a99kitten's Musings

First draft of fantasy football season is done! Seems decent to me even if several players I wanted were drafted right out from under me!!! I already have a Drew Brees jersey from a few years ago when he was my QB (I buy the jersey of my main fantasy QB each year) so I’m set! And obviously I have a Kap jersey.

The STL D was a tough one. But the 4 highest rated defenses were all NFC West so there you go. And since SF and SEA were drafted before I took a D, I went with my division. At least I got 1 49er player – even if a kicker. Although he better be faking this pre-season BS or I’ll drop faster than SEA bandwagon fans jump on.

….and may the odds be ever in my favor. :)

I love that :)

This year I am in 2 fantasy leagues – my standard work one ($25 buy-in) and then a free one with some fellow FF lovers on twitter. I am the only girl in that league so I need to do well! I also think I am the only person a) on the West Coast and b) not working in finance (and probably running spreadsheets and charts on player stats!) I do however bring awesome huskies and Star Wars to the league – “Never Tell Me Odds! :)

I am the Commish of my work league even though I said I would not do it again. My excitement for football overtook the frustration of being the Commish. I banned Michael Vick from our league so no one was allowed to draft him unless they wanted to give me $100 per week to donate to Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. Last year I made the mistake of only charging $5 per week thinking people would GET THE POINT and be smart enough to not use him. Wrong. Well, most people figured it out. Just not 1. That person was not invited back to the league this year. Extreme dog lover is the Commish. Michael Vick she hates and said not to use. Michael Vick you pick-up off the bench. Simple that math is.

My work team draft went OK. I really didn’t do enough football research this year. I think I say that every year though. But I basically went after people I already knew. I didn’t look for the “hot new rookie”. My team is the “Running Huskies”:)

QB: Tom Brady (Aaron Rodgers and Drew Brees were already taken…I don’t think I can buy his jersey tho…cannot root for the PATS! ARGH! But maybe if he cuts his hair…)
WRs: DeSean Jackson, Dwayne Bowe, Stevie Johnson, Malcolm Floyd and Plaxico Burress. Yes, I can totally give Plax another chance since he only shot himself and hasn’t yet displayed sociopathic tendencies.
RBs: Arian Foster, Matt Forte, Pierre Thomas and Jonathan Stewart. Arian Foster was my 1st round draft pick. And he’s injured. Awesome. GAH!
TE: Dallas Clark (this is the jersey I should buy since I try and get him every year!)
K: Adam Vinatieri
DEF: Baltimore

My twitter team was an auction-style draft which I had never done before. That was a bit crazy and I am definitely not so sure about my team – yikes. Team name “Let the Wookiee Win”:

QBs (you use 2 each game! Wha??): Matt Schaub and Alex Smith (yeah…that’s what was left in my budget)
WRs: Larry Fitzgerald, Wes Welker, Danny Amendola, Johnny Knox and Robert Meachem. So 1 super star anyway.
RBs: Maurice Jones-Drew, Frank Gore, Beanie Wells and Pierre Thomas
TE: Dallas Clark (yes again!) and Brandon Pettigrew
K: David Akers
DEF: PIT and STL.

I need a back-up QB to play during the BYE weeks but I have a few weeks. I need to monitor the BYE weeks on that league for sure. Plus the scoring on that team is totally different than my league that I am used to so I hope I do OK there!!

Stressed about Arian Foster being injured, Matt Forte is grumpy about his contract and Dallas Clark will not have Peyton Manning throwing to him. Great. Sonof^%$&@^%#$@#$

I also have a 3rd team to manage. We needed a 10th in our work league and I had to fill the spot. So I am in for double I guess. I seriously need more football lovin’ friends. Maybe I’ll play that team like a “take lots of crazy chances” team. I named it Shadowtrooper. I had to create another email address and login for yahoo which is a PITA since I will now have to log out of Yahoo with my normal login to check and change that team.

PLUS, I took over the Survivor commish job since last year’s commish apparently forgot? But we have 6 people in that – winner take all. I took CLE for the 1st week. I hope that wasn’t stupid. First week is always supposed to be the safe “sure thing” pick which would have probably been NE (2 people took them) although I think SD had the biggest point spread. But SD never seems to be a sure thing. And NE playing MIA is a big rivalry so got crazy and picked CLE (playing CIN so…)

And this year I did not create a weekly picks pool. Being the commish of that sucks frankly. Too much work collecting and paying out and reminding people. A friend of mine in Florida invited me to join his and you pay the full amount for the year up front and then each week there is a pay out along with a final payout at the end of the year. So all I have to do is pay once and make my picks weekly. Done! Yay! Although this pool is a spread pool which I have never done so that is way, way harder!

