So last year, my brother asked me if I wanted in on an auction draft with him and his buddies.  I haven’t ever participated in one, but after reading Matthew Berry rave about it, I decided to give it a shot.  Last year, we had 8 guys, and decided to have a keeper at +$5 the previous year’s price.  Unfortunately for me, it was ONE single keeper.  I had Mike Vick for $1, Hakeem Nicks for $3, and Jamaal Charles for $17.  I ended up keeping Vick, but a part of me wanted to lean towards Charles.  Anyways, my strategy was to just gun for the guys I wanted or get great players at a discount.  I used a guide to inflation to set my prices, so I had a set range looking at price ranges from ESPN (our league expanded to 10 this year, so the prices were fine).  The guys I gunned for, since I already have Vick were Ray Rice, Darren McFadden, Miles Austin, and Antonio Gates.  The bidding war on Ray Rice got a little too high for my liking ($56 when my max was $54), so I ended up passing on him.  I ended up grabbing Michael Turner at a pretty huge discount of $35 though, so hopefully he can turn into the Burner again.  I also ended up getting those other 2 I mentioned, though I overpaid for Gates IMO for $25.  The reason I did this, is because I didn’t want to be on the Ruxin end of things with respect to Gates.  The rest of my team filled out pretty nicely, I think with Maclin, Ryan Mathews, Daniel Thomas, Felix Jones, Benson (I REALLY didn’t wanna touch him but he was so cheap), Johnny Knox, Plax, Michael Bush, Austin Collie (before I knew the Colts would be in trouble), My BEARS Defense, Urlacher as an IDP, and the Philly Kicker in Alex Henry.  Why did I grab the Eagles Kicker you might ask?  Well, least year, my championship team, Suck My Vick was more of an eagles domination team with Vick, McCoy, Jackson, and the Defense.  With only 2 Eagles on my current squad, I had to make sure the Eagles Domination thing could continue for Suck My Vick in year 2 of my auction league.  Feel free to let me know how dumb my drafting strategy was and/or how awful my team is, because no matter what, I still get to respond to criticisms with my team name–Suck My Vick.

So, while reading these blog posts, you’ll have to keep in mind that I am a huge Bears fan.  Like most Bears fans, I love to complain about the team’s shortcomings, management, coaching, and more.  Plenty of Bears faithful have been doing this over the last few weeks, talking about Olin Kreutz not being re-signed, Knox being demoted, etc.  I only have one thing to say after watching the 1st quarter of the pre-season game last night.  The O-line is going to make this another long season for Jay Cutler…

So today I was reading ESPN, and noticed an article about one of my 2010 Fantasy Studs, DeSean Jackson.  In one of my leagues, he was part of my Feast or Famine Eagles Domination lineup, which ultimately made Suck My Vick league champs.  Anyways, looks like he’s trying to hold out out for some more cash, since he only makes $565k this upcoming season.  He went to the Pro Bowl twice, caused a hell of a lot of people to vent after this return against the Giants, and helped me secure a Fantasy league championship, so of course I think he deserves some more money.  Hell, he made Tom Coughlin vent to his punter!  This was the same thing that happened to one of the best rushers in the game, Chris Johnson, last year.  Anyways, reading through the comments section has made me realize how stupid some of these readers are.  Everyone’s always saying these players should man up and honor his contract since he signed it.  Keep in mind, this is DeSean’s rookie contract at pick #49, so there isn’t whole lot of room for negotiation.  His scale is pretty much set by the surrounding picks.  Nobody seems to realize that these players don’t have that much guaranteed money and are subject to getting very minimal cash if they injure themselves severely.  These guys are just asking for compensation for over-performing, while everyone else in America expects compensation in the form of a raise  for not over-performing and not helping me win Fantasy championships (unless of course you’re one of the guys I beat on my road to victory, in which case, kudos guys).  In the end, DeSean needs to be paid more than Sidney Rice, just like Chris Johnson should have been paid more than Frank Gore (we’ll get into him later).  Anyways, I just wanted to point out that these guys have a point to ask for more cash and that people who comment on ESPN articles aren’t the brightest, but who really cares about the salaries?  The lockout is over and it’s not like his real salary affects the amount I need to pay in my auction league!

So, some of you might be wondering what this blog is all about, since we already have all the user generated content for vents on the site.  Well, throughout the NFL season, I’ll be commenting on Fantasy Football in general (might make some predictions and recommendations), maybe analyzing some betting lines, and definitely venting about some of my personal Fantasy Football woes.  I’ll probably keep everyone posted with how my personal Fantasy teams are going (though I’m sure nobody cares), but I’ll definitely be talking football throughout the fall.  Anyways, the main purpose of FantasyVent is to collect the vents of you, the user.  In this blog, I’ll try and entertain you all whether you’re sitting in on your couch in your boxers, sitting in the back of a lecture hall, or constantly looking over your shoulder in a cubicle.  With that, good luck in all of your drafts.  Hopefully you won’t have to vent too much, but even championship teams get screwed every once in a while.