The Slumpbusters came into this past season with a seemingly dominant set of keepers and a snazzy new team name designed on breaking the spell of bad luck that plagued the franchise for the first two seasons of the VUFSA. None of that worked.
Keepers:
Clinton Portis
Steven Jackson
Willis McGahee
Torry Holt
Tiki Barber*
Barber was gone long before the season started, and long before anyone else had named their keepers. Marc Bulger took his place, giving SLM three Rams, but a top-3 QB. Clinton Portis was supposed to be the best of the bunch, but his serious injuries at both the beginning and end of the season led to a bitter Eli and a regret of trading away Tiki too soon.
Portis was a huge disappointment, and that was probably the thing that really brought my season down -- his injuries at the beginning and end of the year.
Torry Holt was the runaway #1 WR midway through the season, but his performance tapered off from unreal to very good. Willis McGahee continued to underwhelm until a messy divorce sent him away, which leaves Steven Jackson.
I love Steven Jackson.
Jackson totaled over 2300 yards of offense to go with 16 TDs on the season (and hauled in 90 receptions for good measure.) With the RB spot secure leading up the the draft, it allowed Eli to look for pure talent in the early rounds, which lead to a very good draft.
Round 1: Roy Williams
Round 1: Santana Moss
Round 2: Jeremy Shockey
Round 3: Traded to Radcliffe
Round 4: Tatum Bell
Round 5: Nate Burleson
Round 6: Michael Vick
Round 7: Vernand Morency
Round 8: Ben Watson
Round 9: Neil Rackers
Round 10: Zach Thomas
Round 11: Matt Leinart
Round 12: London Fletcher
Round 13: Lofa Tatupu
Round 14: Roddy White
Round 15: Kyle Orton
Roy Williams and Santana Moss had mixed results as the season went on, but both underacheiving WRs helped land keeper prospects at premium positions, so the sucess of this year's first round probably won't be felt until next season. Shockey, Bell and Vick all had decent sucess at various points, but were all sent packing at some point. Like most teams, there wasn't a great deal of offensive talent after round 6, so it's not worth touching on.
I actually think I had an okay draft. Roy Williams was outstanding, and Tatum Bell was good when he played. Santana Moss and Jeremy Shockey also had their moments. Getting four solid players from a football draft is fine -- since there's so little talent available.
The only game that Eli really wanted to comment on was his record-setting explosion in week 6 against Madd Skillz where literally everyone on their roster went nuts, en route to a ludicrous 187.25 point total. At that point, SLM sat at 4-2 and #2 in the standings.
[It was key] when I beat Ed. Thank God someone did it this season. It was also fun to following that up with an 85 point week and a loss.
After dropping to 80 points in week 7, thanks in part to the curse of Shawne Merriman, Slumpbusters won just 2 games the rest of the way, and began to make the moves that would shape the future of the franchise.
A blistering 44 moves saw a number of smart adds, including a lot of nice injury replacements. I can't see the register anymore, so I'll focus on the big trades from 2006.
-Tiki Barber and a 3rd Rounder for Marc Bulger and a 1st Rounder
-Rex Grossman for Antonio Bryant
-Tony Romo for Ron Dayne
-Michael Vick and a 5th Rounder for Randy Moss
-Maurice Morris and Willis McGahee for Warrick Dunn
-Marc Bulger and Warrick Dunn for a 1st rounder and irrelevant RBs
-Jeremy Shockey for a 4th Rounder
-Roy Williams and Tatum Bell for Laurence Maroney
-Santana Moss for Philip Rivers
A lot of talent changed hands in Eli's deals, as is typical. Though the early moves did not turn out as well as they should have (trading Barber followed by the Portis injury, Romo turning itno a decent player, Randy Moss, Warrick Dunn's mediocrity) the laste 3 deals went strongly in the favor of SLM.
Jeremy Shockey turned into a 4th rounder, and allowed Eli to pick up Chris Cooley off the wire, and Cooley was the better TE in the first place. Roy Williams and Tatum Bell were sent to Champ to downgrade 2 positions for his playoff run for a major RB prospect, and Santana Moss' average season became a talented young QB in the NFL's #1 offense. Poor fortune in the first half actually made this franchise stronger for the long run.
I'm pleased with my late season dealings. I'm sure they won't make a lick of difference next season.
There's reason for optimism in the land of the Gun, with extremely talented, dreadlocked RBs coming back, plus a healthy Clinton Portis- in addition to Rivers and the alway consistent Holt. Also, there are 2 first round picks to be made again.
Drew: Next year's outlook?
Eli: Failure.
Even though nothing seems to go Eli's way in fantasy football land, there's still plenty for the rest of us to fear on this team next season.
6 comments:
Eli sure looks different than what I remember. Nice toothpick, though.
Given my fantasy football history, it seems fitting that everyone else gets 5,000 word recaps and mine is barely a fart into the wind.
Sniff.
In fairness, you sent back 183 words in your email about this season.
Drew sent back 1,792.
Yeah, but 1,533 of those were just "Maurice Jones Drew" repeated over and over again.
There was a sprinkling of "Bernie Kosar" for some reason as well.
Maybe you should be more interesting, Eli. Maybe if you weren't black, more people would write more about you.
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