The Heroes: A new era in fantasy football. Part II

After a rough inaugural season, my friend and I were reeling and looking to change the image of our team. First business of order was to change our team name and logo.  Bharath & Ketan’s Heroes was too long and did not roll of the tongue as nice as we would have liked.  It was kind of like when the Tampa Bay Devil Rays decided to make a name change and shorten, and what happened? They soon became a successful franchise.  Following The Rays example we decided to become The Heroes, and now onto the logo.  Our old logo seemed a little too playful  (kind of like the old Devil Rays Logo),  we wanted to create a logo of a darker, edgier team, that had a chip on their shoulder. And after a few adjustments, we feel that we had achieved the perfect look for our new team.

Old Logo Vs New Logo

Now that the superficial changes were made, we constructed a game plan for judgement day.  We hoped to get a top 5 QB, a top 10 RB, and a top 10 WR in this year’s draft.  We decided to also bring in some battle tested veterans instead of young and relatively unproven players like Bowe, Forte and Slaton from the previous season. We weren’t going to waste a pick on a top tier tight end unless it came at a reasonable pick (lesson learned when we took Jason Witten in the 5th round last season).

The 4th overall pick, Ray Rice, hopes to lead The Heroes toward a championship this season. Picture courtesy of thecovertwo.com

Armed with this plan and the 4th pick in the draft we selected Sweet Baby Ray Rice with our first pick. Top 10 RB? Check  In the second round with the 21st overall pick we were able to get the most consistent QB in the NFL, Peyton Manning. Top 5 QB? Check. And then in the 3rd round we picked Greg Jennings, an explosive veteran receiver. Top 10 WR? Check. We had achieved our top 3 goals in the first 3 rounds. As the draft finished we ended up tweaking our roster a little and our final roster looked a little like this: QB: Peyton Manning, Matt Cassel; RB: Ray Rice, Jonathan Stewart, Ahmad Bradshaw, Darren Sproles, Leon Washington; WR: Greg Jennings, Percy Harvin, Mike Wallace, Derrick Mason, Austin Collie, Sydney Rice (148th overall pick); TE: Heat Miller, Jermaine Gresham; K: Jeff Reed; Defense: Arizona Cardinals. We felt we had created a greatly improved team.

There was no question that we had upgraded at the quarterback position. We got rid of the inconsistent McNabb and brought one of the best quarterbacks in NFL history. In his 12 year career Manning has averaged 4177 yards (261.1 YPG), 30 TDs, and only 15 INTs; easily the most consistent quarterback of the fantasy football era. Ray Rice, Jonathan Stewart, and the newly appointed starter Ahmad Bradshaw are all young running backs that who are better than our starting backfield of Forte, Slaton, and Sproles from a year ago.  Our wide receiving corp was also deeper and more proven.  Greg Jennings has back to back 1,000 yard seasons and is looking to be even more effective in the Packer’s high powered offensive.  Percy Harvin looks to have a huge impact with Sydney Rice out for the first 6 weeks. Mike Wallace showed flashes of brilliance last season and is looking to fill the shoes of Santonio Holmes.  And Derrick Mason is always reliable after getting over 1,000 yards in 8 of the last 9 seasons. This group is easily a huge improvement over last year’s starters Welker, Bowe, and Breaston.

Peyton Manning brings a new feeling if hope to The Heroes. Picture courtesy of ESPN

To say the least, the new Heroes team is looking very promising.  We have a solid veteran QB to lead the way, great running backs in the backfield that can get it done, and a solid receiving core that looks to grow this season.  On paper The Heroes are one of the best teams in the league, but it remains to be seen what they are capable of accomplishing this season. With a new name, a new look, and a new team, The Heroes look to take the fantasy world by surprise.

This is just an opinion…so please Pardon My Bias.