When Things Go Right!

Today we held one of the three football drafts that I actually care about, in which I'm a expansion team in an established keeper league (the others being an ESPN money leauge and another keeper league that is starting up this year). Coming into the season I didn't have high expectations due to the structure of doling out expansion picks (all expansion teams got a bunch of draft picks AFTER everyone declared all their keepers, which was the same number of keepers in years past). However, I was able to turn those picks into a rather serviceable roster coming into the draft, trading for the following players:

QB - Matt Leinart
RB - Maurice Jones-Drew
RB - Ronnie Brown
WR - Lee Evans
TE - Heath Miller

My first pick in the draft was the 17th pick, followed by the 41st, so I didn't have much expectations for the quality of players I'd get. I was hoping to land a LenDale White type back at 17 and maybe an okay receiver at 41. After that I was planning on drafting high upside players that might develop into something for next season, when we expand the number of keepers (which is currently set as the starting line-up, no bench....next year we're adding bench players).

The draft started off with a very poor decision on behalf of the team with the first pick. They decided to trade the 1st overall pick (ie. Adrian Peterson/Marshawn Lynch/Calvin Johnson) AND Marques Colston for the 3rd and 6th overall picks. Normally when you trade down you're supposed to PICK UP talent instead of give it up (Colston). To make matters worse, he used the 3rd pick on Calvin Johnson (who I think he would have taken at 1) and at 6 he took......the Bills defense?????? Wow.

And it was picks like the Bills defense at 6 that led to the shocking availability of Julius Jones at 17. I was pretty excited about landing a solid running back here. Ecstatic, actually. And this was after I almost traded Matt Leinart to move up and take DeAngelo Williams. At the time that seemed like a good idea, but I'm glad the other team decided not to pull the trigger.

As the draft moved along, the guy beside me owned 3 of the next 4 picks and he mumbled something about wanting a back-up TE. There were 3 players that were surprisingly still on the board that I really wanted so I offered him up Heath Miller and my 41st pick for the 34th and 37th picks. Since I was at my roster limit for RB's, I took WR Mark Clayton (it was between him and Chris Chambers) at 34 and then at 37 I took my back-up QB, Jason Campbell. I was going to take a TE next at 57 since I traded my only one except Chris Chambers, who I had ranked as a Tier 1 WR of the available talent pool coming into this draft, was still on the board so I took the best player instead of the biggest need.

I then watched with an agonizing pain as teams drafted before my next pick at 66. My top TE was still on the board and eventually Tony Scheffler slipped to me at 66. I then took my top ranked available defense coming into the draft at 89 when I grabbed the Washington Redskins. Due to roster requirements I had to take a back-up TE (Visanthe Shiancoe), a back-up defense (New York Jets) and two kickers (Ryan Longwell and Billy Cundiff) to round out the draft. I like all those guys as late round roster fill-ins, especially my kickers, which both play indoors. So, after its all said and done, my final roster looks like this:

QB - Matt Leinart
QB - Jason Campbell
RB - Maurice Jones-Drew
RB - Ronnie Brown
RB - Julius Jones
WR - Lee Evans
WR - Mark Clayton
WR - Chris Chambers
TE - Tony Scheffler
TE - Visanthe Shiancoe
D/ST - Washington Redskins
D/ST - New York Jets
K - Ryan Longwell
K - Billy Cundiff

Not a championship team but it might get me to the playoffs and at that point anything can happen. I also like the future potential of this team, especially at RB and QB. I ended up ecstatic with how well this team looks considering my low expectations for the roster (which should have been deserved, had it not been for some weird picks by other teams).

Next up is my keeper draft on Tuesday and I'll be sure to post the results here. I have the second overall pick and am going Steven Jackson unless Tomlinson gets passed by for some reason.