One of my favorite weekends of the year.....

....is this weekend. Why?

It's Fantasy Football Draft Weekend!

I have played Fantasy Football for most of the last 13 years. I didn't play last year and it left me feeling hollow. If you have never played you probably can't understand. If you have played then you know exactly what I am talking about.

The league I am in meets tomorrow at a local (Irving, TX) bar. Twelve team owners will then spend 3-5 hours pouring over player rankings, last years performance stats, injury reports and scores of Fantasy Football related web sites and magazines while drafting players and having a few beers during a 14 round draft. I have known some of the other team owners for many years and have played against most of them in one league or another over the past decade.

I just spent about 2 hours updating my super secret draft spreadsheet with our league scoring, draft orders, updated player rankings and a few super-duper secret tweaks that will be sure to net me the grand prize - Winner of our version of the Super-Bowl.

In all the years I have played, I have never won the big game. My teams have managed to get to the big game a half a dozen times or more but have never been able to generate enough points to take it all the way. This is what happened to me two years ago and it almost made me give up the game for good. But once you get a taste for the game you just can't ever leave it for good. I was invited into a league this year and I didn't even hesitate saying yes. Even though it meant I would have to fly from Washington to Texas to attend the live draft (fortunately, I coordinated some other activities in Texas with this so I could spend time with friends and family too....makes it a lot easier to justify the personal T&E).

For anyone else who is drafting this weekend, I know what you are feeling - the nervous anticipation of who you will get as your first round draft pick. The pit in your stomach when Tom Brady is still available and the guy just ahead of you picks him up. Knowing that someone in the league didn't pay attention to the most recent injury reports and is going to screw up and draft a player who went out for the season with a torn ACL in last weeks pre-season games....and of course the uproarious laughter and ribbing the will take for the rest of the draft by the other team owners. It happens almost every year.

If you are drafting this weekend.....good luck! Unless you are opposing me in my league!

Cheers!