Nothing Finer Than a 49er? My First Real Fantasy Football Draft of the Season

by John Gustafson , [e-mail]

As some of you know, I’ll be participating in my first real draft tomorrow. The league is hosted by the World Championship of Fantasy Football (WCOFF) . They host a main event every year with a hefty price tag of $1800 per team and the winner of their main event takes home a cool $300k. Who says you can’t make a living off of this? Winning the WCOFF Main Event is a truly elite accomplishment. I often get tired of people telling me how great their “free eight-team autodraft-non PPR-Yahoo office” league is and how stacked their team is…That’s not fantasy football to me, that’s like comparing your kid winning their school jog-a-thon (where most of the kids walk) with running in the Boston Marathon. Play in a high stakes league or one of these main events, then you can tell me how great your team is.

Anyways, it’s my (fantasy football) life goal to win a main event like WCOFF. I played back in the 2007 WCOFF Main Event, but had a team that was riddled with injuries and busts (Maroney, Jacobs, Vernon Davis, Mark Clayton, to name a few). I still shake my head at some of the crap I selected that year.. you’re welcome for my donation. With redemption in mind, I’m planning on playing again this year. I’ll be splitting the team with a friend and we also might let people stake a percentage of our entry fee. That draft takes place until the first week of September in Las Vegas.

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So why am I drafting this early? A few reasons actually. WCOFF offers a satellite league option into their main event. It works similar to poker satellite leagues. If you win the league, you can choose a cash prize or you can choose to parlay your winnings into an automatic bid (and a 1 night stay in Vegas) into the 2011 Main Event. Second, I like the set up. It’s a point based league until the playoffs. Normally I don’t like that type of set up, but for this contest, I do. I like that a few screw jobs that I’d likely encounter in a head-to-head league won’t happen. The top four highest scoring teams make the playoffs then compete in a head-to-head tournament. So basically I have a one in 12 chance of making into next year’s main event for only $220 (the cost of the satellite league). Then once I’m in the league, I only have to worry about scoring in the top third of the league to make the playoffs and should I make the playoffs, I only have to win two games in a row. Those are very good chances. Now let’s get really silly, let’s say I win the 2011 Main Event and the $300K… all off of $220. Now I know you’re laughing, but anything is possible.

Additionally, I am drafting this early because I am very prepared. I’ve been preparing for this fantasy season before last season was even finished compiling my initial 2010 rankings last December. Most of the “vanilla” websites who you give the type of advice that inspired the conception of my site, don’t have their rankings out and won’t until next month or June. This means that most of the other people who draft this early will have to go off of last season, wing it, or create their own rankings which is a recipe for disaster. Hopefully this league is filled with disasters and I can cruise to a berth in the 2011 WCOFF Main Event.

TOMORROW’S DRAFT INFO

This draft starts tomorrow at 5pm my time, California time. It will be slow live draft with 12 hours per pick. I’ll be doing a full recap of my picks on the blog and will also tweet each pick as it comes out. If you’re not on Twitter, sign up and follow me , so you don’t miss any of the action. We should be able to complete about a round a day. The draft goes 20 rounds so it’ll probably take 2-3 weeks for us to fill our rosters. This is also a points per reception (PPR) league. I don’t play in non-PPR leagues, they’re bush and archaic. The starting lineup requirement is as follows…

• 1 QB
• 2 RBs
• 3 WRs
• 1 TE
• 1 Flex (RB, WR, or TE)
• 1 K
• 1 D/ST

DRAFT ORDER

1. No Mercy
2. L.A. CONNECTION
3. CSACMA
4. Did this dude just did this?
5. Fantasy Assassins MF
6. FantasyLion.com
7. HAWKNATION
8. JerrysJets
9. Ficitional Thugs
10. purestrength3
11. EarlyBird
12. Bills Are Back

I really like picking six. I am guaranteed one of the following; Chris Johnson, Adrian Peterson, Ray Rice, Maurice Jones-Drew, Frank Gore, or Andre Johnson. Those 6 players and maybe Reggie Wayne are guys that I would consider elite players with very little downside or question marks. After those seven, there aren’t a lot of guarantees.

My best bet is we’ll (I’m co-owning this team with my buddy Nick) looking at Gore or Johnson. I’m cool with either. If we get Gore, we’ll get a top workhorse back who catches the ball with an easy schedule, a revamped OL, a great supporting cast, a solid defense, and a coach who loves to play smash mouth football. Yes Gore will miss a game or two, but I’ll grab his handcuff for insurance.

As far as Johnson, what’s not to like? His schedule is pretty easy, he’s the No. 1 target on a potent offense and he’s a physical beast who is a threat to lead the league in receptions any given year and a huge target in the red zone. Oh not to mention, he’s in his prime.

I would give Gore a slight edge over Johnson simply because of the lack of top backs this year. As Nick put it yesterday, “I’d rather have a second round WR than a second round RB.” He’s dead on, I totally agree. Will we take a WR in the second round? Most likely but not definitely. We’re going to take the BPA approach or the best player available approach. I love the day before a real draft, it feels like Christmas Eve. This should be a very fun next few weeks so be sure and stay tuned!

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