This is the first in a series of posts that will chronicle the history of the league’s teams, trials, and tribulations, and see what part they played in the establishment of the now super-competitive, painfully-complex UMMFFA.
UMMFFA’s inaugural season was a well-intentioned but ultimately disastrous example of what can happen when a FF league is started with a “let anyone who wants to play start a team” attitude. Though the season ultimately lived up to the hype that many of us (myself included) had wanted from fantasy football, it was not without a few bumps in the road.
In 2006, I learned about fantasy football from Ryan Good. Okay, “learned” might not be the best word. I’d heard of its existence. I knew groups of people got together, drafted players, formed teams, and played games of some sort to determine a winner. But that was about it. There’s wasn’t much else I knew about fantasy football, which at that time was still fairly out of the spotlight, at least in the circles I ran in. It certainly didn’t have two hours a day dedicated to it on SportsCenter.
Ryan was in a team with some of his friends from undergrad. Some of you know them: the Beasts and Dinos of his past. The ones that inevitably lead Ryan to drunked fits of aggression, occasional slap flights, destroying his own apartment, and nearly falling out a window with his dick in the wind. Those friends. In 2006, our M1 year, Ryan told me about FF and explained to me the ins and outs. I didn’t quite get all the details of FF, and certainly didn’t know much about how to make a successful team, but I did know one thing: FF is a big, month-long game. And I love games.
So in the summer of 2007 I spoke to Ryan said we should make a league for our friends. Ryan was on board (a decision he would at first regret), then we just needed to figure out who else would be. As we were inclined to do back then, that way to get the word out was a mass email.
Some people were dying to be involved. They had either been involved in the past or had always wanted to. This group involved myself, Ryan Good, Jason, Scott, Travis, Donel, Kyle, Phil, Drew, and Karen. Karen was actually one of the most enthusiastic. “I love FF,” she told me during lecture one day. “I won my league last year.” In that way we ended up with our first girl, and so began our league’s long history of gender inequality.
That would have been a nice number of teams. But what did we know about formatting a FF league? None of us had ever started one. The more the merrier! Nava, in typical Nava fashion, emailed me a “I don’t know anything about football but love being included in fun things!” response, and thus came an eleventh team. Ryan Davis, always aloof but desperate to be less so, wanted in as well. Peter didn’t really seem all that excited about it at first; he took some coercion to play. That gave us 13, an awkward, odd, unlucky number. We figured we had already gotten this far, we might as well even it out and find one more team.
Multiple candidates were proposed. Niels was pestered and said, “I just don’t care enough about football.” Justin said, “meh, not interested.” Jon said, “I don’t know if I have time. Maybe next year.” I thought we had a fourteenth member for sure in Tudor, who loved football and Drew said would definitely play. His response: “I’m not very smart and want to go into Urology. If I do Fantasy Football, it will consume my life and I’ll spend all my time doing it and fail out of a med school.”
I thought we were out of options. However, as you will all recall, 518 Lawrence had just come to be and Carissa and Annie were living in our basement. I spoke to Carissa about FF and she said it seemed fun. I promised it would be a “minimal time commitment,” and that it was “just for fun.” I also said Annie could be her “co-manager,” which would mean they would have to do even less work. Amidst all those filthy lies, she agreed to come on as our final team.
Ryan Good was commissioner of that first season. Want to see his first Commissioner’s note?
“The winner of the playoffs will take all the money. If you haven't paid me yet please do so in a timely manner ($5 per team)”
Isn’t that cute? That basically summed up the only rule we had at the time. Ryan also was 1000x less verbose than I am, which led to very succinct, clear statements, as opposed to rambling dialogues on random topics. But I, as usual, digress.
