Call it a hunch, but He had a
history of finding gems at the fake football quarterback position. And he hoped
that, this time, the end result would lean more towards the “2009 Aaron Rodgers”
or “2011 Matthew Stafford” side of things instead of the “2012 Jake Locker” end
of the spectrum.
He knew that the narrative he
created in his head would inevitably be ruined because these kinds of things
never turn out quite the way we expect them to.
I’m sure He didn’t know when that
he drafted Aaron Rodgers in Round 9 of the CCFFL in 2009, one round after drafting David Garrard to be his
starter, it would help lead him to a second place finish in the final standings;
the first time he had ever finished higher than eighth out of the league’s 14
teams.
Similarly, his expectations weren’t
that high when he drafted Matthew Stafford as his backup to Tony Romo in the
same league in 2011. But Stafford’s breakout that year allowed Him to trade
Romo for Jordy Nelson. And had he started either Stafford or Jordy Week 17, he
would’ve won the league by virtue of finishing the season with the most total
points.
But it’s always a risky
proposition when you make potentially season-altering decisions with higher
expectations for the player you covet, as Jake Locker’s 2012 season reminded
him.
As he pondered whether or not to
make the transaction he had in mind, he asked himself “Can Brian Hoyer really
make a difference for this fake football team?”
“Either way, he’s probably going
to be more of an upside play than Carson Palmer against Carolina or EJ Manuel
against Cleveland” he thought as he convinced himself that this was the path
worth taking to try and salvage an 0-4 start in the Kirby’s All Stars league.
Being that He planned on starting
Hoyer in all four of the other leagues he now owned him in, he figured it was
time to put his money where his mouth was and make the move.
In the never-ending quest for
fake football success, he realized that sometimes the best rationale for making
decisions comes from gut instinct. Because if somebody had put in print the
reasons why He convinced himself that Brian Hoyer represented a high upside
streaming play at quarterback at the very least for the coming week, he wouldn’t
have been able to pick him up after waivers cleared.
He knew that Thursday night games
were notorious for disappointing the fantasy owners who chose to start players
that were taking part in them. It’s a big reason why he decided to bench his
keeper, CJ Spiller, in every league he owned him in. The fact that he was
scheduled to be a game-time decision against a stingy defense that would be
hosting a rookie quarterback on a short week didn’t help Big Ceej’s cause
either.
But Hoyer was a different case.
Here was a guy that played for a team with no semblance of a running game to
speak of, who teams barely had any NFL footage on, who was going up against a
patchwork secondary, who had breakout players Jordan Cameron and Josh Gordon to
throw the ball to, and who sat behind Tom Brady for three seasons.
Here was a guy who, as a New
England Patriot, had to prepare for these same Buffalo Bills twice a year.
Though he never got the chance to start against Buffalo in the regular season,
he still had to be present at team meetings and watch all the necessary film
necessary to be ready to play in any given situation. Learning from Bill
Belichick was never something to turn one’s nose up at either.
Of course, He knew that none of
this guaranteed Hoyer any more immediate fake football success than he’s
already experienced. But he also knew that he had to update his thinking
regarding certain players and adapt as necessary if he wanted to find any sort
of sustained success, no matter what his record was or how many total points he
put up to that moment.
He realized that Carson Palmer
wasn’t getting it done for him and that the most he would probably be able to
trade him for at this point would be an old, scratched up copy of Madden ’05
for the Playstation 2. He had no problem making the move in the CCFFL, where he found himself in first
place by 28 points with quarterback being his biggest glaring weakness, or in That League
without a Name, where he was 3-1 with the only other quarterback on his roster
before making the switch to Hoyer being Joe Flacco.
But to do the same thing in League #7 as well as the ConVicks and Kirby’s All Stars leagues, all
leagues he desperately needed a win in that week in order to have any realistic
playoff aspirations, proved a little tougher. It was tougher because if he wound
up being wrong about Hoyer, it would make the road back to respectability that
much harder to traverse. Ipso facto, He needed to be right about this.
Judging
by his track record, it was the kind of game-changing risk he was willing to
take.
<More
to come shortly>
<Photo Credit: http://i.qkme.me/3rmza8.jpg>
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