HAFAX Report Greg Allen, Fantasy Football Staff Writer Dec 6, 2003 | More

So here we are on Sunday morning.  We should be checking our lineups and getting ready for a full day of football action.  But unfortunately for your Fantasy Sharks HAFAX team, the season has ended prematurely.  Yes, we have been eliminated from the Inaugural HAFAX playoffs after winning our division and gaining a second seed in the NFC conference.  The loss hurts even more coming at the hands of our division rival Team Draftware.

If you haven’t been following along, HAFAX is a 16 team fantasy league made up of some of the leading website owners in the business.  This league brings with it some interesting twists, first is that with the HAFA format, each team is actually managed by a group of 5-6 fantasy loyalists.  Each member of the group has a specific role on the team.  If you don’t work together as a franchise, you won’t succeed.  It sounds easy but believe it or not, there were many instances of other franchises having problems with the team format.

Another difference is that the league is a modified Dynasty format.  Each team is allowed one keeper on offense and one on defense.  Yes, we use a full offense, full defense (IDP), kickers and even punters.  Besides the keepers, we can place franchise tags on other players to ‘protect’ them.  These franchise players go back into the pool, available to any team but if they end up on a new team, compensation in the form of additional salary cap money is owed to the losing team.

Obtaining players is done through an auction format.  Every team has a salary cap and can bid on available players.  Every player is available to any franchise, you just have to manage to your cap.  If you have never participated in an auction style draft, find one and give it a try. 

So what lies next for Team Fantasy Sharks?  Well, once the playoffs are complete in weeks 14-15, there will be a Pro-Bowl competition between the two conferences.  For our team, we have already begun discussing strategies for next season.  Our keepers and franchise tags need to be announced by February 1.  Then in early Spring, the auction for next season will begin.  With this league, it is a year round competition.

Looking back upon the season that just ended for our franchise, I think I can speak for Tony Holm, Doug Coutts, Mike Rumsey, Pat Smith and Doug Gaskell.  We accomplished much more than people gave us credit for.  Our strategy was mocked early on, but we stood our ground and you know what?  The strategy worked.  We ended with a 7-5 record, good enough for first place in our division.  Only two franchises had a better record than ours. 

Considering who we were competing against, we had an outstanding season, one to be proud of.  But the competitive juices that flow in all of us that compete in fantasy sports left us wanting more.  It left us wanting the big prize, to be HAFAX Champions.  So we will put the time in during the offseason, follow the veteran player movement and study the rookies to pick the one or two that will make the most impact. 

Over the coming weeks, we’ll take some time to review the team we originally drafted.  We’ll look at what worked and what didn’t.  We’ll also share with you the results of the playoffs and give you a peek as to what next season will hold.  Thanks for following along this year.  If you haven’t been, the link to the league site is on the home page, check it out.