MY BOLD PREDICTIONS teams 5-8 (Timmy-O, Ben, TJ & Dave)

Team Pattymakers
GM- Tim O’Keefe AKA- Pat’s Dad

Team Total- 3101 (4th) Starters- 1409 (7th) D & K- 917 (7th)

Next to DH, Mr. O’Keefe had the 2nd most controversial tenure in our “practice season” last year. I won’t make any predictions about whether or not Tim will manage to avoid the lime light this year, we’ll just have to take a wait & see approach to that one. As for the team, Tim shocked many (especially Tony Jr. who I think shot soda out of his nose) when he, a bears fan mind you, decided to go QB at pick 2 and take A-Rod over AP. At pick 4 I kind of assumed that the Packer’s soon to be Hall o’ Fame QB (that one’s for you Jollybear) wouldn’t make it to me, but I thought it would be because TJ would grab him at pick 3. Tim’s early Rodgers move started a run on QBs that had 6 of them gone in the first 14 picks and made for a very different draft from last season. After the Rodgers pick Tim had to wait until pick 23 to grab his first RB (Benson) and then took D-Jax at the start of rd 3. Both of those are solid picks, though since it doesn’t look like Jackson will be returning anything in Philly, I think I’d rather have Roddy White who I happily grabbed up a couple picks later. It’s a 50/50 though. Timmy then went RB heavy with the next 3 picks taking Moreno, Run Ricky Run, and the (formerly) Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush. While I don’t have a problem with where these 3 went in the overall RB ranks I think Tim’s team would be a bit more solid if he would have passed on Ricky and grabbed up a 2nd QB (Matt Ryan went 2 picks later).

That is the first problem area I see for this team. I’ve got Cassel ranked #20 for QBs, so he’s a borderline starter in our league, but he’s not the type of guy (or more the Chiefs aren’t the type of team) that you can count on for solid week in week out production. He’s also got Henne who he can throw in for decent matchups or bye weeks too, so it could work out. But looking back, if I’ve got the choice between Matt Ryan as my QB2 or Reggie Bush as a backup RB2, I think Ryan is by far the better choice. The second problem area for the Pattymakers is WR depth. After D-Jax, the #2 spot belongs to TO, and then Braylon-hands of steel-Edwards at WR3. I think TO is a bit of a ?, but they went to him a lot in the preseason and he can probably be a serviceable WR2. Much the same for Edwards at WR3 though I think his value takes a hit week 4 when Santonio comes back. The problem is that after these 3 guys, the only thing Tim’s got is Josh Morgan. Given TO’s age and Edwards propensity to drop the rock (and just have large periods of general suckiness), I think there’s a strong chance Mr. O’Keefe will wish he had a better option at backup WR; not to mention bye weeks.

My Bold Prediction- 5-8 A repeat of last year’s performance and a couple games out of the playoff mix.

I’m concerned about Tim’s WR depth and QB2 spot, but what worries me most is that in my opinion Rodgers is the only sure thing on this team. A huge portion of Jackson’s points last year came from big plays (10 plays of 40 yds or more), and I’m not sure I trust him to repeat those numbers, especially with young Kolb back at QB. I also have some concerns about Benson putting up the same numbers as last year. I think Tim’s team certainly has the potential to be solid if Benson & Jackson repeat, but I think there’s a decent chance these 2 guys don’t quite live up to their draft positions and Timmy-O’s team suffers because of it. My trade recommendation for Tim, though again it would be a tough move to make, would be to use the HUGE capital of Rodgers to pick up a couple more solid options and add some depth.

Team The Mighty Monarchs AKA- Team The injury butterfly strikes early
GM- Ben AKA- The New Guy

Team total- 2808 (12) Starters- 1294 (12) K&D- 861 (9)

Well, Ben’s team is the first of 6 for which I have the advantage of having seen 1 full week of games. Unfortunately in Ben’s case, that one little set of games provided quite a bit of insight since his 2nd round pick and #1 RB, Ryan Grant, went down with a season ending injury week 1. Regrettably this is a situation that, as we have seen in the past (last year for DH), can be difficult to overcome, especially when a team is already somewhat thin at RB.

