Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, we're so glad to could attend (the draft) step inside, step inside… Yes folks, the show does indeed never end! Welcome to the 15th season of the All My Rowdy Friends Fantasy Football Draft. Yep, that's right, I said fifteen years! To put this in perspective for you when we held the first draft at The Commish's Office in Newington, CT back in 1991 our rookie owner, 7-year old Alex Lerman, was still about 5 years away from finishing up his previous life. And Tampa Bay running back Cadillac Williams was as old as Alex is now. And of course, I was just a mere 9 year old wunderkid commissioner. Yeah right! OK, back to the present we go, so where to start? Of course, how do we not begin here…

They see dead running backs! It must've been some kind of "sixth sense" for Nick Migliore on Draft Day. His oft-questioned strategy to draft only injured running backs paid off in Week One as Nick and The Williams Brothers (Roy, Mike, Ricky, Venus and Serena) get a win for The Malure Brothers, holding off Brian "Hurley" Legere's Wide Left by a score of 27 - 21. Folks, allow me to point out here that Nick's now the all time leading owner in career winning percentage at .620+. Nice job there Nicky, don't let the playa haters get you down! I'm thinking perhaps he knows something that we don't? Like back when we got that "new math" that drove our parents crazy? Speaking of going crazy, I hear Brian's feeling a little "Lost" (as in the TV show) after this week and has vowed to drop anyone on his team whose uniforms numbers are not 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, or 42. If you don't get that reference, Season 2 of the greatest show on television premieres next Wednesday night at 9PM on ABC…

Next up is our new league record holders for "most offspring brought to the draft", Ken and Pam Bamrick. Leaving the Kremlin and those KGB III days behind them, they came out of the locker room and onto the field sporting the new Stripperella Pam Anderson helmets and went on to defeat the team formerly known as Fats Can Float by a score of 36 - 34. I say "formerly known as" because as you all know by now, Joe Mastrangelo has convinced himself that he jinxed his team and has changed his name to Bury The Hatchet. Deviating away from his "dead singers" team name theme and going "almost dead" instead, Joe seems to have incurred a bit of Katrina's left over wrath when he went the Fats Domino route with the team moniker. Well, I'm not so sure about that. Jinxed you say? Well if you consider a torn ACL (Javon Walker), a bad chest contusion (McNabb) and an in-season arrest for throwing your girlfriend down the stairs (Larry Johnson) in one day a jinx, well then I guess you might be right. By the way, before leaving this paragraph I'd like to point out two things. First, Joe's partner Charlie Baker becomes the first owner in league history to own himself! Yes, a quick glance at this week's transactions shows that Bury The Hatchet has acquired C. Baker (NYJ). Sweet! I can't wait for the fight when Joe tries to cut him in Week 4… Second, I think Ken's found a clever way to beat the byes. By drafting Cleveland QB Trent Dilfer and K Phil Dawson, he should see no degradation in his team's scoring potential when the Browns go on their bye week!

Grabbing the pole position after Week 1 is Rob Hanratty's Champipple squad, who turned on the "It's The Big One" Offense and went all Aunt Esther on poor Don Cardoza's Of Rice and Men squad, grabbing the first high points dollar in a high scoring, wide open 54 - 43 affair. Funny, historically Rob's usually on the other end of these first week slugfests, twice in the past scoring more than 50 points in week one, only to lose both times. The first kangaroo court fine of the year goes to Don for having a team named after the recently retired Jerry Rice, but not drafting Miami rookie RB Ronnie Brown which would've given him Rice-a-Ronnie. A similar fine is being levied by the league office to Rob for having a Sanford and Son themed team yet neglecting to draft Lamont Jordan when he had the chance in Round 2. Oh and remind not to use the phrase "grabbing the pole" anymore in this column, especially in Hanratty's paragraph!

