Ordinary Times Fantasy Football: Join Us!
Last call for the fantasy football league — draft day is Monday! Stop procrastinating already, and join up today!
Players! Get your lists in order. I’ve done a mock draft and the system is fast and easy. You will want to have tweaked the list that is given to you because on its own, I promise you that list is only a very rough guide. You should be able to poach Andre Brown before your neighbor, but be sure to leave a certain quarterback for my man Jaybird!
It’s a lot of fun, there’s some good-spirited trash talk, and as mindless diversions go, fantasy football is Dungeons and Dragons for sports fans. The winner gets to solicit a post from me on the subject of her or his choice — but if I win, I’m going to inflict a ridiculously obscure Monday Trivia question on all of you. (Don’t think I won’t do it.)
It costs you nothing but some time you were going to spend thinking about football anyway. So what are you waiting for? Get a semi-clever name for your team, and sign up today!
I keep telling myself I’m going to do this one day. I’m supposed to learn for work, so maybe now is a good time.Report
I dare you!Report
It is official. I have Monday off, looking forward to draft day.Report
WTF? I signed up, and it automatically listed me as “Tod’s Terrific Team.” How did that happen?
I can’t begin to tell you how much I do not want to be named Tod’s Terrific Team.Report
At least you got something that resembles a team name. I just got my name. WTF? How do you change your team name?Report
It’s a bit non-obvious how to change your team name.
When you log in to the league, click on “My Team.” (Not on any of the drop-downs below that.)
Your team will show up with its awful name and whatever goofy logo you’ve chosen. To the left of that is a little circular icon that’s supposed to be a gear. Click on that. On that screen, you’ll be able to edit your team’s name, and if you wish, upload a different goofy logo. I enjoy logos of Eli Manning fumbling; YMMV.
I changed my team’s name just now as a test run. There’s a limit of 20 characters to the team name.
I’m quite sure you can do better than “Tod’s Terrific Team.”Report
Thank you!Report
Also, I notice that we now have 15 teams, and one other player has indicated a wish to join as soon as he can get at a computer. So that’s all 16 slots filled. Excellent!
The live draft is tomorrow at noon, pacific time. You must have your player rank list locked in by 11:15 a.m. Pacific time — this is especially important if you can’t make the draft, in which case the computer will auto-pick from your rank list.
We won’t need to have a videoconference parallel to the draft. But your computer should be able to run a Flash application. Test it first. In fact, if you’ve not done so already, I suggest that you try a mock draft first, so you know what it’ll look like and how to use the interface.
Good luck to everyone tomorrow! May you get the players you want (unless I want them more).Report
Let me add a few notes about the autodraft.
If you can’t make it for the live draft for whatever reason, the computer will autodraft for you. I’ve done some of their mock drafts and the computer is pretty good about getting coverage for all positions and managing bye weeks. However, both times I did an autodraft — once using the Yahoo! list, and the other time using my own list, the computer didn’t make comprehensive bench picks. So that meant that for at least one week, I’d have at least one slot open. (In one mock draft, I had two weeks in which I would only be able to play one running back, for instance.)
This may be something that you can live with from the perspective of your strategy. If not, then you probably need to make sure you do the draft yourself.
Also, it may not be an issue for the live draft, but make a point of making sure that you have your own list selected before entering the draft. The last thing you check before you click the “enter draft” button is to make sure that your own priority list, and not Yahoo’s, is selected for you.
If you have autopick enabled, when it gets to your turn, the computer will wait ten seconds for you to override the autopick function. If you do, you pick the player yourself. If not, it will look for the next highest-ranked player for which it sees a vacancy on your roster and select that player for you.
Yahoo will try to open the draft in a new broswer window. If you do not have pop-ups enabled, you may encounter a delay in entering (there is a delay period of about two minutes between the opening of the draft and the starting of the timer for the #1 pick to let people straighten this out). So you may want to enable pop-ups, at least during the draft.
At the end of the day, I think you’ll be happier with the results if you do a live draft. Bear in mind that we have a sixteen-team league, and so towards the end the talent pool will be feeling a little shallow.Report
The Scorned Intangibles are ready to open various cans of whoopass.Report
All smack talk in haiku form.
I’m calling you out.
Report
Haiku? That is so last year.
I thought I had made that clear!
I’ll drop a deft limerick
You’ll spit out your phlegm, quick
And find yourself back in the rear.Report
“Phlegm, quick” is some terrible poetry carvin’
And with two Viking starters, for points you’ll be starvin’.
So if limericks come to mind,
I’ll happily respond in kind.
Since I’m not the guy who drafted Percy Harvin.Report
A limerick without bangin’ rhythm
Will result in some terrible schism
Those who prefer rhyme
might have a good time
but those who prefer meter will find themselves bereft of any pleasure whatsoever as if they were struggling under some stagnating Brezhnevian communism.Report
I am very excited, now that the draft has officially happened.
This is my first fantasy league ever and I’m not sure I’ve heard of half of the people I’ve drafted. If fantasy football is anything like March Madness pools, my utter lack of knowledge will surely translate into victories!Report
Hey, you got Handsome Tom, and that’s a good thing because the Patriots cheat and run up the score. Makes him fantasy gold. I have Handsome Tom in my money league, which is scoring-only.
Looking at your roster, seems to me that you’ve got a strong team, especially at RB. Too bad one of them is a Raider, but that’s only an aesthetic misstep.Report
jealous, craven “wit”
scorning Tom from where they sit
by jackals full ofReport
My draft got a B- :(. I should have studied.Report
We’re GRADED?Report
I didn’t know the computer was going to grade us. But it did.
Tod, you got an A-.Report
I am going to relish this grade, the first and most likely last victory of my FF career.Report
I got a C. Probably doesn’t help that I picked a kicker who got cut (I should have paid closer attention).Report
How do we start bench players? I could have sworn I seen the option earlier, but now I can’t find how to do it.Report
Never mind I figured it out.Report
I am learning so much already! I learned how to move people around in my “line up” today. (I got a tutor.) You better watch out!Report
We move people?Report
You can move people from your bench to your starting line up. Like is someone gets injured or has a “bye”. 🙂 I’m an expert… almost.Report