My Mom Can Beat Your Dad In Fantasy Football

I don’t want to blog about menopause and how it is a soul sucking monster that reanimates every skeleton in your closet into a zombie apocalypse of brain gnoshing abattoirs, rendering you incapable of producing simple nouns, therefore I will take this opportunity to inform you of how I am crushing my Fantasy Football league. I reside alone in first place amongst my astonished co-workers who saw me merely as a part time personal trainer and a stay at home mom who surely knows little of the NFL.

What they didn’t know is that deep from within my lair at Pad & Quill world headquarters, I have multi-tasked digesting hours of ESPN radio and fantasy football analysis on my iPhone. Couple this with a somewhat unhealthy obsession with the game, that took root in Denver, November of 1977, when Craig Morton lead a comeback victory over the dreaded Oakland Raiders, pushing the Broncos to our first AFC Championship and Superbowl trip versus the Dallas Cowboys. I’ve learned the ins and outs and thought I’d share a little bit about my strategy with you.

My strategy:

Listen: Having an iPhone 6, a MacBook, a Mac and countless hours of carpool, accounting etc, listening is easy. The league has evolved away from a running back dominant, to a pass and run dominant offense. I used this analysis to strategize the foundation of my draft plan.

Strategize: I picked 12th of 12 in a snake draft in a league that awards PPC and PPR. I watched as my coworkers wrangled over running backs and proceeded to claim for my 12 and 13th picks, 2 receivers I knew would be heavy targets for their teams; Odell Beckham Jr. and Julian Edelman. Round 2: while my co workers were still elbowing around for running backs I took Andrew Luck and Steve Smith Sr. Round 3: the folks were starting to look for QBs and receivers. Having watched Denver’s D in the preseason, I drafted the Broncos defense/special teams and the Patriots kicker. In Round 4 I needed to look to running backs and tight ends, so again I looked at strength of offense and teams from which nobody had drafted. For the former I drafted Richard Rogers from the Packers, and for the latter, I chose the Atlanta running back who was hurt in week 1. I waved him immediately for Rashad Jennings. Needing to fill out my bench and roster in Round 5, I grabbed KC Chiefs Defense/ST and Rashad Jennings. Being a bit of a homer, I took Blair Walsh and Kyle Rudolph in the 6th Round. They have only started the week of New England’s bye. When Luck went down injured, I claimed Michael Vick, and he did not disappoint, leaving Luck on the bench until last Monday where, in spite of losing, Luck outperformed Brady in fantasy points. I am in first place, having defeated 4 of the next 5 places in 1-1 competition. The most savory, taking down my boss in week two, in spite of his 152 point showing. 156.7 points for me! :-)

Have a Solid Team: Mr. PQ has become my assistant coach and Tim, our Fedex rep and longtime fantasy veteran has become my waiver/trade consultant.

Be Mrs. PQ: One of my girlfriends in our league isn’t fairing so well, so as an early Christmas present to her, I’m going to negotiate trades for Edleman, Smith and Luck over the next couple weeks. I’ve had my 6 weeks of fun, now it’s time for someone else to have a chance!

Not to mention Pad and Quill has me crazy busy starting yesterday in preparation for a great holiday season. So, I feel better knowing my team is in good hands.