Phlavio's Corner: Episode 1 The Phantom Blogger

Hello there baseball fans... What? Football? That's the one they play on ice, right? The gridiron? Sounds like a cooking show where they make nothing but waffles. Mmmm... delicious delicious waffles. Anywho, yeah sure, I'll talk about this crazy game with its oblong ball and protective head-wear. For those who don't stalk ESPN blogs and aren't crazy Met fans, I'm a baseball blogger and Phlavio's Corner has been around for about 5 years now providing people with semi-useful commentary on sports-ish type things.

Since this is a Fantasy Football Blog, let's focus on the first thing any fantasy GM needs to do. PRE RANK YOUR PLAYERS. Pre-rankings are an important and crucial step in making sure your team won't draft people way earlier then necessary. Now people will give you strategies about when to take what and all of that shizdonkle, but being that I've never finished in the top half of a fantasy league in football I'm not qualified. I can tell you tried and true secrets to establishing a good pre-ranking.

Buy a fantasy football magazine. Yeah, this is a total cop-out way of ensuring no one will laugh at you after you select a kicker in the second round. The thing to remember is that experts are always wrong. Look at Stephen A. Smith, and Steve Phillips. Want more proof? In the NBA Finals the experts picked L.A. to win in 6, then after game 1 and 2 it was Boston, then L.A. was so totally going to win game 4 it wasn't even funny, then Boston was unstoppable, but at that point... everyone knew. Case in point: Buy a magazine if your lazy, but don't expect it to make you win.

My personal method is made possible by ESPN and their delightful mock-draft. This not only lets you practice your drafting skillz, but also lets you see where the other whack-a-loons are selecting their players. Now there are aspects beyond your control. Your league might be bigger, smaller, or have completely different rules... it doesn't matter. you are simply trying to get into the heads of people you don't know.

Practice your drafting tactics, but be sure not to throw the results away. You'll want to compile your mock draft results in some sort of excel document that allows you to track player selection. I use excel because it allows me to quickly sort through the clutter of moving people up and down. Unfortunately ESPN does not yet have the ability to upload excel documents to set pre-rankings. I will be saving you some of the trouble by posting my own rankings as they progress, but treat my thoughts as you might George W. Bush's on Nihilism.

Until next time,

Peace, Love, and Applesauce

First Mock Team:

QB: Eli Manning
RB: Larry Johnson
RB: Ronnie Brown
RB/WR: Marvin Harrison
WR: Terrell Owens
WR: Anquan Boldin
TE: Tony Gonzalez
D/ST: New York, Giants
K: Nick Folk
Bench: Shaun Alexander
Bench: Philip Rivers
Bench: Deion Branch
Bench: Antwaan Randle El
Bench: Amani Toomer
Bench: Darrell Jackson
Bench: Warrick Dunn