If you're waiting for the next batch of top movies from the 2000s, then I'm sorry, I'm working on it, but putting one ahead of another at this stage is like splitting hairs with other hairs. But at the same time, I love you, because it means you actually care about what I'm writing here. And let that be the last time I show any emotions here. This is a place for business!
And business we shall discuss.
17 weeks ago, I was much more excited about the upcoming 17 weeks than I am right now. It's sad to see the regular season go, and as pumped as I am about the playoffs, it hurts me just a bit that it'll be another 35 weeks until the 2010 season gets underway, and a whole new rollercoaster ride begins.
None of this stuff might interest you, and you might find it a little bit self-serving, but I'm kind of proud of my performance in football-related activities this season, so you can either take it for what it's worth, or you can close the page and look up "Evil Baby" on YouTube.
Section 1: Fantasy
Everyone's favorite uber-nerd activity. Fantasy Football. Okay, so millions of people play it, including females, and it's becoming less and less nerdy (but in a way, less and less hip) since they always have segments on fantasy advice every night on SportsCenter.
This year, I played in one fantasy league. It was maybe my lowest total ever. I usually participate in a few public leagues to go along with a league with friends, but this year I was a little bit behind the ball and bailed on the publics. What was left? One ESPN.com custom league with 11 other people, only about half of whom I actually know. But people boasted pretty superb knowledge of the game, and though some guys' rooting affiliations came through glaringly during the draft, it turned out to be a pretty decent league.
When the dust settled at the end of the year, The Mad Stork, my team (named after legendary 6' 9" Raider linebacker Ted Hendricks) was the champion after a 6-team, 3-week playoff. I started the year questionably, with some draft picks (Darren McFadden, Calvin Johnson, Anquan Boldin) struggling mightily with performance or injury. After falling to 2-3 and eventually to 4-4, my guys put it together thanks to a key late season pickup of Jamaal Charles and the season-long domination of DeSean Jackson, finishing 8-5, just barely slipping into the playoffs as the 6 seed. But I put up three straight 100+ point games in the playoffs en route to victory, and team depth proved to be the deciding factor. In the championship round, I started only 1 (Anquan Boldin) of my first 4 draft picks (the others being DeAngelo Williams, Calvin Johnson, and Darren McFadden) but I got solid performances out of just about everyone, even though nobody finished with more than 20 points. Then, of course, a week after the season ends, Jamaal Charles decides to run for 260 yards and 2 touchdowns against the Broncos, just for good measure.
Section 2: Confidence Pool
I took part in a season-long confidence pool with 10 of my close friends this year (one of whom I have never met), the first time I've ever done so, and it turned out to be a highly enjoyable experience--one which helps make the games more interesting and builds harmless rivalries.
The concept of a confidence pool, for anyone who doesn't know, is this: each week, you pick the winners of all the games (usually 16, but 14 or 13 during bye weeks) and write them down. Then, you take the numbers 1-16 (or 3-16 during a bye week, depending on the number of games played) and assign each potential winner that many points. You put the highest number of points on the game you're most confident about (like the Colts over the Rams) and the least on the game that's the biggest toss up (like Ravens-Steelers). Then as the games go by, you add up all your points and highest point total wins for the week.
Our pool was a $40 entry fee, $20 to the winner of each week, $60 to the cumulative winner at the end of the season, $30 to cumulative second place, and $10 to cumulative last place. Unfortunately, I only took home one weekly win during the year, in week 5, when Seattle, Atlanta and Cleveland carried me to victory. However, I kept within striking distance of the yearly championship every week, finishing the season with the 10 straight strong weekly performances: 4th, 5th, 2nd, 4th, 2nd, 2nd, 5th, 4th, 2nd, 2nd. Sure, the 2nd places were all quite frustrating, each time I was only a game away from another $20, but eventually I took the overall lead in Week 16 and did well enough Week 17 to secure the season long victory. I had a 174-82 record, which is pretty solid, but not spectacular, as I've seen that the leaders in ESPN.com's Pick'em Straight Up had win totals in the 190s.
Still, I was pretty proud of that win, especially after dealing with the frustration of constantly falling short.
Section 3: ESPN.com's Pigskin Pick'em (Against the Spread)
I got an invite from my friend Mike to participate in the ESPN.com spread pool, which is actually the first time I had ever done it (previously he had invited me to do a pool at his office, which I performed atrociously in). We started out with 8 people in the pool, most of whom were repeat participants from the fantasy league, but after a couple weeks only 4 of us still bothered to enter our picks.
I started out fairly well and was in second place early on, but eventually grabbed the lead about mid-season and didn't look back. As nice as it would have been to put up 12- and 13-point weeks, they were always incredibly hard to achieve and I kept my goal set at going at least .500 each week--which I was able to accomplish fairly consistently, usually scoring an 8 or a 9. Eventually I started to get interest in my site-wide ranking, checking my score each week against the top players in the entire ESPN.com Pigskin Pick'em game, trying to climb a little higher each Sunday. In the end, I finished with 146 points, which translates to a 146-110 record (57%, just good enough by Vegas standards) and my overall ranking was #250--though that was a little disappointing because I had jumped up to #95 before the Bengals got destroyed by the Jets in the season's final game. I've estimated that there were about 200,000 users participating in the game, as ESPN pegged my percentile at 99.8%, a number that I was pretty pleased with.
Section 4: Sportsbook.com's Perfect Parlay
The "Perfect Parlay" (details here) is a pool, quite similar to the ESPN.com pool, where you pick 16 games against the spread every week in hopes of nailing all 16 right and winning $100,000. This was the third year I've participated, though the last two years I had slip-ups where I would forget to turn in picks for a week or two, which completely kills all chances at finishing with a top ranking. This year I was determined to at least turn in picks every week, and I did succeed, and it turned out positively for me.
My goal in years past has been to get into the top 100, which is a list they display every week for the top 100 cumulative entries. I had never succeeded until about Week 13 this year, when I finally broke through after hovering in the 200-300 range for a while. It was nice to see my name up there, though I knew I had no realistic shot at first place, and when all was said and done, I finished with 144 points, in 30th place. Unlike ESPN.com's, I don't have any specific ranking that judges how many people are in the pool, but based on where I finished during weeks that were quite poor, I'd say there were about 4000 people in the pool. Again, I'm pretty pleased with that finish, 30th out of 4000, though admittedly 144 points out of a possible 272 is not that great. One of the differences between ESPN and Sportsbook is that ESPN only uses spreads with half-points (-1.5, -2.5, -7.5) and Sportsbook doesn't necessarily care either way (which can result in pushes/ties). This leads to different spreads on different games, and with the potential for ties (which basically count as a loss on Sportsbook), I ended up doing quite better percentage-wise on ESPN (57%) as compared to Sportsbook (53%).
Section 5: Fiscal
Unfortunately, those successes aside, it wasn't the best year for me on the books. Perhaps I played too conservatively, only betting certain games and not going for a more even distribution, or perhaps I was too greedy, playing too many parlays and teasers. Either way, I ended up just below even, which is a shame, but considering the number of bets I placed over the season, it's pretty good to end up breaking even. And honestly, a decent amount of the final loss I had could be attributed to college football games, which I don't follow as closely and was much less successful on. I know, however, that to deserve any respect, the success that I have to have in these ventures needs to be here, rather than in items that don't carry any weight.
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