dabears03

We did a live 11 team auction last year. It took around 4 hours. When we first started, it was a 10 team league and it took us around 6 hours. We got one of the live auction draft kits, they have a draft board to put the fantasy teams names on and spots for the players. It also has stickers for the players' names. The good kits are color coded by position and have the bye weeks on the players' sticker. This cuts down a lot on people double checking the bye weeks and speeds up the draft. We draft one player at a time and have the commissioner run the league and the treasurer keep track of the money that has been bid. It starts out kind of slow when everyone has a lot of money, but as the teams blow the fantasy dollars, it speeds up a lot.

One way to calculate auction values is to do a projected points in your own opinion of the approximate point total you project the player to have and then to attach a dollar value to the player based on your projections. A way to kind of simplify the process is to do a breakdown of what you expect to spend on each position, Ten percent for QB's, Fourty percent for RB's, Thirty percent for wide receivers and Twenty percent for TE, Def/ST, Kicker and bench. Those numbers are not set in stone, just something you can use as a guideline.

As a lifelong Bears fan, I will give you the skinny on Cutler. From what I understand, the new playbook is 1000 pages. During the Bears' interview process for a new offensive coordinator, Cutler had picked up Martz from the airport in Tennessee and they went to Vanderbilt to discuss Martz's system. From Vandy they went out to dinner. They have been speaking glowingly of each other ever since. Cutler has been getting to mini-camp practice before practice and staying after practice with Martz breaking down film and bringing Cutler up to speed on Martz's system. Cutler already has his contract extension, he is not doing extra work for a new contract. It may be for self preservation. The offensive line is mediocre at best. If Cutler hesitates, he could be killed. It will really benefit him to make quick decisions in the pocket. I wonder if this is the reason why Martz wants an experienced back up so bad. The offensive line is pretty much the same as it was last year at the moment. Chris Williams is now the left tackle and they are supposed to move Omiyale to right tackle. Kruetz is getting a little long in the tooth. Garza is OK. I am guessing Beekman will be the other guard. To make a long story short this is the same offensive line that was getting him smacked around last year on a continuous basis. Now they will be asked to protect him longer with more 5 and 7 step drops. If you do go for Cutler, I would seriously recommend a decent back up. I have a feeling that in this system, Cutler will miss some time this year.

In some years there is a dominant player that tends to tip the balance of power. Auction drafts are a lot more fair than the snake drafts because everyone has access to every single player. I have been in an auction league for 10 years now. There are two main strategies. One is to get as many studs as you can and to fill the rest of the roster out with cheaper players. The other is called a value based draft. You figure out dollar values and do not go over the price that you have set for the players. This has been the most successful strategy in our league. It seems to be better to have a bunch of good players vs. some great players. The one thing I would highly recommend for anyone doing an auction is to pay very close attention to the scoring system. A generic price list that does not take your league's scoring system into account will do you very little good and may do more harm than good.

I am putting together a fantasy football co-op. Each person will cover an NFL team throughout the year. Each person will make a visit or two to the team's training camp. Each player will have access to the eyewitness reports on all the other teams. Any ideas, suggestions or volunteers?