2013 Draft Preview

Here we are, Draft Week 2013. This will be the 5th Annual FALAFEL draft since we broke from our Cortesian ways, and it also means that for Gutman, Alan, Barnard and myself, we've been out of school for 5 years. As it stands, some of us are doing well, and some of us...not so much. While Alan has a long-term girlfriend and a sweet-shag pad in Astoria, Gutman no longer has a company. While I have changed the most since college, and now have a much longer life-expectancy, Barnard woke up in just a towel at the wrong hotel in NOLA, sans phone, wallet, pants and dignity. So here's to Gutman landing on his feet as we all know he will, and here's to Barnard hopefully waking up in a (dry) bed at some point in his life after consuming a whiskey sour.

I have been putting out this Draft Preview for 4 years now, and it gets harder and harder. As those of you who actually read this shit may remember, my usual formula is to "predict" who each of you will take in the draft, some of them real, some of them jokes. Well as time has gone on, I interact with all of you less and less, most of which is admittedly my own fault. But that makes ripping on you all quite a bit more difficult. For instance, in Barnard's latest melt-down, I did not receive the customary "You're the worst you cock ass fuck" followed immediately by "Alan will always like you more than me" followed immediately by "I hate you" followed immediately by "Why does Alan like you and not me" texts. Instead I had to hear it through the grapevine, as Esco and Weissbard recounted the alternatingly hilarious and horrifying details.

So this year, instead of focusing on a Mock Draft that I'm sure no one really cares about, I'm going to spend my efforts on the Mock Division Draft, something that I hope will be a great addition to the league. To recap, here are the Division Draft Rules:

• The Stevens Bowl Champ, Stevens Bowl Runner-Up, and Third Place Winner (Rogers Bowl?) will be the Division Captains. This year that is Ajay, Esco and Nick.
• The Division Captains are responsible for naming their divisions before Week 1, and can change those names at any time.
• The Division Captains will pick their divisions in a Non-Snake Format.
• The Stevens Bowl Champ (Ajay) will have the choice of picking first, second or third, followed by Esco, and Nick gets whatever is left. First pick gives you the first crack at the weakest competition, but also puts you in a five-person division, limiting your playoff odds if all teams are theoretically created equal. Second pick is similar, while third pick gives you the last pick in the each round, but also gives you a four-person division.
• After Week 13, whoever is in first place in each division is guaranteed a playoff spot. Byes will still go to the teams with the two best records overall. The only way this does not occur is if a division winner is in 6th place or worst in terms of overall points, while a top-3 point scorer does not make the playoffs. In this case, the division winner is booted from the playoffs in favor of the top-3 scorer. I wasn't at Winter Meetings, so let me know if this interpretation is wrong.

So now that we all know the rules, let's proceed with the First Annual Division Mock Draft.

I assume Ajay will take the three spot to give himself a better statistical chance at the playoffs, followed by Esco taking first pick and Nick getting stuck in the two-hole.

