Week 14/15 Evolution of Fantasy Football Players
We are right in the thick of traditional fantasy football league playoff time, Weeks 14-16 of the NFL season, and a lot of our players are concentrating on those playoffs over playing their typical slate of Fantasy Throwdown games.
That’s cool, and we’re perfectly fine with that. One of the great things about Fantasy Throwdown, in our not entirely humble opinion, is that you can play a lot, or play a little. It is completely flexible since we are playing new games week to week. Got the latest project off your desk? Time to challenge some people to a game of Throwdown. Busy week ahead? Scale back the challenges or take a week off. It’s all good – just don’t forget to come back!
For those of us who have played fantasy football for a dozen or so years, give it take, the natural evolution of our lives probably has gone from Mr. No Responsibility, lots of free time, living in the bachelor pad that turned into the weekend sports bar (without the hot waitresses) for the boys to kick back and watch football (college and pro) from dawn to dusk, all the while jawing about our fantasy football teams, and taunting your best buddy, “I told you not to draft Terry Allen!” (circa, 1997).
Sorry, got off track there as I walked down memory lane. That was the old life. What that evolved to (a.k.a. the new life) is Mr. Family Man, work stretches beyond both ends of 9 to 5, probably promoted to some kind of management position which is stressful because the 20-somethings working for you take no pride in the quality of their work. From there you’re running home, and taking your 2.5 kids to their activities, balancing the finances, fixing stuff around the house and all the while keeping the wife happy.
Not an easy task, and how does fantasy football possibly fit into the new life? Fantasy Throwdown is one answer to that. Big commitment? Nope. Get a dozen buddies together? Nope. Manage a team with weekly waivers and trade proposals to respond to? Nope. However… Thrill and skill of the draft? Yep. Play against one person, head to head? Yep. Feels like traditional fantasy football? Yep.
It’s like, as our own lives evolved as described above, Fantasy Throwdown made more and more sense so we can keep playing the game of fantasy football that we love. Damn, we’ve got a good thing going here. And even if your fantasy league playoffs are in full swing right now, those leagues are wrapping up soon. Hopefully they haven’t wrapped up for you just yet!
When your other season is done though, whether due to an early playoff exit thanks to DeMarco Murray’s unexpected fractured ankle early in the game last week, or after hoisting your league’s championship trophy, Fantasy Throwdown will be right here, ready for you. We’ll be here right through the NFL Playoffs.
And what are you going to do otherwise, anyway? Prep for your fantasy baseball draft that is still another three months away? Didn’t think so.
Tournament Updates
Our Fantasy Football Writers Tournament and Players Tournament both finished off Round 1 of the two-week tourney in Week 14, with just four of our 16 participants in each tourney moving on to the Championship round. The game results and group standings were posted in the Site News earlier this week.
Congrats to KevinShockey, ianj300, Fantasy Acumen and @BNQuinlan who each won their groups to advance in the Players Tourney. They are playing a round robin this week to determine the winner.
Mike vs. unstable draft results
Over in our showcase Writers Tourney, unstable (a.k.a. Bob Harris) of FootballDiehards won his group, and then we had some Throwdown vets, filling in a few open spots to get us to 16, who won their group. MtgProHammer and Osowilds each advanced – okay, I admit it, I stacked the board with some of our best players – and I was fortunate to sneak out of the last group.
Mike vs. Osowilds draft results
We are doing a similar round robin this week, and two of the match drafts are already in the books between myself and unstable, and myself and Osowilds. Click the images for the draft results. MtgProHammer is slow playing us while he works to uncover every edge he can get.
Thanks to everyone who took part in both of these tournaments! Good luck to all of our competitors! Well, especially me in the Writers Tourney. I’m going to need it against these guys. I suspect we’ll have one or more players tournaments for at least the opening two rounds of the NFL Playoffs.
Team Defense / Special Teams Scoring Change
Unfortunately, the tournaments were not without a little controversy last week. Let me just say, that effective Week 15, blocked punts and blocked fields goals returned for a touchdown will be scored for the team defense/special teams unit. Anyone who had the Seattle defense against the Rams last Monday may have noticed they didn’t get credit for their blocked punt TD. This was both a programming and rules oversight, and will be corrected going forward. Our apologies to anyone negatively effected by that.
Cool Find From The Archives
I went digging for a file on my external hard drive which backed up my old, now dead, computer. And in fact, I think this is from my old, old computer, but I found something very cool. Original draft sketches of how I envisioned the Fantasy Throwdown website. There is one for the Lobby, the game screen (one and two) and a history page with notes.
They even have a date on them, October 2007, although there was a lot of talk about Throwdown leading up to that. Matt gets credit for the name, so initially it wasn’t even “Fantasy Throwdown”. These sketches definitely came after the initial concept was tossed around the table.
Okay, that is it for this week. Have a good one!