K.I.S.S. - keep it simple stupid. i believe that fantasy football should be kept a simple game. not too many scoring categories, not too many modifiers. maybe a few extra points for a long bomb, maybe a few extra points for a "big game (games of 100+ rushing/receiving yards, or 300+ passing)." but no more than that. the fun of fantasy football lies in it's simplicity.

and i believe in balancing out the positions. in all of my leagues, we reward 0.5pts per reception, mostly to help WRs close the gap to their RB peers. another way to help WRs is to give +2 pts or something when a TD is over 50 yards. this rewards deep bombs. but quite honestly, giving a player +2 for long plays that result in a TD is really only adding maybe 8 points to their total over the course of a season. so i don't even bother.

i also eliminate the TE category. while TEs have had a resurgence in recent years, usually there is one top flight TE, a handful of decent ones, and then trash. having a specific TE position inflates the value of a tony gonzalez and really, he's more of a WR than a true TE. it's like requiring a FB position just because it exists on the football field. you'd have one FB who's good and then scrubs that get picked on teams just because you need a FB.

i think you should be able to run-and-shoot. my leagues have the option to go to a one back, four WR/TE set. this reflects what's possible on the actual football field. you can't get 2 RBs, 3 WRs, a TE and another RB/WR in there. i say make the weekly lineups reflect what a real team might look like. does a real team ever play 3 RBs? hell no. that shouldn't even be an option. three RBs. ridiculous.

and don't punish Ks for missing FGs. it's part of the job. no K is perfect. part of the job is to take kicks and miss. Ks score so infrequently anyway that penalizing them is like shooting a child in the foot as they're learning to walk. why do that? i could maybe do with -1 point for a missed gimme, but really, what's the point?

as for D/ST, i think the categories should be basic. i've seen many teams have their D/ST rank as their third or even second best player at the end of a season. think about it, how often will a D/ST record no sacks, no INTs, no points of any kind? very rarely. so don't inflate INTs and sacks to more than what they should be worth -- 2 pts and 1 pt respectively. our leagues usually reward fumble recoveries too, but i could really do away with that category. and don't even get me started on crap categories like "tackles for a loss." are you kidding me?

i don't think a D/ST should be scoring 20+ points on any given week unless they managed a TD or had a really outstanding INT or sack day. a D/ST is guaranteed five to ten points a week just by playing the game, even the average D/STs should get to seven points just by sitting around.

that's better than most of the WRs on your roster. i feel like D/ST should be slightly better than Ks, and not more valuable than three-fourths of your roster. nobody plays fantasy football to live and die every week on the exploits of the Ravens D.

and the last thing that i advocate: 4 pts per passing TD. think about it. rewarding 6 TDs per passing TD is a bit much. an average NFL QB, even a terrible one, will throw 15-20 TDs a year. a really good QB will throw close to 30. find me another position player that will put up even 20 TDs. no player can regularly get 2 TDs per game (aside from Priest when he's healthy). sure, -2 for INTs hurt some, but over the course of a season, 6pts per passing TD seems too much to me. the best QBs will still be the highest scoring players, but by lowering passing TDs, it brings them to earth a little bit. mainly the issue is that any QB, even on a really crappy day, should throw 200 yards. with 1pt per 20/25 yards, a QB is guaranteed to get about ten points when they play. no other position can touch that. all my leagues do have passing TDs at 6pts, because my fellow owners feel that they don't mind a QB's points being slightly better than all other players, to better reflect the prominent position a QB plays on the field. but to me, 4 pts per passing TD works much better.

and um, that is all.

I lost. The 2004 season is over.

Quarter Mile (2-2)

at the quarter mark i'm loving my team, absolutely loving it. i didn't think i would be competitive at all this year but so far i'm 2-2 (could be 3-1 if i didn't make another lineup snafu). the only thing that's really going to hurt is losing tiki barber. due to another bunked lineup in WK3, i had an extra player and i debated dropping tiki or justin mccareins. i dropped tiki. and now i'm a believer. my reasoning was that i had six backs on my roster and only three wides, and i reallly needed another WR to step up. plus, if mccareins plain sucked, i could at least dump him later for another WR prospect. i think i lost out on michael clayton by waiting so long.

tiki is going to have a great year. there's no slowing him down. last year's champ, the jammers, picked him up (the two winless teams before the jammers on the waiver wire weren't paying attention and let tiki slip) and now i'm facing him this week. i'm going to get beat by my own RB. this sucks. but i had to drop the savvy veteran because i had to remind myself that i'm rebuilding for next year. which could be a mistake since my team is looking like a dark horse contender this year.
right now my total points scored is solidly middle of the pack. which isn't great but far better than i anticipated. with aaron brooks as a steady QB, my RBs are really starting to pick up the slack, and that's been without tiki for the whole season (since i keep adding/dropping him). lee suggs is looking like he's ready to start, rudi johnson is rounding into form, and i still have deshaun foster, steven jackson and willis mcgahee sitting.

my WRs are very suspect beyond roy williams. larry fitzgerald has been a big disappointment and if not in a keeper league, his ass would be out of a job. ashley lelie is seemingly turning the corner one week and then dropping balls the next. oh well. and mccariens, i don't even want to talk about mccariens.

