An Abysmal Fantasy Football Season

[Vince]

I've been in a fantasy football league with a good group of guys for a few years now, and we put a fair amount of money into it ($1,000 prize purse total) each year. This year has been, by far, the worst team I have ever managed. There were issues with our draft, and I ended up missing it. I set up an extensive list, and ended up with a team that I wasn't totally stoked about, but I could live with. I just needed to make some trades. Low points of the draft:

Started the draft with 6 straight running backs.
Ended up with 4 QBs. Their names were Brooks, Plummer, Carr and Griese.
Ended up with 3 WRs.

We start the following:

QB
RB
RB/WR
WR
WR
TE
K
D

My team after the draft:
QB Aaron Brooks
RB Willis McGahee
RB Kevin Jones
WR Santana Moss
WR Amani Toomer
TE Kellen Winslow
K Shayne Graham
D New York Jets

Bench:
RB LaMont Jordan
RB Fred Taylor
RB Chris Brown
RB Travis Henry
WR Brandon Stokley
QB Jake Plummer
QB David Carr
QB Brian Griese

So I needed to make some trades.

First, I traded Brian Griese for TE Dallas Clark -- sadly, this was probably my best move of the season.

On the Friday before Week 1, I made a trade to shore up my receiving corps --

I receive:
RB Domanick Davis
WR Javon Walker
RB Michael Bennett

I give up:
RB Willis McGahee
RB LaMont Jordan
WR Brandon Stokley

This was still pre-season, so I figured LaMont Jordan's value was as high as it would get. I expected him to be decent, but nothing special, in Oakland. Pre-season hype around him was huge. Wow, does this trade suck from every possible angle. We run an ESPN league, so the players were locked in on their current teams over the weekend, and the trade would process on Monday or Tuesday. Yeah -- watching Javon Walker tear his ACL was a terrible, terrible thing.

A few weeks go by, and my team is floundering. I decide to make another change, and I go for the 'buy low' strategy, with Daunte Culpepper in my sights.

I get:
QB Daunte Culpepper
RB Kevan Barlow
TE? WR? I don't care? Chris Baker (New York Jets)

I give:
RB Fred Taylor
WR Santana Moss
TE Alex Smith (Tampa Bay)

I got a whopping 40 points out of Culpepper (this trade was made right before his 300-yard, 3 TD game -- so I got to watch my opponent use that game for his team after the trade was accepted, and didn't get him for myself until the next week), with stellar weeks of 9, 6, 23 and 2 points before he went down for the year. Santana Moss continued his strong play, and this trade is also on the level of monumentally horrible.

Continual trade offers of Brooks or Plummer + Someone for a slight upgrade over whatever 'someone' was were declined, and I was unable to make any other trades that were significant in the least. Domanick Davis has been terrible, Culpepper and Walker went down from the year, and the only backs that I drafted that were successful this year (McGahee, Jordan) are on different teams.

Talk about frustrating. My team is 1-11, and our only win (of course) comes against the 10-2 1st place team (who happened to be the 'other party' in the Javon Walker trade. Ugh.) in week 11.

This season can't end soon enough.

[molson]

My first 4 picks were Deuce McAllister, Jamal Lewis, Kevin Jones, and Javon Walker. That sucked.

[flere-imsaho]

In my keeper league, we can keep up to two players every year. If you keep two players, you lost your first two draft picks.

My two keepers: QB Daunte Culpepper & RB Kevin Jones. Ouch.

[gottimd]

My season has sucked as well. I started out 4-0 and dropped the next 8. I scored a ton with my replacements in there, but for some reason, whoever I played scored the league high for the week. So I was and still am losing games like 150-170. The thing that pisses me off more is that same team the next week would score the league low of the week.

This guy in my league, his first three picks were (not in order) Bulger, Owens, Holmes, and the next two were Joe Horn and Fred Taylor.

[Maple Leafs]

In a points-based keeper league, I was able to keep Tomlinson, Gates and Steven Jackson. I drafted Clinton Portis in the first round, then traded him for Carson Palmer early in the season. I took Chad Johnson early in the draft, and got Santana Moss late.

Oh wait, I'm in the wrong thread, aren't I?

[Glengoyne]

I'm blowing away the competition in one of my leagues. Averaging about 10 points a game more than anyone else. That said, in the weekly head to head matchups, I'm 6-6 having dropped the last three games by a total of 6 points.

In the only other league I'm 9-3 after dropping the last two games, also by a total of six points. So in one league, I may not even make the playoffs, and in the other I'm going in as a wildcard. Not sucky, but I'm not doing as well as I would like.

My worst season ever was a three win campaign, that was rough.