Fifteen Seasons

On Saturday, Jason, Chris, Eric, Steve and I will gather just outside the DC Beltway for the Blue Ridge Fantasy Football League Draft. (Well, Eric will be calling in from three time-zones away...but he'll be there in spirit.)

For Steve and I...who founded the league, along with Steve's brother Mike and our good friend Walker...this is our 15th BRFFL Draft.

Fifteen Years! When we started thie league, there were no Baltimore Ravens or Tennessee Titans. Marshall Faulk was a rookie in our first draft, and Emmitt Smith was the games elite player...and $1.50 was expensive for gas! There were no online services. We scored using the USA Today and CNNSI.com.

It's crazy to think that we've been doing this for so long. We've seen the big sleepers explode on the scene (Matt Hasslebeck, Larry Johnson, Steve Smith, Marques Colston) we've seen super stars fizzle and burn out (Dan Marino, Curtis Martin, Mark Brunell) and we've seen the frustrating players who just never lived up to their promise (Kordell Stewart, Michael Westbrook, Ron Dayne).

It seems that as you get older (most of us here are in our mid-30s) things come up that make your time with friends less and less: Kids, Careers, Vacations, Weddings, Divorces, Jobs on the other side of the country, Emergency Appendectomy...but the league has kept going. I feel like we need James Earl Jones to come and extol the virtues, "through it all, Ray, there's been one constant...the BRFFL. They will come back, Ray. They will come back" No matter what, we know that late in August...we'll all see each other again. It's more than a silly hobby, it's kind of like the one standing reservation to bring everyone back together...and spend hours in a room hanging out.

As I mentioned many of the Two in the Box staff are in the league. Jason is going into his 5th year, while Eric and Gorgon have both been in the league in the past, left, and have just returned this year. Also, Bob has had 2 tours of duty "coaching" in the BRFFL and is "happily retired."

Our teams:
Atlantic City BlackJacks (Dan) - BRFFL Champions 1997
Dublin Spitfires (Steve) - BRFFL Champions 2003 & 2004
Kabletown Hitmen (Jason)
Las Vegas Craps (Eric)
Arlington Apocalypse (Chris)
Oregon Bullfrogs (Bob) - retired

This is the main reason that Two in the Box hasn't done a fantasy preview of some sort, as so many of us are here, and we don't want to show our hand to the guys we're going up against...or have the other guys in the league come here and read our "playbook." But we'll definitely post results and smack from the grudge matches here on the blog.

Speaking of "smack," Chris, Benny, Matt and I are in the Smackline Fantasy Football League (league #2 of the 4 that I'm in. "My name is Dan and I am a Fantasy Football Addict." Hello, Dan.)...which is in its 5th or 6th year. So there'll be a lot of fantasy football back-and-forth round these parts in the coming months. (I'll be adding BRFFL and Smackline standings on the right hand side of the blog in the near future).

After this weekend's draft, we'll post some kind of a BRFFL preview here on Two in the Box...and then do the same next week after the Smackline draft on Tuesday.

It's here! That long wait that starts when the champions hoist the Lombardi Trophy...where you get a small fix during the draft, and then sweat out the long summer...it's over. Fantasy Draft weekend is here! Hot damn!

BRFFL logo designed by Chester Stacy.