Every decision I ever make is wrong (aka: The Costanza Post) (aka: The Annual Fantasy Football Rundown) (aka: Dr. Phil raped me at a wedding).

As some of you may know, I have been participating in fantasy football since early in High School. In fact, I made perhaps the best fantasy football trade of all time (Rodney Peete for Troy Aikman straight up. I convinced Nick Park that Peete got a lot of rushing yards). For all this experience, I think the closest I have ever come to winning was second place twice. I don't see it getting much better this year without a healthy dose of luck, a few more hurricanes, and perhaps a team plane crash.

This year, as has been the norm in the last three, I am in two fantasy football leagues. One is a keeper league, where I basically just donate my entry fee every year due to (what else?) some bad luck with running backs. Whether it was Stephen Davis, Charlie Garner, Jamal Lewis, Travis Henry, Thomas Jones or anyone else, there is always some sort of disaster with my RBs. The worst was Jamal Lewis, where I traded for him near the end of the season and he promptly got injured for an entire year (so I couldn't justify keepering him). This year was no different. We kept 3 players, none of mine were RBs.

The other league is a non-keeper league, where I have had some luck...in the draft. In this 12 man league, I have drafted 1st, 1st, and 5th overall prior to this year. What usually happens with this league is that my team looks great after the draft and then through a series of injuries, bad calls, and acts of god, I end up losing a shitload of games. I think I went through a stretch last season where I lost 3 games by less than 8 points combined. Terrible.

***News Flash***
I began writing this post before I went out tonight and now I'm back. I wanted to relay this story to you in case I forgot it. Best line of the night: as we were walking down the street in Georgetown, there is a girl and a guy who are both pretty sloshed (she more than he), he is holding her shoes because I guess it is too much for her to handle high heels in her state. Then we hear this from her, "Wait. How old are you?" To which he replies... wait for it... wait for it... "A senior in high school." She immediately starts audibly having second thoughts and says, "You're too young for me." It turns out that she was 24 and they wound up going back to "his place" anyway, but only after he changed his story to "I'm 21." Either way, I think she was too drunk to realize that he might have had a retainer.

Back to the Fantasy Football...

I'll start with my non-keeper team, so that you aren't too depressed to continue. I took on a new partner this year partially because he wanted to be in our league and there are no open teams and partially because I was sick of losing all my money each year. At least this way I only lose half of what I would have. I took the card to determine draft order and was somewhat disappointed and relieved to have the #6 overall. It was my worst pick ever, but not terrible. The first round went as such:

1) LaDanian Tomlinson
2) Peyton Manning (I thought we were going to have to take him at 6)
3) Shaun Alexander
4) Poop McAllister
5) Dominick Davis, yes, Dominick Davis (thank you Chubbs)
6) Priest Holmes (2nd best Priest ever, 1st being Priest Lauderdale)
7) Randy Moss
8) Daunte Culpepper
9) Edge James
10) Willis McGaywad
11) Clinton Portis
12) Terrell Owens

I was quite extatic to wind up with Holmes at the #6. If he stays healthy, he could power us to the playoffs by himself. That being said, we had to take Grandmama in the later rounds to make sure we didn't get screwed. Here's the rest of our draft in that league.

2) Torry "Big Game" Holt
3) Rudi Johnson
4) Mark Clayton
5) Roy "The Legend" Williams
6) Larry Johnson
7) Matt Hasselbeck
8) Lee Evans
9) Atlanta D
10) Stephen Davis (if he starts, we're golden, like Jesse)
11) Chris Cooley (sleeper alert!)
12) Steve "Air" McNair (Super Sleeper Alert!!!)
13) David Akers
14) Greg Lewis (Super Duper Sleeper Alert!!!!!)
15) Matt Jones (Who is Matt Jones? A freak of nature.)
16) Titans D (this one sucked, but the D we wanted just got taken 1 pick ahead)
17) Onterrio Smith (we didn't realize he was out for the whole year)
18) Billy Volek (gotta back up McNair)

We then dropped Onterrio Smith and picked up the Rams D because they are better than the Titans and they are playing the Niners in week one, so thats our team. I think we have a pretty good shot.

On to my other league.

This was the keeper league. To make a long story short, I wound up having to keep Andre Johnson, Roy Williams, and Tony Gonzalez. Not a great situation to be in. This was compounded by the fact that every other team kept at least 1 running back, mostly 2, and sometimes 3.

Due to a quirk in the rules, although I finished last in the regular season, I was not able to get the first pick in the draft because in order to do so, I would have had to win out in the toilet bowl tournament (a rule that will probably always have the effect of making the best of the worst teams always get the #1 draft pick). Alas, I was guaranteed the #2 pick and managed not to screw that up.

The best of the worst teams kept Culpepper, Dom Davis, and Kevin Jones, so I should have had my choice of the available running backs. Unfortunately, one of the other owners traded up to get the #1 and picked Cadillac Williams (who I probably would have selected). I then bit the proverbial bullet and took Warrick Dunn with my first pick to be my #1 running back. Here's to another year donating money to people who have much more of it than I do.

Here my team in that league. Feel free to laugh at me and throw fecal matter in my general direction as you are reading this.

Trent Green
Kurt Warner

Warrick Dunn
Mike Anderson
Travis Henry
William Green

Andre Johnson
Roy Williams
Deion Branch
Antwaan Randle-el
Braylon Edwards

Tony Gonzalez
Erron Kinney (he will be dropped soon)

Adam Vinatieri
Nate Kaeding

Atl D
Dallas D

So the team is not terrible and I think I could sneak up on some teams, but there is about a snowball's chance in hell that I can win (or make the playoffs) with that squad. There's a better chance of one or all of my running backs eventually not starting this season and me not winning a game (which would be quite an accomplishment) [Editor's note: at the time of this writing, both William Green and Travis Henry have already "lost" their starting jobs]


Neil Weisman moved in two days early.