Memoirs of a Fantasy FB Junkie

By Andy Fajardo
Love of Sports Correspondent

You’d be hard pressed not to pick up on the sweet aroma of optimism in the air this time of year.

Summer’s in full swing and the fall season is just around the corner. Fall not only serves as a reminder that good times like Thanksgiving and Christmas are on the horizon, but more importantly it marks the start of a new football season.

The weird feeling consisting of equal parts: hope, fear and anxiety building up in the stomachs of students kicking off a new school year will also be felt by team owners everywhere embarking on another fantasy football draft. The good news for most of you out there is that the season hasn’t started yet, meaning you’re still technically undefeated.

The bad news is the season will be here before you know it and that same team you’ll be gloating about with your friends will soon be exposed for being the sorry bunch of busts and duds they really are. At the end of the season a few teams will be serious contenders, most others will end up being pretenders, while at least one if not two teams fulfill the unwanted roles of just-tenders.

Resist all temptations to buy those fantasy football magazines. You know the ones; they usually come out this time of year and have pictures of this year’s big stud on the cover. Let me save you some time and money … just get one.

The reason being is that I’ve already read through five, and not only do they all have very similar projections and cheat sheets, but none offer any information that can’t be found in any of the others. My suggestion is to pick one up simply to familiarize yourself with the offseason player movements, coaching and coordinator changes and this year’s rookie class.

If you want your team to seriously contend, I suggest you make your own cheat sheets and just use magazines as a source of information for you to base your own ideas and opinions on. Or, if you want to just be somewhat competitive in your league and hand over your money, I urge you to follow those generic cheat sheets to a tee.

Of course, another strategy would be to not do any research and show up to your league’s draft and pick player names out of a hat.

After you’ve read enough to know where everyone’s ended up this offseason, the next step is to grab a pencil and paper and start jotting down your preliminary positional rankings.

Congratulations, you’ve just taken the first step towards claiming that league trophy and more importantly all of your friends’ loot.

Be on the look out for the next installment in which I’ll detail specific strategies you could take in preparing yourself for the upcoming season.