Season of my discontent

I've been playing fantasy football for quite a long time now, since around 1995 in one form or another. You'd think I knew a little bit about it by now.  You'd be wrong but you might think so.   In all that time, this has to be one of the most frustrating seasons I've ever had.  I'm in 3 leagues this year, my wife's work league where I took 3rd last year, my work league that I won last year, and a new league.  2 are free leagues for bragging rights only, but my wife's league is a money league.

After the draft this year I really felt like I had a good team in my wife's league.   With Aaron Rodgers, MJD, McFadden, Jamaal Charles and Ahmad Bradshaw I was sure I would be fine with running backs.  My receivers were a little weak but with Antonio Brown, Eric Decker and Danny Amendola I thought I was pretty good and I figured on trading an RB for a top notch receiver at some point. 

Well the best laid schemes and all.  First MJD gets hurt for almost the entire season, McFadden forgets how to run, and Jamaal Charles is coached by Romeo Crennell.  One week he gets 30 carries, the next he gets 7.  Hey Romeo, you have maybe the best running back and the worst QB in the AFC so why not spend entire games ignoring your RB?   Bradshaw was about the most dependable and most weeks that meant he was top 10 or 12.  My receivers were ok but Antonio Brown was a major disappointment.  And Aaron Rodgers was good but nearly as good as the previous 2 years.  So I start out losing 3 games, then winning 3 to get back to even, then lose 7 of 8 to finish the year.  How disappointing.   The other free league was even worse.  I didn't draft well in that one and ended up winning 2 games all year.  Even my work league where I made some nice draft picks turned out disappointing.  I went 10-2 for the year but finished 2nd in my division.  Then I proceeded to lose both rounds of the playoffs to finish 4th.  Overall a very disappointing year.

The only bright spot in my year was the pick em league I'm in.  I started out the year in 5th, moved up to 2nd in a couple of weeks, took over 1st a couple of weeks later and have never looked back.  I slowly extended my lead until for week 17, I am leading by 7 games.  There are 5 people within a game of each other fighting for 2nd and 3rd but unless I completely blow it, I should be good to win.  That's nice because that pays more than any of my other leagues. 

My stock picks this year have been about as good as my fantasy football picks.  I really went after mining stocks this year.  I diversified across a number of junior gold and silver miners and even a couple of platinum/paladium miners as well.   I really believe at some point in the near to not so near future, gold and silver are going to skyrocket up along with interest rates in the US.  For now the Fed can keep rates low because Europe and Japan are worse off than we are.   At some point that will change and the market will determine our interest rates.  So I picked up some good junior miners at cheap prices but they haven't improved for the most part this past year.  My longtime pick Yamana Gold has done well up about 14% this year and it was up a lot more until recently.  Drilling company SeaDrill has been solid and pays a great dividend as does NY Community Bank who I've held for the past 4 years and those reinvested dividends are really adding up now.  Otherwise my stock picks have been forgettable this year.  I just believe at some point in the near future the only stocks you will want to be in are precious metals, energy, and strong dividend payers.  I  am looking forward to a much better year next year for some of them.  We'll see.