Show Me The Money: Playing & Winning Touchdown Derby
The movie Jerry Maguire is not actually about being shown the money but rather about a sports agent (Tom Cruise) who decides that he wants to be true to himself instead of faking it and leaves the big agency to start his own. He invites anyone from the big agency to come with him and the only one who does is his assistant, Dorothy (Renee Zellweger). Together they attempt to take as many clients as they can, but only an aging wide receiver from Arizona will go with him, Rod Tidwell (Cuba Gooding Jr.). He is forced to figure out how to live with less and creates lasting bonds with both people who stick with him.
Written and directed by Cameron Crowe who also wrote two of my favorite movies, a drama and a comedy in Almost Famous and Fast Times at Ridgemont High.
The point here is to say that sometimes you need to look to the small time agents in order to find the best.
“I am a valuable commodity! I go across the middle! I see a dude coming at me, trying to kill me, I tell myself "Get killed. Catch the ball!' BOO YA! Touchdown! I make miracles happen!”
Presenting … the inaugural season of Touchdown Derby from Rotoderby.com.
So, what is Touchdown Derby? Well, it is Home Run Derby, but for football.
Touchdown Derby is incredibly easy to play. The roster is a simple 2 QBs, 2 RBs, 2 WRs, 1 TE and 3 Flex positions which does not include QBs. There are no individual quarterbacks so you cannot get screwed to not have a quarterback. Every skill position player who had more than 5 TDs last year is eligible to be selected. The scoring is super simple too with only touchdowns (7 pts), yards (1pt per 50 yds) and turnovers (-2 pts).
They have both monthly and seasonal games and I play both of course.
They are the same game, but the strategy is a lot different for me. Let’s take how to get started in monthly. The schedule is incredibly important. Here are 5 teams that have great schedules for scoring and if you want to go deeper, take the defensive ratings for passing and rushing to link those to certain teams and therefore the leading player on that team.
Click here for the full schedule so you can review it yourself.
So you will find my monthly team loaded with players from these teams and give me a better chance to win. I consult our projections from numberFire in the Rotoderby scoring system. Then, I add the salaries to it to create my own cheat sheet. The first thing I do is collect the players and eliminate those I would not draft. So, for me, I eliminate any quarterback that is not projected for 200 points this year except for Big Ben since the Steelers have a sweet schedule filled with tasty matchups. Then I eliminate all running backs and wide receivers projected for less than 40 points and all tight ends projected for less than 35 points. Leave us with a nice tight list.
“You are hanging on by a very thin thread and I dig that about you!”
Quarterback | R$ | RPts | Pts/$ |
32 | 270 | 8.4 | |
26 | 252 | 9.7 | |
33 | 225 | 6.8 | |
36 | 225 | 6.3 | |
45 | 204 | 4.5 | |
35 | 202 | 5.8 | |
37 | 200 | 5.4 | |
26 | 198 | 7.6 | |
|
|
|
|
Running Back | R$ | RPts | Pts/$ |
12 | 85 | 7.1 | |
11 | 80 | 7.3 | |
5 | 76 | 15.2 | |
5 | 65 | 13.0 | |
7 | 62 | 8.9 | |
14 | 62 | 4.4 | |
10 | 62 | 6.2 | |
6 | 60 | 10.0 | |
10 | 60 | 6.0 | |
5 | 58 | 11.6 | |
12 | 53 | 4.4 | |
5 | 53 | 10.6 | |
7 | 50 | 7.1 | |
CJ Anderson | 5 | 47 | 9.4 |
7 | 46 | 6.6 | |
7 | 46 | 6.6 | |
6 | 44 | 7.3 | |
7 | 41 | 5.9 | |
|
|
|
|
Wide Receiver | R$ | RPts | Pts/$ |
10 | 84 | 8.4 | |
Odell Beckham Jr. | 13 | 82 | 6.3 |
11 | 79 | 7.2 | |
9 | 67 | 7.4 | |
14 | 65 | 4.6 | |
9 | 65 | 7.2 | |
9 | 64 | 7.1 | |
AJ Green | 10 | 63 | 6.3 |
6 | 60 | 10.0 | |
14 | 57 | 4.1 | |
6 | 56 | 9.3 | |
14 | 55 | 3.9 | |
12 | 55 | 4.6 | |
8 | 55 | 6.9 | |
7 | 55 | 7.9 | |
7 | 52 | 7.4 | |
5 | 52 | 10.4 | |
6 | 48 | 8.0 | |
10 | 46 | 4.6 | |
5 | 46 | 9.2 | |
9 | 43 | 4.8 | |
7 | 43 | 6.1 | |
8 | 41 | 5.1 | |
|
|
|
|
Tight End | R$ | RPts | Pts/$ |
11 | 80 | 7.3 | |
9 | 53 | 5.9 | |
7 | 53 | 7.6 | |
5 | 42 | 8.4 | |
11 | 39 | 3.5 | |
5 | 38 | 7.6 | |
6 | 37 | 6.2 |
[pagebreak]
So, now to make my teams with this information. For the Monthly league, I focus on the schedule and those five teams. I cannot disregard the QBs and there are no TEs from those teams on the list. There are very few players who are from those teams so I mix and match. The monthly team and seasonal team look similar as I took HUGE bargains at running back. The monthly team has O’Dell Beckham Jr. while the seasonal team has Adrian Peterson and Antonio Brown.
MONTHLY TEAM
SEASONAL TEAM
Jerry: I love you. You... you complete me. And I just...
Dorothy: Shut up…just shut up. You had me at "hello". You had me at "hello".
Well, Rotoderby had me the second it came out. I have been playing the Home Run version since it started three years ago and now I will be playing this one for the rest of time. Yep, it had me at hello. In the scene where they profess that they have fallen in love with each other, it seems much more awkward than like a love scene. Sometimes this game can feel that way too. When you think that things are not going well with one of your players, they put up two games in a row and then you back in the game.
Today I hitched my wagon to some risky players in Eddie Lacy and Mark Ingram, but the playing status of Jamaal Charles kept me away from him at least. At the end of it all, I hope I feel like Jerry when Rod Tidell needs to know that Jerry is on his side. He makes him scream…