Baffoe: Grading The Score Fantasy Draft
By Tim Baffoe-
(CBS) Sunday evening 14 manly men gathered to do manly things. I was not a part of that. Instead I partook in my second fantasy draft with various members of the 670 The Score team.
The draft this year was moved out of the cramped, sweltering conference room at The Score studios (note: the draft last year is still the only time I've been allowed at the studios since I began writing here) and to Jimmy Green's sports bar in the South Loop. Jason Goff got us a private room in the back of the joint, so I was immediately apprehensive about our new environs. To my surprise the room was great, the food was outstanding, and the service was fantastic. Thanks to everyone there for putting up with us.
As far as the draft itself, think Twelve Angry Men but with way more profanity, Brendan McCaffrey partial nudity, and Tebow jokes. Many of you may still have your draft coming up, and it's always good to see the strategies and often complete idiocy of other fantasy owners, especially when it's a group of supposed sports experts and me. So I present to you a breakdown of the 2012 Score fantasy football debacle… er, draft.
First, I'll give you the format stuff for context. Starting positions are QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, TE, RB/WR/TE flex, K, DEF. Four-point passing touchdowns and half a point per reception with otherwise pretty standard scoring.
Being a teacher, I feel compelled to assign grades to each owner's performance Sunday. I'll apply pretty much the same criteria I use in my classroom, that being that anything less than perfection will likely receive scorn and mockery.
Here's a visual of the first eight of the fourteen teams. Commissioner Herb Lawrence ordered the draft kit equivalent of one of the TV remotes for old people, so the whole board couldn't fit in one picture.
Team 1 is Joe Ostrowski's. Joe was missing for the first few rounds because rain made his White Sox producing duties run long, and so he had to phone in some picks. Literally and figuratively. That made him angrier than usual, and there was blood on his clothing when he finally showed up. Human or animal, I don't know. His anger obviously clouded his judgment as he selected a QB with the #1 overall pick in a four-point passing TD league. One of his starting RBs broke his clavicle in San Diego's first preseason game and will likely miss time, and the other will lose touches to his three very capable backups in New Orleans. His top WR is an Illini. Thanks for the donation. Grade: D-
Connor McKnight grabbed Ray Rice with the second overall pick, and that's a pick few can really complain about. Then he chose three straight receivers and wound up with an injury-prone QB and backup RBs. Just for laughs he took Joe Flacco as his backup, a guy who likely would have been around 43 rounds later because Joe Flacco is fantasy strychnine. The draft took a visible toll on Connor as he was constantly noticed to be forcibly running his fingers through his hair after looking at his picks, producing a 'do that Jason Goff dubbed "The Egon Spangler." This team has fetal alcohol syndrome. Grade: C
Arian Foster should do Brett Lyons well this year. Trent Richardson will not because he's gone to Cleveland to die at a very young age (and he's got a knee issue). I think RGIII will be this year's Cam Newton in that he'll also be African American. The fantasy similarities end there, though. Justin Blackmon is as drunk as Lyons must have been grabbing him presumably as a flex. I cannot give high marks to any team that houses a Ginger quarterback. Grade: D+
I wasn't expecting to have one of the Big Three in Rice, Foster, and LeSean McCoy fall to me, but thanks, Joe. With ½ PPR the Forte pick is huge for CTE Soundsystem (that's my team name of which I'm very proud), and he's much better than the 25th pick, even with Michael Bush vulturing some TDs from him. The only blemish on my roster is kicker Neil Rackers who got cut by the Redskins about twelve hours after I took him. But kickers are like closers in fantasy baseball—any one of them can be awesome or terrible in a given year. I'd say it's fait accompli that I'll win this thing, but that takes the fun out of it all. I'm awesome. Grade: A-
Poor Herb was so busy being a nice guy and being a thoroughly unattractive Vanna White and struggling with the concept of adhesives (look at some of those sticker placements, folks) that it obviously affected his draft strategy. Unless that strategy was being really bad. Mojo Drew is going to be a problem child to his real team all season, and Bradshaw is ouchy, just like his buddy Hakeem Nicks. Herb's lineups during bye weeks should be as laughable as his love for the band Loverboy. Grade: C-
Collins doesn't even work at the station anymore, but as former Sports Director (at a sports talk station!) he allowed "Last Call with Matt Abbatacola and Jason Goff" to be on air, so I guess this is compensation. I can't really hate on his first five picks, but then everything went horribly, horribly wrong. Such a precipitous drop I have not seen in a draft since I saw Guinness Kaliber on tap once. Grade: C-
Laurence Holmes took a tight end in the first round. Grade: D-
Nick Shepkowski's picks were accidentally omitted from my pictures, but in retrospect that's a good thing for America. He took Calvin Johnson with his first pick, and I'm just personally against drafting a WR first, even the best one in the league. Taking Greg Olsen in the seventh round immediately killed seven homeless people. Philip Rivers is like his punch-me mug, and I don't think Shep's RBs make up for him. Probably a playoff team, but not championship quality. Grade: B-
Here's a pic of the rest of the draft board for reference.
It took eight picks for Jason Goff to draft a white guy, and that guy is a rapist. This is a very racist team, and I don't feel comfortable discussing such blatant bigotry by a very bad guy. I'm surprised Jason didn't incorrectly assume Olindo Mare is Hispanic and make him his kicker. Grade: D-
Matt Abbatacola wasn't even at the draft because "his wife was sick." That's code for "fear," people. For some reason he had Brett Lyons draft for him in his stead, and he probably would have had more like letting a squirrel on meth do it. Lyons apparently tried to divert attention away from his short bus of a team by tanking Matt's. Grade: Incomplete (I can't grade something I know wasn't done by its owner)
Michael Turner in the fourth is great value for Jay Zawaski, but that receiving corps is suspect as hell. The Jay Cutler pick went nicely with the Bears hat on Zawaski's P.T. Barnum-quality head. He spent about three-fourths of the draft telling us why our taste in music sucks and talking about bands that don't even exist yet and how he already has their second album which isn't as good as their first. I think one of those terrible bands is Pierre Garcon. Grade: C
Chris Tannehill was also late due to Mother Nature's grasp on the Sox game. I have to assume that when he was calling his picks in there was some bad service with a phone because no rational person would take Tony Romo in the first round. At least he made up for that with the bastion of health that is Adrian Peterson. Chris is the league's defending champion, and there certainly won't be a repeat. Grade: D
I believe Brendan McCaffrey was having a stroke during the entire draft process. That can be the only explanation, right? This team is as laughable as Brendan probably is nude. Grade: D-
To get McFadden and Chris Johnson at 14 and 15 would make anyone ecstatic. I don't love Adam Harris' WRs, but they're not awful, and Matt Ryan should put up solid points for this team. This could be the biggest threat to my march to the title. Hey, I don't have to be mean to everyone. Grade: B
So there you have a few dos and very many don'ts as you prepare for your draft. I wish you luck, and hopefully we can clang championship chalices come January after I've dispatched of these bums.
Tim Baffoe attended the University of Iowa and Governors State University and began blogging at The Score after winning the 2011 Pepsi Max Score Search. He enjoys writing things about stuff, but not so much stuff about things. When not writing for 670TheScore.com, Tim corrupts America's youth as a high school English teacher and provides a great service to his South Side community delivering pizzas (please tip him and his colleagues well). You can follow Tim's inappropriate brain droppings on Twitter @Ten_Foot_Midget , but please don't follow him in real life. He grew up in Chicago's Beverly To read more of Tim's blogs click here.
