Evan enters 2018 in hunt for respect

CENTREVILLE, Va. — Evan Julian spent months thinking of excuses in an effort to quantify his 2017 fantasy football team. Perhaps a good one would have eased the agony and embarrassment that he was forced to endure.

Then, it hit him — no such reasoning really mattered anymore. At the end of the day, he was a last-place club and it was time to turn the page.

That’s been the mindset for Julian recently, one that couldn’t come a moment too soon.

“I think I spent a lot of this offseason trying to think of excuses and finally just recently came to the conclusion that they’re just excuses,” Julian said in an exclusive interview with Chibby’s Corner. “I need to get it together.”

Julian’s group finished the 2017 regular season at 3-10 and eventually slipped all the way to the basement in the Tiger Township Fantasy Football League’s final league standings. The slide was fast and furious, as he lost his final seven games of the regular season.

Undoubtably, there was a lot that went into the worst season of the two-time champion’s storied career. Injuries played a large part, especially the season-ending one receiver Odell Beckham, Jr., endured. Then, there was the timidness, something Julian has somewhat become synonymous with over the last few years, much to his chagrin.

At the start of the season, however, Julian’s outlook on his team was much, much different from the one it eventually became.

“I really went into last season with big intentions,” Julian said. “My highest-picked player in the draft (Beckham), I didn’t even want. I just wanted him as a trade asset. Of course, he gets injured, and that just totally changed my trade prospects.”

Julian’s major setback came a year after finishing fourth in 2016, a season that was as close to his heart as any he’s ever been a part of. And while he denies any sort of hangover from that emotional, draining year, he knows his 2017 group was never able to get its wheels turning.

Typically, such a behavior from a team calls for changes to be made and new faces to be brought in. Instead, Julian chose to largely remain quiet in the trade market, holding onto potential pieces like quarterback Drew Brees. Granted, Julian admits that, unlike other members of the TTFFL, he was reluctant to make any deals as the year wore on and his losing continued, due to the possibility of altering the complexion of the entire league.

Julian says the early-season Beckham injury changed everything in terms of his overall franchise outlook, resulting in some major miscues in his management. And because of that, he hopes to find different ways to view and measure his clubs going forward to avoid those kinds of mistakes in the future.

“From a philosophical standpoint, there are some changes that need to be made,” Julian said. “That’s going to have to get done before actual research and tangible changes can be made. I have to change the mindset.”

While the 12th-place finish would be enough to enrage most members of the TTFFL for an entire winter, there’s something else that has bothered Julian this offseason as well. The Ohio State University graduate, who won league championships in 2010 and 2012, has gotten the sense that many of his TTFFL counterparts have forgotten about the riches of his past.

Once the proud owner of one of — if not the most — respected resumes in the entire TTFFL, Julian doesn’t feel like some of the admiration he’s been granted before has translated into the past few seasons. He also knows his recent absence from the trade market, as well as a failure to produce any truly memorable performances of late, has likely played a role in that.

Still, Julian has never been voted lower than second in any of the preseason Owner Power Rankings, presented by the TTFFL Insider, since its debut in 2014.

“I don’t feel like I’ve gotten a great deal of respect from people in the last four or five years,” Julian said. “I feel like it has kind of gone by the wayside and expectations for me weren’t very high. … Getting 12th place certainly doesn’t help that.”

It’s that type of fire that Julian has needed to help pick himself up by the bootstraps. It’s also the fuel that should help carry him all the way to the 2018 TTFFL Draft in Las Vegas this August.

Simply put, Julian feels like its time to go out and earn credibility again.

“This has been the longest offseason I’ve ever experienced,” Julian admitted. “People like to talk a lot of crap about me just having two good years. But I’ve never gotten last place before, so that was rough. It was bad; I was the worst team in the league.”

A finish Julian hopes to change in a major way this fall.