This will be my third year playing fantasy football. In the first year, I didn’t understand a lot of the rules early on, but re-built my roster and rallied in the second half of the season. Missed out on the playoffs via a tie-breaker. In my second year, I had the second best record entering the playoffs but lost when Jamaal Charles scored about a million points for my opponent.

I am a pathological trader. Last season, I was involved in EVERY trade that happened in my league (around 6-8 of them). So I don’t think the draft is the last chance to build a winning team, but my draft was Sunday night. So I’ll share my initial roster. My league, which includes fraternity brothers from Phi Kappa Tau at Case Western, uses normal scoring and a snake draft. We start QB, 2 RB, 2 WR, TE, flex, D/ST, and K. There is no dynasty aspect or keepers. We get a fresh slate each year. This year, I got shafted with the last pick in a 12 team league. So I pick last in the first round, first in the second, last in the third, first in the fourth, etc. I pick twice in a row each time. Here are my selections and starting team for 2014 (if past actions are any clue, my ending team won’t resemble this team much):

1st round: Doug Martin, RB for Tampa Bay
2nd round: Montee Ball, RB for Denver
3rd round: Vincent Jackson, WR for Tampa Bay
4th round: Keenan Allen, WR for San Diego
5th round: Trent Richardson, RB for Indianapolis
6th round: Emmanuel Sanders, WR for Denver
7th round: Golden Tate, WR for Detroit
8th round: Colin Kaepernick, QB for San Francisco
9th round: Darren Sproles, RB for Philadelphia
10th round: Jeremy Hill, RB for Cincinnati
11th round: Andy Dalton, QB for Cincinnati
12th round: Doug Baldwin, WR for Detroit
13th round: Zach Ertz, TE for Philadelphia
14th round: Lance Dunbar, RB for Dallas
15th round: Matt Bryant, K for Atlanta
16th round: Bills D/ST

I grabbed a lot of running backs in the draft because they are always the hardest commodity to find during the season. I’m really high on Montee Ball, mostly because of the high-powered Denver offense. Everyone is down on Trent Richardson, but I think Indy’s offense will be even better this year and he is a feature back. He’ll make enough points to justify a 5th round pick. Sanders, Tate, and Baldwin are all #2 WR in high-powered offenses. I wanted Matt Ryan as my QB, but someone took him in the 7th round, so I took Kaepernick. His receivers are vastly improved over last year and he gets some running yards, so that should be fine. I’ve heard good things about Zach Ertz, so I’m hoping he’ll be good as my only TE for now. Hill and Dunbar are #2 RB in systems that might feature two backs. We’ll see if they get significant touches or not. I always stream kickers and defenses week to week, so I put zero thought into those picks. I’ll typically just grab the best available for the coming week off the waiver wire and do as well as most people. Some crazies started taking defenses in the 7th round, way too early for me.

I’ll have details about Maria’s picks in her league up in the afternoon.