We’ve been over this before: Lee Evans is fantasy football AIDS. Lee Evans is like a $100-dollar bill from a country that doesn’t even exist anymore. He’s a mirage. For Lee Evans’ projected totals for 2009, every fantasy magazine should simply read, “Seriously?” There’s no redeeming value to his production whatsoever.

And so I took him in the third round.

The much-heralded KSK Keeper League has produced two champions and one engagement in its brief existence, but it also has produced an assortment of chicanery, stupidity, and inappropriate remarks about other fantasy owners’ mothers. So it seems only fair to show you how the fantasy sausage is made. Some of you won’t care about this at all. You’re excused. The rest of you can tag along in the following liveblog, set to start at 7. You can see the board of selections and participants here. But yeah, it’s other people’s fantasy football.

We’ll keep the porchlight on through Hard Knocks if the draft spills over, but in the interim, enjoy, if that’s possible.

Note: If you’re one of those people that doesn’t want to hear about fantasy teams, best move along to the next post. This one’s pretty self-indulgent.

For years I avoided playing fantasy football because I’m very protective of my free time, and I already spend too much time staring at this goddam computer screen.  I finally caved last year because Yahoo’s Andy Behrens made a 12-team blogger league where we could play for free.  I made the six-team playoffs, finished fifth, and was hooked.

This year, with a girlfriend living in London and a ghost of a social life, I fell off the deep end.  I drafted Tom Brady first overall and Marc Bulger as his backup, and my immediate need for a decent quarterback bred in me an obsessive-compulsive streak to tweak my roster.  In 14 weeks I’ve made 36 moves (not counting the four waiver moves this week), 20 more than the second-most active manager.  I engineered two of the three trades in the league (Ryan Grant to Behrens for Kurt Warner in late September, and BenJarvus and Pennington to Shanoff for Brandon Marshall and Matt Schaub just before the trade deadline – SUCKA!).

And you wanna know what excessive tinkering gets you?  A 6-7 record after you single-handedly mismanage your way out of at least three wins.  Some of my fantasy highlights this season:

Week 3: I’m 2-0, but goddammit, T.J. Houshmandzadeh is NOT producing.  I bench that fuckface against the Giants for Bryant Johnson — he’s totally due for a breakout!  And he’s playing the Lions!  Housh gets 146 yards and touchdown for 20 points, Bryant gets me two for a net loss of 18 points.  I lose to Unsilent Majority by nine.  I swear to God it made sense at the time.

Week 8: I’m up against Shanoff, who notoriously sucks at fantasy.  When I find out that his starting WR Santonio Holmes will be sitting out after his pot bust, I taunt him over email. His sincere response is “Thanks! I wouldn’t have realized it otherwise!”  He starts Kevin Walter in his place, who gets 70 yards and two TDs as Shanoff — who didn’t even start a kicker or defense — beats me by three points.  Also, I start Jeff Garcia instead of Warner.  I fucking hate myself.

Week 9: It’s Sunday morning, and the only QBs on Daulerio’s roster are Philip Rivers (bye) and Carson Palmer (out).  I use my four expendable roster spots to pick up any QB who might be worth a shit, leaving him only the run-heavy Ravens’ Flacco against the Browns.  Flacco gets 17 points, I lose.  Granted, I lost by more than 17, but I bring this one up because the Yahoo projections predicted I’d score 93 to Daulerio’s 62.  Daulerio beats me 90-72.  Fuck you, Yahoo projections.

Week 12: I desperately need a win against Maj to have a realistic shot at the playoffs.  Late in the week, with Brandon Jacobs looking iffy for the Arizona game, I plug in Derrick Ward for LenDale White, who’ll be facing the run-tough Jets.  Eight minutes before kickoff, the word is that Jacobs will play, and I see that 67% of Yahoo players are starting LenDale, considerably higher than the percentage starting Ward.  I freak out and make a knee-jerk switch.  White gets 1 touch and zero points.  Jacobs doesn’t play, and Ward gets 15 points.  I lose by 12.  Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

In the end, with a miraculous Week 13 win against league points leader Behrens, I jumped ahead of three teams to make the playoffs at 6-7, despite my best efforts to fuck everything up.  And who cares what happens in the playoffs, man.  All I care is that I’m playing.  That’s all I want out of fantasy football, every week, 52 weeks a year.  Just to have an added rooting interest in the games.  GIVE IT TO FORTE YOU STUPID FUCK LOVIE!

