We're already three weeks into the NFL season and my Fantasy Football team is 2-1 which is quite good considering I really restricted myself compared to last year. Last year after a couple of weeks I totally revamped the team and kept doing it throughout the season, picking up good players and having a pretty good team for much of the season (11-4 record after the 0-2 start).

This year I wanted to make it a bit harder. It's only a casual league and I'm not as interested in the game as I used to be. So this year I'm limiting myself to one trade per week. I forgot to set up my lineup for week 1 so it's fortunate I won (by two points in a low scoring game). I had two bad quaterbacks (both got negative points that week) so my first priority was to get a quaterback that would give me some points.

Looking at the free agent list there wasn't anyone particularly good, with the best of the crop being Elvis Grbac so I too him. He's been capable in the last couple of games, especially the last game when he threw for five touchdowns and help me win my second game. Unfortunately I don't have good running backs and wide receivers, the main offensive punch in any fantasy team.

My top running back is Eddie George who is pretty good. Behind him there's no one that averages more than 5 points a game. For wide receivers Tim Brown had a good last game so his average is 8 points per game, but the other three wideouts average less than 3 points a game. After week two I aquired Robert Holcombe who is some sort of backup in St Louis. There aren't any good free agent wide receivers or running backs, makes the think that the other teams are staffed by more competent managers than last year's batch.

In any case, week 3 I decided to address my defensive problem, which is that I only had one defensive back. Makes it hard to stop the running game, so I got Hugh Douglas and now have two of each defensive linemen, linebackers, and defensive backs. I actually have a pretty balanced team, with at least a couple of players in every position. You look at other teams that have lots of running backs and wide receivers and quarterbacks (the most valuable players) and only one tight end and kicker. Sure, you can always trade for another (those two positions have interchangeable players) if that player isn't going to play that week, but I think that's kind of against the spirit of the game. But what do I know, I always seem to change the rules a bit to fit my playing style.

Anyway, right now I have a team that averages almost 76 points a game, which is not bad if they can keep it up. But a couple of career games by Grbac and Tim Brown means that the average is more like 66 a game, which is definitely bad. Looking at the other teams, after three games I'm the lowest scoring team in the league with 172 total points. Mind you the second lowest scoring team has 173 points. Of the other winning teams (teams with winning records), they're point totals are 260, 258 and 236. This does not bode well for me. It's a sign that I got lucky in a couple of games but I'm bound to lose most of the rest if I don't get any better.

But it's all in good fun so I don't really care. It gives me a journal article or two and an hour a week to pass the time. I don't expect to win more than 4 games (which is the same goal as last year). Next time if I'm interested I should go ahead and actually arrange my draft lists. I you don't do anything you draft based on last year's stats, but too many people have career years or had an off year so you need to modify your draft list or you'll end up with a bunch of losers like I did.