Friday is finally here and it is August 28th which means week 3 of the NFL preseason and the kickoff of fantasy football drafting. In talking to friends, family, and neighbors over the past week I discovered about 60% were involved in at least one fantasy football league. Nearly everyone I talked to will be drafting their fantasy football teams over the next week. Personally, I have two drafts to complete – this Saturday and Labor Day – so I gathered up the kids this morning and made a trek to the local Target. While the kids looked at the toys and gaming cards, I wondered over to the magazine rack to see what fantasy football magazines existed. Target doesn't have a huge magazine rack but they did have four different fantasy football magazines. After thumbing through all four magazines I settled on not purchasing any of them.
Even though a wealth of knowledge was in each rag, I wasn't sure how updated the magazines were. Plus, with the vast realm of the internet one can find updated information. Both of my leagues I participate in are keeper leagues; yet they do not work in the same manner of keeping players year over year. The draft this Saturday is a keeper league with a standard linear draft. Each of our owners is able to keep up to two players and one developmental player. While my Labor Day draft is a keeper league that we use salaries and auction draft style. I am still on the fence as to which one is more entertaining or better to participate in. Being in a keeper league gives a bit more meaning to those dull second halves of the preseason games when the second, third, and fourth string players are trying to make a case for being part of the team.
Many primetime players play very little during the preseason because they do not want to get hurt or suffer a season ending injury. A number of websites have Adrian Peterson the number one overall pick and leads a contingent of tier 1 running backs that include Maurice Jones-Drew, Steven Jackson, Michael Turner, and Matt Forte. Missing from the group is 30-something Ladainian Tomlinson. During the offseason I have been agonizing on if I was going to keep L.T. again this year as he has led me to two championships in a row in my family league. Just last week I did trade T. Owens for Maurice Jones-Drew to help alleviate my anxiety of deciding to keep L.T. or not. The trade makes my decision on whom to keep for the family league easier since I had Andre Johnson on the roster with T.O. as I will be keeping MJD and Andre Johnson.
Putting fantasy football in a search engine and one will quickly realize that hundreds, possibly thousands, of websites exist to assist one with research for drafting. Which one to choose is nearly as difficult as whom one should take in round three with the fourth pick. Obviously ESPN, CBSsportsline, Yahoo sports, and Fanball are all great sites to start with to obtain rankings and updated information on training camps. Other sites I have discovered that have been helpful are rotoworld.com and fantasyshark.com. Now the questions before me is who will have a breakout season, which rookie will light up the scoreboard, who will be a complete bust, and who will be Matt Cassel of 2009? Good luck to all those fantasy football owners this year except of course if you are one in my league.
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