Dawgs Living in A Fantasy World As Draft Day Approaches

Eli Manning and the rest of the Giants quarterbacks get ready for the 2009 season.

In the overall scheme of life, vacations are not real. Get up when you want to get up, go where you want to go. No deadlines or meetings or conference calls. No pressure. One week is fun, two weeks sublime.

In other words, it’s fantasy land.

Speaking of which, vacation is a great time to prepare for the fantasy football draft.

The Dutchess Dawgs of the NFL (Nightcap Fantasy League) have finished as regular season divisional champions each of the past two seasons. The Dawgs have ridden the arms of Tom Brady and Drew Brees to the championship game each season, only to loss in heartbreaking fashion in the finale..

To prepare the Dawgs for another successful season, their president, general manager and head coach “Big Dawg” Bowser has been poring over fantasy football rankings and lists from ESPN, Sports Illustrated, CBS Sports and the other usual suspects, studying everything from mock drafts to rushing statistics to injury reports.

This year, the Dawgs have gone above and beyond the call of duty in their draft prep. First, a team official visited the pre-season training camp of the New York Giants at University at Albany to scope out the talent on a team many experts are picking to win the NFC and perhaps the Super Bowl.

Following that, the same Dawgs official spent a few days at Stanford University, soaking up the campus karma of former Cardinal quarterbacks John Elway and Jim Plunkett and then checking out Stanford Stadium, shown right, the site of Super Bowl XIX between the San Francisco 49ers and the Miami Dolphins.

It’s all part of a well-planned program designed to put the Dutchess Dawgs over the top in 2009.

Big decisions need to be made in the early rounds of the fantasy draft to fortify key positions. But the work doesn’t end there. Oftentimes success is achieved in the later rounds of the draft, sleeper picks that can make a huge difference as the long season wears on.

Built for the long haul, the Dawgs are geared for championship success this year.