Ghosts of fantasy past

Its now the long lull of football season, mini camps are wrapping and training camp is over a month away. Football news is scarce and interesting news even scarcer.  It's this time of year I start to get my first few thoughts of fantasy football and the upcoming draft. With more failure than failure than success under my belt I thought it would be "fun" to look back at three  of my worst draft decisions.


2003 – Michael Vick

People made a lot of fun of Raiders owner Al Davis over the years for being obsessed with speed.  I can relate, In 2003 I was obsessed with the idea of having a quarterback you could run and throw.  ‘its like two positions in one!!”  and “Screw the Madden curse!” I happily declared while shaking my fist at the sky.  In 2002 Vick threw for 16 touchdowns and ran for 8.  In our league rushing touchdowns were worth twice as much as passing ones so this seemed like the perfect fit for my team.  That night I left the draft confident I had selected a Quarterback/Running Back super player who would run wild over our fantasy league, “suckers” I silently thought to myself.

I continued to think this was for a few weeks.  Then one Saturday night at my friend and fellow fantasy league member Joes house we decided to play Madden 2004 instead of watching that nights pre-season games.  I, of course, chose to play as the Falcons and I really can’t remember who Joe picked, we will say the Vikings.   About the fifth play of the game Vick went down with a broken ankle and was out for the game.  A little into the second quarter Joes phone rang and another member of our league, Justin, was on the phone and this is how I remember the call going:

Justin:  Vick broke his leg

Joe: How did you know?

Justin: What?

Joe: How do you know what’s happening in our game?

Justin: No he broke his leg for real.

While I’m not sure this is how the conversation went but its how it went in my head.  Turns out as we were playing Madden, the real life Vick decided to go on a meaningless scramble in a PRESEASON game.  He would miss 11 games that season and I would be stuck in the middle of the pack.

(Being on the Madden cover was only the second worst thing he has done)

2004 – Ricky Williams

For two seasons I tried to rely on a pass heavy, defensive heavy attack for my fantasy team, and that resulted in fairly unimpressive results.  So finally going into the 2004 fantasy season I decided that this would be the year that I picked up a strong and consistent running back.  In 2003 Ricky had 1, 372 yards and 9 touchdowns.  Sure it was a decrease from the previous year when he had 1,853 yards and 16 touchdowns.  So while it was a noticeable drop off, he was still coming off back to back 1,000 yard seasons , and was more consistent then any benchwarmer I had before.  In May of 2004 it was announced he had tested positive for marijuana and would be facing a four game suspension.  “No big deal” I thought to myself four games is a piece of cake.  So I proudly picked up Ricky Williams in our draft thinking I finally had my running back that would carry my team.  In July of 2004 Ricky Williams announced he was retiring from football.

(What Ricky Williams did to my 2004 fantasy season)

2011 – Peyton Manning

Peyton said he would play, he didn’t. I was stuck with Sam Bradford, then Mark Sanchez.