Congrats! You have a good team to work with!

I keep on losing players to injuries.

sfrose,
Sorry you feel that way but why you chose to drop your number one draft pick is beyond me, especially since you are carrying 2 kickers and 2 defenses.
All that does is handcuff your team. I'd be willing to go a whole season without a kicker or defense if I had a strong team everywhere else.
And if I liked everyone on my team, I would just not play a runningback for a week. So what if I lose that week. One week does not a season make.
Also, keep in mind, nobody has a bye week when the playoffs start.

This is my first time Fantasy Football (I think I mentioned that before) so I'm still learning. Plus except for the Pats and a few other players (stars) on other teams, I really don't know who is good and who is, I'm just reviewing the stats and making best guesses to maximize my points each week. I figured it was bad to not have two RBs, but I didn't consider taking the loss in games while leaving him and (and benching him if my others didn't have byes.) I'm also not sure enough what to do to take the chance on giving up one of my Kickers, TEs or Defense. It's a learning experience, it's not life or death, it just seemed a bit selfish to grab him just to prevent me from getting him back.

BTW, since the teams all started with 2 kickers and 2 defenses, I would have thought that dropping one and not having a spare would have "handcuffed" the team more. But as I said, I'm new to this, and not yet playing in "hard" mode.

sfrose, I'm with you, I don't up from down and over from out.

That's the thing about fantasy leagues. People manage their team any way they want.
Some like carrying 2 of everything just to be safe.
Others, like me don't.
My reasoning is that if I had 2 kickers, I would knowingly be wasting a roster spot on an insignificant position since I will only be able to use him once in 17 weeks.
I, too, have been dessimated(sp?) by injuries, including losing a star runningback the first week of the year. Without 2 quality runningbacks, I feel one has no chance.
So that's why I picked him up.
I'm sure others were waiting to grab him as well. Since I am in last place, I got first choice.
One thing you may want to consider is to go and view the original draft order.
Look at who you picked and when you picked them.
Never, I repeat, never drop any of the first five guys you drafted unless they go down with a season ending injury.
Even if they break a finger or twist an ankle, do not drop them.
They will be back in a week or 2.

Now look at the last five guys you drafted.
Most likely, nobody else wanted these guys because they went undrafted so long so you should drop one of them and be able to pick them back up a week later.
I bet you'll see one kicker and one defense of yours in that bottom 5 as well, that's why I said those earlier.

I hope this helps.

Bill

The draft was automagic so I wasn't even considering that. (i.e. I didn't make any modifications...) And being new I didn't know how accurate it was. It also didn't seem that the draft actually followed those rankings. On the draft-rankings page it looks like

4. Brian Westbrook
7. Travis Henry
8. Willie Parker
9. Randy Moss
10. Terrell Owens
11. Chad Johnson

all should have been drafted to my team before Rudi Johnson. As it turned out Terrell Owens is on my team, by as my second round choice, and Randy Moss is a third round choice!

It turns out that I only have 5 of my original players still on my team. Injuries, bad perfomances, etc. really killed things.

I also already replaced a kicker and defense with other choices that are (or seem to be) acceptable backups in case of byes or temporary inguries.

I guess I just figured it was safer dropping an injured player than another that was performing well. He's also only contributed 14 points so far, so I wasn't even considering what his draft number was, nor do I still really understand which are the key positions neccessary to a winning season (but I'm learning!)

OK.
Please bear with me.

You're mistaken.
You had the ninth pick in the draft so you got the 9th best person in all of football according to the pre-set rankings.
The pre-rankings had Owens listed as 24th best and since your second pick was 24, you got him.
A better place to grasp this better would be at the league home page, there is a brown/maroon line, click on 'Draft Central'.
Then, in blue, click on 'Draft Results'.
You should see a rundown of the entire draft, listed by rounds.
This will tell you who was drafted when by whom.
So you'll get a better feel on who should be considered more important. Keep in mind, there are always situations where someone is over/under achieving so they shouldn't have been drafted where they were.
For Example:
I had the number one pick overall and going by his stats so far, he shouldn't have been drafted until the 9th or 10th round!
But I still have to play him every week. It's just a matter of time until he starts performing(i hope).

I hope this helps too but another thing to keep in mind.

You're getting advice from someone who hasn't won a single game all year!
LOL

That snippet was taken from the full list of pre-draft rankings (instead of Draft Results) on my Yahoo page. Isn't that the list of my default order?

Pre-Draft Player Rankings List
Default Rankings
1. LaDainian Tomlinson
2. Joseph Addai
3. Shaun Alexander
4. Brian Westbrook
5. Larry Johnson
6. Frank Gore
7. Travis Henry
8. Willie Parker
9. Randy Moss
10. Terrell Owens
11. Chad Johnson
12. Rudi Johnson
13. Steve Smith
14. Tom Brady
15. Carson Palmer
16. Peyton Manning
17. Edgerrin James
18. Clinton Portis
19. Reggie Bush
20. Antonio Gates
21. T.J. Houshmandzadeh
22. Marion Barber III
23. Marshawn Lynch
24. Marvin Harrison
25. Torry Holt

I thought that the way it would work is that I would get the best player still available on the pre-draft list. Since my team selected ninth, then I should have gotten #4 or #7-11 before #12.

If this is not what this list meant, what is it, and (assuming I play again next year) where is the list that shows the order that you mentioned? (Other than reversing the lists of players actually picked?)

Since you selected ninth, your first pick should be the ninth best player if everyone did not change their pre-ranking list, and that is what happened. Moss was rated 9th and you got him as your first pick. In round two you had the #8 pick (24th overall) so you got TO, who had a #10 ranking. Does that make sense? The only way for you to get a #4 player would have been if all the other coaches before (eight coaches) you did not want a top 4 player. The only thing I changed in my pre-draft ranking was moving Payton to my #1 pick, as he always put's up good numbers, but other then that I left my list alone.

But I didn't get get Randy Moss. Eyeshigh did ad her third round choice!

The first round was as follows:

Round 1
1. LaDainian Tomlinson DEATH STEW KING
2. Steven Jackson Isolans
3. Peyton Manning Village Idiot's
4. Larry Johnson Isola Girls
5. Joseph Addai Mysti's Marvels
6. Shaun Alexander Village Eagles
7. Frank Gore Gramma's Gor...
8. Marvin Harrison triton tigers
9. Rudi Johnson sfrose's roc...
10. Laurence Maroney Jerkstore
11. Brian Westbrook Arnie's Anch...
12. Adam Vinatieri RifsterManiacs
13. Willie Parker Steelers
14. Travis Henry Eye's Exterm...
15. Ronnie Brown Nimshi's Lef...
16. Carson Palmer Juniors Tribe

Brian Westbrook (#4) wasn't picked until after me (in eleventh place.)

Am I still missing something?