Third Year's the Charm.

"The trend of wide receivers breaking out in their third pro season continues to prove valid. Javon Walker, Deion Branch, David Givens and Donté Stallworth have all made impacts for their respective teams, and Reche Caldwell, Ashley Lelie, Antonio Bryant and Tim Carter have also experienced an increased level of production. Owners who need a receiver but can't sell the farm should target one of these eight options."
-espn-

Week Two: Huge Win.

a huge victory against hated rival chunky monkeys is making this season look up. heading into the sunday night game, i was up by a good twenty points and with only chris "i have no QB" chambers playing, i thought the game was a wrap. a few hours later, i return and see miami making desperate drive after desperate drive. this is the worst situation for a fantasy football owner. up by a few points, hoping to god that a player on the losing side won't catch a long touchdown. defenses go into prevent, QBs air it out. it's not unheard of for a WR to suddenly get a double digit game from late game drives. this was exactly the situation. miami kept on throwing it and throwing it and i knew eventually chambers had to catch something. so bam. right there at the end of the game, chambers catches a touchdown. so the game is tied. impending overtime. i'm only up by six. that's one long catch for chambers. oh my goodness. how can i lose?

i was already gloating to the monkeys about how a young upstart team like mine could knock off a team with peyton and ladainian. sure shaun alexander was hurt and underperformed but it wasn't like the monkeys were having a crap day. as for me, my team played out of it's mind. aaron brooks got 31 pts off a fabulous game. deshaun foster got 23 and roy williams got 21. sure rudi, j mccareins and fitzgerald played like crap but anything can be overlooked for a victory. but if i'd lost on a last minute miami drive. i was gonna be pissed. but no, i won, and now i'm in fourth place in my division -- the lowest scoring .500 team in the league. i don't care. i got a victory man. actually i should be 2-0 because last week i could of won if not for a lineup error.

but due to that lineup error, i have deshaun foster instead of tiki barber. i would of dropped deshaun last week but due to the lineup mishap, i ended up holding on to him. for week two i dropped tiki and started deshaun and was rewarded with a career high rushing game from foster (which will be carried over to the next week too!). awesome. and now with stephen davis out for a few weeks, deshaun might have a chance to capture the starting job. i'm getting pretty excited for my young team. i might be able to be a competitive team even while sitting on a few prospect. every other team in the league is getting decimated by injuries but all the broken bones and pulled hammies are only helping me. charles rogers goes down, i got roy williams. stephen davis goes down, i got deshuan. marshall faulk gets dinged up, i got steven jackson. i'm only praying every week that travis henry goes down.

ashley lelie has been a huge disappointment. it's hard to gauge if he'll ever be good. he should be donte stallworth, catching deep bombs and running for TDs. but he's not. time to drop him? justin mccareins has been a bit of a disappointment too. it seems like chad just never looks his direction. but roy is about to be a huge star this year and larry will have his day. i LOVE my team. love it. getting aaron brooks off the waiver wire was key too. he's gonna have a huge season, write that up.

so yeah, the dirty birds may not be a championship contender quite yet but we're not anyone's bitch either.

Week One: Disqualified.

what an inglorious way to start off the season, despite beating my opponent on the scoreboard, i lost the game before we even played. why? i forgot to pick up a K or a D before the games started so took a lineup DQ. i asked my league if it would be okay to not play a K or a D this week but we decided against it. the reasoning for me was that seeing who might have promise on my roster was more important that having a K this week. i was going to release donald driver and deshaun foster (or tiki barber) but really didn't want to do it because i would inevitably lose at least one to the waiver wire.

so in a move that was totally unplanned, i forgot to get a K before sunday's game. so now i have a loss, no points, and i gave up my right to pickup waiver wire people this week. the good news is that my team did okay this week, much better than i expected. my young receivers look okay, and with charles rogers getting injured, roy williams should move a slot up. and even ashely lelie (who had bust written all over him) did okay.

my highest scorer this week was tiki barber, which was a bit of a fluke because all his points came from one huge touchdown run. but between him and rudi johnson, i should be okay. it looks like my young backs won't be getting off the bench soon. stephen jackson, willis mcgahee, lee suggs and deshaun foster will probably be using sparingly by their teams. leaving me with a very thin RB corps despite six of them on my roster. i'll have to ride rudi to the top!

week one was incredible. having the NFL back in my life is just too awesome to put into words. we spent all of sunday sitting around the tv, checking stats and scores on the internet. it's amazing that for a sport that's around for five months of every year, how much anticipation you can have in the intervening few months. and how about those old fogies? curtis martin, vinny t, jerome bettis, keyshawn, isaac bruce, even emmitt smith a bit. all those old veterans had huge days. and it looks like donovan and daunte will be the cream of this year's QB crop. four and five touchdowns respectively, incredible. i think i'm gonna regret not picking up david terrell.

i feel like i can be competitive this season, even as i rebuild, especially with my young WR corps looking fine as candy. let's hope suggs gets healed and returns to the field though, otherwise i could be in for a world of hurt in the running game.