Of course I got my butt kicked. Yet the season was a success to me.
I'm not trying to brag about anything here, I'm just saying that I see guys all the time dumping very good players for questionable at best guys on the free agent market and screw themselves by doing so. Patience in this game takes a while to acquire because it always seems like "I NEED to make a trade RIGHT NOW", but the reality is you don't. Probably 80% of the time (I'm guessing so don't blast me for that number) the cream tends to rise to the top if they start slowly (See Portis '05). And usually 1 or 2 of the flyers you took either late in the draft or off waivers in the first few weeks will pan out to be a solid performer.
And finally, and most importantly I think, I've seen plenty of teams over the years that started 0-3 or 1-4 make the playoffs. So again, being reactionary instead of cautious is a good way to ruin a solid team even though it may seem this week that the fantasy gods hate you and you have to trade Caddy NOW before his value goes even lower.
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I sometimes wonder how serious some people are on here. There is a TON of buy low/sell high threads nowadays. As soon as a player has a good game you need to trade him immediately...and if somebody else has a player who has a bad game, GET HIM. Apparently the competition in every league is chomping at the bit to to trade away players who have a bad week for anybody on your team who has a good week.Maybe my leagues are boring but people in my leagues don't really flip out over a game. I have a hard time understanding it. I mean sure, I dropped Roy Williams for Gerian, but sometimes I think things get out of hand. 
so I took that opportunity. This particular league has been together for about 10 years I believe and "dumb" drops like that don't happen too often. So, between Jake, Smith and Lefty I think I'm in really good shape. Although to be completely honest I have a bad feeling about Plummer after this last game. Not dropping him yet though.In the other league that I have him I drafted Vick the round after I took Jake. Just wasn't high on Vick but MAN what a value pick that's turning out to be, and it was round 9 so I couldn't let Vick go. My faith in Jake rebounding cost me a W this past week in this league though. 
As for projections. I don't even bother with that until after week 3. Then at least I have an idea as to which defenses should play well and then I weigh talent/O-line, etc against that based on schedule. Past two years this has worked like a dream for me. I then target guys (like Droughns and Engram last year) who were undervalued, get them on the cheap, and reap the rewards. Notice I targeted "role"players to go along with the studs that I know will snap out of a funk if they are in one. Engram was a nice compliment to Rod Smith and Reggie Wayne in my 14 team league and Droughns was a nice compliment to Portis in the same league. Eli was a "sleeper" QB if want to call it that and I paired him with Plummer. I reached for Gates in ALL drafts last year and it worked out.