I’m going to be suicidal come Week 17.

This week, we’re holding the second annual KsK Kares Kharity Drive for Fisher House, which helps build temp housing for disabled veterans and their families. You can donate directly to FH here.

I played in five fantasy football leagues this year; I didn’t make the playoffs in any of them. I bought the magazines and everything, did the research, had discussions about certain players with my friends. And now, All my minutes of waiver wire shopping and proposing shitty trades to Rob Iracane seem to have gone for naught, and so now I’m out $200 and wondering why I didn’t just roll those fantasy mags into a bonfire and throw myself on top of it.

Some people think fantasy sports are just glorified gambling, while others have said that such practices run on websites actually infringe on proprietary information of the NFL. Fuck those people, I say. They’re overlooking the greatest injustice of all: that fantasy football can make somebody like me, a guy who does nothing but watch football, feel like a total football idiot.

Football is, now more than ever, my life. I’ve watched more action in 2008 than I ever watched in the 80s, 90s, or aughts…combined. I write about it, I think about it, I study it. How the fuck could I be so bad at this? Why can’t this just be like sex, where I could just stay drunk the whole time and receive insincere compliments the next morning?

The prime issue might be that I just pour hours of prep into my draft board and then, once that process of picking my cadre of statistical fuckups is over, I take the rest of the fall off. In other words, I run my team exactly the way Mike Brown runs the Bengals. Maybe I should hire a general manager, too.

So now I have to watch everyone else in the leagues I FUCKING RUN AS COMMISSIONER chase that virtual championship, while I sit idly by with my dick in my hand and think of new rules that will fuck everybody over next year. Did you fucks even pay your league fees? I hate this shit.

Oh, but congrats to everyone that made the playoffs in their leagues. I hope you choke on each other’s cocks.

/prays

/prepares to throw into coverage

/fumbles

I turned 30 this week.  Lots of people said nice things to me.  Well, maybe not lots.  Probably ten.  Seven.  Four or five.  Okay, THREE!  Three people said nice things to me.  My parents were all, “You coming into the world was one of our happiest days” and “We’re so proud of you, blah blah blah.”  And… I guess that’s only two.  Whatever.

Point is, they may as well have said nothing.  This e-card is the nicest thing anyone can ever say to anyone else.  Unless it’s “Your penis is huge!”  But I’ve never heard that without sarcastic giggling.

(via the consistent excellence of someecards)

I mean, yeah, it was Shanoff, but it still counts. A win is a win is a win.

I feel okay about next week. Sure, the Rams sucked against Philly, but all things considered I’m lucky to have Marc Bulger as my starting quarter–OH GOD WHY? WHY?

WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY????

/sobs

/deep breath

/exhale

My name’s Matt, and I drafted Tom Brady with my first pick in my fantasy draft.

I wasn’t even supposed to have him, you know. I drafted tenth in a 14-team league. Drew didn’t have his Flash plug-in updated when the draft started, so he couldn’t pick Brady at #8. He wanted Brady. Oh, I felt grand at the time. Wore my hat at a jaunty tilt. Whistled merry tunes as I walked down the street. I even jingled the change in my pocket and made eye contact with panhandlers as I skipped on by. They were heady times, those fives days between the draft and the first 14 minutes of the 2008 season.

You know, I almost drafted Brady last year. I had a hunch he was going to have a really good season, but the conventional wisdom said Drew Brees was the better pick. Fucking conventional wisdom. Thanks for the lovely package of shit in 2007, Drew Brees. You and Reggie Bush fucked me raw last year. Couldn’t help but notice you two assholes did just fine in Week 1.

What do I do? How do I go on from here? Brady gave me three points in his half a quarter of work. Bulger got six over the course of an entire game.

/sigh

I dropped him today, you know. I don’t know why I waited so long. It’s not like I was emotional about it. It’s not like I lost a son. More like a miscarriage. Like a miscarriage after Bernard Pollard pushes your wife down the stairs.

I guess I’ll muddle through. I’m plenty deep at wide receiver. I think Nate Burleson’s really going to break out this year!

What? Oh God. I hope this bottle is big enough.

One day when the directors cut is released we will finally find out exactly how many times the word “gay” was used to describe Colt Brennan’s actions. No matter the amount one thing is certain, Jamie Mottram is not pleased.

