BIFL - A Bunch of Fucking Morons

As the season closes in, Commissioner Bardois has finally set a keeper declaration deadline of September 1st. Some of us have easy decisions, while others will have to weigh the difference between a low-round slot potential cornerstone or a late-round great value. These choices are no small matter, as the right or wrong keeper selection can drive or damn a franchise for years to come. With that in mind, I decided to take a stroll through the Biffle record books and look at some of the choices we've made over the years. Here then are BIFL's Biggest Keeper Blunders.

To determine the truly awful historical Keeper Blunders, I looked at a few criteria. First, the owner must have passed on the opportunity to keep a player who had a monster season that year or signficantly out-played their keeper draft position. Next, I looked at the drop-offs that resulted: Who did the team get as a replacement at that position? Who did they draft instead in that round? And who did they decide to keep? If the answers to those questions were shit, shit, and shit, I knew I had a Keeper Blunder on my hands. So here's a chance to re-live your dumbass mistakes of the past. Enjoy:

In 2008, Mark Michalski had the opportunity to keep a full-fledged starting running back (an increasingly rare commodity in these committee-riddled times) in the third round. But scared away by the threat of a rookie bruiser potentially vulturing goal-line carries, the Chachfaces chose to go elsewhere. The back they passed on? DeAngelo Williams, who would become the top fantasy running back that year, racking up 1,639 total yards and 20 touchdowns. The drop-off at running back was not terrible, as 2nd-round pick Marshawn Lynch went for 1,336 total yards and 9 touchdowns, which is cool if you're into losing 11 touchdowns and a draft round. Even more egregiously, in the 3rd round - where Williams would have gone - Marcus grabbed Torry Holt, whose bank-breaking 2008 tally included 3 touchdowns and under 800 yards.

Every August, football fans salivating over the start of a new season tune in religiously to HBO's Hard Knocks. And every year, some young unknown stands out on the show, making himself a fantasy commodity. In 2006, that doe-eyed starlet was Dwayne Bowe, who achieved late-round flyer status with Spencer's FU BAR squad. Surprisingly, though, Bowe had a solid rookie season, making him an absolute steal as a WR2 in the 17th round in 2007. FU BAR wasn't interested in thievery, however. They were interested in sucking. And so they let Bowe go, using that 17th-round spot on the inimitable DeShaun Foster (367 total yards, 2 tds). The WR2 spot on Spence's roster was filled by Lee Evans in the fifth round, whose 849 receiving yards and 5 touchdowns were only 173 and 2 shy of Bowe's totals, available 12 rounds later. And why didn't Spencer use that keeper on Bowe, anyway? Who was it that was so important to keep? Oh, that's right. It was Joseph Addai in the FIRST ROUND, who managed to match Bowe's touchdown total and nearly 75% of his total yardage! Way to go, Joe!

Bowe receives the call informing him that the 2007 FU BAR are fucked without him.

To many fans, Drew Brees will always be the face of Pet Monkey. Drafted back in 2005 in the 9th round, Drew put in three solid years in monkey brown as Billy's chief signal-caller. As the 2008 season neared, though, Billy faced a tough decision. Brees was becoming expensive, and demanded a draft spot commensurate with his skills as one of the top quarterbacks in the league (the 3rd round). The notoriously stingy owner balked, opting for the cheaper, younger option of Ben Roethlisberger, kept in the 9th round. Little did Billy know that Brees' departure from the Monkey would be much like his departure from San Diego: explosive. That year, Brees threw for career highs in yardage (5,069 - holy fuck that's a lot of yards) and touchdowns (34). His replacement, Big Ben, connected in the end zone half as many times. But at least Hollywood didn't have to burn that 3rd-round keeper spot so that he could take Antonio Gates, he of the 704 receiving yards in 2008.

Drew Brees is such a nice guy, this is his "Fuck You" smile

You knew this one was coming:
Julius Jones. Lamont Jordan. Larry Johnson. What do these three have in common? They were all late-round running back sleepers as back-ups or timeshares that Bardey drafted and watched turn into productive starters. The pattern seemed to be repeating itself in the summer of '08, as Bardey saw Michael Turner, who he'd drafted in the 8th round of the '07 draft as a back-up to LaDainian Tomlinson, get his chance as the new starter in Atlanta. But with a deepening field of running backs thanks to the new committee trend, and several high-profile players becoming re-available thanks to expiring keeper contracts, Bardey decided to roll the dice on winning with receivers. Instead of keeping the Burner's 1,699 rushing yards and 17 touchdowns in the 8th round, the Commish went with Santonio Holmes' 6th-round 821 yards and 5 touchdowns. Replacing Turner in the backfield was Ryan Grant, with a respectable 1,319 all-purpose yards and 5 touchdowns (merely a dozen less than Turner!), and replacing him in the 8th-round draft slot was Patrick Crayton (550 yds, 4 tds). I'd take that trade-off any day of the week, so long as it was part of a plea bargain commuting my multi-year prison sentence for running a dog-fighting ring or carrying an unlicensed weapon into a nighclub and then shooting myself in the leg with it.