Into the next paragraph with absolutely no segue intended, we have the holders of the first pick (OK, maybe a small subliminal segue), Team Flinn. Their T.O. Tired T.O. Finish squad was indeed too tired to finish Week 1 as Mike and the Two Jims (Flinn the Elder and Murray the Neighbor) get the posse kicked out of them by Entourage, 49 - 29. Brian Boghosian's gang grabs the outside position on the first row as we head into Week 2. And Brian, I promise to watch a little more HBO so I can get up to speed and kick out some hip references to the show your team's named after as the season goes on. All I know about it now is that the guy who played Samwise Baggins in Lord Of The Rings is in it. So is Matt Dillon's younger brother (is his name Corey too?) and there's a character goes by the name of Turtle (last name isn't Wax by any chance is it?). If anyone else is a fan of the show, can you send me over some good one liners to prime the pump?

Moving on from T.O., we find The Whizzinators, who are a little P.O.'ed after dropping a 32 - 30 decision to Sucks 2 B Me. After the Ravens had held Sucks 2 B Me QB Peyton Manning relatively in check on Sunday night, The Whizz needed just 8 points from the Falcon combination of QB Michael Vick and WR Michael Jenkins for a victory. With an early Vick rushing score giving them six and a Michael Jenkins long grab that got down to the 1 yard line showing promise, things were looking good and had The Commish and Kevin Kelly karaoking with Tim McGraw to "I Like It, I Love It" at halftime. However, Vick got shut down in the 2nd half, no more scores, and defending champion Neil Eskow proved why he's the defending champion (nice little late Tim Dwight pickup there for the margin of victory) and yes, Somebody Beats The Whizz.

In a battle involving two of least season's rookie owners, Russell Jones' Best One squad holds off the sophomore jinx for the time being and starts out the season as the Third Place One after a strong 46 - 33 win over Blame It On Alex. Bruce Lerman, might in fact, try to blame this loss on his son, for you see, Daddy was "back on the chain gang" at Alex's football game, doing his best impression of a 3rd down marker as the Draft's early rounds unfolded without him. But the truth of the matter is, you've got to hand it to Russ "Julius" Jones for some savvy drafting, including a pick-up of Steelers substitute RB Willie "and the Poor Boys" Parker in Round 10, after both Bettis and Staley had been taken.

Last, but most certainly not least (for fear of waking up with a Colts helmet in my bed), we have The First and Goalfather (Part 2), Fabrizio Sparacino, who took care of some family business on the Left Coast, defeating Ian Morris' Late Again squad 40 - 14. The only offense Ian could muster was a Tiki Barber TD, two Brian Griese scoring passes and a mere one extra point apiece from both of his kickers. Geez, who drafted this team for you Ian? If I were you I'd go all Donald Trump on this guy and send him packing from the boardroom for such a poor display of Draft Day acumen! Oh wait. That's me that drafted this team isn't it? Uh, Fab? You think you can help The Commish out with a little protection muscle? Yeah, I can pay. Thanks guy, just let me know when I can do that "favor" for you OK…

In honor of our 15th season, I'm going to be using this next-to-last paragraph space to bring you a new "Famous Moments in Draft Day History" each week. We'll start off this week with the draft we held in Staten Island in the backyard of Kevin Kelly's old condo. And need I go any further? Yes folks, it's the old "napkins under the armpits" moment, as Brian Legere, sweating more than he did during Sunday's 4PM games when he realized he was losing to the Dead Running Backs Society, proceeded to "beat the heat" by unfurling two oversized napkins and placing one under each arm. Looking quite stylish (and very Kevin Federline-esque I might add) in the two-ply and wife beater t-shirt look, Brian went about 4 rounds like this before anyone realized what he was doing. When this unorthodox method of cooling off was discovered, Draft Host Kevin paused the draft, turned to Brian and offered the use of some of his wife's sanitary napkins should Brian need to achieve a better "absorption rate". Classic stuff! More of the same to follow as the season winds on.

So with the entire South Jersey division still winless, we move into Week 2. Good luck to everyone this time around. Don't worry if you've lost this week, being 0 - 1 isn't so bad. It's only half as bad as being 0 - 2! So if you're currently in the Jersey South, or sitting at 0 - 1 in a less sucky division, my advice to you is don't lose again this week. Because all team names are now frozen and Nick's busy trying to figure out a way to get The Williams Brothers a new Cadillac. 'til next week…