2004 Season Wrapup
by Ryan Woods
posted on December 17, 2004 12:16 pm

How quickly the NFL season goes by when you are in a fantasy football league. The time has come to write a season wrap up, and I’ll reviw the original draft grades in the process to see how accurate I was.

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Regular Season Rank: 6th
Original Grade: C+
Original Quote: Most people like to choose backup WRs that have DIFFERENT bye weeks than their three starters…just a suggestion.

Oink ended the season on a lot better footing than he started. There were several weeks in the middle of the season that looked like he may have missed the playoffs, but by making a league record 38 roster changes he solidified himself in the #6 spot in the league and surprised Turd Fergusson in the first round of the playoffs. The downfall of the mid season team improvements that he made is that he needs to win the Championship to cover his exorbitant transaction fees!

Banger9

Regular Season Rank: 9th
Original Grade: B-
Original Quote: You also get downgraded for drafting two kickers.

I stand by my original grade for this team. He was a victim of scheduling nightmares. Every time he faced a team, they put up 130 points. No matter how good your squad is, that is tough to overcome. The most memorable thing about Banger’s draft was his attempt to take K Rob in the 11th round. With the way that Robinson played this year, he’ll be available at that spot next year!

Barbie Boppers

Regular Season Rank: 7th
Original Grade: A
Original Quote: He’s got a lot of quality in the starting lineup, and he’s got a lot of depth.

Sadly enough, the injury bug hit the Boppers HARD this year, and all the quality starters AND backups went away for him. The ONLY shining beacon on this team has been Manning…at least until week one of the playoffs, when everyone BUT Manning blew up! Barbie has lived and died by the phenomenon called the Colts offense this year, and he’s a dark horse candidate to take the league trophy.

Defending Champs

Regular Season Rank: 10th
Original Grade: B-
Original Quote: Even with TO in Philly, I think it’s a stretch to draft McNabb in the second round.

Boy, was I ever wrong. McNabb kept the Champs in a lot of games this year. Unfortunately, he had several forces working against him: bad matchups, injuries, and bust draft picks. He did his best to field a quality team throughout the season, though. Coming in second only to his brother for most transactions in the league, the Champs went down fighting. He’s secured himself a cherry draft spot next year, and he’ll DEFINITELY be in the playoff hunt come December 2005.

Hoochie Mamas

Regular Season Rank: 12th
Original Grade: B
Original Quote: The Mamas have a pretty high caliber squad if a couple of guys play up to expectations(I’m looking at you, Jerry Porter).

Hoochie was a victim of reading too many fantasy football magazines. There were a lot of guys that were supposed to perform this year that fell flat, and Porter is a great example. It’s always a crap shoot when you draft untested guys, and the Mamas seemed to get the brunt of the bad luck this year. Maybe an in-the-flesh draft next year will help his chances.

Meat Helmets

Regular Season Rank: 4th
Original Grade: A-
Original Quote: If Vick falters or gets hurt, I’m not sure if Delhomme is strong enough to take up the slack.

Aside from the erroneous quote, this is the only team that I graded correctly! This team was built to perform down the stretch. He started the season at 3-1, lost a good number of mid-season games, then came back HUGE towards the end of the season. All of this came with only 5 changes in personnel through the season. Unfortunately, he’s been one of the casualties of a particularly bloody first round of the playoffs. The Helmets had a great season…aside from the fact that they took home no cash!

MILF Divers

Regular Season Rank: 11th
Original Grade: B+
Original Quote: Proof that experience pays dividends.

MILF Divers have become the Al Davis of the IIFFL. He’s the only owner who really cares about winning and all of the league executives are out to get him! I know that there has been some bad blood between MILF and the rest of the league, so I won’t kick a man while he’s down. All I can say about this team is to stay a little more active on the message board. He posted a lot at the start of the season, but when his team went south, so did his posts. Sometimes your team is so bad that all you have is your smack talk to defend yourself. Believe me, I’ve been there!

Mr. Natalie Portman

Regular Season Rank: 2nd
Original Grade: B-
Original Quote: The draft that I had was exactly what I wanted, and now I have to live and die by the monster that I created.

The monster performed well in this first ¾ of the season only to be slammed down to earth in the last 4 weeks. The ‘Screw the RB’ strategy that was developed during the draft paid dividends until the weather got cold and RBs heated up. There were a lot of capable backs at the beginning of the season which gave my team an edge, but once the stud RBs(Tomlinson, Alexander, Edge, etc.) got a rhythm going my team became incredibly average. Having said that, if Manning would have been my first pick, I’d be rolling in the playoffs right now with a #1 seed.

Robintucky Raiders

Regular Season Rank: 5th
Original Grade: D+
Original Quote: You can’t blame a telephone, or fan loyalty, or an ill advised trade on the fact that Robintucky knowingly drafted the Bears Defense.

I have to give the Raiders credit now, since I obviously didn’t during the draft grades! He put himself a fine team together this year and was fortunate to have a few sleepers help him out. The trade that he and I made for draft picks may have helped me more than it did him(Culpepper vs. Ahman Green), but he made his fantasy team a success. Hopefully, Robintucky will be able to make the draft next year, and maybe we can make a draft day trade for picks!!

Running Mad

Regular Season Rank: 8th
Original Grade: C+
Original Quote: If we we’re grading on a curve, he’s get a few bonus points for being new.

Maybe the newness factor is what made Running Mad’s team look like it was going to live in 12th place at the beginning of the season. There is no way that I would have predicted Mad to be in the playoffs, and there was even less of a chance for him to knock off the #1 seed. Next year, he needs to change his team name to the Carolina Panthers!

Cosby Sweaters

Regular Season Rank: 1st
Original Grade: C
Original Quote: This grade does not include the upgrade at RB that he traded for.

Who would have thought that the little “who cares” trade that happened on draft night would help make the Helmets and Sweaters team as we know them today? I believe the trade was Tiki Barber for Curtis Martin. Looking back, that is huge for both sides. It gave Cosby a GREAT 3 RB combo of James, Davis, and Martin. When one was hurt, he’d rotate in another. I know that he beat me the last week of the season, and I should be happy that he lost in the playoffs, but I can’t BELIEVE that this team didn’t go all the way!

Turd Fergusson

Regular Season Rank: 3rd
Original Grade: C
Original Quote: Other than having two QBs who’s combined age is 75, Turd seems to have a decent squad.

Turd is one of the teams that never relinquished his spot at the top of the rankings in regular season only to get his ass handed to him in the playoffs. Turd had a team full of guys that were “nothing special”, but they gelled nicely to give his team a great seed in the draft. Add that to the fat $25.90 check that he’s going to get, and he can live happily through the off-season. It will be interesting to see what kind of team he drafts next year.

Overall, it was a great season for all involved, and I’d like to say on behalf of the teams ranked 1-4 in the playoffs, “Your Welcome”. That goes out to the Running Mads and Barbie Boppers of the world who squeaked into the playoffs and will probably make a couple hundred bucks for winning the Super Bowl and still have a losing season…you should be proud!