New Thing #258: Another New Fantasy Football Game

One of the first things I wrote about this year was fantasy football. And then one of the other first things I wrote about this year was fantasy football.

They were both playoff fantasy football games - and they were both fun ways to end last year's football season.

It was fun to play a different kind of fantasy football.

Well, a friend of mine e-mailed me with a new game to begin this football season, and at the last minute I decided to join.

Turns out I just can't resist a good stats-driven fantasy football game.

I'm in two fantasy leagues this year - this one I'm writing about today and another more traditional one - along with my picks pool, picking against the spread.

What's unusual about this year is that I'm not doing an elimination pool for the first time in a bunch of years, and for the first time in a few years I also don't have the fantasy league I've done with the guys I do a baseball league with.

But this pool fills some of those gaps.

It's traditional fantasy football - you pick a QB, 2 RB, 3 WR/TE, and then a defense. You pick a new slate each week. The catch? Once you pick a player, you can't pick them again the rest of the season.

It's an interesting strategic game, the strategy of which I haven't even begun to wrap my mind around yet. (The closest I've come to strategy so far is the chart that I created, which you see above. It'll at least keep me aware of the players I've picked.)

Since I made the decision to join so late, I kind of slapped together my Week 1 picks - I decided I didn't want to use any real stars yet, so I picked against the Oakland defense (which played better than I expected) and I guessed at a decent defensive performance with Miami (I succeeded) and filled in the rest of the gaps.

As the season goes on I'll employ more strategy, probably.

It's similar to a baseball picks league I used to run - it's all done by hand (though the guys in charge are working on a computer program to make it easier). As such, though, it's all guesswork during the day to as to how well your players are doing relative to other performances.

So far it's fun.

Another interesting thing about this football season is that I didn't make any season picks - that's the first time I haven't done that in possibly a decade-plus.

It's interesting - I sense that with my involvement in these games, and without the self-imposed pressure of my season picks, which may or may not subconsciously color the way I pick games and players - I might actually enjoy this season more as a football fan.

So far, as Week 2 continues today, I am.

New Thing #247: Drafting From My Phone

Probably 12 or 13 years ago I was one of the suckers who paid to play fantasy sports. I knew fantasy baseball was free elsewhere, but I thought I was getting a better deal on ESPN's site for however much I was paying for our league.

I only played on that platform for a year or two, but that was definitely a year or two I could have been playing for free.

Since then, I've used Yahoo!, with maybe one ESPN (now free) exception.

And this year, I'm playing on ESPN again with some folks from work.

But that's not what's new...the New Thing I want to tell you about is that I drafted part of my team from my phone!

I had seen the ESPN football app recently when I was looking quickly through the apps. I thought about it only in terms of editing my lineup - it never occurred to me that I could draft my team using the app.

But about a half-hour before the draft a friend of mine texted to say that's how he was doing the draft. So I downloaded the app to check it out.

As soon as I logged in to the app, I was booted from my computer - it wouldn't let me be signed in from two different places. So I disconnected the app and went back to the computer - I had the first overall pick and I didn't want to screw things up with the new technology.

But I knew, with a snake draft and the first overall pick, that I would have a lot of time in between my picks to play around with the app, so I came back to the app in the later rounds to try out the draft.

The computer makes little noises when someone is drafted from your preferences list, and when it's your turn to draft.

The app made the same noise when someone was drafted from my 'queue,' but as far as I can tell it didn't make a noise when it was my turn to draft. It also made no noises when other people drafted. And I couldn't find where the draft history was.

So you have to pay close attention to the picks as they happen because they only show at the top of the screen and there aren't really any noises to draw your attention to a new person making a pick.

Other than that, though, it was pretty much the same experience on the phone as the computer. You had the countdown of how long there was for the pick to be made. You had the ability to sort available players by position. You had the chance to check out your list of preferred picks.

It's just, on the computer it's easier to navigate between all of those things. On the phone, it was harder to keep track of everything.

I made my last four or five picks from the phone, which was enough to just get a taste of the experience.

I wouldn't want to conduct an entire draft from the device...but it's good to know the option is there if I ever needed it.

New Thing #138: My Longest Streak

I don't know what it is about this year. Maybe trying New Things has made me smarter.

Or just luckier.

But if this sounds familiar, it's because back in February I went on a long winning streak in one of my fantasy sports games.

And Friday night, I had another career-long streak in another game come to a screeching halt.

It looks like 17 is my new lucky number.

As you can see, Robinson Cano and Vernon Wells now enter the pantheon (I looked it up - I'm probably misusing the word, but I think you catch my drift) of players I will never select again in 'Beat the Streak' because they did not come up big for me when I needed them. They both posted 0-for-4s. Against Mark Buehrle! I think I could get a hit off Mark Buehrle. This year. Not back in his White Sox days when he was decent. (Or at least decent enough to throw two [2!] no-hitters.)

