The year was 2015, and Bane had convinced us to put together a fantasy football league. I decided to be the commissioner because, why the fuck not, right? Like, who wouldn’t want that power? We scraped the bottom of the barrel to throw together a ten team league, which included four team managers that had actually played fantasy football before and six absolute idiots. The draft went about as well as expected.
Team manager Dann Andrews managed to land the 1.01, and used it to pick up Andrew Luck. A few picks later, Scott (the league Taco) took David Cobb at the 1.05 (this wasn’t something that stuck out to me in remembering this season, but as I was reading through the draft board I found myself wondering, “Who the fuck is David Cobb?” and had to look up his stat history. Great move, Scott). One pick later, at the 1.06, I took Antonio Brown, for reference.
In the second round, I got the steal of a lifetime by grabbing C.J. Anderson, who had somehow fallen to the 2.05 after being rated the number seven pick overall on my ESPN cheat sheet. He would go on to single handedly ruin my first season of fantasy football. God, I still hate C.J. Anderson. If C.J. Anderson got picked up as the only running back for the Kansas City Chiefs, I would draft him in the first round to sit him on my bench. He still needs to sit and think about what he did.
Later in the draft, Noll (who would somehow go on to win the league) drafted Santana Moss, who was no longer in the NFL. None of us realized this until I attempted to import the draft results into Yahoo.
We clearly knew what we were doing as a league. Four quarterbacks went off the board in the first two rounds of a ten man one quarterback league. I feel slightly dirty now looking at the draft board and realizing I took a quarterback in the fourth round.
Throughout that first regular season, a couple of teams were dominant. Kindra’s 2015 team was, statistically, the best team of the season, and is the third best team in MiLF history with a legacy power rating of 1.26. She finished the regular season with a 10-3 record.
Kyle’s 2015 team was the second best team of the season, and is currently rated as the fifth best team in MiLF history with a legacy power rating of 1.23. He finished the regular season with a record of 10-2-1 (his tie with Ben in the 2015 season is still the only tie in league history).
Down on the other end of the league leaderboard, Dann’s team had died in a plane crash after week one, and he finished the season with a 2-11 record. His 2015 (and only) team finds itself comfortably positioned as the worst team in league history, with a legacy power rating of 0.59.
Somewhere in the middle of the pack, Noll’s team was chugging along with a 7-6 record, being just about as average as a team could be with a legacy power rating of 1.02.
Kyle’s team was upset by Logan in the first round of the playoffs, while Noll easily dispatched Bane.
On the other side of the bracket, Kindra’s powerhouse team knocked out Hughes, and I somehow (after being absolutely railed by C.J. Anderson all season) put up the high score of the week to take out Scott.
In the semifinals, a lackluster performance by Noll was enough to eliminate Logan, and Kindra finished what my second round running back had started and killed my championship dreams. Fuck C.J. Anderson.
The finals matchup was set. Kindra’s team that had been dominant all season versus Noll’s perfectly mediocre team that was somehow finding ways to take him all the way.
Kindra’s team choked (putting up ~40 fantasy points less than she had against me the week prior), and Noll pulled out the biggest upset the league had ever seen.
Granted, it was only our first year. But that’s one hell of a storyline, and one hell of a way to kick off a league.
We were hooked. The league was established. Change was on the horizon. But that’s a story for another time.
Fuck C.J. Anderson.