There’s a old saw in fantasy circles that goes: you can never win a fantasy league championship at your draft, but you can always lose one there. So I’m a little worried about the upcoming season.

Picking at the #9 spot in a 10-team league is always tough, but things got a little whacky right from the get go.

I made a reach at #9 drafting the NYPD SWAT team in the first round, but I compounded things by following it up on the swing by picking the LAPD SWAT team at #12 – making the classic beginner’s mistake of taking two SWAT teams back-to-back in the first two rounds, which is sexy, but almost forces you to take a homicide division in rounds three and four when all the top-tier homicide divisions are long gone. Case in point – I start the season with Seattle and Minneapolis-St. Paul as my Homicide1 and Homicide2

In round 5, I took the Nassau County Bomb Squad, which I know historically tends to be boom or bust, but I think I got good value – and some potential trade bait – in round 6 with the Dallas Hostage Negotiation & Rescue Team since Bill who had the pick right behind me is from Dallas and a huge homer and kept bitching between swigs of beer for the next two rounds about how I stole his pick. So I think I can do a deal with him at some point, possibly packaging Dallas Hostage Negotiation & Rescue and Minneapolis-St. Paul Homicide for Miami Homicide and a thrown-in Vice Squad or Mounted Patrol.

And speaking of being a homer…yes, I know, you should always be hometown agnostic on draft day, but I when I saw the Philadelphia Highway Patrol hanging there in round 7, well, let’s just say I won’t contest the ticket for going with the homer pick.

More good value with getting the San Francisco Tactical Marine Unit in round 8 (I couldn’t believe they sailed under the radar and dropped that far), but another possible reach going with my #1 pre-draft super-sleeper pick of Oklahoma City Narcotics Enforcement in round 9.

The next few rounds were pretty much by the book – Detroit Vice in round 10, CSI Honolulu in round 11, and the Phoenix Graffiti Supression Team in round 12,

Sure. I know I should have waited until rounds 15 or 16 to pick a K9 Unit because they’re so unpredictable and you always end up picking a dog and just dropping them 3 weeks into season to pick up a better K9 unit on waivers anyway, but I had good luck with the St. Petersburg K9 unit last year, so in my draft, yes, it was me – I was the dope who started the early run on K9 units.

I finished things up with Milwaukee Internal Affairs, Houston Mounted Patrol and Fresno Animal Control in rounds 14-16.

So how’d I do?

WRTY.