Over the course of the past month or so (yeah...it took that long!), we've been participating in another mock draft via e-mail. The draft was only four rounds and consisted of other fantasy football bloggers, including FF Librarian, FF Goat, FF Fools, Football Jabber, The Hazean, The Bruno Boys, West Coast Nonsense, Pancake Blocks, Football Burrito, Curveballs for Jesus and Football Outsiders. Here is how it went down (you'll find analysis on the first round picks, as well as the rest of the rounds and analysis, after the jump)...

Round 1
1.01 Curveballs For Jesus: LaDainian Tomlinson (RB, SD)
1.02 Football Outsiders: Adrian Peterson (RB, Min)
1.03 Football Burrito: Joseph Addai (RB, Ind)
1.04 Panake Blocks: Stephen Jackson (RB, StL)
1.05 West Coast Nonsense: Brian Westbrook (RB, Phi)
1.06 Bruno Boys: Tom Brady (QB, NE)
1.07 The Hazean: Marion Barber (RB, Dal)
1.08 Football Jabber: Frank Gore (RB, SF)
1.09 Fantasy Football Fools: Clinton Portis (RB, Was)
1.10 Fantasy Football Geek Blog: Marshawn Lynch (RB, Buf)
1.11 Fantasy Football Goat: Larry Johnson (RB, KC)
1.12 Fantasy Football Librarian: Randy Moss (WR, NE)

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As previously mentioned, we're members of the Fantasy Website Drunken Pirate Slapfight Expert League (got all that? You can check out the list of websites involved here). Drafting from 10th position in a 12-team league, here's the squad we wound up with:

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ESPN appears to have revamped its fantasy football website significantly, and I like what I see. I'm moving my keeper league over from Fox Sports, a hassle I'm only undertaking because I'm so impressed. The layout is simple and easy on the eyes; the only comparably clean site out there is Yahoo's, which I refuse to use because of the inflexibility of its waiver wire system.

ESPN has clearly put a good deal of thought into how fantasy football players use their site. The best websites work so well that you don't have to think about them - the next thing you're looking to do is always right there waiting for you. This is the feeling I get on ESPN.com. While I liked Fox Sports because it offered all the features I need, moving from that cluttered, clunky interface to ESPN is like taking a breath of fresh air.

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In case you're not one of those fantasy football addicts that can't wait until your real league's drafts to have a fantasy team in front of you...those who, like myself, annually sign up for a Yahoo! Public league team just so that you have something to look at for the month before your draft...I figured I'd provide you with a quick glimpse of the new and improved Yahoo fantasy football draft room:

As with most Yahoo fantasy football products, I think it looks nicer than any other draft room that's offered (that I've seen at least). At the top of the dialog is a dynamic scrolling banner that shows which team is up to draft, along with the next teams to draft, which is pretty stylish. Below that you find a few other solid features, including an enlarged section that shows last years stats for the player you've currently selected, so you don't have to venture out of the draft room to get that information. Next to the player names, you see a list where you can add players to your queue...nothing special here, but not bad either. Finally, the right side of the draft room consists of an overview of your team and a chat room. The team section is pretty well laid out and makes it easy to see exactly what your starting roster will be come the beginning of the season. Overall, I have to say that again Yahoo looks like it has the top draft room available. While it hasn't really added any new features that I am aware of, besides maybe the bigger player stats section, they seemed to put all the focus in making it even more user friendly in terms of aesthetics and usability, which I really can't complain about.

In case you were interested about my team in this league, my important starters consist of Brian Westbrook, Earnest Graham/Reggie Bush, Braylon Edwards, Larry Fitzgerald and Kellen Winslow.

In case you aren't a Firefox user yet, here's a great reason to become one: The fantastic (and fantastically simple) add-on called Hyperwords. Hyperwords allows you to select any word, name, or phrase on any page on the Web and immediately plug it into an online resource of your choice. Select an address and send it to Google Maps. Select a phone number and send it to Skype. Select someone's pompously cryptic French expression, translate it into English to find out what it means, then never tell anyone about it in case it's one of those expressions that everyone seems to know but you.

There's lots more you can do, but most important to fantasy football players is its central function: Sending your selected text to a search engine of your choice. So let's say someone offers to trade you Ronnie Brown, and your first thought is, "What's the deal with his knee, anyway?" Just select his name, right-click, select Google News, and there you go. Sure, you could have opened up a new window, gone to news.google.com, typed in Ronnie's name, and thereby accomplished the same thing, but that would have cost you a whole extra five to ten seconds, which is of course simply unacceptable.