So yay!! Football season is now here and I have a lot of games to play! I would really love having enough football friends where we do the draft together, order pizza, yell at our picks getting taken by each other – like they show on the ESPN commercials! I think that would be way more fun. But oh well.

My Sundays are officially booked! And no, I do not have a gambling problem… ;)

QBs: Matt Schaub (HOU) and Ben Roethlisberger (PIT) for the bye week. Both Brees and P Manning were taken :(

RBs: Maurice Jones Drew – this scares me since I had a couple years ago and he did crappy for me (after a high draft as well) but then exploded last year so I chose him over Ray Rice….let’s see if that comes back to bite me in the butt.

Ronnie Brown (MIA) and Willis McGahee (BAL) (I so need another back-up RB)

WRs: Miles Austin (DAL…crap I hate rooting for DAL), Wes Welker (NE…crap I hate rooting for NE), Hines Ward (PIT) and Mike Wallace (PIT – this was an accident – I missed my time window) and Jacoby Jones (HOU..I have had Kevin Walters for a couple years so let’s see if this hype plays out…)

TE: Vernon Davis (SF – yay! Go Niners!) The TE I have had consistently for years (Dallas Clark) was taken out from under me. This annoys me.

DST: PHI (well…I can root for the D to keep their Offense off the field…)

K: David Akers (PHI)

One more week from today!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I went into my Sunday morning very stressed about my fantasy team. Of course, I always go in to my football Sundays like this :) Drew Brees is on his BYE week so I had to pick up a QB. There were a few decent ones to choose from – Eli Manning (but injured), Carson Palmer (but playing in BAL), Matt Ryan (but playing against my 49ers!) and possibly Matt Hasselbeck (coming off of injury.) I wanted Matt H. but his injury was stressing me out – what if he got injured again in the first quarter and I got cheesed?!

Now, this was on Wednesday AM. Our league puts all free agents on waivers starting at 10am PT Sunday until Tuesday at midnight (so early Wednesday AM.) I had originally wanted David Garrard actually but when I went in to pick him up, I saw that someone else already picked hm up. Dang! So this sent me on my QB deliberations. I ended taking Matt Ryan. He is a good QB but I was a bit stressed about the choice.

Then on Friday I saw that they were saying Matt Hasselbeck would be playing. He was still listed as probable but he had been practicing all week and would play. So I went with my gut and dropped Ryan and grabbed Hasselbeck. Apparently – I just needed a “Matt” in my line up this week :) Although I was still stressed about the injury. Even this morning, I almost dropped him and picked Eli but just said to myself – go with your gut. Whew…worked out well :) Now, Matt Ryan or Eli would have done almost as well for me too. But thank goodness someone else picked up David Garrard ahead of me! :) I got 69 points from Hasselbeck! Very nice indeed. He made up for the very (barely) average performances by my RBs.

Once again Yahoo projected Brandon Jacobs to get 45 points. All I read all week was how the NYG running game would open and Jacobs would go off. Well…they were half right. The running game DID open up…for Jacobs’ back-up Bradshaw! The reason this really sticks in my craw is that years ago I had Tiki Barber as one of my RBs. 2 years in a row actually. I love Tiki! BUT, our league awarded points for TDs and barely any for yards. So Tiki would run and run and run the ball but they would give it to the much bigger back Jacobs to punch in for the TD. GRRRRRRRR.

So then we changed the scoring in our league to reward yards run and not just TD hawks. And then Tiki retired. Boo :( So this year I drafted Jacobs, who stole numerous TDs from me in seasons past, and now HIS runs AND TDs are getting stolen from me! GRRRRRRR…

But anyway, Jacobs got me 18 points today. Far cry from 47. But my PIT Def finally showed up after choking every week since Week 1 (and losing Troy Polamalu.) 7 sacks! Very nice. They got me 40 points today. And Hines Ward did decently.

