Closing out the introduction to my fantasy football leagues this year is this, the fourth and final chapter.

Background info - I honestly don’t know much about this league. I was asked to join it about six hours before the draft, and told that I didn’t even need to pay attention to it after the draft — they “just needed somebody”. Unfortunately for them, that’s not how I operate. I missed the draft for this 8-man league and was handed the 4-5 order. The lineup is 2 QBs, 2 RBs, 3 WRs, 1 TE, 2 K, 1 team D and six individual defensive players (!), plus four bench spots. Let’s get down to business.

QB: Ben Roethlisberger (Round 6), Aaron Rodgers (Waivers) - If this was an actual draft, anyone getting Roethlisberger in the sixth round should be arrested on the spot for theft, even if they were drafting against themselves. Roethlisberger’s one of the Big Three, for crying out loud. Fantasy-wise, though? Well, Roethlisberger’s still a good value in the sixth, with projections of around 3700/28. It’s a real shame he’s going to be sacked, hurried, knocked down and generally harassed every time he drops back to pass. Rodgers isn’t projected much lower (somewhere in the neighborhood of 3700/23), so he was a solid waiver-wire pickup after being drafted at the top of the 21st round and subsequently dropped.

RB: Brian Westbrook (Round 1), Marshawn Lynch (Round 2), Earnest Graham (Round 18) - Eighteenth round? Are you kidding me? He’ll be benching a fair amount of time for me, but Graham is a darn good running back on a well-coached team. He’ll get every bit of the 900/7 that he’s projected for, and probably add about 300/3 more catching passes out of the backfield. Lynch, as previously stated, isn’t behind a great run-blocking line, so I think his 1250/7 projection is a little high. The clear gem of this trio, though, is Westbrook. The little guy is a fantasy behemoth, slated for 1200/8 on the ground and 650/5 through the air. This, my friends, is a quality set of running backs.

WR: Steve Smith (Round 3), Torry Holt (Round 4), Anquan Boldin (Round 5), Joey Galloway (Round 19) - Quirky thing about this league — receptions don’t count for receivers. Only yards and touchdowns do. Thus, receivers are quite a bit less valuable than running backs, whose rushing attempts DO count. That’s why I’m just a tad bit angry at the auto-drafter for giving me three receivers in a row in the early going. Smith’s 900/6 projection seems low, Holt’s 1150/7 is, depending on Orlando Pace’s health, either way too high or spot-on, Boldin’s 1300/8 seems like a significant reach, and Galloway’s probably irrelevant since we all know what happened to him last time his groin bothered him. If by some miracle he gets healthy, though, his 1100/6 seems about right. Funny how I get an 1150/7 guy in the fourth round and an 1100/6 in the freaking 19th. Go figure.

TE: Dallas Clark (Round 7), Kevin Boss (Waivers) - Too early to be taking a TE, particularly in an 8-team league. Chris Cooley and, more importantly, Jeremy Shockey were still on the board here. I’d have rather had Shockey, but Clark’s offensive coordinator isn’t hitting the crack pipe behind the pages of that playbook — at least, not to my knowledge — so I don’t mind having him. He’ll supposedly be good for 750/8, and I guess I can agree with those numbers if Marvin Harrison is as cooked as he seems, because that would mean Peyton will target him pretty frequently. Boss is probably a 550/5 kind of guy, certainly not terrible for a waiver-wire tight end. I normally hate keeping multiple tight ends around unless roster requirements force me to do it, but the Colts get their bye in week 4, so Boss can be deployed early on and then traded or scrapped.

K: Adam Vinatieri (Round 10), Mason Crosby (Round 11) - There you have it, folks. Destiny has officially tied me to Adam Vinatieri for all eternity. He’s on all four of my fantasy teams for 2008. Crosby’s looking at a minor decline from last season, but he’ll still be good for something like 30 PATs and 26 field goals, with a good number of them, probably 8 or 9, being from 40+ yards out.

Team D: Bears (Round 9), Packers (Round 21) - I like the Packers a lot better than I do the Bears here, for a couple of reasons. One, Chicago’s defense is grossly overrated. It’s not the well-oiled machine that it used to be. Sure, they’re still better than your average D. Sure, they still play in a division with the Lions and Vikings. But that brings me to my second point — Chicago’s defense can’t play Chicago’s offense twice a year. The Packers, however, can, and they’ll make the Bears’ “offense” look foolish when they do. That, my friends, makes Green Bay the tastier defensive unit here, and I have no idea how they slipped through the cracks and fell to me in the 21st round, especially considering it’s a two-defense league. Oh well, I’m not complaining.

D: Lance Briggs (Waivers), DeMarcus Ware (Waivers), Mike Peterson (Waivers), Bob Sanders (Waivers), Karlos Dansby (Waivers), Julian Peterson (Waivers) - Much like defensive units in the previous league, the owners here seem content to abuse the waiver wire on a weekly basis to obtain defensive players. Note that only solo tackles count; assists do not. Ware and J. Peterson are studs, and they should be good for around 120 tackles and 23 sacks between them. Dansby will add 95/4 of his own, Sanders will chip in with 75 and a couple of picks, and M. Peterson is pegged for 85/3, which sounds about right. Briggs will get a lot of attention from blockers, which will cut into his value a bit, but he should still clear 90 tackles and pick up a few sacks. Overall I like this unit — the scoring system isn’t particularly friendly to defensive players, but this is a solid bunch of playmakers.

Miscellaneous: Jay Cutler (Round 8), Mike Vrabel (Round 12), Terrence McGee (Round 13), Rian Wallace (Round 14), Jorge Cordova (Round 15), James Reed (Round 16), Ken Amato (Round 17), Benjamin Watson (Round 20) - Cutler and Rodgers are basically interchangeable, but in this case I figure I’m better off going with the devil that I don’t know. Speaking of not knowing, who the hell are those round 14-17 picks? You mean to tell me DeMarcus Ware and Karlos Dansby went completely undrafted while these clowns actually made it into the auto-draft’s pre-ranker? Yahoo, you suck. Oh, and Watson was scrapped for Boss because the Patriots spread the ball around to their WRs too much for a TE to really be relevant.

That’s it, ladies and gents, all four of my fantasy football teams for 2008. Major updates and intriguing matchups will be posted here throughout the season. Enjoy.