Like many of you, without sports I’m bored in house, I’m in the house bored. I miss sports. I miss my friends. And I miss betting on sports with my friends. So, without any sports to watch, I stumbled down the rabbit holes of Reddit and found a gem of a sub-thread. A fantasy football league…for BACKYARD Football. Oh yeah, you remember these little fuckers?!
So, like any sport deprived person who spent their childhood kicking the shit out of the Humongous Wombats, I joined the league. Our draft, for Year 4(!!!) of the league was today. This isn’t just some slapped together draft for giggles; the league has kept track of stats for each of the past three seasons and in a sense, is more dependable than the ESPN Fantasy App. Teams stats, team records, player records, league leaders. They’ve got it all.
So here’s the deal: this league uses Backyard Football 2002. The teams in the league have already been generated by the computer. So it’s just like the NFL but without a free agency period. This game would be like if Tom Brady actually wanted to be a Patriot for life. The commissioner runs every single game in the league each week for the ENTIRE 14 game season (11 regular season, 3 playoffs for fantasy purposes).
The fantasy rules are similar to real life and so are the fantasy rosters. The points system is similar too and the league is PPR. One twist is being able to play two quarterbacks at once, but that is a new trend for fantasy leagues recently anyway.
Here is how my draft turned out:
QB – Pablo Sanchez – Melonheads
RB – Victor Jones – 49ers
WR – Vicki Kawaguchi – Chargers
TE – Jevon Kearse – Chargers
Flex – Georgette Washington (RB/WR) – Wombats
Flex – Brett Favre (QB) – 49ers
DEF/ST – Raiders
K – Reese Worthington – Eagles
BENCH – Rainbow Callahan (WR) – Melonheads
BENCH – Mohammad Springsteen (RB/TE) – Melonheads
BENCH – Amir Khan (WR) – Raiders
BENCH – Kenny Kawaguchi (WR) – Melonheads
I had the second overall pick of the draft and someone just left the legend Pablo Sanchez right there for me. Are you stupid, are you dumb?! Pablo Sanchez is the face of the Backyard Sports franchise and this guy takes Reese Worthington as the top pick instead. Thank you and goodnight. I’m also really happy I got the speedster on the outside in Vicki Kawaguchi. Best deep ball threat since Desean Jackson. Later in the draft, you’ll see I filled out my bench with her brother, Kenny Kawaguchi. Figure I could get a big game or two out of him before the wheels fall off. Also, totally didn’t realize they were brother/sister and it’s been two decades of owning this game.
Another strategy I love in fantasy is double dipping on teams so that when a quarterback hits a receiver for a touchdown, it doubles my points. That’s why after drafting Victor Jones, the pass catcher out of the backfield, I got the OG gun slinger, Brett Favre. You’ll also see that I drafted literally the entire Melonheads offense (Rainbow Callahan, Mohammad Springsteen, Kawaguchi and Sanchez). That was not on purpose but the Melonheads were a playoff team last year with a lot of weapons. I trust Pablo Sanchez with my life.
Lastly, you’ll see that Reese Worthington is in at my kicker position despite being a RB/WR drafted first overall. Some of the kids pull double duty and are used as their teams’ kicker as well. So, you can draft a position player who is also a kicker, but obviously only his kicking related points will count to your total. So I took Reese in the last round so that he would be drafted in both the first and last round. It was an ode and a thank you to the kid who took him instead of Pablo. Stupid fuck.
Sanchez. Kawaguchi. Khan. There are some legendary names comprised to make up my BFFL roster this season. Can’t wait to get started!