Thursday, August 26, 2010

Truffle Shuffle Season 3 Draft Analysis

Last night was the third annual Truffle Shuffle Fantasy Football Draft. Some were winners, most were losers. Check out the full rundown below. If you are not in the league you probably don't care. I understand that, but its my blog and I can do what I want!

O'Sullivan!

The squad who pays homage to lifetime backup J.T. O'Sullivan stayed pretty conservative in the draft until the later rounds. With a solid base in place with Turner, Mendenhall, and Jennings this squad started to shoot all over the board in the later rounds. He took a chance on a few guys like Bernard Barrian, Mohamed Massaquoi, and Lee Evans. The draft grade was set to be much higher until the final round when he selected Shayne Graham.

Key Player: Michael Turner
Reach Player: Mohamed Massaquoi
Sleeper: Javih Best

Final Grade: B

Smushing Ain't Easy

This team started pretty strong with a Ray Rice, Andre Johnson, LeSean McCoy foundation. It seemed as if Smushing was going to be easy early on. But while the rest of the league spent time grabbing QB's, Smush was loading up on WR's and TE's. Finally in round 9 he grabbed Kevin Kolb, and after ridicule from the peanut gallery he began to panic and drafted Cutler and Eli Manning using the often controversial 3 Qb set. What he failed to realize in his barrage of QB picks is that all three have the same bye week. I did the math and the probability of this happening is only 1/2,209,390,637,378. The panic continued and he selected two defenses.

Key Player: Andre Johnson
Reach Player: Laurence Maroney
Sleeper: Knowshon Moreno

Final Grade: F-

HE-MAN

He-Man tied with Wanna Get High? for longest average time per pick at just under 35 minutes to make his selection. With the bottom of the snake draft he took Drew Brees at pick 9 which I thought was solid. Ryan Matthews in round two was the sexy pick but questionable to me with guys like Williams, Mendenhall, and McCoy on the board. HE-MAN will be hoping to strike gold with his RB's with Mathews, Charles, and Spiller. Apparently HE-MAN really enjoyed watching the Super Bowl last year he drafted a record 4 New Orleans Saints.

Key Player: Drew Brees
Reach Player: Victor Cruz
Sleeper: C.J. Spiller

Final Grade: C-

Lord Voldemort

The dark lord hasn't always been known as a trendsetter, but set a trend in this draft by taking the first QB and grabbing Aaron Rodgers in round 1. That caused mass panic in Truffle Shuffle land which resulted in a run on QB's in late round 1 early round 2. The rest of the league thanks you for this trend because it gave some of us some later round steals. Voldemort grabbed a few good WR's in Miles Austin, Steve Smith, Hakeem Nicks, and Eddie Royal. But is somewhat weak on RB's with Shonn Greene, Pierre Thomas, and Ahmad Bradshaw.

Key Player: Aaron Rodgers
Reach Player: Pierre Thomas
Sleeper: Hakeem Nicks

Final Grade: B-

The Rick Rollers

This team is never gonna give you up, and certainly never gonna make you cry. The Rick Roller stringed together quite possibly one of the greatest drafts in the history of fantasy drafts. He didn't quite shock the world with a Chris Johnson first pick. But on the back end of the snake grabbed Reggie Wayne and Calvin Johnson in a somewhat WR heavy league. It seems as if Rick lost a little focus near the end with some shaky picks like Justin Forsett, Malcolm Floyd, and Mike Wallace. But killed it in the end with a solid Devin Aromashodu 14th round selection.

Key Player: Chris Johnson
Reach Player: Dez Bryant
Sleeper: Justin Forsett

Final Grade: Epic

CHAMPIONSHIP

Team Champ didn't quite live up to their name in this draft and had the highest "had to search for that guy" rating of the night. He started off solid with Jones-Drew, Brady and Roddy White. Then the LandShark Lager kicked in and he picked Matt Forte and Steve Slaton. Then in later rounds he selected T.J. Houshmanzadeh, Vince Young, and Michael Bush. That's when I realized that he had a fantasy magazine from 2009. Tough luck Championship. There is always next year.

Key Player: Maurice Jones-Drew
Reach Player: Steve Slaton
Sleeper: Jeremy Maclin

Final Grade: C+

Wanna Get High?

As mentioned previously, Wanna Get High was tied with HE-MAN for longest average time per pick, and what made that worse he had back to back picks. Wanna Get High? has a history of dominating the regular season and promptly getting knocked from the playoffs in his first post-season game. He decided this year that was not going to happen to him anymore, so he drafted Marion Barber, Beanie Wells, Zach Miller and Brandon Jacobs. He surely won't win the regular season with that crew. He stayed true to his Bengaldom by picking Benson with the first pick round #2, Terrell Owens round 8, and Jermaine Gresham round 10. I thought he got a steal in round #5 for NYG Steve Smith.

Key Player: Cedric Benson
Reach Player: Jermaine Gresham
Sleeper: Zach Miller

Final Grade: C

The Skidmarks

The good news for the Skidmarks, Frank Gore was available for his first pick and he didn't have to be embarrassed by taking Alex Smith first if Gore were gone. The whole room knew who was going #3 once Skidmarks went on the clock and true to 49er form he took Gore #3. I loved DeAngelo Williams late 2nd round. Joseph Addai is questionable in round #4 with some other RB's on the board at that point. He got a couple of steals with Arian Foster in round #9 and the pick of the night Thomas Jones in round #14!

Key Player: Frank Gore
Reach Player: Joseph Addai
Sleeper: Arian Foster

Final Grade: B

Galactic Empire

The Empire strikes back in this league and struck hard with a few solid early picks in Adrian Peterson, Randy Moss, and Ryan Grant. The Empire lives by the creed "If you ain't first your last" and we all knew something was coming when he asked, "what round is it?" then promptly took the first TE Dallas Clark in round #4. The Empire also started the run early by taking a defense in round #9. He got a nice pick in round #12 with Darren Sproles and completely screwed me in round #10 and took Reggie Bush.

Key Player: Adrian Peterson
Reach Player: Braylon Edwards
Sleeper: Pierre Garcon

Final Grade: B-

Team Andy

Team Andy, proudly beaming in his team name originality, was our Fantasy Draft virgin. And you wouldn't know he was a Fantasy Draft first timer. I thought he went a little too early on Steven Jackson in the first round with some studs still on the board but backed that up with Schaub, Marshall, Ochocinco, and Sims-Walker. I thought for being a first time player Team Andy really had a solid showing. He did get a little Atlanta happy in the end with his two final picks of Michael Jenkins and Jerious Norwood.

Key Player: Matta Schaub
Reach Player: Fred Jackson
Sleeper: Michael Crabtree

Final Grade: C+

2 comments:

Tye Mortensen said...

I like how your (the author's) grade was Epic...as in epic fail, you just forgot to finish the grade. How could it be any different with all those Chargers you took? Good luck trying to trade for one of those 3 QB's Kyle has...my recommendation, snag Alex Smith off waivers while you still can.

I also like to note the grading curve - since there were no "A" grades given I obviously had the best draft with the "B" grade you gave me, which = 100%. Enjoy being behind me in the standings all year.

Coach T Mort - The Skidmarks

Adam said...

Here's an idea, start your own blog and post your own review! I took a completely unbiased approach to making the grades. And Alex Smith, seriously, we all know you already have a waiver claim in for him. Just deal with the fact that you will be in my dust all season. You and Me in week 1, I hope Rivers puts up 100 on you!