I replaced my old kicker, Bironas (TEN) with Scobee (JAX). JAX had 0 points today. No kicks. Zeeee-ro. Genius team maneuvering by me :)

In the meantime, I have been slow-cooking Kalua Pork since last night. 20 hours! This morning I woke up to both huskies upstairs by the kitchen. I think they were lobbying for Kalua pork for breakfast :)

The recipe for this is VERY simple. Anyone can cook this – anyone with a slow cooker/crockpot:

Ingredients:
1 4-6lb pork butt roast (so this is actually shoulder – the butcher thought I was funny)
1 1/2 tablespoons Hawaiian sea salt (yes, you need this and not just regular salt)
1 tablespoon liquid smoke flavoring

1. Pierce pork all over with a fork. Rub salt then the liquid smoke over meat. Place roast in the slow cooker.

2. Cover, and cook on low for 16-20 hours (I do 20), turning once during cooking time.

3. Remove meat from slow cooker, and shred, adding drippings as needed to moisten. The meat falls off the bone. Takes barely any effort at all.

I serve this over sticky rice with some Sriracha (rooster sauce!) for spice. Very, very delicious! And easy :)

My Gators won last night – very pleased. I’m sure the Gator Haters will have their usual crap to say but we won so *sticking tongue out* :) I also survived Survivor Football – I chose NYG at home over OAK this week – that was a very stressful pick ;) But no one else dropped out either. We’ve only lost 1 person so far. We all keep picking well!

And I am winning our weekly pool this week! My DEN over NE pick paid off!! I almost chose CIN too but chickened out – doh! Oh well. It all comes down to MNF. I chose MIA and everyone else has NYJ. If NYJ wins, then I tie with 3 others but I have the lowest score (for tie-breaking purposes) so we need 34 as the highest combined score! So send me your low-scoring, MIA winning karma please :)

So a full weekend of long, fun husky beach walks, good football, plus 2 nights of slow-cooking yummy food. I haven’t slept well but that’s fairly normal nowadays. And I baked some chocolate chip cookies during Sunday Night Football. AND finally finished Season 2 of Mad Men! Now can start watching the DVRed episodes of Season 3.

And I did win FF this week :) Beat my opponent 236 to 132. So I am now 4-1. Not so bad. But next week is a very, very tough (has AP, Wayne, Mendenhall) opponent – boo :( New week of football stress….

Oh look…going into the Colts/Cardinal game I seem to have already won :) I will revel in this relaxed win as a fluke. My opponent has no more players to play (plus left Westbrook in when he was out to due to injury!!!) and I have Dallas Clark and Tim Hightower in tonight’s game and I am 12 points ahead already. Whew…

This makes me 3-0 in our fantasy league. And #2 in our 10 person/team league. And so far (fingers AND toes crossed) the #1 is losing this week – darn…

BUT – I am praying for an ARI win so that I am tie for our pool picks going into MNF. I have 48 points. So it is a looooong shot that I win but I don’t give up :)

Won my Survivor pick. I chose BAL. And so did everyone else but 1 person (husband) who chose them last week. So we all survived. Darn. Only 1 person out in this league (the admin – hehe) since it started.

So a good NFL week for me…

Week 2 of the NFL, and my fantasy season, was VERY stressful!!! I actually thought I lost for sure as of last night. Watching Brandon Jacobs get stuffed by the DAL defense was painful. I was playing someone with TEN’s Chris Johnson who got him 111 points! WTH????

Drew Brees was awesome as usual. Got me double what Yahoo projected. But my #1 rated defense? SUCK IT! Apparently Troy Polamalu is the #1 rated defense. And with him sidelined with an injury, they suck. 5 points I got from them….

All of my WRs and RBs got less than projected. I put in Jamal Lewis who was highly rated this week. Guess what? A good player on a suck team still doesn’t do much…I should have left Hightower in.

So my Fantasy Week 2 was riding on my tight end in MNF, Dallas Clark getting 50+ points. True, my opponent didn’t have any players in the IND/MIA game but still…over 50 points from a tight end? Right…so I basically gave up.

And then Peyton Manning to Dallas Clark for an 80 point TD pass!!! 30 points in the first drive of the game for me!!! All of a sudden – I was alive! Dallas ended up getting me 65.75 points. My highest point getter of the week was Brees at 65.85 points. Ho-le-mo-lee!

This is my 4th year with Dallas Clark as my TE.  He was injured most of (was it?) last year but I do always draft him. I never get a TE in time for Gonzalez or Gates but after those 2 – Dallas is the man. Total WR/TE.