But…this is a MAN’s league, and Ben doesn’t seem to be the type to sulk in the corner with his snuggie when the going gets tough. He seems more the type of guy to go out and make some bold moves, try for some savvy waiver wire pickups, and hope for the best. And the great thing about this league is, if things just don’t pan out this year and Ben isn’t able to get his team back up to par…don’t fret cause you’ll get to do it over next year when Pat forgets to total the stats and ruins the league. (Sorry Patty-O, just had to get one little jab in there.) Anyway, on to Ben’s-slightly modified since the draft-team.

Since Ben already made a couple of moves to attempt to compensate for the Grant injury, there’s no point in looking at his draft. Instead I’ll go with what his team looks like as of right now (the point totals are from the team drafted though). While the Monarch is indeed a mighty creature, a more fitting name for this team would be team “Almost fully mature caterpillar that will hopefully very *very* soon blossom into a Mighty Monarch”. This is a more fitting description because Ben’s team is chalk full of budding young talent that has the potential to turn into a bunch of studs. After trading away Matt Schaub in order to pick up a solid replacement for Grant, Ben is left with Matt Ryan as his best QB option. In the long term perspective for this league, I think Ryan is a solid QB option. The question is whether he will be able to step up to top 10 QB status this year, or if it will take him a bit more time to emerge. Since I drafted him, obviously I am optimistic, though with young players, not much is ever guaranteed. The Falcons certainly have plenty of offensive weapons to be able to put up some solid numbers and support a top 10 QB.

In addition to a young field general, team Monarch has also got promising young talent at WR in Maclin & Bryant, and at RB in Mathews and Spiller. Mathews seems to be the most likely of these guys to be a sure thing as he has the perfect situation in SD, but after a strong preseason, Spiller had plenty of talking heads getting excited too. Obviously the hope for Ben is that these guys break out in year one, and this is certainly possible. Both Chris Johnson and even more so AP had near stud RB level rookie year campaigns; and even if it takes until year 2 of the league before full benefits of this young talent are reaped, they should produce at a decent level this year. Other players like Royal, Gaffney, Forsett, and even Alex Smith to a certain extent, are wild cards that are probably more likely to stay as bye week type options, but certainly have some potential to step up and be more. After all it was only 2 years ago that Eddie Royal was the #7 ranked receiver with our scoring. He returned kicks that year, but he also had nearly 1000 yds receiving; and it’s not out of the realm of possibility that he will be back catching boots at some point this year.

My Bold Prediction- 4-9 (But with a strong bounce back in year 2.)

Overall, I like the potential of a lot of Ben’s young players, but as Big T mentioned below, they are indeed “unproven talent”. Until these guys show that they can perform at a high level week in and week out, it’s tough to bank on a team full of these types of players to win a ton of matchups. That’s not to say it’s all bad news, because I would be very surprised if Ben doesn’t come out with 4 very solid keeper level players for next year, but I just think for this year, they will be too inconsistent and not put up enough week-in-week-out solid performances for a winning record. That said, as with every team in the league, team management is a very significant factor, and if some of these budding talents pop early and Ben can work a couple of deals and be smart on the WW pickups, maybe by the midseason edition I’ll have to eat some crow and bump up my prognostication.

Team Kenosha Moose AKA- Team Tryin to ride Danny Amendola to the playoffs yet again (Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, and is kinda weird—riding a guy to the playoffs—BUT…it IS what people call them.)
GM: TB Jr. (Duh, Tony Barriere Jr of course. How exactly would a miniature infectious disease GM a FF team?)

Team Total- 3085 (5th) Starters- 1382 (8th) K&D- 936 (5th)

Well, I have to say, I don’t think I’ve enjoyed any reaction to a fantasy football pick more than the shock & horror Tony displayed when Tim grabbed Rodgers @ pick #2. (Though a close 2nd is the laughter and (loving) ridicule that resulted, and continues to this day, over Pat’s 3rd round Hasselbeck pick last year.) Tony literally had to take a minute, not to think about who he was going to pick (AP was the obvious choice), but get his heart inserted back into his chest after it dropped on the floor.

