Fantasy Football - Draft Results

I had my first fantasy football draft last night and was fortunate to land the second pick. With LaDanian Tomlinson the no-brainer first, Rams' RB Stephen Jackson is the consensus second pick. What made this draft interesting was the elimination of the Defense and the substitution of Individual Defensive Players (IDP).

This was the first time I have played with IDPs, and I suspect it was the first for many of the league participants. Most of us did not know who was valuable in this format (safeties and linebackers), and many did not know who the best of those were. Even I stuck with the big name players, Jason Taylor and Shawne Merriman, and took them early because I would be a disadvantage later in the draft when I would not be as familar with some of the lesser know names.

Outside of the IDPs, I focused on building depth and taking the best player available at my pick. We drafted ten bench players so I wanted to be sure to grab a back-up at QB and TE who did not have the same bye weeks as my expected starters. In leagues with deep benches, it is important to use a couple of those spots for quality back-ups as the pool will not have the quality that leagues with just a couple bench spots have.

I am not dissatisfied with my team, but I'm not asking for the trophy maker for engraving prices either.