So yay! I won my week 2!! With my opponent getting 111 points from 1 player!! That’s insane. And some Irish luck shined on me :) And boy – that was some stress. But ended up getting some good total points on the week after all. So for all of my previous complaining about tight ends being a worthless roster spot – I owe my week to mine :)

I of course love my Fantasy QB. Brees gave me a lot of points last year and is having a stellar year so far. Love him and drafted him as my 2nd pick. But I will always love Peyton.  He was my QB a couple of years ago and I think he is the best QB in the NFL right now (and my favorite QB of all time is Montana.) But besides that, he seems like a great guy. And really  – who cannot love him on SNL :)

OR

These make me cry from laughing every time I watch them :) And frankly, he was better than most actors/entertainers that I have seen appear on the show. I think as a highly competitive athlete, he made sure he knew his lines and was professional. And damn funny :)

My first week of football was all crazy! I had 3 players in my Fantasy team playing in Thursday’s game. I HATE that! Because then I have to stress going into Sunday’s games that I didn’t build up enough of a cushion. I also hate when all of my players finish up on Sunday but my opponent has a player left in the MNF game. Stress!!

Yahoo Sports projected 51 points for my 3 players (DEF, K and WR) and I got 62.75. Although I was stressing going into overtime as Ward got his 100yd bonus in OT! Whew..although Santonio Holmes stole some of my points! :) Yahoo! also projected 62 points for Brees which I felt was optimistic of them even against the DET defense. Turns out – Drew rules again this year :) 100 points! I needed that since a lot of my other players didn’t do as well as projected. I ended up with 273.05 in total points. The person I am playing has 211.40 at the half. I just need Aaron Rodgers to throw the ball and not run it with Ryan Grant to win my week since neither of us has players in tomorrow’s games!!

Also made it through week 1 of Survivor Football. First week I generally take a “sure thing” as I haven’t seen what the teams are playing like (pre-season games simply don’t count.) So I chose New Orleans at home over Detroit. Big gambler eh? :) Hey! Anything can happen, right? Any Given Sunday…But yes… I survived Week 1! Whew…

My weekly pool picks choked. I decided to get a little crazy and pick TB and CAR who were both underdogs…and they played like it. Although TB did a MUCH better job against DAL than CAR against PHI. What the heck happened to Jake Delhomme?? And the dominating CAR D from a couple years ago?? Whoa..Although they did take McNabb out. Not good though. I actually like him (even though my FF opponent was playing him!) so do not want to see him hurt. Especially with Vick salivating in the wings for Week 3.

So I won my FF week and survived Survivor week 1. Tanked on my weekly picks. Not so bad for Week 1. And now on to stressing about week 2!! :)

In honor of the first NFL weekend, I decided to make some homemade mac & cheese to go with a grilled ribeye! I chose an easier one – “Today’s Macaroni and Cheese” by Rick Bayless (chef and owner of Chicago’s Frontera Grill and Topolobampo.)

It’s actually a fairly simple recipe. All basic ingredients:

Ingredients

Just a few add this, stir in that’s for the cheese mixture:

Cheese mixture

And it has some spice so that’s different for mac&cheese! Once you finish boiling the pasta till al dente you mix it all together and then put in baking dish and top with a melted butter and bread crumb mixture. I used a bit more butter than called for in this part of recipe but cut it back on buttering the dish. I was channeling my inner Julia!

Ready to bake and brown!

And voila! Baked, yummy “Today’s Macaroni and Cheese” brought to you by Rick Bayless and me :) The cheese and butter are bubbling…oh yeah baby…

bayless mac&cheese

Husband grilled the ribeye. Yum. Along with a glass of bubbly…a perfect dinner :)

Yum

My mac&cheese cookbook was quite a purchase for me. Very happy with it. If you are a fan of macaroni and cheese, I highly recommend it:

Angelus wondered where his was…

Don't I get some?

and Storm was attempting the Jedi mind trick…

This is the puppy you want to feed...

It’s a gorgeous night out. After dinner the sun has set but not dark yet. The sky has some dark clouds, and blue sky and these create a great color mixture. It’s chilly out which reminds me of fall. You can smell forest and maybe a hint of fireplace (?) in the air. I LOVE that. Autumn technically doesn’t start until 9/22 but between chilly weather and football, it makes a nice start to fall for me! Maybe I’ll break out the pumpkin/fall/Halloween stuff…

All in all, a good first NFL Sunday :)

It’s that time of the year…when kids go back to school, the leaves will start changing colors (ok, not really where I live but I like to think about it happening), weather cools off (umm..see prior note), and people start thinking what to dress up as for Halloween. But most importantly – IT’S FOOTBALL SEASON!!!!