1. Esco picks Kimmel. This is a somewhat risky pick, as if Kimmel doesn't show, then Levine gets his spot, and we all know the success that newcomers have had in this league. But Kimmel did sign up for the league, and while he hasn't said a damn word on the list-serve, I think most of us expect to see him and his bald spot for at least 2 hours in Savannah. If he does show and remain in the league, there is no safer bet for a terrible team than Kimmel. He's below the Long Line, and with his propensity for picking Jets, and their propensity for being terrible, 2013 should be a new low-water mark for Kimmel.
2. Nick picks Bennett. No one is better at making people feel like shit than Nick, and no one feels like shit more often than Bennett (I would imagine). Weissbard might have been the smart pick here based on historical records, but ripping on Weiss is not really Nick's style, outside of the Weezle-Beezle nickname that is either endearing or derogatory. After Bennett's $30 bid on Vick last year, there's no telling what he'll fuck up this year.
3. Ajay picks Weissbard. Ajay will show no such respect for his little brother, slapping him with an embarrassing First Round Division Draft pick label, as well as ensuring that this division will have the lowest average height. I feel like Weiss always has a good draft, then his team goes to shit do to either injuries or mismanagement. But either way, he hasn't had strong results.
4. Esco picks Alan. As Esco pointed out to me last week, Alan is the only FALAFEL member outside of the top 8 in winning percentage to even make a Stevens Bowl, let alone win one. But that was back when Chris Johnson was a 2000 yard back, and Brett Favre was tossing out TDs, not dick-pics. Since that fateful 2009 season, Alan's record has been 14-24-1 which would put his winning percentage only above Long and Kimmel overall. Esco's playoff odds look pretty good right now.
5. Nick picks Donaldson. Two former Stevens Bowl champs to lead off the second round? Like Alan, Donnie's strong rep is built off a little bit of smoke-and-mirrors. His 2010 Stevens Bowl year was initiated by an auto-draft and a total of 8 waiver moves. He followed that up with a strong 2011, but that was also an (admittedly hurricane-related) auto-draft. Donnie's lone year running the show was last year, when he put up a 5-8 record and used exactly $0 of his waiver money. Nick was his Pledge Class President once upon a time, and he's looking to re-live those glory days with this division.
6. Ajay picks Barnard. It was tough to wait this long to pick Barnard, but there was no way he was making it out of the second round, especially with Ajay as a Division Captain. Barnard has never really been a threat in fantasy, with his best years in terms of winning percentage being backed up by extremely low point totals overall. His favorite team offers exactly no fantasy value outside of its RBs, so that will likely lead to an overpay for Amendola or Brady. And his life is essentially in shambles. I can see Barnard spending this football season either drinking to excess due to the Patriots fall from grace, or avoiding football all together in an effort to get clean. Either way, his career .500 record is his ceiling.
7. Esco picks Gutman. Sometimes life is more important than fantasy football. Looking for a job will inevitably take Gutman off his fantasy game, and his career winning percentage is surprisingly sub-par compared to how I remember it. Gutguy is always an avid trader, something that gives his team a high-ceiling, but a low-floor every year, but at this point in the draft, I think he's a risk worth taking.
8. Nick picks Billy/Marshall. Speaking of risks, this is the ultimate boom-or-bust team. I can see them being taken in either the first or the last round of this draft, so this is really a shot in the dark. After Billy's Stevens Bowl title in 2011, he fell to a last place finish in 2012, so he really has shown boom/bust tendencies. And the addition of Marshall only adds more unpredictability. Nick's already got two steady teams in Bennett and Donnie, so he injects some life into his division with this pick. I also give Nick the huge edge in division-naming ability, and this team will definitely help with that.
9. Ajay picks AGD. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't do it. This team is probably our most consistent performer, and always a threat to make the playoffs. But Ajay's alternatives here are Zacherman and myself, and I think he would rather make his division a little tougher than risk losing a playoff spot to me or Z. That and I don't think he could pick Belfer or Reap out of a police line-up, so he's essentially meeting them for the first time at the draft.
10. Esco picks Kumpf. If there is one thing we all know about this league, it's that no one likes losing to Zacherman. So while I obviously think that my 2012 performance was no fluke, Zacherman's long-term success, combined with his personality, makes him our last pick.
11. Nick picks Zacherman.

Final Division Predictions:

Esco's Division:

1. Esco

2. Kumpf

3. Gutman

4. Alan

5. Kimmel

Nick's Division:

1. Nick

2. Zacherman

3. Billy/Marshall

4. Donaldson

5. Bennett

Ajay's Division:

1. Ajay

2. AGD

3. Barnard

4. Weissbard

This exercise has shed some light on a few things to me. First, this is going to be extremely fun and extremely awkward at times. Considering we have no idea what each other's teams will actually look like, these picks are essentially personal shots at everyone's perceived fantasy ability. I can easily see Nick taking me with his first pick due to my brazen (and half-kidding) confidence in this mock draft. And whoever gets picked last will feel prettay, pretttttay good about themselves, as everyone is apparently afraid to compete against them. In the end, it's all even right? We'll see.

Second, I'm not sure what the best draft position is here. Picking third obviously gets you one less team to compete against, but you are stuck with the last pick in each round. That still appears to be worth it, but it could make for a rather stacked division with no bottom dwellers. I think third pick still gets the edge, as we are not using the divisions to balance the schedule, but I wouldn't be surprised to see the 2013 Stevens Bowl Champ change up their strategy next year.

That's all for me, I'll be back in a week or so with Draft Grades and a small Week 1 preview. See ya'll in Savannah.

Football Is Coming

With the Hall of Fame Game last night, I thought it was appropriate to kick off this year's blog posts. As I did last year, I'm going outline why I'm excited for the 2013 season.

