Winds of Change Blowing Through the FFL World

2007 was a year to remember in fantasy football leagues (FFL.) Tom Brady, Randy Moss, and the "RB heavy teams winning it all" theory seemed to die out quickly.

It was an enjoyable time of reform in the fantasy football world.

Then, the 2008 draft came along, with FFL fanatics elated about the new possibilities of their WRs outscoring an opponent's RB by 10 on occasion.

Heck, a guy may not draft an RB until the fifth round and he could still have a loaded squad. Anything was possible.

And then the season came.

2008 should live as a cursed year for fantasy owners, and this does not come from my own biased, frustrated view, because I have had success more often than not this season. A certain level of unpredictability is fine, but the frequency of uncertainty in the 2008 FFL season has many fantasy owners steaming out of their ears.

Why, you ask?

Exhibit A: Kurt Warner faces a shutdown pass defense, the Carolina Panthers, in Week Eight. Many owners benched Warner in this brutal road matchup only to see him deliver 21 fantasy points in standard leagues.

They'll never make that mistake again.

No doubt Warner earned a "never-sit" status after that. Then came Week 11.

Those same owners are seeing Seattle on the schedule and cannot wait for Warner to carve up such a pitiful pass defense.

At the end of the day, Warner had 15 fantasy points. Sheer unpredictability.

The percentage of accuracy in these experts is continuously fading, and not to much fault of their own.

Always play your studs? Well, that's miserably failed this season.

Stick to your matchups? What a disaster.

An occasional bad game? Understandable, but not over and over again with various fantasy stars.

And sure, there are plenty exceptions of predictability that I could give, but not enough. Not enough to get those boring 86-78 games up to 126-124 shootouts. Not enough to give an owner certainty in his squad.

Whoever owns DeAngelo Williams, congratulations. But don't even try to tell me that your success was anything but luck. One out of 10 people who drafted him saw this coming, if that.

Heck, if you really did your homework before the draft, you would have picked Jonathan Stewart over him. 

So much for studying.

However, check out the schedule before the draft. If you see enough Detroit, Denver and Oakland on that RB's schedule, you definitely need to boost his value. 

Granted, defenses can drastically improve, so before you eyed the game against the Jets as a good one for your RB during your draft, you hopefully remembered the Kris Jenkins acquisition. So doing your homework does help, sometimes.

Bottom line: Take plenty of risks.

If you drafted Darren McFadden in the fifth round and Steve Slaton in the 15th, you're not two-for-two by any means, but your risk payed off.

Never play it safe. Just when you think the safest pick in the world is Willis McGahee in the third round, it backfires on you.

Now, I am not proposing using your high draft picks on pure potential picks, but don't be afraid to take a chance on the possible the next Chris Johnson. If you make five educated picks of that sort, you're bound to get one right.

Who knows, your 14th round pick could be leading you to a Super Bowl next year while that guy who played it safe is in tears over his bust top-three pick.