(FYI - I picked these guys because they had decent numbers against Buehrle. But now they join the likes of David Ortiz as guys I'll never pick again. I've picked Cano a lot, and he fails me often. Now we're done.)

You may (or may not) remember - I've written about Beat the Streak before. (Sorry, non-sports fans.) It's one of my favorite things about baseball season.

Coming into this year, I think my longest streak ever was about 12 games. So this 17-gamer was a big deal.

I didn't double down all that much - I just methodically built up to 17 games. I feel like I can do it again. But the amazing thing is to even challenge the million-dollar prize I'd have to do 17 games more than 3 times in a row, because you have to beat Joe DiMaggio's 56-game streak for the big money.

I think I'd be happy if I got somewhere around 30.

And I'll try again starting today. I took Daniel Murphy, who's swinging a good bat lately, and Miguel Cabrera, who often comes through for me. (An anti-Cano, if you will.)

And the next time I feel like maybe I should take Paul Goldschmidt rather than doubling down with two Yankees...you'd better believe I'm going to go with that first instinct. (Goldschmidt, who I thought long and hard about taking, was 4-for-5 on the night my streak ended. Ouch.)

New Thing #93: Beat The Streak

There's not much more I love in the world than the dawn of a new baseball season. There's a certain beauty to seeing everything reset to zero - wins, averages...everything.

Besides the on-field games, though, there's the off-field fun.

And the return of a new baseball season means the return of one of my favorite games - Beat The Streak.

It's a simple game - you pick a player each day. Your goal is to build a hitting streak - so if that player gets a hit, you pick someone to get a hit the next day. And so on...all season long. (Until late August - I usually stop playing when a 56-game hitting streak is no longer viable.)

Each of the past few years the game has gotten progressively better.

It started as a fantasy game on the mlb.com website. Then it became an app, which made it more convenient to play. Then it allowed you to 'double down', meaning you could pick two players a day if you wanted.

This year - and this is what makes it a New Thing - you can take a day off. Or an unintentional day, anyway. It used to be that if you skipped a day, your streak would be reset to 0. (To be honest, I feel like years ago this wasn't the case - but maybe with the addition of 'double down' they added this too. I don't remember.) Now, if you forget to submit a pick, you can pick up where you left off.

Another New Thing - it appears one of my favorite places (Dunkin' Donuts) has taken over sponsorship of the game. I think it used to be Scott's Lawn Care...Dunkin' taking over can't be anything but good for the game.

My longest streak ever, I think, was 12 games. My biggest problem these days is preventing myself from thinking making two picks a day isn't the easiest thing in the world. (I should have had a 2-game streak after the first two days of the season, but both days I pushed it and selected a second player...both of whom went hitless.)

I need to learn to pace myself.

Which I'll do. It's a long season.

But that's the beauty of the early part of the season. Because right now there's nothing leading me to believe that this won't be the year I build a 56-game hitting streak.

New Thing #61: Fantasy Baseball Draft In New York

One of the highlights of my year is the fantasy baseball draft. Quick background: It's a 4-team league. Me and three of my closest friends. Because of the small number of players, we stick to only the teams in the American League East and National League East. This is great because the 4 of us are Mets, Yankees, and Red Sox fans, so we can pick players we like to root for, avoid players we hate rooting for, and it allows us to use a clever league name: East Coast Bias.

Usually this draft takes place in the Boston area - we all went to Boston University, so it serves as the centerpiece of a sort-of annual reunion.

Now, as it turns out, I'm the only one of the 4 remaining in the Boston area.

This year, as it turns out, our get-together will take place in New York.

And so will the draft.

Truth be told, I've proposed a New York get-together on more than one occasion. I look for any extra opportunity to get a weekend in there. But I understand the draw of Boston, and I enjoy hosting when able. (Read: when my wife is not about to give birth. This happened in 2011. It was crazy.)

And though this year is going to be a short weekend for me, for a variety of reasons, it's going to be great.

Especially because my parents were generous enough to host the draft.

Not that it involves a ton of effort - they'll just be providing us with food and beverage, most likely, in addition to the space for our draft. But it means a ton to me. It means my friends can visit with my wife and daughters without us having to pack everyone up and head into the city...not to mention taking time away from time they could be spending with their grandparents.

I don't know what else the weekend holds. I hope it results in a couple of more New Things. All I know is that as you read this sometime on Saturday, I'll be participating in a fantasy baseball draft in my parents' living room in Queens.

I couldn't be happier.

Unless I also get to draft David Wright.

New Thing #59: My Long Winning Streak

I'm a sucker for the ESPN 'Streak for the Cash' game. So that's nothing new.

