Ah, the morning after. It was a wonderful night. You ate, you drank, you had a fantastic time. Right now is the moment before you open your eyes when you’re still in the blissful state of grogginess, and suddenly a thought dawns on you. Now’s the time that you roll over to see what you brought home with you last night: the knock-out or the pig? You open your eyes…

There she lays sprawled out on your computer screen like a bag full of rotten potatoes. Oh my God…you brought home the pig!

There’s names like Jon Kitna, Ahman Green, and Koren Robinson…in your starting line up. Oh God! What did you do last night? First off, go take a shower. Wash the stink of a bad draft off of you as quickly as you can and burn your sheets. Let’s not speak of this again.

Now, we’ve got to worry about fixing this situation. An important thing to remember is, just like going to the bar or the nightclub, SOMEone’s got to bring home the pig. And for whatever reason, this time it was you. It happens to everyone at least once. But, what separates the guys who give in to a life of pigs, and the guys who brush themselves off and laugh off the whole mess, lies in what you do next.

More than likely, it’s not as bad as it seems. If you got to participate in the first round, you at least got one good player to work with. More than likely, you got a few. So, we have to focus on the good of the situation first. Let’s look at this position by position:

QB Situation – You somehow wound up with Jon Kitna and Billy Volek as your only QBs. Well, things aren’t as grim as you think. Fortunately, these are both guys with firm grips on the starting job at least for the first few weeks. The other thing that this tells me is that you bulked up other positions while everyone else was grabbing up the QBs, and this is good. So, here’s what you do: Look at the matchups. Jon Kitna and the Lions are facing Seattle in Week 1. Hmmm…Seattle’s got a pretty solid D. Ah, but Volek and the Titans are playing the Jets in Week 1! Score! The Jets have one of the lowest rated defenses in the league. So, you start Volek against the Jets in Week 1 and keep a CLOSE eye on the waiver wire. Did Charlie Frye throw for 400 yards in Week 1? Of course it would be against the Saints, but still 400 yards could mean something big regardless of who it’s against. So, what I’m saying is play the matchups with what you’ve got and keep your eyes on the free agent wire and be ready to pull the trigger the second a free agent shows signs of promise. You may have to hold out for two or three weeks before one of the free agents begins to really stand out, but one will. They always do. The important thing is, YOU have to be the one who grabs him up.

RB Situation – So, you beefed up on WRs and you wound up with Ahman Green, Chester Taylor, LenDale White, and Marion Barber. First off, if you have a solid top tier QB in conjunction with this group of miscreants, then you’re a lot better off than you think. If you’re sitting on Ahman Green and Chester Taylor with Jon Kitna as your starting QB, you’ve got trouble. The difference between this RB situation and the QB situation is that of these four RBs, only two of them are clear cut starters: Ahman Green and Chester Taylor. Now, on the bright side, let’s not forget that before last season Ahman Green was an unquestioned first rounder. He’s an injury risk now, sure. But, he’s always been. So, if he’s what you got…you could have worse. On top of that, while Chester Taylor won’t get you LaDanian Tomlinson style stats, he’s certainly no slouch. The biggest problem, however, with not having a couple of very good RBs is that there’s a 99% chance that there are NO good or even decent RBs left on the free agent wire as opposed to QBs where you can find 2-4 starting QBs at any time. So, here’s what you do. Stick with Ahman and Chester. You’re not going to get into first place with a tandem like that, but with careful planning you can work your way out of the jam. This is more of a situation for trades, than free agency pick ups. So, wait it out a few weeks, obviously, if any RBs on the free agent wire show promise, grab them. But, more than likely you’ll see some of your WRs show big numbers. I’d hope that if you shafted yourself out of starting RBs this badly, you at least have some wicked WRs. So, what you want to do is, after someone like Anquan Boldin has a great game in Week 1 against San Fran, work for the week trying to get someone to trade one of their RBs for Anquan straight up. But, Anquan is your only great WR? Don’t worry about it (well maybe you should…what exactly were you doing while the draft was going on?), great RBs score almost twice what great WRs score, good RBs score about the same. For instance, Kevin Jones and Anquan Boldin score about the same amount of points each game. So, if you can trade Anquan Boldin for Rudi Johnson, you’d better take it and go grab one of the WRs on the free agent wire.

WR Situation – So, you’re staring in the face of a WR corps that consists of Derrick Mason, Eddie Kennison, and Ernest Wilford. Let me start by saying, if your receiving corps looks like this, you’d better have a damned good QB and RB line up, or else you should leave your home address with our receptionist so we can have someone come out give you a wedgie. Secondly, for a receiving corps, that’s not all that bad. This is probably the best situation you could be in, actually, because it will give you the longest period of time to rectify the situation. Fortunately, this is also the EASIEST situation to rectify. Every year there’s four or five WRs who start out on the free agent wire who become viable WR solutions within a few weeks. Case in point: Terry Glenn, Nate Burleson, Lee Evans, Donte Stallworth, Drew Bennett, and blah blah blah… So, if your WR corps is your biggest nightmare, chin up, Chrissy, there’s starving people in Ethiopia.

TE, K, DEF Situation – If you ran into this situation of your own volition, then you make bunnies cry. If you ran into this situation because you let Yahoo do your draft for you, reevaluate your life. Is your honeymoon REALLY more important than your fantasy football draft? Of course not. According to statistics, it’s not like you won’t have a chance for another one, right? As a matter of fact, attending your fantasy draft COULD even expedite that situation. Regardless, you now find yourself staring at two TEs, two Ks, and two DEFs. The solution is so simple, you don’t even need my help. Drop the worst one at each position. Do not carry two of any of these guys. It’s wasted space, if for no other reason than you could be holding onto someone who another manager is starting, were it not for your insatiable need for both Dallas Clark AND Jermaine Wiggins to be on your team. So, get to dropping this extra weight before you sink your ship at the boat launch.

So, you see, no team is beyond repair in this crazy addiction we call Fantasy Football. The hardest part, sometimes, is knowing that your team sucks. It’s kind of like how ugly people don’t always know they’re ugly. Just like your children, every one thinks their team is the best. For the health of your wager, do yourself a favor and take a step back and look at it from the perspective of your buddies. That team you brought home with you last night is a pig. Rectify the situation, or you might as well go ahead and name your team “The Moped” if you know what I mean.

Labels: fantasy draft, fantasy football, fantasy nfl, football, football draft, free agency

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