Scott Fish Bowl, 2014 Fantasy Football

I hath arrived, my children! Wait, where are the doves? I told you I wanted to come back to the releasing of doves like I was on a John Woo set, Jay, and all I see are bread crumbs and a bunch of pigeons. I get it, we’re a little more low budget here than the Razzball Baseball side of things but it’s bad enough you couldn’t take the brown M&M’s out of the bowl before taking them to my trailer. And speaking of trailer, where did this rust bucket come from? Like, did you buy this off some yokel from West Virginia? Smells like someone’s been cooking meth in here…but I guess I’m already on set so enough with the complaining. Though I DO expect at least a cheese plate at this point, thank you very much. Anyways, the last time I was around these parts, I was saying my sad and tearful goodbyes as the lead writer over here but did promise I’d be back in the Fall. Well, if you can have Christmas in July, why can’t you have Fall there too, right? And while we’re on the topic, this is a shout out to my family members that always ask why I’m not coming to see you in the dead of winter. Oh, I don’t know, because you live in a snowy part of Idaho and want me to drive 9 hours during the worst time of the year to travel to do it? I can say Merry Xmas over the phone. Heck, we could even Skype if you really wanna see my scruffy mug. Next year, we’re all having Thanksgiving, Christmas & New Years over a vacation week in the middle of July. That way the only car wrecks will happen in the parking lot when Grandma tries to drive and get yet another 5th of Jack. Heart you, Grandma…but enough of this, you don’t even know what a Scott Fish Bowl is and we’re over 300 words in so lets get started. Here’s my Scott Fish Bowl team for the 2014 Fantasy Football season…

What The Proverbial Ef Is a ‘Scott Fish Bowl’?

Well, I could waste everyone’s time and explain every little detail of this cool thing…OR I could simply point you to the Scott Fish Bowl website that gives out every nitty, gritty detail you could possibly imagine and let you dictate how much you take in. That said, I will cover some of the basics in case you’re link-clicking averse (and if you are…well, might as well leave the internet now). This here thang was established back in 2010 by my good man Scott Fish. It’s a 240 team league. HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE. Don’t shout in a monotone voice at me, bro. Sorry, was just stunned…that’s huge! That’s what she said! Sighs…Ok, sorry about that. It’s a 240 team league with 20, 12-team leagues and the rosters are fairly deep. It’s run through My Fantasy League, a premier Fantasy Football site that I strongly encourage others to use if you’re really into customizing your leagues beyond the norm that other sites allow. The rules, again, are on the site so I won’t bore you with those details but I will point out that the winner gets $250 as well as some goods from participating football sites. Oh and it’s being played for free for right now. THANK YOU, SCOTT! Speaking of playing, Scott’s trying to push the needle to 360 teams in 2015. It fills up pretty fast but Scott is always looking for backups in case people drop out so if you want to throw your hat in the ring, here’s the sign up sheet. Not a writer/expert for a site? You don’t have to be, this year there are over 60 ‘I just play for fun’ fans in the mix. Just realize that this is your competition. Yup, some pretty big names from the industry. I promise they don’t bite! Well, at least on twitter they don’t…

The Set Up

Probably my most favoritest set up I’ve played in. It has your typical 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE setup but then has 4 flex positions and one of them is a superflex, meaning you can tack on another QB to your starting roster. I appreciate the 1.5 QB set up because it allows for a diversified draft strategy and doesn’t kill the value of QB like a 1 QB league does but also doesn’t give them as much clout as a 2 QB league would. The best part? No kickers or team defenses. WOOT! The scoring also has a wrinkle I have deployed in some of my home-grown leagues: points per carry. In the days of yore when you had your chance to grab a bajillion 30 tote backs, this scoring would seem to be asinine but we live in an age where RBBC is the norm and reflecting just how much work your man is getting via points just makes sense to me. Of course, if you’re a PPR hater (and yes this league is PPR), PPRu isn’t gonna make you any happier. I suggest you just go back to the old way of playing fantasy football. You know, without computers. Because new things always suck. Should probably do away with calculators, too, and grab your abacus. Yes, I’m trying to start a fight with you, is it working? Oh and I should also mention this wasn’t a live draft, per se. We were on 12 hour clocks to get our picks in. The draft started on July 7th and finished up on July 17th. I swear every time my pick came up, I had a 2 hour window of shizz going on. I work in front of a computer all day but the moment I have a 3 hour meeting or went to an extended lunch break, THAT was when my turn to pick came about. That’s just me letting anyone from my league know that I wasn’t trying to slow the process down. If any of you are reading, of course. Or can, for that matter. I’m gonna get a fight out of someone today, dammit!

