The Boulder Tooginators are your 2010 Fantasy Football Champions of the UB Fantasy Football League.  The only thing better than being the 2010 Fantasy Football League Champ is that I’m also the 2009 Fantasy Football Champ of this league too.  Wait, there’s more….  And it marks the 2nd time I’ve gone Back to Back (1999 & 2000) and the 6th championship in 14 years.  That’s a lot of credentials!

The keys to victory this year were the draft and staying healthy.  I targeted Arian Foster and Dwayne Bowe as top ten picks in the four leagues I played as well as Jay Cutler (typically the last team to draft a QB), Matt Forte, Wes Welker, Fred Jackson and Devin Aromashodu.  You may think I’m a Bears fan based on those targets, but I’m not, just the way things went down.  Out of that group, only Devin Aromashodu didn’t pan out.  Here’s my draft for the UB Fantasy Football League:

Turner and Johnson did what they needed to do as 1st/2nd round picks.  They stayed healthy for the most part and generally happy with the picks.  I think if Matt Stafford could have stayed healthy, Johnson would have had an even better year.  The third pick was a complete mistake.  We play on Yahoo Sports and I was setting up players that I’d like to draft at some point in my queue and then indecision & computer glitch led to the clock expiring and autopick.  I got razzed pretty good for that one, but I told them it was my handicap for winning the league 5x.  Who’s laughing now?  The 4th pick was a bit of a gamble, not really knowing if Welker was 100%, but at this spot I was willing to gamble on Welker, Brady and Belichek.  The 5th pick was a killer for the rest of the league.  To get the NFL rushing leader in round 5 was awesome.  I ended up with him in 3 of 4 leagues and in the 4th, he was taken by the person just in front of me or I would have gone 4 for 4.  In the 6th, I felt Matt Forte was worth a shot to bounce back.  He bounced just enough that I was able to trade him for Austin Miles.  I was reluctant to do so, but I did during the week that Johnson was hurt (they said he might not play the rest of the season, couldn’t lift his arm over his head…he scored twice the next week on my bench).  I got the better end of that deal.  Floyd was worth a flier in the 7th with Jackson suspended.  A couple of big weeks, but nothing special.  My 8th pick was as good as my 5th pick, Dwayne Bowe….MONSTER YEAR!  I really like Fred Jackson, something about Coe College, Arena Ball, NFL Europe….love his effort.  Buffalo miss used him early, so that hurt.  And rounding out the draft, Sebastian Janikowski.  With Jason Campbell, I just figured they’d have more chances to score this year and they did.  Very happy with the 15 pick.  And for some reason, people in my league continue to take kickers in the 7th, 9th and 10th rounds…thank you.

Along the way, I picked up the usual bye-week and injury replacements.  My fantasy football strategy over the last few years, which has served me well is to go heavy on WR / RB early, if top TE is available take him, if not wait.  With the exception of this year due to error, take a QB late and play the match-ups at QB, Def, and TE using ESPN Fantasy Football Points Against.  Just another input, but one that helps me make decisions about who to target on the waiver and start.

At QB I started Cutler, Fitzpatrick (1 start), Garrard (1 start), Campbell (couple of starts) and Cassel.  Cassel was a huge pickup in late October.  I don’t think I scored less than 15 points in any week at QB.  On Defense I used Cincinnati, San Diego, Atlanta and Tampa Bay primarily rotating San Diego, Atlanta and Tampa against the weakest teams.  TE was a complete crap shoot for me this year.  Half of my moves were related to TE.  I used Aaron Hernandez down the stretch and he delivered until he got hurt.  He would have had a good day against Buffalo in week 16.

Here’s how the final matchup went down in Week 16:

In my other leagues I finished 2nd and 3rd & in the fourth league, out of the money.  I had a really good team, just ran into a team having a career day and got knocked out.

If you made it this far, thanks for reading.  If you’re also a Fantasy Football Champion, shop our selection of 2010 Fantasy Football Championship T-shirts or Contact Us to have something created especially for you or if you’d like one of our designs on 100% polyester t-shirt.