the G sides

I’m only doing one league this year. It’s a severe drop from years past but my life is to crazy (in a good way) to do much else. I’ve got a love-hate relationship with my draft. I like who I got in terms of where I got him…but there are some players I didn’t want to draft but given where they were in the draft…I just had to take them. You’ll see what I mean in a bit.

I had the 11th pick in a 12 team draft. I normally don’t like this position because it means you either have to take a player that fell that you don’t necessarily need/want OR you pick a player you need a bit too early. My game plan going in was – take a QB and WR early because I figured the great RBs would be gone by the time 11 came around. Pick up RBs in round 3 and 4. That was the plan anyway.

Reality always is so much different, isn’t it? Here were the first 10 picks in front of me…

Adrian Peterson
Michael Turner
Maurice Jones-Drew
Matt Forte
Drew Brees
Tom Brady
Calvin Johnson
Chris Johnson
DeAngelo Williams
Randy Moss

Not what I expected and both QBs that I was hoping to draft a bit early ahead of everyone else were now gone. But the flip side was it left some great options for me at 11. 3 of my top 10 players that I thought I had no chance at were still on the board. Cooper had the 12 and 13 pick. Knowing Coop’s favorite player, I did what any loving dad would do in my position….I drafted him.

Larry Fitzgerald, WR – my first pick. In a league that gives a point per reception…pretty good pickup. Coop had the next two picks and when he saw Fitz come off the board…let’s just say I won’t be nominated for any Dad of the Year awards by him. I felt bad for putting Coop in the position of being so close to getting the player he wanted only to have it ripped from his heart at the last possible second. But this is fantasy football and the sooner he learns that happens all the time, the better. I consider it my job to prepare him. Prepare him I did. I got over it by pick 14.

Cooper – with no help from me – realizes that WRs are about to go like crazy and probably RBs and after these two picks, he doesn’t have one for another 24 picks. So he drafts Frank Gore, RB and Andre Johnson, WR. Not bad picks, really. Pretty solid and safe.

That left me with one of those “You have to draft him because no one is going to believe he is sitting there” picks but you’re not sure how much mileage you’re really going to get – LaDainian Tomlinson. I’d have a couple more of those picks in front of me. Here’s the team in order of where they were drafted:

11 Larry Fitzgerald, Ari
14 LaDainian Tomlinson, SD
35 Thomas Jones, NYJ
38 Brandon Marshall, Den – one of those “I don’t really want him, but I’ll drink the poison anyway” picks.
59 Knowshon Moreno, Den
62 Jay Cutler, Chi – see above.
83 Steelers D/ST, Pit
86 Carson Palmer, Cin
107 Patrick Willis, SF
110 Tim Hightower, Ari
131 Patrick Crayton, Dal
134 Kevin Boss, NYG
155 David Akers, Phi
158 Willis McGahee, Bal
179 Shawne Merriman, SD
182 Laurence Maroney, NE
203 Limas Sweed, Pit

Games start tonight…let the waiver wire fun begin!!!