Um, Like, You Gonna Show Us Your Team?

Oh, THAT. It’s the summertime, you got some better reading to do than this? I think not. Oh, Oprah Winfrey Bookclub, you say? GTFU outta here! But you’re right, enough talk…have at you!

I was thinking of you guys so much that I made not one but TWO whole spreadsheets to gawk at. The first one shows the draft picks themselves in their sequential order and the second tab shows what my starting lineup could look like coupled with a bench. You can toggle my contents all you want. Hey, stop touching me there! That’s not what toggle means! In any case, if it’s not clear, I decided to go big or go home. Your odds of winning something like this are 240:1 so taking safe picks can end up harming you in the end. I’m not here to save face, I’m here to win it or crash and burn trying and I think I have a great team set up for such a situation. Calvin Johnson with the 2nd overall pick? Brash. Rob Gronkowski in the second? Irreverent. Taking no QBs in a superflex league until the 7th round? Eh, unplanned…I really wanted either Tony Romo or Jay Cutler as my QB1 with Tannehill as my QB2 but they were both taken in succession two picks before I took Roddy White. At that point, I lost interest in taking a lower end QB1 and decided to set my sights on building a strong skill position foundation and feel I did just that. Backing up the Gronk with only Colt Lyerla was probably not the smartest thing in the world to do but you don’t win these tourneys but making sure you have a primo TE2 just in case your top one misfires or gets busted. Again, 240:1. This team could be dead before the season starts but I’m still happy with the choices I made given the circumstances. I’d say the only misses I regret is the Romo/Cutler issue along with not getting Rashad Jennings whom I’m quite smitten with at this point after he went Roughshod on the league last year for the Raiders. In all, my biggest question mark shapes up to be the QB position but I still have high hopes for Tannehill, especially with new offensive coordinator Bill Lazor at the helm. I actually wanted a few more shares of Miami but Lamar Miller went a little too high for me and Moreno was just too dinged up for me to trust him sans-Peyton. Taking Sam Bradford probably made some of you throw up in your mouths a little but the fact is, he was effective enough to start 2013 to be useful in this format and I do think Johnny Manziel will be running the team sooner rather than later and I mean that literally: running. With the scoring format, taking running QBs was a trend in the draft. In fact, someone mockingly said ‘thanks for leaving the last running QB on the board for me’ to me when I didn’t take Kap. Funny thing is Tannehill can run AND didn’t score much less than Colin last year and we all know Johnny Football can do a little high steppin’ himself.

This Team Sucks, Ain’t Nobody Gonna Like It

Let’s just say I beg to differ…and so does this fine gentleman, Mr. Pat James. He did a write up after all the drafts were done about each division and here’s what he had to say. In a nutshell, he likes my team to finish second in my respective division. Sure, it’s not a ringing endorsement that I’ll win it but it’s clearly a sign that my team has a chance to challenge and I’ll take it. And considering the reigning 2013 Champ Ty Miller was a little frustrated with the guys I took, I think it’s safe to say this team should challenge for 2014 supremacy.

Final Thoughts

I think I got your topics covered quite well as it is but for those of you who are part of the Twitterati, you can follow along to this year’s exploits of all the teams by just looking up #SFB2014. So when half my team is on the season-ending IR list and it’s not even August, all my tears will be tweeted for the world to see. With that, thanks for following along and if you wanna follow me on the tweety thang, I’m @Sky_Razzball. Peace!