Divisions
As you may have noticed, the layout of the site has been updated for 2013, complete with Ajay's ridiculous mug as our background, and overall records on the right panel. These records are important because they may provide some insight into who will get taken where in the Inaugural Division Draft. I don't know if I'm more proud of the Draft Location Bracket, the Division Draft, or Alan for holding down a relationship with a cool girl for over 6 months, but needless to say it's close. I'll be doing a Mock Division Draft in my annual Draft Preview, but one thing I wanted to point out ahead of time (other than Barnard being an extremely vanilla 26-26-0) is...

Kimmel
Just like baseball has its Mendoza Line (to save Weissbard from Googling it, that's a .200 batting average), FALAFEL has its Long Line. Finishing with a winning percentage under .346 (or under 5 wins) puts you in Chris Long territory. Having more than one consecutive season in that zone should have you scared for your FALAFEL life. Having a lifetime winning percentage below the Long Line, and failing to ever email the league or do anything besides show up for the draft, well I don't even know why we bother. If Kimmel shows up in Savannah, I guess he gets to keep his spot. If he doesn't, we may have to rename the Long Line. The Kimmel Line has a better ring to it, so I'm rooting for this situation for that reason alone, but there could be some changes in the FALAFEL roster coming soon.

Ajay's Reign
Last year our Mr. Shah became the first FALAFEL member to appear in multiple Stevens Bowls, in back-to-back years no less. In between these two impressive feats, he also won our highly competitive Fantasy Baseball Keeper League in his first year in the league. He has responded with an extremely subpar baseball season this year, and while he has assembled a solid minor league roster, it will be interesting to see if this funk continues to the football season. He gets to make the first move in the Division Draft, so he will be in the driver seat for choosing his own competition, but I'm skeptical if Ajay can pull of his own Three-Heat and win back-to-back titles after losing in the finals.

The Billy/Marshall Team
There is no ceiling on the entertainment value this team will provide. I can see them running the table at 13-0, as well as losing each game by 30 points, but either way they will keep us all amused. I would literally give a kidney for their team picture to be Marshall carrying Billy on his shoulders on Vegas, but that moment in time can never be re-created. And at the draft, well shit here's another new topic...

Dual Owner Drafts
We've never really seen how AGD operates behind the scenes. They've been pretty successful overall, but I've always felt that one of them was pulling the strings, while the other funded the team, sort of an owner/GM relationship. Seeing them crouched over one laptop in Savannah will clear some things up. As for the Billy/Marshall team, well that's going to be a whole 'nother experience. They might take Adrian Peterson and Arian Foster because they can't decide between the two. They might not take any of the first 50 players nominated because they can't form a consensus. Or they might have an extremely rational, well thought-out game plan that re-defines the way we all think about fantasy football and life. Literally anything is in play.

And now for something that I'm not excited about...

My Schedule
After 4 years of tireless service to this league through blog posts and CPP rankings, things are unfortunately going to change in 2013. I just got promoted at work but now have to manage a team of 4 people (#HumbleBrag), which essentially gives me no free time to fuck around and analyze Bennett's waiver bids. In my more limited free time, I still have to put out a weekly IDP ranking for Razzball, and because I'm being compared against other "experts" in the industry, I can't embarrass myself by not putting research into it. On top of all of that, I have a wedding to help plan, and if it's anything like the movie, I'll need to take dance lessons, taste cakes, and hang out with Matthew Alright Alright Alright McConaughey on a daily basis.

But I would assume most of you don't care about any of that. So this is how 2013 is going to work in this space: I'll continue to update the CPP Rankings every week, because it's relatively quick, and that's what keeps you all coming back. As for individual team write-ups, those are going away, or at least will be severely limited. I'll still put out a Draft Preview and Grades, along with some other write-ups, but the length of my posts will decrease notably. Which brings me to my final topic...

Guest Blogger(s)
If any of you are interested in taking over the team write-up portion of the CPP Rankings, or just want to put up guest posts in this space, you're more than welcome. I'm still going to own the CPP Rankings themselves because they are my baby. Or rather they are Gutman and my love-child that I commandeered sole custody of. But either way, they're mine. I don't know if any of you are interested in writing for fantasy sites, but if you are, this was great practice for me because no one will ever ridicule you harder than your friends. Well, no one will ever ridicule you harder than Nick, but after that, it's your friends. Anyway, if you want to write in this space, and you're good, I can try to hook you up with my editor or an editor on another site.

Draft Preview will be out in a couple of weeks, and we're 19 days from the Big Day itself. Stay cool out there.