For many years now I have been a participant in fantasy football and fantasy baseball leagues. I have even taken part in the odd fantasy basketball league. However fantasy football and fantasy baseball are the only leagues that I take part in on a regular basis. For the most part my teams have been pretty solid, especially in fantasy baseball where I have won the regular season by a wide margin on multiple occasions. This regular season success has not translated into postseason victory though. In fact, I have had the number one seed three times and have failed to make it past the semi-finals all three times. In fantasy football my teams have been fairly successful as well. Last year I even made it to the championship, but ended up losing by a mere seven points. Overall I have been a perennial contender, but being a contender doesn't mean much if you have as many championship rings as Dan Marino. That all changed last night though, as I capped off a 121-85 victory in the championship of my fantasy football league. I would like to take the time now to look back at an improbable run to my first fantasy sports title.
I have to say that I did not prepare too hard for this year's fantasy football draft. This is because my mind was fully focused on fantasy baseball as my team was having another regular season to remember; unfortunately, another postseason to forget would ensue. When the night was all said and done I felt like I had indeed fielded the best team though. One decision in particular would prove particularly important, namely trading a couple of my draft picks so I could move up and get Jamaal Charles. However the season did not start out very well. I lost my first game. Then I lost my second game, and unfortunately I would lose my third game too. What made these losses even tougher is that I was projected to win in all three of these matchups. At this point I decided to pack my season in (or did I?), and I changed my team name to "I am packing it in." to let everyone else in the league know. This is when my team finally decided to show up, as they put up 152 points in a victory. However my team suffered a backbreaking defeat in the form of a tie the next week. My team was primed for victory that week. I had a solid 109-107 lead. Then the unthinkable happened; Tony Romo threw an interception in the closing minute of his game to drop me into a tie. A loss in the following week would lead me to pack it in for good and let everyone know that before when I said that I was "packing it in" it was just a mental ploy to get them to take it easy when playing me. So I changed my team name to "Really packing it in" to let everyone know that indeed my season was over. Even though this was just a mental ploy again, I was having doubts myself about my team's ability to turn things around and make the playoffs because it is definitely tough to come back from a 1-4-1 record. My team pulled out solid victories in the next two weeks though, which lead me to believe that my team could complete an improbable comeback. Then I suffered a tough one point loss. On the bright side, my team now had the overall points lead in my league, and I let everyone know by changing my team name to "OverallPoints Leader". At this point things were looking pretty bleak, but wins in the next two weeks would ensue. However another loss would follow. My record was now 5-6-1, but somehow I still had a chance to make the playoffs. In the following week I helped my chances of making the playoffs by pulling out a solid 118-116 victory. At this point I now controlled my own destiny as a win in the final week would secure a playoff spot. This is when my team decided to have its worst week of the year. When the final week of the regular season was over I had lost 56-121, but somehow I was in the playoffs thanks to a couple of key loses by other teams vying for the last playoff spot even though I finished the regular season with a 6-7-1 record. At this point I was just glad to be in the playoffs. I now turned my attention to bringing home my first fantasy football title. My team had struggled in the final week and I knew that I needed to make some personnel changes for the playoffs. I put Josh Freeman in as my starting quarterback, I dropped Ryan Longwell and picked up David Buehler, and I put Jamaal Charles back into the starting lineup. All three of these decisions ended up being very instrumental in my winning the championship. In the semi-finals I knew I would have a tough task as my opponent had Michael Vick on his team. Vick ended up having a huge week. He scored 47 fantasy points, but somehow I was able to pull out a 108-105 victory thanks to my key personnel decisions. My top three scorers that week were Freeman with 20 points, Charles with 20 points, and Buehler with 18 points. Just a week before all three were either on my bench or on the free agent market. So for the second year in a row I was in the fantasy football championship. My team suffered a devastating loss though as I found out that Maurice Jones-Drew would not be able to play that week due to an injury. I picked up his backup Rashad Jennings and hoped for the best. Mike Wallace scored 16 points in the Thursday night game to get my team off to a hot start, and then David Buehler added 12 points on Saturday night to set my team up well going into Sunday. This is when my decision to trade up to get Jamaal Charles during the draft, and my personnel adjustments before the playoffs started really paying dividends. Both Charles and Josh Freeman had huge weeks. Charles put up a solid 23 fantasy points and Freeman chipped in with 42 points of his own thanks to five touchdown passes. I now had a solid lead going into Monday night, and interestingly enough Tuesday night as well. In the end, I would indeed hang on for a 121-85 win, and claim my first fantasy football title and fantasy sports title in general. It certainly was a crazy fantasy football season and it sure did not look like this was going to be my year, but somehow my team pulled it out. There is no doubt that I would have liked to have had a better regular season, but as I have learned in fantasy baseball, the regular season does not mean that much anyways. In the end, all that matters is that you are slipping on the championship ring at the end of the season.
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