Fantasy football draft number … five, I think

by | Aug 31, 2008 | Fantasy Football

Sick of our football drafts yet?

I had the second-to-last one this morning. This one was an online yahoo.com draft format league filled primarily with some guys on the east coast. The best part going into this season is that I’m coming off of back-to-back championships. This one was filled with surprises.

Round 1 – LaDainian Tomlinson

I drew the second pick in this draft and was dreading making the choice between Adrian Peterson and Brian Westbrook again when the guy with the first pick threw me the first curveball – he took Westbrook, whom I would likely have chosen myself. Tomlinson is the obvious number one pick, in my opinion, so getting a chance to grab him here, I think, clinched the steal of the draft.

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Bengals cut Johnson; Perry to start

by | Aug 30, 2008 | Fantasy Football

What a difference a year makes.

ESPN.com is reporting that Chris Perry will start at running back for the Cincinnati Bengals after the team terminated the contract of Rudi Johnson.

The move puts the exclamation point on a fast and dramatic fall for Johnson who, prior to 2007, had three seasons in a row with more than 1,300 yards rushing.

Hamstring injuries hampered Johnson last season and he was held to 497 yards. He came to camp, according to ESPN.com, in great shape this season. Perry is more of a receiving threat, but the move confuses me a little bit because Perry has been injury prone during his three-year career. Anyone owning Perry should grab some depth with Kenny Watson.

Meanwhile I’m not fully convinced that Johnson is done. A team like Seattle might find a guy like Johnson, playing rejuvenated and with a chip on his shoulder, a worthwhile risk.

ADD: Wow. The Bengals not only lopped Rudi Johnson but Willie Anderson, a starting tackle for a dozen years, as well. Anderson suffered through an injury-plagued season last year and lost his job to Stacy Andrews during camp. He declined, according to CNNSI.com and other media reports, to take a pay cut on Saturday to remain with the Bengals.

Fantasy Football Draft #4

by | Aug 30, 2008 | Fantasy Football

Last night, ZoneBlitz participated in its fourth fantasy football draft of the season–the only draft in which the proprietors go head to head as opponents.  We found out last year that it can get interesting, since we know a lot about the players we both like.

And this year, to make things even more interesting, we drew spots #3 and #4 in the draft order–so figured we would be sniping players from one another all night long.

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Fantasy Draft #3

by | Aug 28, 2008 | Fantasy Football

So, I guess I’d better finally get around to actually posting that link to our third fantasy draft, for the 3 people who might actually care. This league was put together by a sports card blog, and I joined under the guise of promoting my Football Card Blog.

Having endured the marathon auction the night before, and since I was “Out of Office,” I decided to forgo the draft, and let Yahoo pick my team–based on my list, of course.

Draft results are here.

Next up for ZoneBlitz will be possibly the most interesting draft we’ll have all year, as it’s the one league where Andy and I go head to head rather than partner up on a team. Should be interesting…

NCAA bristles at CBS Sports college fantasy plans

by | Aug 26, 2008 | Business of Football, College Football, Fantasy Football, NFL Media

CBSSports.com last month announced that it has launched an all-new version of its College Fantasy Football game, “continuing to be the only major fantasy sports service provider with a collegiate fantasy football game.”

CBSSports.com originally released the game in 2005. But the controversy this year is that for the first time, it will use real, individual player names rather than listing school and position, such as “FLORIDA QB” or “MICHIGAN RB”.

“As the leader in the fantasy sports business, we’re constantly looking for ways to distinguish our service from the competition,” said Jason Kint, senior vice president and general manager, in a statement. “We believe combining fantasy sports and college football will give fans and alumni yet another reason to get involved in the sport, increasing the popularity of college football much in the same way fantasy sports has affected professional football.”

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Fantasy Update #2

by | Aug 25, 2008 | Fantasy Football

Last Friday night, ZoneBlitz participated in it’s second fantasy draft, an auction format ($200 cap) draft for a league in its second year of existence.   Last year, we blew a big chunk of our budget early on two star running backs–Joseph Addai and Steven Jackson.  Looked like a sound move early in the season, as Addai carried the team, while Jackson got off to a slow start.  However, we hit a mid-season slump, and ended up dumping Steven Jackson before the trade deadline for Clinton Portis & Javon Walker – a deal in which one league member ridiculed the other owner for bending over, which ended up working out in no one’s favor (they were out of it already, and it certainly didn’t help us at season’s end).

So this year, our goal was not to blow our budget on so few guys, and and it worked out–kind of.  Not really 100% sure on the order we got these guys, but here goes:

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