I checked out FanSoft's newest offering, CheatSheet Creator, today. While I was encouraged by the nice design (us web designers are suckers for pretty colors and such), I quickly realized that I'll probably never use this unless the interface is reworked into something that's far less of a pain in my ass. I'm actually wondering whether they've actually sat down and tried to use their own product to build a cheat sheet before.

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This year FFGeekBlog has begun its infiltration into several fantasy football blogger leagues, with the plan of blogger league domination within a year or two. Currently Matt is drafting a team for a league set up by JunkyardJake.com called "Fantasy Website Drunken Pirate Slapfight Expert League". At this point our team is looking pretty solid, with the likes of Ricky Williams and Brett Favre leading the way (no joke!), so we plan to compete with the best in that league (we also have Joseph Addai, Maurice Jones-Drew and Braylon Edwards, in case you were wondering/worried - actually, this site allows anyone to see the teams without logging in, so check out our team here). We will make sure to post the final roster when the draft is complete, which should be today or early tomorrow I would guess.

While Matt has ultimate control over that squad, I will be taking the reigns in another blogger league, The Hazean's second annual Blogger League, which will be hosted on FleaFlicker.com. I just found out this morning that we have the 10th pick (out of 12 teams) in that league, so I can begin my preparation (scratch any top tier running back off the list...) with that in mind for the draft, which won't take place till very late in August. I'm thinking maybe I'll get Clinton Portis or Marshawn Lynch...maybe even Randy Moss or Tom Brady if I'm feeling especially adventerous (and they havn't been selected yet) with my first pick, but we'll have to wait and see. As with the other league, we'll make sure to post the roster for all to see. Until then, adios!

After participating in a few mock drafts to date, it became apparent that certain backup running backs are held to a higher standard than others. I figured it might be helpful to provide a list of all the starting running backs in the league, along with their primary backup. Also, I wanted to include how important it is to get their backup as a handcuff in your draft, or if you need to draft them at all. Below you can find my "Running back Handcuff Index", where I've grouped running backs into different levels (Very High to Very Low) of importance, in terms of making sure you draft their backup as an insurance policy. Please note that when I say "starter", I mean the player that is getting drafted earlier and should have the most fantasy impact on the season, not the player who has earned the ceremonial title. So here you go...

Very High

Oakland Raiders

Starter: Darren McFadden
Handcuff: Justin Fargas
Concern(s): Rookie / Committee
Notes: While Fargas might be the starter going into the season (similar to how Chester Taylor was last year), DMC is the guy going early in the draft and should get most of the carries in Oakland before long. However, he IS a rookie and who knows if he'll live up to his hype. If possible, this is a definite handcuff situation.

Miami Dolphins

Starter: Ronnie Brown
Handcuff: Ricky Williams
Concern(s): Injury
Notes: Apparently Ricky Williams has looked great in practice so far and with Brown's durability questions, this is a "must have" hand-cuff (although if Williams relapses into dope-smoking, you might need a handcuff for your handcuff).

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As I've been preparing my power rankings this season, I've noticed a few names that I've had a lot of difficulty placing amongst the lists. For example, how can you decide between Marvin Harrison and Wes Welker? You know Welker will do well, but do you have a clue how Harrison will do? Neither do I. Players like this I've deemed the International Men of Mystery and I figured I'd write an article documenting my random thoughts on a few of them. This is by no means a comprehensive list, as knowing how any player will do in a given season is really a guess anyway. So, without further ado, here are your mystery men...

Quarterbacks

Aaron Rodgers (GB): I guess by putting Rodgers on this list, you have to also consider his mentor Brett Favre as a mystery at this point in the year (until he and the Packers figure out what the hell to do with him). Anyways, Rodgers has been riding the pine for years now, racking up a whopping 329 passing yards over the past three seasons. He is now the apparent starter in Green Bay with some big shoes to fill. Considering the weapons that Green Bay has on the offensive side of the ball with Greg Jennings, Donald Driver, James Jones and Ryan Grant, it's easy to believe that Rodgers could have a great fantasy season (similar to Favre's 2007 season). However, people might forget that while he was a pupil to one of the all-time greats for these past years, he still has very little experience and there's a good chance that he'll go through some growing pains over the course of the season. The good part is that you won't have to use a high draft pick on him, so you can take him as your second quarterback and only use him on your starters bye week if  necessary. (Risk: Low, Reward: High)

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