Today's New Thing is how exciting last night was - because I was number three in the world.

For current winning streak, that is.

Unfortunately, my streak ended unceremoniously Wednesday night, and I'm back to 0.

But let me tell you about my longest streak ever.

Here's a quick rundown - The game features a bunch of matchups a day. Tennis, soccer, whatever major sport is in season, and not just wins/losses - there are props in there too, like over/unders for halves of basketball games, which player will score more points - things like that.

I know the game is just a way of making people like me - who otherwise would not be interested in UConn-Georgetown on a Wednesday night - tune in to ESPN2 to watch the game with a heavy rooting interest.

But I'll happily play the role of sucker...because I love the game.

I'm not even heartbroken I lost. It was getting pressure-packed anyway. See, there's a new game every month - so I was running out of February days to get to the longest streak for the month. As you can see in that screen capture above, I was at 17 in a row (third-longest streak out of thousands of players!), which is by far the best I've ever done, but I still needed to get to 24 before the end of the day on Thursday. I think it would have been possible, but very unlikely.

My losing pick was Shabazz Napier of UConn to outscore (or tie in points) Otto Porter, Junior of Georgetown in the first half. Porter had just 1 point. All Napier had to do was score a bucket. He didn't.

Some months I go all out for the total wins number. Some months I try to build a long streak. I had a hard time all this month getting anything going (I was trying for the streak) and then in the last week or so I began hitting everything.

I sometimes think that all I have to do (since most 'longest streaks' are in the 20's) is pick one correct game a day and build a 30-game winning streak one month to win everything. When I lose 6 or 7 in a row it gets disheartening.

But now, after winning 17 straight? You'd better believe I'm back to believing I can pick one correct game a day. Especially with March Madness on the horizon.

A new game begins on Friday. I can't wait.

New Thing #6: Playoff Fantasy Football Part 2

Sorry for the back-to-back sports posts, but I went a little overboard with the post-season football pools. And that's kind of new.

But what's really new is the playoff pool I decided to join Saturday morning.

Unlike the one I wrote about yesterday, this one requires you to pick 12 players - one from each of the playoff teams - and it's one set team for the entire post-season:

2 QBs, 3 WRs, 3 RBs, 2 TEs, a kicker, and a defense.

You get pretty traditional fantasy points for those positions, and then participants also pick the playoff games for extra points. This one, unlike the one I wrote about yesterday, is for a little bit more than just pride. This, combined with the fantasy league I wrote about yesterday and the spread/over-under pool I'm in, gives me quite a rooting interest in the NFL playoffs. I was pretty excited to watch the Saturday games...and I'm already looking forward to Sunday (depending on when you read this). It's been a while since I've cared this much about the playoff games without the Jets involved. We'll see how long that lasts.

For your information, here's the team I picked, so you can root for me:

QB: Tom Brady, Peyton Manning

WR: Randall Cobb, Reggie Wayne, Julio Jones

RB: Frank Gore, Marshawn Lynch, Alfred Morris

TE: Kyle Rudolph, Jermane Gresham

K: Justin Tucker

DEF: Houston

Thanks for your support.

New Thing #5: Playoff Fantasy Football

I used to be crazy about fantasy sports. Ridiculously crazy. Stats, records...I immersed myself in it.

I still get into it, just not with anywhere near the same level of intensity.

I'm still willing to try some fun new fantasy twist.

Thus, this year's foray into NFL.com's Playoff Fantasy Football.

It actually wasn't my idea.

My friend Kevin (I'll introduce him further at another time...I'm sure he'll pop up again multiple times over the course of the year) sent around an e-mail to a few of us who play fantasy baseball together suggesting we sign up. It doesn't take much more than that to convince me.

What's striking about this game (actually called "Fantasy Playoff Challenge"), though, is how different it is from anything I've attempted before. You get somewhat traditional fantasy points from each player, but the longer they are on your team the more the points are worth. So you kind of get double-rewarded for picking players who last deep into the playoffs. And if the player has a bye in the first week, you still get double points in his first game if you have him the first week. (Hence the gamble I'm taking at QB and TE...I still think the 49ers are going to the Super Bowl, and I don't know if there's a better tight end out there than Gronkowski.)

And I am sure that I know nothing more here than the others in the mini-league, which is why I have no qualms about publishing my roster here.

I don't want to get too deep into sports details here on you, but I'll wrap up with this: I've done playoff pools (and I'm doing one this year), I've done fantasy football before where you pick a team and stick with that team straight through the Super Bowl, but I've never done it like this. And there's nothing at stake here other than pride.

I'm excited about trying out a new fantasy sports activity. And with the Jets missing the playoffs for the second straight year, it's good for me to have as many possible things to root for in the post-season that distract me from that fact.