The Injury Bug Rears Its Ugly Head
the problem with conducting a draft before training camp starts is that players get hurt. sometimes it's just a minor tweak (vick's hamstring), sometimes it's for the season (david boston). last year, vick's injury put my season -- and the falcons season -- on a downward slide and i'm still recovering. this year, one of my latest pickups, marcel shipp, was injured a few hours after i drafted him. gone for 8-12 weeks. what is this shit? if i had waited just a few more hours i could have picked up a healthy back. i'll probably have to drop him now because his season is shot. my guarantee: more players will fall during training camp, let's just hope none are on my roster.
luckily, my draft has so far produced two potentially very capable running backs. after surveying the landscape, i traded plaxico burress (along with switching my 2nd and 3rd round draft positions, from #2 to #10) for rudi johnson. it looks like a steal on paper, trading a questionable WR for a young RB, but you never know. rudi is one of this year's hot young backs (along with domanick davis) and he should have at least a 1200 yard, 8-TD season. plaxico could return to being a premier wide receiver but i'm sick of waiting on him. trading him away just reinforced my determination to gamble with my WR corps. trading away a player who has a good season under his belt is always difficult but some players are just teases, never returning to their previous form. if you had offered me rudi for plaxico straight up during the off-season, i most certainly would've hit the "yes" button; the shift down in draft position was nothing, since all the players i wanted were definitely going to be around when i picked.
my trade last year with rudi's previous owner (vick, ahman, marvin harrison for bledsoe, ricky williams, joe horn) killed my team and elevated him to defending champion, here's hoping for a little karmic payback. if plaxico blows up however, and rudi stutters, i may never trade with the tiiite end jammers again. just kidding. sort of.
i used my delayed second round pick on yet another rookie wide receiver, roy williams, thus giving me the two most touted offensive rookies. here's hoping one of them shows some promise this season because at this point, i've got joe horn and ashley lelie as my WR #1 and #2, with the two rooks fighting it out for scraps. danger will robinson, danger.
in the third round, i was working to trade for up and coming WR justin mccareins but that deal fell through. instead of picking up more WRs, i switched gears and snatched up lee suggs, who has some upside but is also working in an unknown offense. with rudi, suggs and shipp, i had hoped to have at least one of them come through as a dependable back. but now that shipp has fallen off, i may have to get another back, leaving my WR corps thin and unproven.
what happened to my desire to draft 5-6 WRs? i decided that the value just wasn't there. in the late rounds of the draft, the only receivers i had available were old retreads -- capable of maybe one good season but useless after that (keyshawn johnson, joey galloway)-- or players that i had big question marks on. i was looking at rod gardner or donald driver (i would of gone with driver over gardner, if only because i feel that driver has an outside chance of returning to top dog status, while gardner will always have laveranus coles in front of him) instead of drafting shipp but i decided that i really didn't like either of them enough -- despite their breakthrough seasons coming only two years ago. my new plan was to draft five RBs and sit on them, floating along with four WRs on the roster. now i may have to use my wasted shipp pick to grab that fifth RB.
there should really be a compensation pick for injuries that occur mid-draft, it's only fair right? i doubt my fellow owners would be big fans of that idea.
the most accomplished player still on the board is air mcnair -- he of the mvp season. it's almost mind blowing that he's still on the board but that's how deep the QB pool is. drafting mcnair would give me a bonafide superstar and stabilize my roster but i really don't want to pick a QB until later, since my league mates already seem to have stable options at QB and each pick i avoid grabbing a QB is another player less for them to take. but mcnair is certainly making me consider drafting him, just based on positional value.
luckily, my draft has so far produced two potentially very capable running backs. after surveying the landscape, i traded plaxico burress (along with switching my 2nd and 3rd round draft positions, from #2 to #10) for rudi johnson. it looks like a steal on paper, trading a questionable WR for a young RB, but you never know. rudi is one of this year's hot young backs (along with domanick davis) and he should have at least a 1200 yard, 8-TD season. plaxico could return to being a premier wide receiver but i'm sick of waiting on him. trading him away just reinforced my determination to gamble with my WR corps. trading away a player who has a good season under his belt is always difficult but some players are just teases, never returning to their previous form. if you had offered me rudi for plaxico straight up during the off-season, i most certainly would've hit the "yes" button; the shift down in draft position was nothing, since all the players i wanted were definitely going to be around when i picked.
my trade last year with rudi's previous owner (vick, ahman, marvin harrison for bledsoe, ricky williams, joe horn) killed my team and elevated him to defending champion, here's hoping for a little karmic payback. if plaxico blows up however, and rudi stutters, i may never trade with the tiiite end jammers again. just kidding. sort of.
i used my delayed second round pick on yet another rookie wide receiver, roy williams, thus giving me the two most touted offensive rookies. here's hoping one of them shows some promise this season because at this point, i've got joe horn and ashley lelie as my WR #1 and #2, with the two rooks fighting it out for scraps. danger will robinson, danger.
in the third round, i was working to trade for up and coming WR justin mccareins but that deal fell through. instead of picking up more WRs, i switched gears and snatched up lee suggs, who has some upside but is also working in an unknown offense. with rudi, suggs and shipp, i had hoped to have at least one of them come through as a dependable back. but now that shipp has fallen off, i may have to get another back, leaving my WR corps thin and unproven.
what happened to my desire to draft 5-6 WRs? i decided that the value just wasn't there. in the late rounds of the draft, the only receivers i had available were old retreads -- capable of maybe one good season but useless after that (keyshawn johnson, joey galloway)-- or players that i had big question marks on. i was looking at rod gardner or donald driver (i would of gone with driver over gardner, if only because i feel that driver has an outside chance of returning to top dog status, while gardner will always have laveranus coles in front of him) instead of drafting shipp but i decided that i really didn't like either of them enough -- despite their breakthrough seasons coming only two years ago. my new plan was to draft five RBs and sit on them, floating along with four WRs on the roster. now i may have to use my wasted shipp pick to grab that fifth RB.
there should really be a compensation pick for injuries that occur mid-draft, it's only fair right? i doubt my fellow owners would be big fans of that idea.
the most accomplished player still on the board is air mcnair -- he of the mvp season. it's almost mind blowing that he's still on the board but that's how deep the QB pool is. drafting mcnair would give me a bonafide superstar and stabilize my roster but i really don't want to pick a QB until later, since my league mates already seem to have stable options at QB and each pick i avoid grabbing a QB is another player less for them to take. but mcnair is certainly making me consider drafting him, just based on positional value.
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