Despite missing Rodgers, Jr. clearly thought it important to have strong QB options ‘cause he went there with both his 2nd and 3rd rd picks. I was fine with Eli at the end of the 2nd. He was the #11 QB last year, and I had him at #9 in my pre-draft rankings with Cutler being the only guy ranked higher still on the board. Being a fellow Packers fan, I can certainly understand taking Eli over Cutler and probably would have done the same myself (and at this point it looks like the preseason rankings should have been flip-flopped anyway). However, I wouldn’t have taken Palmer over Cutler, or Kolb/Ryan/Flacco, or even David Garrard. I had Palmer ranked QB #15, and given the keeper format of our league, in my opinion the 3 youngins are probably considerably better options than CP. That said, Palmer did look good in the preseason and Wk 1 with his battling Prima Donna WRs, and IF he can stay healthy and not miss any time, it is certainly possible that Tony ends up with two top 12 QB.

With pick 4 TB Jr. took his Colston as his first WR. I’m ok with this pick as he was the highest rated WR on the board, and the RB options there weren’t great (Moreno, McCoy, & Ricky were the next 3 rbs picked), but Colston has always been a guy that I’ve been skittish about. Not so much because I don’t think he’s got the talent to be a top WR, but because he plays for a Saints team with weapons up the wazoo, so it’s tough to guarantee that any one guy (aside from Brees) is going to put up consistent production. This is evidenced by last season when the Saints scored buttloads of points, but Colston was only the #15 WR. He’ll probably be fine, but he’s a bit of a worrying #1 WR. The next pick may have shocked some, but not me. I figured in our draft with a handful of Packer-backers, there was a strong chance J-Finley would be the first TE off the board. It’s definitely a risky move taking an unproven guy over sure things like Gates & Clark, but Tony, like a lot of Packer fans, had a strong feeling about Finley. My personal opinion is that while I think Finley has the potential to top the TE rankings, his production will be limited, much like Colston, because of the weapons around him. I think a safer move would be waiting a round for Gates or Clark if you want a solid TE option, BUT it’s not a gamble completely void of potential for a big payoff.

Ok, way too much about TB’s draft already, on to the team as a whole. Overall, I think Tony did fine. He’s got 2 solid QB options, at least for now, a top 5 RB (who is certainly capable of being #1) and a decent RB2 in Addai. His TE is set, and he’s got a decent, even if somewhat worrying, WR1. The biggest concern area I see for Tony is his WR depth. After Colston his next 3 options ranked #29 (Mason), #58 (Amendola), and #62 (Ginn) on my preseason rankings. My gut tells me that after Amendola kicked butt for him last year, Tony put a little too much value on return yds going into this draft. It looked for a second like Danny A might have a bit more opportunity in the regular offense after Avery went down, but with Mark Clayton getting all the looks last week, it’s questionable how much production he’s gonna give.

My Bold Prediction- 6-7 Missing the playoffs by just a smidge.

If Palmer and Addai were both to play all year without missing any time, and Colston does end up being a top 10 WR, then I think with just a couple of pickups or moves to shore up the WR2 & WR3 spots Tony could be a playoff team. The problem is, I don’t see all 3 of those things happening. I’m the least concerned about Addai, because it looks like Shonn Green is not quite what they expected him to be in NY, so LT may have considerable more value than initially thought. But if Palmer does end up down for a period, Tony’s back up QB option is Matt Moore. Tony showed last year that you can make the playoffs in this league with only 1 playable QB on the Roster, but he had a huge amount of help from Chris Johnson’s year, and Danny Amendola’s big production. My gut tells me that Kenosha Moose is just underpowered this year, and Tony will have to make a couple of adjustments to be about to get over the hump.

Team Bob Loblaws Law Blog AKA: Team On my knees begging & pleading that MJD doesn’t go down with a broken leg in week 3.
GM: Mr. David Hamilton (too proper & polite for you? No prob, he’ll be DH or Dave from here on out.)

Team Total- 2991 (6th) Starters- 1431 (4th) K&D- 947 (4th)

Well, from talking to Dave before the draft, my guess is that it wasn’t his intention to wait til the 7th round to grab his first QB. But, after passing on Manning for MJD at pick 6 (I wonder if he would still choose that way now knowing how the rest of the draft went), the draft kind of just went in a way where DH would have had to give up better quality players at other positions and stretch to get a QB. Now in one sense, that is just a reality of a draft like ours where QBs fly off the board. No matter where you take a QB, you are going to be stretching. But, looking back over Dave’s draft, even with the benefit of hindsight, I’m not sure I would have done things much differently than he did.

