JGalligan
Footballguy
If I had to pick between my fantasy team and my two cats, I'm pretty sure I'd do everything in my power to convince the rest of my family that the cats were expendable and definitely wouldn't be able to win us money every year. Is this normal? Probably not. But do I care? Of course not. And I'm certain that none of you do either.
We play fantasy football because, as responsible, mature adults (most of us, at least), there's just some things we can't do anymore like back when we were little, young hellions. Since actually doing these things now would probably get us thrown out, fired and/or arrested, we play fantasy football. It's like our grade-school recess all over again but now with beer, big screen TV's and more cussing. For many of us, it's our only release. For others, it manages to keep us sane. For still others, it proves as a necessary stress-reliever. And for those of us with more leagues each year than we can even keep track of, essentially causing us to root for the entire National Football League offenses all at once, it's just the final step before joining a money league. Or getting a girlfriend.
Sure, the Musical Roster Spots (formerly known as Tony Cromartie's Son earlier this year) are fake, but they're not fake to me. I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure I put more thought, time and research into who to start in my flex spot each week than the many politicians who put key policy decisions into place governing the state and nation.
Ultimately, the point I'm trying to make is that, since these teams are so important to us, unfortunately, sometimes there's a downside. Trading away a player or even failing to accept a trade only to have the player involved become the next superstar stud can literally leave you acting like the frigging Grinch for weeks on end. As such, this thread shall be dedicated to any stories of trades you've made or even trades you decided against accepting that you've regretted to-the-maximum ever since. Perhaps by making fun of ourselves we can feel somewhat better...
I'll start, obviously. Two stories:
Following Week Two of this season, one of my Uncle's (I'm in a money-league with like, half my family -- and yes, this has naturally caused many a long-lasting grudge-rift between many of us, but we always make up in the end... sometimes) sent me a trade that I literally couldn't accept fast enough. You see, my drafting strategy of stocking up on RB and WR value and taking a QBBC later on backfired completely in my face in the absolute worst-case-scenario. Since it's a 12-team league and we need to start two QB's each and every week, everyone presumably needed three QB's throughout the draft (one for the backup). That multiplies out to 36 QB's per team, and since there's only 32 teams in the league... you get the picture. Instead of realizing this beforehand and heading into the draft with a proper, simplified strategy, I was forming multi-tiered strategical plans and researching stuff like predicted targets and grouping receivers into groups of whether or not they'd receive at least 110 targets or not.
Long story short, I was stacked up the whazoo with great RB's and WR's from top-to-bottom, but unfortunately, as a result, I was stuck with the fearsome starting QB duo of... Jake Delhomme and Trent Edwards. Yes, seriously.
Anyway, heading into Week 3, Jake Delhomme had been injured for two weeks and Trent Edwards was benched after two weeks of... playing like Trent Edwards plays. I had managed to pick up Shaun Hill, thankfully, who surprisingly did a pretty decent spot-start job for me for a few weeks. Suffice it to say though, I needed a quarterback quite badly. So, the Carson Palmer and Dez Bryant for Darren McFadden and Byron Leftwich trade offer I was sent looked like a steal. The pure joy I felt at the time has only made looking back on the whole thing even worse. I wish I could go back in time and smack myself upside the head but, alas, I cannot.
As we all know, Darren McFadden has averaged 3.4 receptions (it's a PPR league), 142.7 yards from scrimmage and just under 1 TD per game (in the 7 he's played this year).
Next on tap, and thankfully this is the only other story I have for this year, I could have gotten Peyton Hillis in a trade for Mike Incon-SIM-stent Walker back in Week 3 or so. I'd heard of him before when he was in Denver, but at the time the Browns running roster had some other mediocre talent I thought would steal carries from him. I can't think of them off-hand right now, but I'm pretty sure James Davis was one of those backs who some people were pretty high on. The fact that he was white didn't help matters, either, to be completely honest.
Of course he's obviously had an incredibly year so I've naturally regretted the trade for the last 4-5 weeks or so. However, things were taken to a new level on Sunday when Hillis decided to have his elite-fantasy-running-back breaking out party against my beloved Patriots. Precisely 220 all-purpose yards and I felt every single one of them in my gut. Two touchdowns scored Mack Truck-gracefully didn't happen matters, either. Commence the short-tempered, grumpy week!
