I’ve got a draft on Sunday night, and I’m scared as hell. I’ve competed with the experts for many years, and if you ask them all right after forcing them to take a truth serum, they’d tell you that they fear me. Some have been honest enough to admit it, some deny it. But they know going in that I’m probably going to be in the mix at the end.

Sunday’s draft, however, has me up at night already. The only way I can even maintain my fantasy football dignity is by winning the league. If I don’t dominate the league, I’ll be ashamed of myself. That’s pressure.

So why is there so much pressure on me? That’s because I’m competing against a group of 15 year-old High School sophomores. My kid, still 14, is in a fantasy baseball league with a bunch of kids from his HS baseball team. He’s doing well, in 2nd place and right on the top teams heals, but he doesn’t follow the league all that much. He’s a classic example of how you can win in fantasy baseball if you are relentless, borderline obsessive, about working the WW and [...]

by Jim Coventry, Guest Blogger
 

If you are hardcore about your football, you’ve probably done everything in your power to get the NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTv (which comes with the NFL Network), and hopefully you have a TiVo at your disposal. These tools allow you to be your own scout as you prepare for your keeper league draft. Pretty much every preseason game is televised (most on tape delay) for you to digest, but who has 48 hours a week to view all of these games? With the magic of TiVo, 7-8 hours per week should be all you need to have something to say about each player you decide to draft or pass over. 

Like a maniac, I’ve got the remote ready to roll- fast forwarding at double speed to the end of each play and quickly tapping the play button to bounce it right back to the spot when the snap takes place. I can get through a full game in just about 30 minutes. In the preseason, I decide which players I want to scout and if a team doesn’t have anyone I want film on, I zip through the offensive series [...]