Not everyone may remember this as clearly as I do, but that season was a wreck. First and foremost, we were playing with some alternative rules, including 6 pts per TD for QBs, an additional WR per week, and possibly some other ones I don’t even know about. So scoring was just rampant. Think about it; least season, how many teams broke 130 in scoring? The answer is 2: Donel in Week 7 with 131 and Scott in Week 12 with 130. Here’s a list of the teams that broke 130 in Season 1:
Kyle: 3 times, 150, 142, 130
Jason: Twice, 146 and 143
Karen: Once, 160
Phil: Twice, 145 and 142
Peter: 3 times, 170, 149, 137
Scott: 3 times, 165, 138, 132
There were thirteen scores that season higher than ANY score we had last season. EVERY team seemed able to break 100 on any given week. A score of 130 couldn’t even guarantee you a win; Scott lost to Peter in Week 9 149 to 132.
Also: 14 teams is TOO MANY. Despite the rampant scoring, players were scarce. It was impossible to get more than one or two decent players at any position. And forget about having more than one elite player. Take my 5th place team that season as an example. My Starting RBs were Frank Gore (who was averaging 10.1 points per game that season) and Marshawn Lynch. My third best RB was…Kenton Keith. At WR, I had Wes Welker and Reggie Williams…then I had Arnaz Battle, and Reggie Brown. My defense outscored EVERYONE on my roster besides by QB.
Also, it would be hard to deny that frustration began to build as teams went inactive. Karen stopped caring about week 3 and never looked back. Nava disappeared for eight weeks, then decided, “I’ll just drop Steven Jackson,” then proceeded to continue her disappearing act. Ryan Davis changed his name to “Bye Week.” Here’s another fun fact: Carissa didn’t know her log in. I had made the account for her, so the only time the entire season she logged in was in Week 7 when I was so exasperated that I made her. It worked out: she beat Peter that week, and I smirked.
We had a Top 8 Playoff bracket that season and fortunately none of the inactive teams made it, though Carissa/Annie actually tied Travis in the final standings and he made it through only on the points differential. Notable is that both Drew and Ryan Good missed the playoffs that year, Drew at 6-7 and Ryan at 4-9 (below both Nava and Carissa/Annie in the standings).
To conclude, here’s one final hurrah for the four teams that would never be part of the league again.
Daaaa Broads
Managers (and I use the term lightly): Carissa and Annie
Active (also used lightly): 2007
Best/Worst Finish: 6-7, 9th place
Daaaaa Broads (with five “a”s, I looked it up) were a mess. Autodrafted by the computer, Carissa never quite learned to get into the league and was never concerned enough to care. Annie, I’m pretty sure, didn’t even know about the team. The team ultimately lucked out with a lack of major injuries and a variety of smart computer-generated draft choices, including Tony Romo, Terrell Owents, TJ Houshmandzadeh, and Stephen Gostkowsi. If they had made the playoffs, the football gods would have wept.
Girl Power
Manager: Nava
Active: 2007
Best/Worst Finish: 5-8, 11th place
Nava had good intentions. So good, in fact, that after neglecting her team for weeks, she went to Krisda for Fantasy Football advice, and he told her to drop Steven Jackson because he “sucked.” So she did. In the pursuant made scramble to pick him up Bohm got him off the waiver wire and waltzed to the #1 playoff seed. Nava should have known this fact before talking to Krisda: anyone who wears a bow-tie non-ironically in not suited to give any sort of sports related advice.
Bye Week
Manager: Ryan Davis
Active: 2007
Best/Worst Finish: 3-10, 13th place
Poor, misunderstood Ryan Davis. Always so serious. Why so serious, Ryan Davis?
GangGreen
Manager: Karen Kinneman (she’s married now isn’t she? Maybe the name is out of date)
Active: 2007
Best/Worst Finish: 2-11, 14th place
Karen was perhaps the biggest disappointment of all. And not only in FF, but in real life. She totally sold us about how fun she was, and how much she knew about sports, and how down-to-earth she was…and then she disappeared forever. I feel like I didn’t even seen Karen for two full years of med school. What happened to Karen? She’s like the face on the milk carton.
Karen, along with Nava and Carissa/Annie, really set back women in our league. Doesn’t Karen sound like she might be the perfect woman for fantasy football? A former D1 Athlete, fanatical about football, vaguely fun? She was a desperate disappointment, and I know Ryan and I were both thinking we’d have less let-downs like her team next year…
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