Fantasy football: How much is luck?

I've been drafting QB first, then WR, then RB pretty much since I started playing. The NFL is a QB/passing league and has been for a long time now. If you get one of the top QBs, he will consistently be the top point producer for any team every week, so I always make sure I get a top QB -- for years, I almost always had Peyton Manning, a couple years ago it was Rodgers and this season Brees is the QB for all three of my teams.

I'd much rather rely on the QB to carry my team. RBs are much more prone to injuries and slumps. And I've found I can almost always cobble together an effective RB combination from later round draft choices, trades and waiver pickups. This year, my draft choices included Frank Gore (all three teams), Reggie Bush (fifth round), Chris Johnson (fifth round) and Eddie Lacy (fourth round), and I was able to pick up Shane Vereen (I stashed him a couple of weeks before he was activated), Joique Bell (as a handcuff for Bush), Fred Jackson and Ryan Mathews.

The results? I've won a title in each of the past four years (I play in three leagues per year) and have had three runner-up finishes since 2007. And, of course, I'm in three title games this week.

As far as defense, I'll play the matchups if I have to, but I'll try to find one I can stick with. This year, I jumped on KC very early and the Chiefs D/ST has been one of the high scorers practically every week for two of my teams. The one exception was the second Denver game, I picked up Miami against the Jets and sat KC -- Miami scored 17 that week while the Chefs got only six. Other than that, I'm riding the Chefs all the way.

 

D/ST or individual players?

I've not heard of leagues that don't use a D/ST. And if so, why do you hate playing in leagues with D/ST?

 

I play the same way and I've won a championship each of the past three years (and am in the championship this week), while playing in two leagues most years and only one league this year. In 2010 and 2011 I won one league and finished runner-up in the other.

 

Luck? I could've used more of that guy. He's sucked for two months.

 

My disaster season. I've been playing since 1988 and this is the worst I've done in the regular season (5-8), but I am in the consolation finals this week.

My picks. It's a 14-team league.

Trent Richardson
Steven Jackson
Maurice Jones-Drew
Larry Fitzgerald
Danny Amendola
Tony Romo
James Jones
Owen Daniels
TY Hilton
Carson Palmer
Justin Blackmon
Coby Fleener
Terrance Williams
Patriots
Tamba Hali
Phil Dawson

 

I went heavy on RBs -- drafted McCoy, Bush and MJD in the first 2 rounds (had a trade of picks), then went WR (Garcon/Nelson/Wallace). At that point, the only top tier QBs left were Cam and Romo and I chose Cam. I was pretty active on the waiver wire and had Jordan Reed and Harry Douglas before most. The negative was that I dropped Alshon after a few games, which hurt at the end. MJD and Andre Brown (who I stashed with a late round pick) were great the later part of the year.

My league had very few trades -- probably 5 all year.

DST and kickers are a crap shoot, but all things being equal, I try to carry 2 defenses and usually look a week in advance on the second one. On kickers, I try to get dome/warm weather games in November/December.

Went 9-4, won my division but didn't get a bye. I won the QF but lost in the semis by 4 points when I started Douglas ahead of Garcon. That's going to hurt.

 

Picking teams for their defense or special teams. I think it's more of a crapshoot than kickers.

Which reminds me of a story. The first year of our league, we started one week late for some reason. That Week 1, Nick Lowery kicked seven field goals for KC. We were scoring Week 1 retroactively. So, who do I take with the No. 1 pick in the opening draft of a keeper league? Most of the league's original members still remind me of that.

(No, I would not be that stupid today.)

And yes, I'm very particular about a league's rules. I wouldn't want to play in a scoring-only league, either.

 

One guy in our league took Megatron No. 3 overall. We were laughing our asses off at him (everybody in our league either covers or used to cover the NFL) as we all took running backs who would get injured or suck. He took Manning in the second round and Demaryius Thomas in the third and got Knowshon Moreno later...

Needless to say, he kicked all of our asses.

 

RB was a huge crapshoot this year. In the first 17 picks in my league, you had Martin/Richardson/Jackson/Ridley/Wilson plus Morris/Foster/Spiller. All of them were between underperformers and busts.

 

Here's my bad beat story:

All year long, I won two games and lost two games, but I had a team built for the playoffs. Romo, Gore, Lacy, Megatron, Decker, Gronk and a host of solid flex options. I was 6-6 going into the last week of the regular season, needing a win to make the playoffs. I sat Decker because he had been so inconsistent and was facing the Chiefs. I played Rod Streater and Chris Ivory over him thinking they had juicy matchups. You know what happened next - Decker blows up for 40 points, I lose by 15 and miss the playoffs by one game.

Since then, I've won out despite being forced back to the waiver wire at TE. What's more, I'm a glutton for punishment, so I figured out what would have happened if I'd played Decker and gotten into the playoffs. Sure enough, I'd be in the final. Motherfucker.

 

If you're in a PPR league, and I think all of ESPN's leagues are PPR, then I think the top receivers are all more valuable (or at least safer picks) than the top running backs.

How many top 10 receivers this season were disappointments? Jones and Cobb because of injuries. Megatron, AJ Green, Brandon Marshall, Dez Bryant, Andre Johnson, Demarius Thomas, Jordy Nelson, Vincent Jackson have all done what they were supposed to do more or less...

 

We have a 10-team keeper league at work that usually turns over about two spots each year. One of our new owners this year was a reporter who had to cover a school board meeting the night of the draft. We still have a live in-person draft, so I had him print off a list of about 200 players in the order he wanted them, and I "auto drafted" for him.
The guy then, literally, proceeded to check his lineup twice all season. Once right before Week 1, and once around Week 6 when I got on him about it.
Somehow, some way, this guy's team held its own all season. It's one of the most amazing fantasy football-related things I've ever seen. His starting lineup didn't have a single injury, was solid enough to be competitive, and didn't have a week with multiple byes. He was still alive for the playoffs at 5-6 heading into Week 12, but finally had three or four key players on bye and lost.

It was annoying as hell. First, that he was "that guy" in the league and eventually made it a point of pride not to check his lineup. Second, that I lost to him once. Third, that it just killed any notion that you need to be highly skilled at fantasy football to succeed.
At least his check cleared.