It's my inaugural year in the RotoWire Steak League, and let's get one thing straight: the prize money at the end of the year is meaningless. What's more important than anything is finishing in the top half of the points standings, which means getting treated to a full meal and drinks at the Tornado Steakhouse in Madison, WI. Finish in the bottom half, and you'll have to pay up for your share and another "eater's." Finish dead last, and you're paying three shares, which could easily run up a tab of $500+.

The original RotoWire Steak League was 16 teams, but in order to incorporate more of the crew from the Madison office, the Rules Committee (aka Peter Schoenke) decided to expand the league into two 14-team divisions. In the "old guy" side, it didn't seem like they were quick to adapt to the inflation of the top players that this caused, leading to bargains on top players such as Antonio Brown ($50), David Johnson ($43), Allen Robinson ($42), and Lamar Miller ($39). All of those players went for at least $5 more (and sometimes $10+) on our side of the draft, emphasizing perfectly the necessity to be aggressive early in auction formats such as this.

Personally, I didn't have much of a pre-planned budget allocation. I entered the draft in search of balance and depth, using the auction values generated by the RotoWire Draft Software as a rough guideline. I ended up overpaying a bit for Mike Evans ($47), but I was OK with that being as high on him as I am this year. I was happy with the rest of my receiving corps, as I snatched up T.Y. Hilton for $38 and Golden Tate for a meager $14, and was pleased to get TD machine Mark Ingram at $36, especially considering that this league is non-PPR. My big weakness is at the RB2 spot, where I'm currently starting Ameer Abdullah, who I purchased for $9. His value might end up being limited in a TD-dependent format such as this. My one major mistake was purchasing Ladarius Green for $6 after I had already established my tight end (Greg Olsen) for $19. Simply put, I was caught price enforcing (not to mention, this draft happened before the reports of his recurring headache surfaced). Without a FLEX spot, my backup tight end is left to rot uselessly on the bench. That money could have been better spent bolstering my RB depth, as I'm currently left to depend on rookies Derrick Henry ($8) and Wendell Smallwood ($1) to have productive seasons.

The other unique aspect of the Steak League is the IDPs -- a format I'm admittedly a bit inexperienced with. I spoke with many of the veterans (from the other side of the draft) about IDP strategy prior to commencing, and the consensus was similar: Don't spend more than $1 on your IDPs, you'll have to drop them during their bye weeks anyway, and they're easily replaceable. Even armed with that knowledge, I ended up spending $2 on each of my IDPs in hopes of getting a tier a bit more productive than the baseline. Perhaps that was a mistake, as that $3 might have bought me some improved RB depth. Only time will tell.

You can view my entire team, along with the rest of the league, below. If you need any further explanation, or have questions/comments, get at me on Twitter (@JakeSki52).

Just for fun, let's take a look at how the RotoWire Draft Software ranks the teams. This an excellent tool for following along with your draft and keeping the player information you need all in one place, but you can also use it for smack talk, as it will generate projected standings based on your league scoring settings and RotoWire projections.

Here's how the computer ranks the teams, along with the projected point totals of their starting lineups: