Bidding War

Brian Westbrook used to regularly be a top running back in fantasy. With his combination of running and receiving talents, Westbrook would lead the league in yards, often despite being injured for a few games each season. While never the consensus top back, Westbrook would always rank at least in the top five, and often as high as two. This past week, with Niner's RB Frank Gore going down, a bidding war broke out for Mr. Westbrook.

A lot of teams haven't used much of their FAAB budget and decided this could be their last chance to land an impact player. Oliver started the bidding at $13 but Ryan quickly doubled that to $29. Adam, fighting hard for a playoff spot in the Justice League, bid a whopping $61. Intriguingly, Andy, out of the playoff hunt, went even higher, to $71, as he prepares to win some Toilet Bowl money. For awhile, the dust had settled and it looked like Westbrook would be on Six to Midnight for the remainder of the season.

But at the last moment, Kevin jumped in with his entire FAAB budget, bidding $100 for Westbrook and shocking the crowd. Kevin's team, already the second highest scoring squad in the league, might have just shored up his backfield just in time for a deep playoff run. Congratulations on your fantasy football marriage Kevin and Brian!

While we're here, a quick look at the playoff hunt. Jon and Jimmy have locked up first round byes in their respective divisions, and it looks like Mike and Kevin are most assuredly in the playoffs too. With the top two division teams automatically in, we have two wild cards that are up for grabs. If Adam can win this week, he'll seal the second seed in the Justice League but if he loses and Oliver wins, Oliver will slide in there. The two wild cards are definitely coming from the Uncanny X-Men side, as there are two 7-5 teams and even a 6-6 team that already have better records than anyone beside Jimmy on the Justice League side.

In this season, it's clear that Marvel was way better than DC as the Uncanny X-Men has only one team that's not at least .500, and the Justice League only boasts one team with a winning record. Sorry Superman, your squad is weaaak.

5 Games In: Uncanny X-Men

Heading into Week 6, we're about a third of the way through the regular season and while every team is technically still in the playoff race, some of the bottom feeders are going to have to pick up their game if they want to make it into the lucrative post-season. Let's take a quick look at how our divisional fights are shaping up.

The Dirty Birds have vaulted to the best regular season record in our young season by way of a four game winning streak. Since getting blasted in WK1, they've racked up three 100+ point weeks and four easy wins. The Birds found a ground game behind Browns RB Peyton Hillis, who is averaging 18.0 points a game. The Birds can continue their ascent if QB Ben Roethlisberger's return to action strengthens an already strong receiving game.

Nipping at the Birds' heels is Team Johnson, who is outscoring the entire league by a wide margin (almost a hundred points more PF than the next closest competitor). Two of their losses have come despite scoring over the century mark and in their past two games, both wins, the Johnsons have scored 140+ in each matchup. They've been powered by the explosive receiving trio of Miles Austin, Brandon Lloyd, and Hakeem Nicks. Add in multi-faceted Frank Gore -- not to mention Darren McFadden -- and this is a serious contender.

Balancing good offense with a very easy schedule, Six to Midnight started off 3-1 but lost last week to his cousin Oliver in a low scoring yawner (70-76). The running game has fantasy sensation Arian Foster but neither Shonn Greene nor DeAngelo Williams are performing up to their draft status. The possible season ending loss of TE Jermichael Finley could really hurt too. Still, mojo could be on Andy's side as only eleven total points have kept him from being undefeated. Raise your hand if you knew Antonio Gates was the best WR/TE so far this season?!

Team H and Inglorious Basterds have been pretty similar this year and are currently both at 2-3. Tough schedules, low scoring games, and losing streaks of two and three games respectively have sunk them to middle of the pack. Mark's Team H has the incredible Philip Rivers and erratically explosive Ravens Ray Rice and Anquan Boldin. The problem is, there's not a lot of depth here and they've swung wildly from great highs (125-121 vs Inglorious Basterds in WK3) to putrid lows (55-88 vs Snake Eyes in WK4).

Mike's Basterds are in a tailspin and haven't won a game at home yet. The last two weeks have brought big time beat downs and that pretty much coincides with when Michael Vick went down. RB Adrian Peterson and Wes Welker are around to steady the ship but Vick's replacements -- either Kolb or Mark Sanchez -- need to pick up the slack. Oh and Mike's team photo link is broken, another reason he's probably losing.

Rollen's Ro.Bots have faced the easiest schedule in the league and have mostly been unlucky. A seven point loss in WK1 and a four point loss in WK3. Still, it would be nice to see them put together more consistent efforts as their recent outings have been pretty bad (46 and 75 points, the latter resulting in a win). After clearing a tough week of byes, RoBots will have Tom Brady and Rashard Mendenhall back in WK6. This team desperately needs another RB to pair with Mendenhall.

It's been El Nino season around here but Hong's El Ninos have lost all four of their home games and been crsuhed by one of the hardest schedules in the league. Without much offense to compensate (no century games to speak of yet), it's meant that the El Nino's are going to turn things around pretty quickly to get back into contention. There is a lot of depth here, and some good second half breakout candidates, but for now LaDainian Tomlinson has been their best player at 16.8 points per game. That's great and all for LDT, but its' probably not a good sign when he's outperforming Donovan McNabb, Michael Turner, and Larry Fitzgerald.

5 Games In: Justice League

There's a glut of three win teams in this division, four of them to be exact, but Fobulus sets themselves apart due to a tie in WK3. Amazingly, Jimmy's team is thriving despite not having one century game so far this season. They have only 33 more PF than PA but have managed to pick up strategic wins by having a winningly mediocre team. Every starter and main bench player scores in the low to mid teens and nobody tops 15 points per game (led by WR Calvin Johnson). Weird but hard to argue with its effectiveness.

There's a case to be made that Brian's Howler Monkeys are the actual cream of the crop here, as he sports a healthy plus PF/PA differential and is one of the highest scoring teams in the league. With LeSean McCoy and Austin Collie leading the way, the Monkeys have even more upside as QB Drew Brees has been a bit underwhelming. There is a lot to like about this team, especially its consistency, as they've only scored under 90 points once and are coming off two wins and two century games.

The other 3-2 teams are both in incremental decline. Snake Eyes has been scoring less and less each week after a WK1 explosion, and Antoine Dodson Hide Your Wife has been doing the exact same thing, except his decline has been after WK2. Of the two, Oliver's Antoine Dodson is in better shape as he has been a tiny bit steadier (Ryan's team put up a sterling 45 points last week) and his under the radar trade for RB Michael Bush will give him a ground game to go along with his impressively balanced passing attack of Indianapolis receivers Reggie Wayne and Dallas Clark. Snake Eyes has the opposite problem: No consistent receivers and someone named Aaron Hernandez starting at TE. Chad Ochocinco's 12.2 point average is deceiving as he's yet to break double digits after a 33 point opening week. Peyton Manning has been great but he can't do it all by himself. Rumors swirl that either Matt Forte or Ahmad Bradshaw could be on the move.

Canadian Bacon (2-2-1) and Gangsta Wangsta (2-3) have both have been pounded by rough scheduling. Adam's team is actually a team to keep an eye on as they've scored three century games and are coming off a great win last week. Featuring the fastest running back tandem in the game, Chris Johnson and Jahvid Best, the Canadians also have deep threat DeSean Jackson to stretch the field (well he's only great when Vick is behind center). If Randy Moss can help Brett Favre's numbers, we see this team on the rise. It's actually a shock that there's no backup QB to Favre on this roster, as he's been pretty bad so far this season.

How about that Kyle Orton! The Denver QB is the third best in the land and he's outperformed his thirteenth round draft position by about fifty country miles. Orton throws to Brandon Marshall, Steve Smith, and Donald Driver, who have all been very solid this season. What Victor's team is desperately seeking is another running back to complement Steven Jackson, as Jerome Harrison and Brandon Jacobs are pretty much waiver wire fodder. Still, the Wangstas are facing off with the two worst teams in the league in successive weeks so they could vault themselves back up to respectability soon.

One of those worst teams is Team Olivia, who isn't technically the worst, but it's pretty close. Franchise QB Aaron Rodgers has been quite good and there is some erratic explosion in the passing game but what plagues this team is the gaping hole at the second running back position. Jonathan Stewart, Felix Jones, Willis McGahee, and Clinton Portis have been all but invisible and although ploughhorse Cedric Benson has been dependable, he's still just one man. A good WK5 from Cedric Benson, Michael Crabtree, and Jeremy Maclin point to better things, hopefully. Actually there's a possibility that Olivia isn't even paying attention as her transaction history shows no movements whatsoever, lineup changes or otherwise...

I choose you, Pikachu

Our first day of free agent auction is over and I for one was excited to see what the results would be. As it turns out, ESPN doesn't tell you the winning bid, nor how many owners bid on a particular player. I guess that's the point of a "blind auction" isn't it? But because I'm Asian and have a solid grounding in basic math, I think we can figure out how much people bid on particular players.

Here's the add/drops from September 15th. Discounting the moves for kickers and head coaches, there were a few free agents that were snapped up after a stellar weekend. RB Brandon Jackson, QB Michael Vick, QB Sam Bradford, WRs Mark Clayton and Eddie Royal. By combining that information with the Free Agent Auction Summary page, we can determine what prices these players likely went for.

Oliver used $58 total on Jackson and Clayton. The bulk of that has to be toward Jackson, who was the premier pickup of the week as he'll be entering next week as the new starting running back for a potent offense. Let's assume he went for around forty or fifty bucks. We'll never know if that was overkill but a starting RB doens't come along very often on the waiver wire.

Victor and Mike both picked up guys to shore up their shoddy depth at QB. It looks like Mike paid $20 for Vick and Victor paid $10 for Bradford. Which one would you rather have at those prices? I think Kevin Kolb's days are numbered and Vick will start most of the rest of the way so this could be a steal for Mike. As for Bradford, it's hard to envision a rookie QB doing well but Bradford seems to have all the tools and more than enough opportunity. A possible steal at ten dollars if he can at least be serviceable.

Jon scooped up Royal for $3 and again, there's no telling if there was no demand or if he outbid someone by a few bucks. I wish we could tell how many owners bid but since we don't have that information, we'll just have to guesstimate. Some people have already voiced their displeasure at the system but to that I say, "tough!" It's the fairest way to acquire free agents and it's also fun and strategic. If you aren't sure how the auction system works, you should probably have a better idea now. Just remember that the auction runs daily Wednesday through Sunday, at 11am EST.

Update [9.16.2010]
Oliver pointed out that you can see how much people bid. The link for the daily Free Agent Auction Report is at the bottom of the transactions box. Along with that, if you look at the expanded Transaction Report, you can see the winning bids for each player too. Below is the auction report from September 15th. From the looks of this guy, it looks like the next closest bid for Brandon Jackson was only $25!