This is the time of year that everyone sees all the top 10, bottom 10, best and worst, lists of 2014. It makes sense. It is the end of a year and soon will be the beginning of another new year. I usually don’t pay a lot of attention to all these lists because they are usually about everything that had absolutely nothing to do with my life.
Not that I am ego centric, OK, maybe just a little bit, but rather I see this time of year, as many people do, as a chance to reflect and look back at the events of the year and, hopefully, figure out what went right and what went wrong: what I liked and what I did not like.
Actually, it is always a good idea to analyze both your mistakes and successes no matter what time of year.
BTW, I am doing a similar post about my investment successes and failures over at my other blog, Bear With The Bull.
So, without further ado, here is my personal best and worst fantasy football list.
It all starts with my Fantasy Football Draft Strategy and outcome!
I always stress that no matter what you do in life you should have a plan. That goes for fantasy football. And no, ‘winning my league’ or ‘winning the championship’ is NOT a plan. It may be a goal, but it is not a plan. A plan is how you are going to achieve your goal.
A couple years ago, I won the championship in my Borderless League. Looking back, I realized I had three receivers and two running backs in the top twenty of their respective classes. Pretty amazing if I do say so myself. Of course, I also had the Bears defense – that was the year they absolutely tore up the league and were the number one defense in fantasy football. Combine all of that together, and you can see how I was able to win with a QB like Flacco.
So this year my goal was to get two wide receivers and two running backs who were in all in the top twenty. I should have stopped there and left it at that but I complicated it a bit by my planning to try and draft both receivers and the QB from the same team. So after careful consideration I decided to go with targeting the Atlanta Falcons as my primary receiver corps and the Miami Dolphins as my bench.
The Borderless league allows each owner to retain one keeper if they so choose to. Our version of the NFL’s Franchise Tag. I chose to keep Jamaal Charles. Selecting a keeper forfeits the first round pick. I thought Jamaal Charles was a safe bet to be in the top ten or twenty and worthy of a first round pick. So my attention quickly turned to the second and third round strategy.
This is where I got in trouble, and it had nothing to do with my plan. For my second round selection I found myself facing a dilemma. My first choice, Julio Jones, was still on the board. But I also saw A. J. Green and Dez Bryant. All three top ten selection material. A little voice in my head said, “Stick with the plan”, but another said “A.J. is a beast” and “Dez is always a threat”. I was actually expecting A.J. to be off the board. If he had, my decision would have been easy. “Stick with the plan”! But no, the other voice said A.J was a gift, take him. So I tossed the plan out the window and picked him. “Stupid” said the other voice. Turns out he was right. A.J did not finish in the top twenty this year.
That was the worst Fantasy Football decision I made. Not sticking with the plan.
As for the best decision, that actually was sticking with the rest of the plan.
I was able to fill out my roster with Ryan Tannehill, Lamar Miller and Mike Wallace. All three were great pickups for tier 2 players. In fact, believe it or not, Miller made it into the top twenty for running backs! I also did well on the waiver wire picking up Miami defense and Chris Ivory right before they got hot for a few weeks. Those two selections helped me win enough games to get into the playoffs this year.
I blog about two of my three favorite things in life, Sports and Stocks. Ok, mostly about stocks....
Passing Perfection 
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