Before last season, I took my first shot at making a set of fantasy football guidelines – I hate calling them rankings, even though I technically ranked players – in which I offered my humble advice for the average football fan taking his first dip in the fake sports pool. The results were 6 readers who claimed they won their leagues drafting with just my guidelines, which is impressive because only 5 people typically read my posts, and I won one league, finished third in another and missed the playoffs in the third (it’s my auction league, so it really doesn’t count).

The point is, I trust my gut when it comes to fantasy football because I have faith in my common sense. Obviously, some of you have probably already drafted – I drafted 2 of my 5 leagues (ugh) this past Monday – but I believe that in this time of holdouts and no-shows it’s best to wait. If you share that philosophy, and your draft is still ahead of us – I still have 2 more (ugh) – then this is for you. If you have already drafted, then you can at least offer your insight into why I’m wrong. Lord knows you guys love doing that.

That said, I give you the first installment of the 2012 With Leather Fantasy Football Draft Guide: Knowing Your Quarterbacks.

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Donovan McNabb is probably never going to play in the NFL again, unless he’s willing to take a job as a backup. Even then, he’ll probably still complain about being a backup and demand that he be allowed to compete for the starting job. At least that’s what I assume is the thought process of any GM looking for a competent veteran, because otherwise he’d be a Miami Dolphin.

It seems that McNabb may have accepted this idea now as well, because he’s already taking the next step in his career – promoting himself for the NFL Hall of Fame. According to McNabb, he’s as good as in.

“What happens a lot of times is we look at what the list says, so we talk about the five NFC Championship Games, the six Pro Bowls and then we come to the end, ‘Well, he never won the big game,’ ” McNabb told Mark Kriegel of FoxSports.com, via the Philadelphia Daily News. “Well, Peyton never won the big game until he won the Super Bowl. Dan Marino never won the big game. Does that mean his career is a failure? No, not at all.” (Via NFL.com)

That’s right, the big game is the Super Bowl, and Peyton Manning never won the big game until he won the big game. Aside from the fact that Manning and Marino are two of the most proficient passers in NFL history, that’s incredible logic right there. But let’s go ahead and destroy that logic for the sake of building a self-beneficial argument.

“First of all is his numbers. How many times has he led his team to the big game?” McNabb said. “The big game still is the NFC Championship Game, the game to lead you there, and most importantly of all, did he make the players around him better? In his time, in his era, was he a top-five, top-10 quarterback in the league?”

Okay, that’s more convenient, making the NFC Championship Game the “big game”. The Super Bowl is just the Pro Bowl play-in game at this point, so what matters is the conference championship. That must be why Jim Kelly is in the Hall of Fame. He sucked at winning Super Bowls, but they don’t matter. He was, however, awesome at winning the AFC Championship, and that’s the “big game”. But if that is the argument, it’s pretty weak, because McNabb was 1-4 in his big games.

I want to be fair, though. First, since McNabb invoked Manning and Marino as examples, let’s compare this trio.

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Elite-to-Joe-Flacco quarterback Joe Flacco spent his Wednesday afternoon feeling a little insecure, chatting with the media about how they love quarterbacks, but don’t seem to ever spread the love to Baltimore. “Baltimore has a quarterback”, he wonders aloud. The guy from the Baltimore Sun starts doodling in his notepad, then rolls his eyes when he remembers he should probably be writing this down.

“If you look at the teams that won, yeah you can look at the quarterbacks but that’s just because you guys, ESPN, everybody wants to pump them up as being the best quarterback that year. It’s really going to come down to what team is the best,” Flacco said. “I’m sure if we win, I’ll have nothing to do with why we won according to you guys.”

As MJD of Shutdown Corner points out, people don’t think Joe Flacco is an elite quarterback leading his team into war because he isn’t one, he’s Joe f**king Flacco. He’s fine, but he’s Joe Flacco.

The Ravens aren’t built like the Patriots or the Packers. They don’t succeed or fail based on whether or not they throw the ball seventy times a game, and here are their options: give the ball to Ray Rice, or give the ball to Joe Flacco. JOE FLACCO. Which would you do? Joe Flacco knows:

“You guys want everybody to be Aaron Rodgers and be Tom Brady, but you guys do realize, those guys’ [teams] don’t run the ball? If we try to do that, the criticism that we’d take around here would be ridiculous.”

I think he would behoove Joe Flacco to realize he’s the sort of guy you have to identify as “Joe Flacco” every time, because calling him “Joe” or “Flacco” doesn’t seem right. He’s doing well, and should try really hard not to be that girl in art class who draws a horse for every project and gets pissed when the kids with actual brains and hands for art get praised. Draw your horse, win your playoff games, and be okay being Joe Flacco. Because Joe Flacco is what the Ravens need.

Joe Flacco.

With the NFL Lockout behind us like an angry Aryan inmate, most of us have begun our annual preparations for our fantasy football drafts. That is, unless you’re in one of those leagues that already drafted because your commissioner is an impatient d*ckhead, who probably has a wife he only married because she was pregnant, so he needs anything he can get to distract him from reality. If that’s your case, then I’m sorry but this won’t help you.

In all honesty, this probably won’t help most people. So what is this then? It’s my own hastily organized fantasy football position rankings, based on biased logic, gut feelings, and many years of fantasy football angst. All this week and next, I’ll be breaking down each position by telling you which players are the best of their class, will give you the best value in later rounds, will cause you to have fits of rage and disgust, and will help you look smart in front of your friends when you draft them. Now, keep in mind – I’m not an expert. I’m not even a guy who knows stuff. I’m just a dude who makes an occasional funny joke and has vague opinions.

But I’ve won a few leagues over the years and let’s face it – we all live for this sh*t. And we want to read every possible ranking and mock draft that we possibly can before we sit down with our notebooks, laptops, magazines and all-around utter hopelessness. For most of us, it’s validation. For the rest of us, it’s just a way to make worthless games fun. Either way, welcome to my first installment of Burnsy’s Bad Advice: Ranking Your Fantasy Football Quarterbacks. And yes, I’ve based my choices entirely on female celebrities. Because why wouldn’t I?

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