Chris Cooley’s Blog

I hate them all.

Apart from Tomlinson, every player here that positively bursts with the potential to fuck you raw. The list of players that shat their pants last year is incredibly robust: Bulger, LJ, Rudi, FUCKING LEE EVANS. Oh, how I loooooathe you, Lee Evans. You eat shit, young man. EAT A POUND OF SHIT.

Usually, any given year, you look at the list of players and, for no rational reason, a few guys look appealing. “Ooooh, Josh Reed! I bet he’ll be AWESOME!” But this year, I look and I just want to fall off a ledge. Earnest Graham? Really? I have to consider that asshole? Jesus.

With that in mind, here are eleven players that I just know, in my heart of hearts, will manage to screw me whether I draft them or not.

Peyton Manning: If this really is the year that both Tom Brady and Peyton Manning miss significant time with injury (fingers crossed!), it’s not gonna be nice and cut-and-dried. No, both of these assholes will invariably gut it out, staggering onto the field for every game, and calling 500 surprise draws on 3rd and goal from the four yard line. Then you’ll see headlines like “MANNING THROWS FOR 90 YARDS AND 1 INT IN BRAVE DISPLAY OF LEADERSHIP”. But you can’t NOT start Manning. He’s Manning! ARRRGGHHHH I hate that shit.

Ben Roethlisberger: Did he really throw 32 TD’s last year? I’m shocked he threw 32 TIMES. That’s not happening again. OR IS IT? See? I‘m annoyed already.

Brian Westbrook: “Hi! Just to let you know, I’m going to spend all my time this year being downgraded from Questionable to Doubtful on Saturday, only to run and catch for 100 yards each the next day! Then, the next week, I’ll find a new, hidden, surprise nagging injury that really will keep me out, even though it’s the one week I’m not on the injury report!” Fuck you, you bastard. I’ve never met anyone from Villanofun worth liking.

Frank Gore: With Mike Martz in town, you two get to be overrated together! I’m also excited about the prospect of Deshaun Foster spelling Gore for a series or two for no real reason, at which point I’ll shout out, “Hey, the fuck is Foster doing there?” No one fucks a backfield quite like that guy.

Ryan Grant: Much as I loathe Brett Favre, the prospect of every Green Bay skill position player turning to complete shit in the wake of his departure seems all too likely. YAY.

Greg Jennings: Ditto.

Michael Turner: I had Jerious Norwood in a keeper league last year. He ran for six yards every time he touched the ball. His reward for being productive was about 2 goddamn carries a game. And now here comes Turner to be the man in that offense. But I guarantee you: Mike Smith can’t be any dumber of a coach than Bobby Crackerbumfuck. Norwood will get on the field just enough to make you blind with hate towards all parties involved.

The Ronnie Brown/Ricky Williams Miami Shitpie

Jonathan Stewart: I’m telling you, whichever rookie back you draft will end up being the wrong rookie. Just look at the underachieving asshole Stewart is gonna replace. DEANGELO WILLIAMS, YOU ARE A FESTERING, PUS-OOZING WASTE OF HUMAN POTENTIAL.

Braylon Edwards: If you owned Edwards BEFORE last season, as I once did, you know he was about as consistent as my urine stream. And I’m telling you, there is NO reason he can’t turn around and go right back to Shitland again. Especially if Mr. Black Tights has to take over for Horsie Balls at the signal calling duties. Top 3 receiver, my ass.

These are but 11 players. There are just so many more out there, waiting to bend you over and take a guitar neck to your cornhole. Old fuckers like Edgerrin James. Young fuckers who will probably never end up doing anything like Chris Johnson. The myriad number of ways they can ruin your shit has no ceiling. Purple Jesus alone has about 75 potential ways to destroy your weekend.

They could show just enough brilliance to give you a false sense of confidence. They could get injured during the playoffs. They could shit in hampers. You just never know.

Thank God fantasy football is back.

Here’s your Wednesday evening Doug & Doug fix, to give you a five-minute reprieve from baseball. Goshkins! They’re playing through some moderate rain. What intrepid warriors!

Here’s my fantasy report: I had Ronnie Brown on the better of my two fantasy teams and now the best back I have on that receiver heavy team is Kenny Watson, who though enormously kind to me last week is about to give me nathan going against the Steelers’ run D, then return to the job to Rudi Johnson in early November. I’m 5-2 going on 5-8.