05 Jan 2010, Posted by Matthew Reinbold in Week in Pop, 0 Comments

Year in Pop – 2009 Fantasy Football

While I’m gradually packing up the 2009 ephemera into nice, tidy bundles I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention Fantasy Football. I maintain its one heck of a hobby – for free one can participate in an epic four month gauntlet of statistical analysis and competitive simulation. In other words, any game that you play with a calculator and provides an excuse for watching long stretches of television can’t be all bad, right?

The past year was especially bountiful. Its one thing to have the top draft pick and a lineup of obvious choices. There’s a whole different level of satisfaction to have copious amounts of research and intuition pay off with numerical success. Much of my post-season run was due to Jamaal Charles, running back for the Chiefs. For the beginning of the season he was buried on the depth charts until the starter, after a particularly bad loss, tweeted racial epitaphs on Twitter (of all things). The event started a chain of events any technologist could appreciate:

1. Twitter being online, the offending tweets are replicated verbatim wide and far
2. team management sees the fracas and suspends the player (at which automated alerts to my inbox tell me something is up and I might want to add Charles)
3. the fans started an online petition for calling for a change before the starter can break a beloved player’s team rushing record
4. management agrees and drops the starter (he’s later picked up by the Bengels)
5. Charles becomes the starter…
6. and absolutely kills it – he gains 1,120 yards despite only having 10 starts, including a team record 259 yards and two touchdowns during our group championship

In other words, I probably owe my championship to the Internet. That, and San Francisco facing both Detroit *and* St. Louis in the last two weeks of play.

My rosters to start and end the season:

It seemed to be a particularly brutal year for injuries. Anthony Gonzalez, one of my sleepers, was injured on the first play of the year. Cooley then broke a leg (I had just managed a trade for Shockey and LaDainian Tomlinson in exchange for Cooley and Pierre Thomas – extremely fortunate with the timing). Shockey and Matt Ryan then got cases of turf toe (much more debilitating than it sounds). Josh Wilson, a defensive back that returned punts, was banged up all year and Blackmon, who is very similar, also was quickly out of commission. Leon Washington, a points-per-reception running back monster, also was lost for the year. Then, in the championship, Welker went down. I’ve had previous years where one injury sank any ambitious. The fact that I was able to navigate despite those challenges means I must be getting a bit better with bench management.

Scores:

It’s been a great year but its time to look forward to the next one. If you’re interested in trying your hand in fantasy football or are old hat, I’d love to hear from you. I’d like to pull together a league of friends of Vox Pop for next fall – all skill levels welcome. Let’s have some competitive statistical and analytical fun. Interested?