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Welcome to my Fantasy Sports page here at NelsonRivera.net

I am dedicating this space to share information regarding my fantasy football and baseball leagues. I have been playing Fantasy Football since 1996 and took part in my very first Fantasy Baseball league this year. Which is interesting, if you know anything about me . This is because baseball has always been my passion, not football. In fact, though I have always been a fan of the Chicago Bears, I really didn't watch them religiously until I started playing Fantasy Football.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I didn't sleep through the '85 season, as I didn't have much of a choice in my family.  I certainly do remember the '85 Bears, the Superbowl Shuffle, Sweetness, Da Coach, Samurai Mike and The Fridge. Who can forget Jim McMahon thumbing his nose at Pete Roselle by wearing the all white headband with "Roselle" written on it. Compared to the likes of today's pre-madonna's, such as T.O. and Ocho Cinco, the Punky QB may be tame but he was still a rebel in our eyes.

Then there were the '90's where we had to endure Wannie (Dave Wannstedt), "Uhh, he's gotta leg." What the Bears were thinking when they gave him cart blanche, is beyond me. Those were some of the worse years for Bear football. I was playing college baseball at the time and I wasn't much in to watching football.

Flash forward to 1996 and my cousin decided that he wanted to start a Fantasy Football league of his own, after he had taken part the past couple of years in other leagues. He envisioned a closer group, where the core of owners were family and/or very close friends. The idea was to create a keeper league with little turnover of the franchise owners. This was the ultimate bragging rights league.

The first couple of years we charged $50 per owner as an entry with $5/week transaction fees (only if you processed a transaction). This wasn't to pay out the winner of the league, but rather to pay for a replica Vince Lombardi trophy that we would rotate from champion-to-champion. The initial cost of this trophy was approximately $300. In addition, we purchased a plaque where we engraved the names of the "League/Division champion(s)", FFFL Champion and "Runner-up" for each season. The team with the overall "best record" displays the plaque in their house for the following season.  I have held the plaque one-time, but the big trophy has alluded my grasps to date.

Today, our league is comprised of 10 teams in two divisions. The cost to play each year is nominal and we have, by far, some of the best rules of any fantasy league in my humble opinion. I will probably get around to blogging about Fantasy Football sometime and may go in to some of the rules that we use and would love to hear from other fantasy fanatics about the rules that make your league unique.

In the meantime, until I get around to expanding this part of my site, here is my roster for 2007. Go ahead and let me know what you think . This years auction was a bit rough. I came in to the auction with Willie Parker, Jerious Norwood and Javon Walker as my keepers. I also "rookie ruled" Jay Cutler. I had acquired Cutler and Walker in a trade prior to our draft.  I went in to the auction wanting to secure a quality RB (that wasn't kept), followed by a top tier WR.  Only thing I didn't anticipate was not getting complimentary QB's to go with Jay Cutler. I knew that the worse case scenario, going in to the draft, would be that I would have Cutler as my opening day QB, but didn't really think that it would come down to that. I think I'm definitely strong at RB and WR, so we'll see how the QB situation works out. I may have to make some moves to secure a QB later this year. We'll see.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to come back soon. I am going to work on adding some Fantasy Football resources that I utilize. In the meantime, be sure to click on the "Contact Nelson" link on the left to tell me what you think about my roster, ask a fantasy football or baseball question or just to say hi to a fellow fantasy fantatic.

Mandalorian Bounty Hunters 2007 Roster

Pos	Player	Team
QB	Alex D. Smith	SF
QB	Jason Campbell	WAS
QB	Jay Cutler	DEN
QB	Matt Schaub	HOU
RB	Anthony Thomas	BUF
RB	Jerious Norwood	ATL
RB	Kenny Watson	CIN
RB	Rudi Johnson	CIN
RB	Vernand Morency	GB
RB	Willie Parker	PIT
WR	Craig Davis(r)	SD
WR	Deion Branch	SEA
WR	Greg Jennings	GB
WR	Javon Walker	DEN
WR	Muhsin Muhammad	CHI
WR	Reggie Wayne	IND
TE	Bo Scaife	TEN
TE	Dallas Clark	IND
PK	Jason Elam	DEN
PK	Stephen Gostkowski	NE
Def	Panthers, Team Defense	CAR
Def	Vikings, Team Defense	MIN