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NOTES FROM A KEEPER
 The Diarrhoetic Downs and Unpalatable Ups of Life as a Fantasy Keeper Leaguer
by Michael E Lawrence
10/8/2007
The Prophets’ war room: dark, dusty, spotted with empty coffee cups and half-eaten toast, sky scrapered with precarious stacks of hand written notes and scouting reports.
I’ve been here for days is it weeks? watching tape, awarding grades, trying to predict the movements of the other 13 teams of the Washington Redskins UK Supporters Club Fantasy Football League (which, as a New York Jets fan, is trickier than it sounds these people sometimes dress up as pigs in wigs after all.)
LenDale and Kevin are sat at the back of the room ostensibly helping, the former nursing a Slim Fast shake, the latter his own foot. But so far they have taken it upon themselves to ridicule and dismiss every running back prospect I’m reviewing.
They are not without subjectivity in the matter.
I suggest that perhaps they ought to be in the weight room like Ronnie, who’s been working hard.
Suck up, mutters LenDale distastefully, and Kevin sniggers. He is easily led.
If only he followed his blockers as easily, I think to myself.
I tell them to go and put the kettle on.
*****
But nothing beats the invigoration of draft day itself, and on the 28th July in a garden in Hertfordshire suburbia, the 14 oligarchs of the WRUKSCFFL (as it is pithily acronymed) gather clutching magazines, draft guides, cheatsheets, laptops, uh, quiche, and set about laying foundations for the new season.
At the third overall selecton there can be, and for months has only been, one outcome: the selection of Marshawn Lynch by the Prophets.
On the phone, he cannot believe it:
It’s really happened? I’m a Prophet? he asks overjoyed, exhilaration and relief melting in his mind.
But while Lynch models a Prophets cap and answers questions with studied professionalism (Kolber: Marshawn, are you happy to be a Prophet? Lynch: I’m just looking forward to getting into camp and working hard.) the real business of the draft begins: the remaining 5 selections must yield above all a starting tight end, a reserve tight end, possibly another quarterback, and a kicker.
Knowing this I somehow spend my next three picks on running backs and wide receivers.
What can I tell you I am sucker for the glamour positions. Running back and receiver prospects are to me what donuts and Duff are to Homer.
A case in point: at the top of the second round, I’m all ready to trade out of pick 17, my second selection, and am discussing doing so with the Reservoir Droogs, my own brother’s storied franchise, when I notice Ted Ginn free falling down the board.
For some reason, his chute just isn’t opening and owner after owner is passing him up.
Now Ginn has been receiving poor press from the fantascenti all off season he was a reach, he’s too small, he’s injured, etc. But to my eyes he remains a top-10 NFL draft selection who ran a 4.39 on a badly sprained foot and who at the very least might replicate Devin Hester like results in the return game.
Plus, in the keeper league format, he can develop into a Willie Gault type receiver at his own lesiure.
But already fielding a starting receiver trio that would be sent packing from the height restricted rides at Alton Towers (5′ 9 Steve Smith, 5’10 Lee Evans, 5’10 Mark Clayton) do I really need another diddy pass catcher buzzing about beneath my feet?
Perhaps it’s the afternoon sun or maybe the quiche talking, but I figure: what the hell, I do, and select him.
I also expect and get – a peal of reeeach! from a few nearby wags.
And so the picks keep coming, and yet I keep ignoring the needs.
Top of the third: Fred Taylor, whose yardage points I can’t resist in case of injury to my starting backs.
Bottom of the third: Kenny Irons, whose potential succession of Rudi Johnson within two years or so I can’t ignore.
And suddenly I’m not picking til the seventh round, and where a quality veteran tight end ought to be lined up with my starters there is instead a gaping black hole ready to suck in not just all matter in the universe but, more significantly, the fate of my fantasy football team.
Swimming with panic I do the only thing any self respecting fantasy owner can do: mortgage the future unnecessarily.
Sending a 2009 pick (2009? I think to myself with genuine cheer, I might not even live that long!) to a rival franchise, I swoop in on Dallas Clark midway through the fifth round like Spidey would swoop in on Mary Jane.
While I’m at it I also scoop up deep sleeper receiver Maurice Stovall from Tampa Bay.
I have no shame.
But by the seventh and eight rounds I am easing off the accelerator, taking a punt on Corey Dillon here (he migh unretire) and a chance on Mike Nugent there (he might break out) and feeling pretty smug about the whole thing.
*****
On the van ride back home there is silence.
Marshawn is staring out of the window, beaming.
Taylor is doing sudoku.
LenDale is sulking.
There is a tap on my shoulder.
Hmm? I ask, one eye still on the road.v It’s Ginn.v You don’t really think I was a reach, do you boss?
No, of course not Ted, say I, of course not. And I really don’t.
No, no, me either, he says, and settles back into his seat. Me either.
Taylor, sharp as a tack, has moved onto the crossword, and is reading clues out loud.
Hmm to make a stretch, as with the hand or arm. Five letters he mutters to no one in particular.
Tragically, it’s Ginn that clicks first.
Reeach! he yelps, sobbing into a kleenex proferred by Stovall.
I figure I’ll tell him he’s sixth on the depth chart some other time.
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