Had my fantasy football pool draft last night, I got first pick and against my own better judgment I didn't pick up P. Holmes or L. Tomlinson. I just couldn't resist picking the Man. Here's how I ended up:

QB:

Peyton Manning passed for almost 4600 yards last year, with 49 TDs and a mere 10 interceptions, for a QB rating of 121.1. This is a safe as a bet gets.

Backing him up I have none other than big Ben Roethlisberger, who in his rookie year passed for TDs and took home a rating of 98.1. Not too shabby.

Wide Receiver:

Chad Johnson heated up late last year, getting 7 of his 9 TDs in 5 games on the second half of the season. I could have done better for my first WR pick but I'll have to take what I can with the best QB in the league.

Drew Bennet had a respectable 11 TDs last year, hopefully he'll improve on that.

Steve Smith had the whole season off last year basically after serious injury, but he's projected to return hard and fast this year.

I'm kind of vainly hoping Brandon Stokely will see a more even distribution of Peyton's passing and improve on his 10 TDs last year.

Running Back:

Here's where the hurt starts. I need a big improvement from Clinton Portis this year, only 5 TD's last.

Brian Westbrook only had 3 rushing TD's last year but they went to him through the air for 6 more - he had nearly as many receiving yards as he did rushing. He may replace Clinton early in the year for the starting position.

And as my backup I gots the bus, Jerome Bettis. Out of my 3, he had the most TD's last year, even passed for one (remember that?). The question is, will he be healthy?

Tight Ends:

Jeremy Shockey and Heath Miller, who went at pick #30 in the first round of the draft this year to Pittsburgh. By this point in the draft I was like "eh, whatever..."

Kickers:

Mike Vanderjagt and San Diego's Nate Kaeding.

Defense:

Now this I was happy about, for as late as I picked my defenses: New England and Philadelphia. Yay, me. People were like "but you lost Ty Law and your starting middle linebacker" and I'm like "if there's one team in the league that has shown the ability to deal with adversity and still bring the rings home consistently lately, its New England."

We'll see how this goes. My first time doing a fantasy league since like college, so of course I'm re-learning everything as we go along here.