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2003 Draft has been completed! See all the draft picks in the order they were taken or by the owner who picked them. So, the 2003 Season is underway with the 10th Beltway Fantasy Football League Draft which was held on Sept 3 at XM Radio in Washington, DC. There were many complications to getting everyone to the table, but once we did, it was a riot as usual. Last year's Toilet Bowl Winner, Dale was lucky
enough to get the first pick in the draft this year. He pulled out
a mild surprise when he selected Clinton Portis as the #1 pick.
Dale went with the "Stud RB" drafting when he selected
3 RB's with his first 3 picks, getting the Green brothers, Ahman
and William in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. Dale seemed to be building
a pretty solid Lombardi-Mania for this season, until he got
to the 7th round. His 7, 8, 9 picks were as follows, Jason Elam,
Michael-my-leg-is-broken Vick, and Tampa Bay DT. In Al Falcons'
opinion the DT and K should be picked later in draft. Dale's last
pick was a surprise when he selected his 4th QB Byron Leftwich.
Per Jeff's, aka Columbo, request we tried to get the
draft done before 9 PM, having started at 6:45 PM. This allowed
for roughly 1 minute per pick and Jeff and the Flying
Beavers were going to need every second of that minute.The first
Columbo move was to break the string of 6 straight RB's picked in
the first round and go with the top rated QB Donovan McNabb. Nothing
wrong with this pick, but then the worst pick of the draft in Al
Falcons' opinion was 3.07 Brett Favre. Flashback to 2002 where Columbo
picked 2 QB's in the first 2 rounds, now 2 in the first 3 rounds?
Players like Plaxico Burress, Amani Toomer, Eric Moulds, Tory Holt
and all the TE's still on the board and Jeff goes for the backup
QB? The fun was not over when he selected Rod Smith with pick 5.07
and Todd Pinkston at 7.07. In the 14th round Jeff selected K Morton
Anderson. After the pick there was the usual, "How old is he?",
"Is he really alive" and the best one from Greg, "Even
my computer is laughing at that pick!". The day after the draft
Jeff was already ready to make free-agent moves and had this to
say, "My excuse for a bad team this year is because I was sorta
recovering from a hangover." There was certainly some surprises from Julian
as he built his 2003 Snoozers line-up. He started out by
selecting the top RB from 2003, Priest Holmes with the 5th pick
in round one. Priest has a lot of question marks following his off-season
hip surgery, but this did not stop the Julian. Julian and Jeff must
have been sharing notes as Julian proceeded to pick QB's in the
2nd and 3rd rounds with Culpepper and Warner being picked. He did
not pick a WR until the 6th round and this might come back to haunt
him later in the year. The pick of Ashlie Lelie at 7.03 was a reach
for sure, but might be a nice sleeper pick. Julian had 3 QB's in
the first 9 picks and picked his DT and K before his 3rd WR and
RB, pretty strange! The league commishioner Greg, had the second
pick in the draft and was probably a bit surprised to see Ricky
Williams still on the board. In many leagues this year, Ricky was
been the #1 overall pick and the WhoseYourDaddies got a great
first pick. Greg had a pretty solid all around draft as usual picking
up Terrell Owens in the second round, Gonzo in the 4th and Hines
Ward in the 5th. The only somewhat questionable pick was Eddie George
at 3.02. There were still a lot of good RB's on that board at that
time that Al Falcons had ranked higher. Greg waited until pick 8.07
to pick a QB when he selected Drew Bledsoe. If he had waited any
longer, Julian, Dale and Jeff may have left him with Kordella Stewart
as the best QB on the board. Chuck has been in the league for 3 years, never
having made it to the Super Bowl Playoffs, and his Seminole Nation
is looking for a change in that stat this season. Chuck had my personal
favorite draft position at 8, where Al Falcons has won the Championship
twice. He was probably a bit surprised to see Shaun Alexander fall
to him at 1.08 and then he quickly grabbed the #1 WR on the board
with Marvin Harrison. David Boston at 3.08 may have been a reach,
but Chuck has a solid #2 RB's in Jamal Lewis and took a flyer on
Onterio Smith in the 9th round.Chuck had the Mr. Irrelevant pick
and landed Jerome Bettis, you all remember his as he has played
a significant part in the BFFL history. Very solid team that may
land Chuck in his first post season that matters. Bill was picking in the 5th spot and he went
with the consensus #1 pick from last season, RB Marshall Faulk.
The Spoilers made it to the Super Bowl 2 times, but never
made it over the top of the hill, and Bill is looking for something
different this season. He built a solid line up with Tiki Barber
in the second and Peyton Manning in the 3rd round. Manning is the
guy that Bill loves to hate and hates to love, but he could not
help himself from picking him at 3.05. In typical Spoilers fashion
a Kicker was selected in the 7th round, one of 3 teams to pick one
that early in the draft. There is not too much that Al Falcons can
fault in any of Bill's picks, pretty solid line up from top to bottom. This brings us to the "new guy" Ed
and his Big Blue team. Ed appeared to be very serious during
the draft and he got a real gift in the first round when LaDainian
Tomlinson dropped to the 4th pick. Al Falcons drafted him as the
#1 player in another league this season. Ed built a very solid team
early with Randy Moss, Fred Taylor, Tory Holt and Corey Dillon.
He stole the Kings of Nothing pick when he selected Rich Gannon
at 7.04. Ed got into the BFFL goove around round 12 when it was
time to add a kicker to his roster. He pulled off the sticker for
Bill Gramatica and started heading to the draft board, before he
realized that it was Martin Gramatica that he really wanted. In
the 13th round he selected Jimmy "The Bitch set me up"
Smith, who is out for 4 games because of a drug suspension. Everyone
joked about him being the new guy and that the new guy normally
gets the Toilet Bowl his first season, well Al Falcons doesn't think
that will happen this season! Last, but certainly not least, Steve and the Kings of Nothing. As you saw above, I did not rank myself as the #1 spot and this may be a first for the Al Falcons web site after a BFFL draft. As the defending champion, I was looking to do some serious damage in the draft and got 2 excellent RB's in Duece McAllister and Travis Henry with his first 2 picks. My wide receivers are a bit suspect with Eric Moulds as my #2 and Chad Johnson as my #3 WR. I may have waited too long to pick a QB and had to "settle" for Aaron Brooks at 8.03, but got a solid backup with Kelly Holcome at 9.06. If I had picked some better WR's, I think I would have ranked my team in the #1 spot. You all know how it goes in the regular season, I
will pickup and drop about 15-20 players, most of the time replacing
my 3rd and 4th string guys looking for that diamond in the rough.
See you guys come playoff time! Now, I do believe that we are ready for some Football! |