DLF’s Reality Sports Online League: Doug’s Review

Doug Green Posted On June 27, 2015

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Over the course of the Summer and during the NFL season, each writer will document their personal experience with Reality Sports Online, highlighting their individual strategies and their thoughts about the league and site in general. Whether you currently participate in an RSO league or not, it would be highly advisable to follow along with this series as we document it. If you’re interested in creating your own RSO league (you should be), you can use the Promo Code “DLF10” to receive a 10% discount.

I’ve done auctions before, but mostly on the baseball side. Your thinking has to change. You are no longer thinking about Players A, B, and C being available when it’s your turn to pick. You have a shot at every player if you so choose.

[inlinead]I’m not going to lie. I was not intending to go quite as young as I did. Generally, I lean more towards veterans and try to take more of a win-now approach. That said, in the midst of a draft, or an auction in this case, you adapt to how things are going. In this particular case, I got in on the Todd Gurley sweepstakes. After some vigorous clicking, I emerged victorious, complete with a 4-year contract on a running back I consider the best prospect at the position since Adrian Peterson.

The thing with auctions (and particularly those with contracts attached) is the first guy you pick up often dictates how the rest of your team goes. If my first player was, say Marshawn Lynch or Peyton Manning, I may have ended up with a completely different squad. Instead, I got Gurley. Then a short while later, Amari Cooper popped up. In this league you get two four-year contracts. My thinking at that point was if I’m going to lock up two players for the next four years, Gurley and Cooper are the two I’m going build my team around. So I opened my virtual wallet and duked it out for Cooper.

At this point I felt like I was youth committed. My next two acquisitions were DeVante Parker and Teddy Bridgewater, both on three-year contracts. If I wasn’t going young before, at this point I am all in with the kids.

We ended up doing this draft on multiple nights. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend one session. Jeff Tefertiller was kind enough to fill in for me and did a great job. In his one session at the controls, he landed Tony Romo on a cap-friendly deal, Zach Ertz who could be on the verge of a breakout season, and Devonte Freeman. Pairing Freeman and Gurley is a nice young backfield for the next couple of seasons.

I did manage to fill my roster and still have just under $11 million left in cap space, easily the most in the league. I’m still not sure if that means I spent well, or if I didn’t go hard enough after a couple of extra difference makers.

As for the RSO software itself, I found it to be quite good. I’ve played on Yahoo, ESPN, MyFantasyLeague, and Fleaflicker and RSO held it’s own against all the others. Most of the hiccups I encountered were user error on my part, mostly not knowing where a button was located. By my second session with the software I was completely comfortable. As a league we had a couple of interactions with the RSO staff and found them to be friendly and very customer service oriented. I’m excited to see what the software will actually show me when games are live.

Below is a table with the key players on my team, their contract years and their salary. All dollar amounts are in millions

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