My Fantasy Football Draft, 2009

Socialist invited (coerced me really) into taking the last slot in a fantasy football league his buddy Luke is running. We were supposed to draft over the weekend but the commish f*ed it up, and so the dirty deed was completed last night, just in time to conflict with the Jon Gosselin interview on ABC.

It was an online Yahoo live draft in serpentine fashion, and as normal I got stuck in the middle of the selection order.

I started out ok, grabbing Larry Fitzgerald and Marion Barber with my first two picks. With the third round QB's started disappearing from the board, and I grabbed Packer Aaron Rodgers. I wanted him for his numbers, but I also think it's important to keep at least one hometown player on your squad. Karmic loyalty and all that. I then picked Ronnie Brown and Antonio Bryant, and realized a problem. Both my RB's have the same bye week. That's sloppy research on my part, but hey, I spent all of 15 minutes prepping for this thing.

That meant I was going to need to load up on RB's on my bench, as they are hard to come by on the trading table. While I knew he was going to miss some weeks, I figured Marshawn Lynch was the best of who was still on the board. Then I went and screwed up again. I'm glad I picked up Santana Moss at WR, but that meant that two of my three starting wideouts had the same bye week. C'mon! About time I learned how to find the 'bye' category on the draft stat page, eh?

In the next round defences were the big thing, and I grabbed Tennessee. Then - AGAIN - a bye week fiasco. I picked up Jay Cutler, who shares the same bye week as Rodgers. Shoot me. Shoot me now.

I chose Longwell and Zach Miller to finish off my team minimums, then concentrated on repairing the damage I'd done to my own chances.

I grabbed Miami's D as a backup, then picked up TD specialist 'Tim Hightower at RB. After selecting Winslow as backup TE, I grabbed Isaac Bruce as an alternative at WR. I'll still have to sit leave one WR slot empty during that massive bye week, but it's better than sacrificing the points rich RB slot.

With the last pick of my draft I faced a quandry. I had no backup kicker, but still needed to work out the QB bye. I chose Chad Pennington, adding a third QB to my roster, with the idea I can trade one of them after the bye and pick up a kicker for one week if need be.

I think it's a solid enough roster, but sloppily compiled. That bye week really messed with my plans, and I've got no one to blame but myself. Oh, and Socialist for tossing this in my lap at the last minute.

Wish me luck!