With his 2nd pick he grabbed Moss, the 2nd WR off the board. The best QB available here was the younger Manning, and I would definitely say Moss is the right pick there. Before his next pick Manning & C. Palmer went off the board, leaving him to chose between a 2nd top WR like Fitz, CJ, or Jennings, a 2nd RB like J. Charles (his pick), or the best available QB- the Gay Butler. My guess is Dave’s thought process here was that 9 teams already had QB1s and between Cutler, Flacco, Kolb, and Ryan, he should be able to still get a decent young QB option a pick or 2 later. Cutler & Flacco went before his pick 4 (B-Marshall), and Kolb, Ryan & McNabb went before his 5th rd pick.

So in round 7 Dave ended up with Jason Campbell as his starting QB, surrounded by a solid RB1 in MJD, a solid RB2 (with an RB1 future) in J. Charles, a wild card RB in Forte (more on him later), a top 5 WR1 in Moss, a probable top 10 WR2 in Marshall, and a top 3 TE in Clark. If this were a 1 QB league, I would be absolutely fine with this starting 7 and would say DH just needs to grab up a couple of extra lower rung QB options to play QB roulette, and he’d be set. This brings me to, what I see as a mistake by Dave. Instead of grabbing up a few QB options over the next several rounds, he took Stafford as his only other QB option; when other guys (Garrard, Bradford, Alex Smith, Cassel (who clearly sucks, but still), Hasselbeck and Freeman) all went in later rounds and were pretty much free for the taking at any time. In my opinion, even with solid RB, WR, & TE options, having only Campbell & Stafford as QB options is a huge risk in a league where you can (should) start 2 QBs.

As stated above, aside from the QB situation I think DH has a solid team. Two top 10 WRs is more than solid and the reborn Mike Williams or Manningham will be fine WR3 fill ins, with Sid Rice maybe helping out there down the road. At RB, he’s got a stud in MJD (though the preseason knee stuff is a little worrying), and between Charles & Forte, he could have a 2nd top 10 RB with one of the two. I’m sure he’s hoping both break out in which case he may move one for a QB upgrade, but my guess is that he’ll be lucky if one of them gets back to stud status. My concerns with Charles are threefold. Number one, is Thomas Jones. The two KC backs got completely even workloads in game 1, and if you take out Charles’ 56 yd td run, they put up the same numbers- 3.5 yds/carry for Jones, 3.6 yds per carry for Charles. Now I know, you can’t just wipe away Charles 56 yarder and act like it didn’t happen, but the reality is that he isn’t going to break a 56 yarder every week, especially if he keeps only getting 11 carries per game. Until the Chiefs commit to Charles as *the* guy, his value is going to be limited by his opportunity. The 2nd and 3rd concerns are the Chiefs O-line which is rated the number 31 line in the league, and Matt Cassel’s inability to look like an NFL QB. If teams don’t have to worry about KC’s passing game and can stack up on an already bad line, then Charles’ potential is going to be limited by even more than just T. Jones. With Forte, it’s tough for me to have an unbiased opinion, so I won’t say too much, but it should at least be noted that he did play the Lions last week. And still, it took an 89 yd screen on which he wasn’t touched and a 29 yd td on a great pass (and admittedly great catch too) by Cutler for him to have a fantasy relevant game. I definitely want to take a wait & see approach to Forte before elevating him back to top 10 RB status.

My Bold Prediction- 7-6 Narrowly beating out TB Jr for the last playoff slot.

While I’m more than a little concerned about David’s QB situation, GM ability and experience is a significant factor in fantasy football (not quite as significant as luck, but important none-the-less). My gut feeling is that Dave will make some moves throughout the year to add either a stud, or at least some lower tier depth to his QB pool. In addition to decent QB options, solid RBs are critical to winning in this league, and Dave has some great potential there. After Dave’s miserable fortune last year, hopefully MJD’s knee will be fine, and DH’s season will be left to his GM skills instead of the bad luck of the injury bug.