let me just go ahead and say i am sorry...

(a prelude to my championship)

i get it. i really do. i know how horrible it is to try and listen to someone talk about their fantasy football team if you aren't playing in their league. i mean, seriously, you could give a crap, right? i don't want to hear how lucky you are to have drafted ldt or how you "just had a feeling" that frank gore was going to come out of nowhere and be all-world. it's a pain. and so, let me say that i am sorry for subjecting anyone that isn't included in the same fantasy football league as me for this post. please just humor me. i'll be back to bitching about the church or the braves soon enough. for tonight, though, i am going to play the "this is my blog!" card and just hope that you don't tune out because of it.

for the first time in the history of our league, we are doing a draft lottery (sarah is serving as the super-secretive accounting firm) based on the order of finish from last year's season. it's the first time in our history that we've had so little turnover that it's realistic for us to take last year's record into account and work from there. the rules are simple. clint's the only newbie, so he's screwed. he has a 1 in 55 chance of getting the first pick. cody is almost as screwed. he won the playoff and, thus, the league last year and he'll have a 2 in 55 chance. because i am awesome every year, i, too, am a longshot at 3 in 55. the memphis grizzlies of our league (team with worst record and best chance in the lottery)? good 'ole heath, who suffered gamely through one of the worst seasons in the history of our rather competitive league. he's got a 19% chance of the first pick. sarah will pick names, the first name gets the first pick and so on, until she gets ten different names and our order will be set, one through ten. keep in mind, the grizzlies ended up picking fourth in this year's nba draft. and so, drum roll please...without further ado, the results (and pithy commentary) coming up next...

and the first pick goes to...the grizzlies!!! god bless heath. inexperience led him to draft a kicker in the fifth round last year. a mistake not likely to be repeated. would he ever trade out of the first spot??? that is now the question.

2) richy (ex-champ)- damn him. richy autodrafted (he wasn't present for the live draft) ldt last year with the third freakin' pick because jeff went with larry johnson and ken got hosed. no way he gets ldt this year...right?

3) jeff - one of three new editions last year and the best performer of the freshmen. rode a pretty solid draft to a hot start and then slumped in the second half. could be a sleeper.

4) old man kiker (ex-champ)- one of four founding fathers (me, ken and richy the others) left in the league. kiker will be in it 'til the very end even if his team sucks. and his team sucked last year. decimated by huge injuries. and still lost the final to cody. unbelievable. a really good fantasy player. and my biggest rival.

5) ken - why did ken get hosed? he claims he couldn't get in the draft in time. and who did he autodraft ahead of ldt? shaun alexander, fresh off his mvp season. also a really solid fantasy player. it feels like it might be time for ken to finally win this league.

6) me (ex-champ)- i couldn't pull a top three pick in this league if my life depended on it. last year i drafted fourth and that was as high as i've ever picked. i got peyton with that pick. i will have to play without him this year. there's no way he's falling to six. dammit.

7) perry - infamous in the league for one thing. several years ago, before the undroppable list was created to prevent such things, perry purged his roster after losing a few games in a row. it was also before we went to a two day waiver period, so all of his stars were immediately available to whoever showed up in the league and noticed first. the beneficiary of perry's white flag? richy, who rode his newfound loaded roster to the title. this is our league's fantasy equivalent to an already playoff-ready spurs team drafting tim duncan. completely unfair, but it's a great story to this day.

8) clint - has played with us once before and returns after a year off. we'll see what happens this time around. the first time wasn't pretty.

9) rookie - rookie gets screwed in the draft order worse than i do. but then again, rookie always ends up with at least one of "those guys" like frank gore who will burst out of the 8th round and carry his team.

10) cody (ex-champ)- our league's namesake this year. the honor for winning the previous year wears off pretty soon for our champ. he drops to the last pick of the first round. he is rewarded, though, with the first pick of the second and will pick back to back through the entire draft. kind of a cool consolation prize.

there you have it. three weeks from tonight, the draft is on!!! i can't wait!