Who else wants to make fun of themselves tell a story?
We play fantasy football because, as responsible, mature adults (most of us, at least), there's just some things we can't do anymore like back when we were little, young hellions. Since actually doing these things now would probably get us thrown out, fired and/or arrested, we play fantasy football. It's like our grade-school recess all over again but now with beer, big screen TV's and more cussing. For many of us, it's our only release. For others, it manages to keep us sane. For still others, it proves as a necessary stress-reliever. And for those of us with more leagues each year than we can even keep track of, essentially causing us to root for the entire National Football League offenses all at once, it's just the final step before joining a money league. Or getting a girlfriend.
Sure, the Musical Roster Spots (formerly known as Tony Cromartie's Son earlier this year) are fake, but they're not fake to me. I can't be certain, but I'm pretty sure I put more thought, time and research into who to start in my flex spot each week than the many politicians who put key policy decisions into place governing the state and nation.
Ultimately, the point I'm trying to make is that, since these teams are so important to us, unfortunately, sometimes there's a downside. Trading away a player or even failing to accept a trade only to have the player involved become the next superstar stud can literally leave you acting like the frigging Grinch for weeks on end. As such, this thread shall be dedicated to any stories of trades you've made or even trades you decided against accepting that you've regretted to-the-maximum ever since. Perhaps by making fun of ourselves we can feel somewhat better...
I'll start, obviously. Two stories:
Following Week Two of this season, one of my Uncle's (I'm in a money-league with like, half my family -- and yes, this has naturally caused many a long-lasting grudge-rift between many of us, but we always make up in the end... sometimes) sent me a trade that I literally couldn't accept fast enough. You see, my drafting strategy of stocking up on RB and WR value and taking a QBBC later on backfired completely in my face in the absolute worst-case-scenario. Since it's a 12-team league and we need to start two QB's each and every week, everyone presumably needed three QB's throughout the draft (one for the backup). That multiplies out to 36 QB's per team, and since there's only 32 teams in the league... you get the picture. Instead of realizing this beforehand and heading into the draft with a proper, simplified strategy, I was forming multi-tiered strategical plans and researching stuff like predicted targets and grouping receivers into groups of whether or not they'd receive at least 110 targets or not.
Long story short, I was stacked up the whazoo with great RB's and WR's from top-to-bottom, but unfortunately, as a result, I was stuck with the fearsome starting QB duo of... Jake Delhomme and Trent Edwards. Yes, seriously.
Anyway, heading into Week 3, Jake Delhomme had been injured for two weeks and Trent Edwards was benched after two weeks of... playing like Trent Edwards plays. I had managed to pick up Shaun Hill, thankfully, who surprisingly did a pretty decent spot-start job for me for a few weeks. Suffice it to say though, I needed a quarterback quite badly. So, the Carson Palmer and Dez Bryant for Darren McFadden and Byron Leftwich trade offer I was sent looked like a steal. The pure joy I felt at the time has only made looking back on the whole thing even worse. I wish I could go back in time and smack myself upside the head but, alas, I cannot.
As we all know, Darren McFadden has averaged 3.4 receptions (it's a PPR league), 142.7 yards from scrimmage and just under 1 TD per game (in the 7 he's played this year).
Next on tap, and thankfully this is the only other story I have for this year, I could have gotten Peyton Hillis in a trade for Mike Incon-SIM-stent Walker back in Week 3 or so. I'd heard of him before when he was in Denver, but at the time the Browns running roster had some other mediocre talent I thought would steal carries from him. I can't think of them off-hand right now, but I'm pretty sure James Davis was one of those backs who some people were pretty high on. The fact that he was white didn't help matters, either, to be completely honest.
Of course he's obviously had an incredibly year so I've naturally regretted the trade for the last 4-5 weeks or so. However, things were taken to a new level on Sunday when Hillis decided to have his elite-fantasy-running-back breaking out party against my beloved Patriots. Precisely 220 all-purpose yards and I felt every single one of them in my gut. Two touchdowns scored Mack Truck-gracefully didn't happen matters, either. Commence the short-tempered, grumpy week!
Who else wants to make fun of themselves tell a story?
