A name you know now
November 15, 2005
Fantasy Football Free Agent Commercial
“Hi, I’m Nad Navillus. Are you one of the thousands of fantasy football owners troubled by running back dirth-itis? I know I am. Well, have we got great news for you! And no, I didn’t just save money on my car insurance.
“It’s Gado! That’s right, Gado. Samson Gado that is. Oh, wait, sorry—that’s Samkon Gado, with a ‘K’. I have no idea how to pronounce it but rush right out and get yourself one. While supplies last!”
Theme song starts: 'G, A, D, O, There's name you ought to know. Geeeeet GADO!'
Of course, while supplies last was either first thing Tuesday morning when the waiver wire claims went through, or the middle of the day Sunday if you have an open free agent pool.
Seriously, Samkon Gado is the hottest commodity around. I personally dropped Marvin Harrison for him, I mean, consistency is overrated. I also dropped Plaxico Burress just because I felt like I was getting such a great deal. I need the next hottest thing on the market, especially if he plays for Green Bay.
Unfortunately, since he is a running back for Green Bay he is probably due to be injured any minute. Green, Davenport, and Fisher have all gone down and here comes little Samkon to score three touchdowns. Of course, you were probably as likely to be starting him as you were the other three touchdown machine, the Vikes defense and special teams.
I’m not picking them up either.
Of course, I don’t really need Gado. My favorite fantasy team, which also happens to be the one winning the most games, just got its own special upgrade at the running back position: Larry Johnson. We didn’t just get him, I drafted him, but we just got him, if you know what I mean.
I never like to see a back the caliber of Priest Holmes go down to injury, but somehow the devastation and the pain of it all just seem more bearable when I am the guy who has Larry Johnson. Somehow, I think I'll get through.
And, it also means Gado is not a rush right out and pick up kind of guy. Hey, I wish him the best, but an undrafted rookie on a 2 win, 487 loss team just doesn’t seem likely to get the starting nod over LJ. Now, if I was at the bottom of the heap, I’d take a flyer on the kid, stranger things have happened.
But, I won’t take the kind of flyer I was just offered in a trade, about one hour after the waiver transactions went through. The guy offered me Mister Gado and my choice between Brandon Stokley or Nate Burleson for Larry Johnson. Seriously. Where do these ideas come from? Now I know LJ didn’t score against Buffalo but he still compiled 178 combined yards and I’m pretty sure he might get a touchdown in the future.
I should have offered him Larry Johnson and Santana Moss just to make the deal even, you know, two for two.
This is why trades never happen in so many football leagues. Unless it’s a league where you know a lot of the owners, it is impossible to make trades happen with strangers. The back and forth of sitemails and trade offers is too difficult with strangers. They either come off way too stingy like they are trying to administer a Football Aptitude Test for morons, or they go way too vague. Like a guy that sends you the sitemail asking, “What would it take to get McGahee?” I told him either a reasonable trade offer that gave me some sort of benefit equal to or greater than the loss of McGahee. Or money, lots of money.
When it’s a friend, you just call them up on the phone and start a casual conversation about both of your teams’ strengths and weaknesses, feel them out a little and then pretend to get the idea right on the spot. You start pitching combinations, see if he or she warms to any of them, and if they do, you start making definite offers. It’s do-able.
But strangers seem to want to prove they are the savviest fish in the gene pool and that you’re fish food. I’d understand this if they’d seen me take a handful of really bad trades and they wanted a piece of the feeding frenzy, but criminy, I am in first place. Would it be too much to assume your fellow owners are at least sentient beings? That we know who Larry Johnson is and that, equally important, we have no idea who Gado is?
If Gado goes on to score three touchdowns a game for the rest of the season, or even just two. I’ll be the first to admit that I was wrong. But even if he scores three for the next two games, I won’t make this trade. Larry’s proven. KC’s offense is proven. Gado and Green Bay, not so much.
The only people who knew who Gado was before last week were his family, Green Bay diehards, and the guy who had a locker next to him. Maybe the people who had Tony Fisher on the roster. Otherwise, just another funny name. Now, he’s probably on a roster in 80% of fantasy leagues. And he should be. A starting running back on any team should be on a roster. But I’m not sending him to Honolulu yet.
Other week ten highlights:
1) I hope you didn’t lose on that interception that McNabb threw in the final minutes. There may have been a ton of people who went to bed on Monday night and woke up shocked that Dallas won. But I hope nobody went to bad nursing a one or two point lead and woke up to their own loss. Hey, maybe I should pick up Koy Detmer and Mike McMahon. Maybe I could trade McMahon for Gado.
2) Shaun Alexander killed one of my teams. Practically all by himself. Well, that and Eli’s performance for my team. If Eli doesn’t turn it around, I may just go back to his brother.
3) One league had a scoring record set by a team that had Daniel Graham (0 points), Michael Clayton (0 points) and Donte Stallworth (bye week, uhm…0 points) all starting. Of course, they also had Roy Williams, Peyton Manning, Clinton Portis, and the Panthers Defense. The team was 2-7 going in and hadn’t made a roster move yet. That’s fantasy football.
I love this game.
4) Meanwhile, same league, the guy I am chasing for a wild card spot won 31-28 because the moron playing against him had five bye players in his starting lineup and 36 points left on his bench.
I hate this game.
Fantasy Football 
Haha. Alright good. I thought you were crazy for a second.