Archive for July, 2008

If you followed along with my recent expert draft, you saw me pass on taking a lot of depth at running back (RB) in the early rounds. Only in the later rounds did I really flesh out the RB position on my team.

Taking Tom Brady in the first round certainly didn’t help me snag several elite RBs, but he fell to me at the 10 spot. Come on, I had to do it.

In the first seven rounds, I only took two RBs, Ryan Grant in the second round and Jonathan Stewart in the fifth round.

I don’t hate the idea of taking two or three RBs at the beginning of your draft this year. In fact, I have in several mocks I’ll be posting about soon.

After the long, over-hyped saga of rumors and speculation, Brett Favre should turn in his request for reinstatement and show up to the Green Bay Packers training camp this weekend.

Even though Favre and the Packers administration are talking, the Packers haven’t changed their stance on backing Aaron Rodgers as the starter, so it looks like Brett Favre could now be traded to one of several suitors.

The New York Jets have received permission to talk to Favre — unlike Minnesota – while Tampa Bay also remains in the mix as a possible destination for the legend who can’t decide when to quit.

While Favre is likely to drastically improve the wide receiver (WR) production for any team hurting at QB, trade talks are having an effect on quarterbacks in fantasy football drafts and mock drafts.

The Jason Taylor trade that was rumored but always “danced around” by the Dolphins seemed like it was never going to happen until it did on Sunday. Little did we know yesterday that the bigger fantasy football news was still to come this week.

The other much-rumored trade of disgruntled New York Giant Jeremy Shockey to the New Orleans Saints is a done deal today. I guess Shockey has something against playing in any city considered “Old.”

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According to ESPN, the same deal that the Saints had offered the Giants back before the draft, a draft pick in the second round and another in the fifth round, was good enough this time around to send Shockey to New Orleans. Apparently, a three-team trade involving Jason Taylor might have been in the works — and possibly ruined when the Washington Redskins went ahead and traded for Taylor themselves with Miami yesterday.

For a week now, I’ve been participating in an ongoing expert league draft put together by JunkyardJake.com. Other than a few small mocks, this draft is my first of the 2008 fantasy football season, and it’s also the earliest I have ever tried to put a team together for fantasy football.

Drafting this early is sort of like trying to sketch a picture of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s new twins before you’ve even seen them — and no, it’s not just hard because they still always look like stick figures. You know that it’s got to be some world-ending, judgment day kind of beauty when these fantasy studs come together in training camp, but without seeing it live and in-person, there’s still that level of unpredictability. Your rookie stud could burnout in training camp, your veteran’s injury could continue to flair up until he hits the PUP list and/or your sure-thing WR3 could get passed on the depth chart.

To continue the fantasy definition series, we’ll take a look at the divisions between fantasy quarterbacks.

After nailing down the difference between running backs, understanding the definition of a QB1 versus a QB2 could make or break your fantasy team.

Every winning fantasy team has at least one QB1 on the roster — sometimes two. That’s pretty much a given. We’ll break down the quarterback position into QB1s and QB2s, but sadly, QB3s don’t really exist except maybe in Canada or the arena league.

QUARTERBACK 1 (QB1)

Tom Brady. Period. That’s what you’re thinking, right?

Tom Brady put up some freakish stats in 2007, far beyond what to expect from a QB1 — call it QB0 with a little Gilbert Arenas influence. Several factors indicate that he should return to earth in 2008 but still produce high-end QB1 numbers.

Instead of focusing on Brady though, let’s talk about the definition of a QB1, Peyton Manning.