In a futile effort, Turner tries to remind Bardey that he's starting for the FALCONS now

The 2006 Ass-Ramming HotCocks: Great BIFL Team? Or the Greatest BIFL Team? With a roster that boasted the kept running back tandem of Steven Jackson and Willis McGahee, Torry Holt and Reggie Wayne at receiver, and the late-season addition of Michael Vick (in his last appearance as a pre-con), this was a powerful team to be sure. But believe it or not, they could have been stronger. While McGahee (kept in the 9th round) proved valuable in the Biffle Bowl, for most of the season he rode the pine behind Fred Taylor, making him not strictly necessary to the HotCocks title hopes and a potential waste of a keeper. Who might have occupied that keeper spot instead? How about Carson Palmer, whose 4,035 passing yards and 28 touchdowns could have been kept in that same spot, thus negating the trade that sent away powerful WR3 Javon Walker and brought in Vick, who ultimately shit the bed in the final game. Granted, it's hard to second-guess a champion, but Sovic will always be left wondering if he missed the opportunity to make a great team the Greatest Team.

An unidentified fan sympathizes with Palmer, who could have been a Champion HotCock and ended up an Also-Ran White Guy.

In 2006, Ben Dekker kept Ronnie Brown in the 3rd round. With almost 1,300 all-purpose yards and 5 touchdowns, that's the back half of a quality running back tandem. With the 4th non-keeper pick in the draft, he should have been able to fill out the top end of that tandem. And he did, using that pick on top-10 ranked Houston rusher Domanick Davis. But a funny thing happened between the draft and the start of the season. Davis changed his name to Domanick Williams, and then changed his identity from a potent multi-purpose threat and former Rookie of the Year to an enormous pussy who refused to play on a previously-injured knee that had been completely cleared by doctors. Dekker's first round draft pick would never play another down in the NFL. A sad story, for sure, but what does it have to do with keepers, you ask? Well as it turns out, there was another young rusher on Dekker's 2005 roster that could have been kept. His name was Frank Gore. He was drafted in the ninth round. And he ended up rushing for nearly 1,700 yards, receiving 485 more, and scoring 9 touchdowns in 2007. By not keeping him, Dekker opened up that ninth-round draft spot for tight end Ben Watson, who finished the year with 643 yards and 3 touchdowns. Wouldn't you be bitter?

Frank Gore brandishes a football at Dekker, reminding him that it's important to draft players who will actually touch one.

2006 was a monstrous year for the Indianapolis Colts' passing game. Although their numbers would be obliterated only a season later by Tom Brady & Co., Peyton Manning, Marvin Harrison, and Reggie Wayne struck through the air in '06 in ways that had not previously been seen. If you had a player who might be on the end of a Peyton Manning pass on your roster, you were probably in good shape. Chuck Kelly had a shot at perhaps the most dangerous of those receivers, with the chance to keep Reggie Wayne (1,310 yds, 9 tds) in the seventh round. Instead, McNutt used that seventh-rounder on Curtis Martin, who must have been sharing ideas with Domanick Davis/Williams that season as he also NEVER PLAYED AGAIN. The Bearcats filled their wide receiver vacancy with fantasy sparkplug Eddie Kennison (860 yds, 5 tds), and at least got one touchdown out of 5th-round keeper Cadillac Williams.

Reggie Wayne celebrates his liberation from the Bearcats roster.

Earlier we examined Bardey's early success with late-round running back keepers and wondered what ever led him astray from that strategy. Well, perhaps it was this: Going into 2007, the White Guys exercised their options on two ballcarriers, the Chiefs' Larry Johnson in the 5th round and the Falcons' Jerious Norwood in the 15th. Between the two, they combined that season for 1,635 all-purpose yards and five touchdowns. Those would be pretty great numbers for one back, but not two. Knowing that Norwood was a questionable RB2, Bardey spent his first three draft picks on receivers and backs, securing a quarterback in the fourth. Marc Bulger had a decent year that year: 2,392 passing yards and 11 touchdowns. But that's a pretty far cry from Carson Palmer, who connected for 4,131 yards and 26 touchdowns that year, and was available to be kept in the 4th round - the same one where Bardey took Bulger.

Palmer devours a hot dog, along with Bardey's championship hopes.

Sometimes the full ramifications of a Keeper Blunder are not felt until years down the road. If he was sober enough to remember back two years, Bryan Dick felt that pain in 2007. Back in '05, Dick had selected a sweet young thing with a troika of rings to helm his squad. But despite winning a Super Bowl championship that year, Dick decided to drop him. Apparently, Santana Moss's 790 receiving yards and 6 touchdowns were more valuable to Dick in the 7th round than the Boston Bombshell's 3,529 passing yards and 24 touchdowns would have been in the 8th. That pick was better spent on Todd Heap. Yes, THE Todd Heap. Replacing the pretty boy under center was Matt Hasselbeck in the fourth round. Hasselbeck put up respectable enough numbers (2,442 passing yds, 18 tds) to merit being kept in 2007. Of course, if Dick had kept Mr. Bundchen in '06, he could have kept him again in '07, when he had the best fantasy season that anyone has ever had, ever. To put some numbers to it: The difference between Tom Brady and Matt Hasselbeck, over the 2006 and 2007 seasons, comes to 1,926 yards and 28 touchdowns. The Seal Slayers could have been making hay on Tom Brady for years, but like me buying my first Skins jersey, they threw their money away on Santana Moss.

Tom Brady is rugged, yet vulnerable.

So there you have it, the Biggest Keeper Blunders in BIFL history. Unfortunately, I didn't have draft information for 2004, so I couldn't calculate any '05 blunders. I'm sure you idiots made plenty of them, though. Since I didn't find any for Will, I'll assume that he made a bunch that first year.

What do you guys think? Which is the biggest Blunder of them all? Do you guys remember any that I missed? And what sorts of hideous decisions will the coming season bring about? We'll begin to see in the next few weeks.