99+55=30

The above picture is a screengrab of the actual chat-room from my fantasy football live-draft that we just finished a couple hours ago; Yale, who is the league commissioner, made at least 2 funnies...

Man, my fantasy roster is STACKED this year. Obviously, it's gonna change a whole lot between now and the end of fantasy playoff time,--and with an L.T./Randy Moss deal between myself and Jake potentially in the works right now, it may change rather soon... Basically, Jake's the biggest Randy Moss devotee I've ever known; he'd walk barefoot through hot coals for #84 #18 #81. Jake luckily [for me] drew the #1 overall pick, and since he was busy out in Portland, conveniently [for me], had LaDainian auto-picked to his team. I took a few gambles, I know: Cotchery was a bit of a reach, but he had 1100 yds. last season--and now has Brett Favre throwing him the ball. Chester Taylor and Ricky Williams are both backups in real life, but play behind a couple guys who have reputations for injuries, so both of them could, great players in their own rights, have great fantasy upside if they ever have to take over for their respective teams. Even though I accidentally drafted Kevin Curtis, whom I didn't know was currently injured, I feel pretty good about my squad's chances right now:

My starters:
QB Donovan McNabb (Eagles)
WR Randy Moss (Patriots)
WR T.J. Houshmandzadeh (Bengals)
RB Frank Gore (49ers)
RB Laurence Maroney (Patriots)
TE Chris Cooley (SKINS)
W/R Edgerrin James (Cardinals)
K Shaun Suisham (SKINS)
DEF Jacksonville

My bench:
QB Jason Campbell (SKINS)
WR Santana Moss (SKINS)
WR Jerricho Cotchery (Jets)
WR Kevin Curtis (Eagles)
RB Chester Taylor (Vikings)
RB Ricky Williams (Dolphins)

Now obviously, everyone else in the league feels pretty good about their chances too, right now...except for Body and Dubs. Their teams will suck on purpose because they actually made joke selections instead of good ones, which may have had to do with the fact that they were bojanglin' drunk and in Korea, where for them it was precisely 1:15 a.m. tomorrow at the time the draft started.

For example, Body (huge Longhorn fan) started out the comedy right with a massive sucker punch to conventional wisdom with his first (#3 overall) pick: Titans quarterback Vince Young, a former Texas player worth, at best, a 3rd rounder. Body then went on to take Redskins rookie tight end Fred Davis with his third round pick simply because that's when Davis went in the real draft last April, but despite the fact I was able to select the Pro Bowl TE who starts over him in real life, Captain Chaos himself, in the fifth round. Body's other gems, besides basing a pick on a guy's sharing a name with the Wendy's guy: using his 5th rounder on Steelers rookie WR Limas Sweed, his 7th rounder on Chiefs rookie RB Jamaal Charles, his 10th rounder on Broncos scrub RB Selvin Young, and his 15th rounder on Buccaneers backup QB Chris Simms. They all played college ball for Texas...

The blind--or in this case, drunk--must have been leading the blind because Dubs, a UVA grad and die-hard fan, followed Body's example and made a few insane, college-team-preference-based draft decisions of his own: Texans QB Matt Schaub in the 2nd, Jets RB Thomas Jones in the 3rd, Steelers TE Heath Miller in the 4th--when Cooley, inarguably a better option at TE, was still available--and Raiders WR Ronald Curry in the 13th round. All were UVA players except Curry, who almost signed a letter of intent there, as a star high school QB 11 years ago, before stiffing them to go to UNC instead. Wahoos hold grudges, apparently.

I continued the trend of blind homer-ism, although I, unlike Dubs and Body, got good value out of mine, as I now have Santana Moss at WR (poised to have a better year than last, still dangerous though he's often over-looked, better offense for his style than Gibbs used) Chris Cooley at TE (what can I say? he's a super-hero), Shuan Suisham as my kicker (starting kicker's stats are usually around the same 100-130 or so in fantasy points terms, so why not go local?) and Jason Campbell at QB (Coach Zorn will prove his mettle as a molder of young QBs and turn this guy into a pro-bowler, mark my words.) I have more Redskins than any other team in the league, but I take my Redskins love seriously; my only real joke of a pick was Ricky Williams...

Speaking of jokes, I think I'm gonna re-name my team "The Campbell Brothers" because of my two quarterbacks: Jason Campbell and Donovan "Soup Ad" McNabb, both of whom happen to also be black.

Anyway, I'm out. It's gorgeous outside right now, in that magically golden time of year when anything, like Andre Carter and Jason Taylor combining for 30 sacks, the Redskins having more pro-bowlers than a hand's worth of fingers, or me not losing in the first round of the fantasy playoffs after dominating my league with an 11-2 record, is possible.

Cheers, gents.