Now, I wasn’t always this into football. My Dad made me watch Sunday games with him all the time. We had football parties, definitely play-off parties and of course a Super Bowl party. It was OK, but I have to admit I didn’t care all that much until play-offs and the Super Bowl.

I grew up in Buffalo, NY and then moved when about 11 to the Tampa Bay area. BUF has gotten close to winning a Super Bowl…4 times actually. But alas, they are still first place losers in all 4.

TB won a Super Bowl! But not until years after I moved away. Growing up – they were the worst team there was. Awesome. Plus they had the most hideous uniforms of ALL time. But I have been rooting for them for years and now that they are decent AND have better colors and uniforms – it’s not embarrassing to say that out loud :) I was actually the ONLY person in our office pool who picked them to beat the Oakland Raiders and win the 2003 Super Bowl. And I was the only person at the Super Bowl party that year rooting for them. That was super fun :)

I definitely got more into football when I moved to the SF Bay Area. We had the 80s/90s San Francisco Forty-Niners. And Joe Montana. And Jerry Rice. And then Steve Young. You had to be a pinko dirty hippie to not care about SF football back then :) I went to plenty of games, went to and threw plenty of football parties and play-off and Super Bowl parties (ah…back when the Niners were good…)

But not until I got into Fantasy Football did I REALLY get into football. And boy – I am hooked! The great thing about fantasy football is that you get into other teams and players that you wouldn’t normally even know existed or care about. Typically you root for teams from places you have lived or do live, where you grew up, etc. But now I root for so many teams and players!! I have never been to Indiana. Can’t say I’ve ever given it much thought other than knowing where it is on the map. But I LOVE Peyton Manning!! So I care about the Colts. I cared when Tony Dungy’s son died and when he retired last year. And I’ve had Dallas Clark on almost all of my fantasy teams since I started playing. And I loved watching Peyton beat the Bears when everyone was screaming “Defense wins Super Bowls” and I loved watching Peyton be a proud big brother when Eli beat Tom (yes, I was rooting for the Giants HARD!)

A couple years ago I got the Season Ticket package offered by DirecTV so I can watch ALL the games and not just the 2 broadcast in my area (and we always get stuck with the OAK game and that’s just a waste of broadcast space.) And of course with the season ticket package you need the Red Zone Channel. I swear, this channel is made by and for people with ADD. But I love it!! This will be my 3rd season with the package and I cannot live without it.

On football season Sundays I have a ritual: wake up early, take the huskies out for a good walk, come back and do a last minute check on my fantasy team, my weekly pool picks and my Survivor pick. The stress this causes is both ridiculous and insanely fun :)

While I do this, Fox Sports is on and no one is allowed to touch the TV. And I watch all the games and yell at the TV and scream at my laptop which has my Yahoo Stat Tracker (free this year-yay!) up along with my leagues and pools. I’ll do laundry, pay bills, do my stepper/exercise, chores around the house, etc. But nothing that takes me out of the house. If I didn’t get to shower before the games started, then I turn the bedroom TV on and take a quick shower during morning game half-time!

At the tail-end of the afternoon batch of games, I take the dogs out for another walk (unless I have players in and it’s an exciting/close game – then they have to wait!) This is a brief respite before the NBC Sunday Night game. I will usually make dinner right as the game is starting and settle in to watch the game. Unless I have no players in, have no hope of winning the weekly pool and it’s 2 teams that I am not all that jazzed about…then we can watch or do something else :)

And this occurs every Sunday. Without fail. There is no socializing on Sundays during football season. My husband is a football widow.

Very importantly, I just finished my live draft for this year’s office Fantasy league!! In order of my drafting – here is who will help The Running Huskies (always my team name) win this year :)

Brandon Jacobs
Drew Brees
Marques Colston
Derrick Ward (always need 1 Bucs player!!)
Hines Ward
Dallas Clark
Kevin Walter
PIT
Rob Bironas
Bernard Berrian
Jerricho Cotchery
Jamal Lewis
Tim Hightower

So, I will likely blog more about football. Although with all my yelling at the TV and computer (and they HAVE to have a good iPhone app I need to find!) maybe I’ll just be too tuckered out to talk anymore about football…….Nah!! :)