Ultimate Fantasy Football Draft, Pick #3

Only five votes this time around, and only one man got more than one. And that man was Brian Westbrook, who would probably be my #3 pick in any league. He led the league with 2,104 yards from scrimmage last year, adding a dozen touchdowns. There are still some lingering concerns about his durability, but he's played in 15 games each of the last two seasons, so he might be turning into the next coming of Robert Smith, who was fragile as a ballerina at the start of his career, but durable (and very good) for the latter half of his career. Who says marijuana can't be used for medicinal purposes?

This brings our draft up to:

1. Adrian Peterson, RB, Min
2. LaDainian Tomlinson, RB, SD
3. Brian Westbrook, RB, Phi

And the next pick will be...well, I really have no idea. I think most drafts this year will follow the Peterson/Tomlinson/Westbrook line, in some order, for the first three picks. After that, who knows? Maybe we'll get some insight here.

But only if I get more than five votes :)

Ultimate Fantasy Football Draft, Pick #2 (again)

I've decided to start re-naming these posts. Since I'm revealing the #2 pick in this post, I'll call this one #2, the next one #3, and so on.

Now that the bookkeeping is out of the way, the actual #2 pick is...well, a tie. Both Tom Brady and LaDainian Tomlinson received 3 votes. Peyton Manning and Brian Westbrook got 2 votes each, and 6 players tied with 1 vote each. Seems the pick wasn't as cut-and-dry as I thought it would be. So, using my powers as grand arbitrator of ties, I choose, as the #2 pick on my Ultimate Fantasy Football Draft...

LaDainian Tomlinson. Because there's no way you'll get me taking a quarterback second in a fantasy football draft. Plus, that whole 1,776 yards from scrimmage and 15+ TDs each of the last six years thing is the kind of steady production I want from a pick this high. Brady had a phenomenal season, but he's not going to throw 50 TD passes again. In fact, he'd never even thrown for 30 TDs before 2007.

That puts our draft so far at:

1. Adrian Peterson, Min
2. LaDainian Tomlinson, SD

Pick #3 should be very interesting! The polls will close at 6:00 P.M. Sunday.

Ultimate Fantasy Football Draft, Pick #2

The results are in for the first pick in the Ultimate Fantasy Football Draft! Not surprisingly, there were only two real competitors, and, considering my reader base, the winner should be even less of a surprise.

Adrian Peterson -- no, not the Chicago one -- goes with the #1 pick, beating LaDainian Tomlinson 7 votes to 4. Brian Westbrook got the last vote. All are good picks, though if it were up to me, I just don't know if I could bring myself to take Peterson with the top pick. He has great potential to run for 1,500 yards (or more) in 2008, but his injury history is a concern. When I have the #1 pick in a draft, I want a sure thing, and, in my mind, that's LT. I know he's getting a little long in the tooth for a running back, but it's hard to argue with someone whose worst non-rookie season is 1,776 yards from scrimmage and 15 TDs.

Or maybe it's because I got AP in the 6th round of my draft last year and anything higher than me seems to be overpayment. Gee, you think he'll go higher this time?

In any case, thanks to everyone for voting! The voting for #2 (which might a foregone conclusion, but hey) begins now and runs until 5:00 PM on Wednesday.

Ultimate Fantasy Football Draft, Pick #1

First of all, today is the one-year anniversary of me re-starting this blog (on SN.com at least) and making the commitment to post regularly. This is my 184th post in that span (better than once every other day), and I had about 30,000 hits on TSN before they removed the hit counter. So I'd say I've done all right. Yay, me.

To celebrate, I'm going to launch my most ambitious project to date. It's based vaguely on the ESPN SportsNation mock draft from last month and my experiences with gymrome's mock draft exercise, where he enlisted various TSN members to each pick for their teams in the first round. (I picked for the Vikings, before the Jared Allen deal, of course). I had such a blast with it, I thought, "Why not let everyone share in the fun?" It's a touch too early for the 2009 draft, but it's only a few short months until fantasy football season, so why not run a mock fantasy football draft and invite everyone to participate over the course of the next few months?

Why not, indeed?

Participation is easy. On the right, you'll see a poll listing 40 players. Of those players, who would you draft #1 overall if your FFL draft was right now? The player with the most votes will be "drafted" #1 and, the next time I post, he'll be removed from the list and you'll be asked to pick the #2 player. Then you'll pick #3, and so on, down the line until we've completed 24 picks (I typically play in 12-man leagues, so that gives us two rounds' worth of picks). I'll post twice a week, on Wednesdays and either Saturday or Sunday (being that today is Thursday, I'll probably ask for #2 on Sunday), and 24 picks should take us through all the way to the early parts of the pre-season in August, when you'll be gearing up for your real draft!

A few notes about the list. Yes, it's huge and unwieldy. It'll get smaller, but I wanted to include everyone I thought had at least a reasonable chance of being drafted in the first two rounds. At the least, I'm sure I've included everyone who'll be picked in the first round of fantasy football drafts. Once we get past the first 12 or so picks, if you have suggestions on who to add, feel free. Until then, I'd rather not make it any bigger. As some convenience, I've ordered the players alphabetically by first name (that's how my spreadsheet handles it) and by position (RBs first, then QBs, then WRs). Don't worry too much about scoring -- assume just that you get points both for yardage and TDs and that you just want to draft the "best" player available.

Also, this won't completely replace my regular posts. You'll still see the same old deranged ramblings and attempts at humor (really, I thought those Dick Wood jokes from yesterday were the height of middle-school humor) from me a few times a week. And if you want to mention this project on your own blogs and invite others to come vote, I won't stop you :)

I won't vote, except in the case of ties, in which case I'll cast the deciding vote. And please, don't be stupid (like by selecting Chester Taylor #1 overall).

The poll for the #1 pick will close on Sunday, May 18 at 6:00 P.M. Eastern. I'll post the results and update the poll Sunday night. So get out there and vote!