Welcome to the second edition of "Bruno Boys Fan Profile", where Bruno Boys Fantasy Football staff writer Chris Ziza interviews you, the Bruno Boys Nation (BBN)! We want to hear about your experiences regarding your fantasy sports career, especially football. By diving into your collective minds and extracting every bit of knowledge that BBN has to offer, we will be able to pass this knowledge on to all of your fellow Bruno Boys and Gals. This is your chance to step up and shine for 15 minutes, allowing you the opportunity to become the teacher, and not just the student! So enjoy the moment, let BBN know the true you, and let us have it!   
 
Today I will be interviewing Mike Loftus, who has been around since the Bruno Boys started. Having heard that there was an opportunity to be able to share his love for fantasy football with BBN, he contacted us and we graciously obliged! He is a fantasy balling veteran with plenty to say and I am sure there will be a handful of things that you read here that will definitely help you in your draft this year as well as the season throughout. Without further stalling, I give you the man himself, Mike Loftus.

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BRUNO BOYS ZIZA: Mike, congratulations on becoming the second Bruno Boys Fan Profile featured! I was very pleased to hear that you had plenty to say and that you wanted a chance to share it with BBN. To start, please give a one-paragraph self-description of yourself so everyone can get to know you a little better before we start the interview.

LOFTUS: My name is Mike Loftus and I am from California.  I was a collegiate athlete (Track and Cross Country) and graduated with a degree in business from San Francisco State University.  I currently help run a family business, called Vince's Shellfish.  We provide all fish products to restaurants, grocery stores and functions throughout Northern California.

BBZ: Very interesting! It sounds like you take business very serious, which is a great thing! I am sure that bleeds into your passion for fantasy football, and I am positive that that helps you become a more organized individual which can only help you during the season as well! Now that BBN has a little taste of what you are about let’s begin the interview. Mike, what is your name, location, your favorite teams that you follow and equally as important, the teams that you hate?!?!

ML: I am Mike Loftus, 25, from the great city of San Francisco, CA.  I am a Season Ticket Holder to the San Francisco 49ers and the Golden State Warriors, and I also follow the San Francisco Giants closely. I absolutely hate the Oakland Raiders, Los Angeles Dodgers and the Dallas Cowgirls!

BBZ: Mike, I completely understand your crack on the Cowboys, but you have to admit, they do have possibly the league’s best cheerleaders! The 49ers offense should definitely improve some now that OC Mike Martz is at the helm! Talking about things that you like, let’s talk about why you are being interviewed in the first place! Your love of fantasy football! How many years have you played fantasy sports? In which fantasy sports do you participate in and how did you get your start?

ML: I have been playing fantasy sports for close to 10 years now. I participate in fantasy football, baseball and basketball, but I follow fantasy football much more closely. I got my start when my friends approached me asking me to join a fantasy football league. I started laughing at the idea because I never had heard of it before.  The first few years I was very unprepared but many of my friends were too.
 
BBZ: I think everyone goes through that phase. You start playing fantasy sports and you really are not prepared as fantasy sports and true professional sports value is not always the same. Sometimes a players value doesn’t translate heavily into fantasy statistics such as a baseball players defense. It takes time to differentiate between fantasy and reality. Of course you said that you have played for ten years, so I know you have a few tricks in your sleeve that you never had before! And to get to that stage you have to prepare and continuously keep up on the pro games! With that being said, what type of impact has the Bruno Boys made on your fantasy football life? Also, how do we rate in your opinion to the so called “Professional Fantasy Football Advice” websites?

ML: The Bruno Boys have helped me a lot on improving my fantasy skills! I love your positional point predictions each week as well as your Podcasts! I used to listen to Hector and Victor on the ESPN website, but after a few weeks of listening I noticed that they were horrible and that I had to look for another website and that is when I stumbled onto the Bruno Boys. I noticed that the Bruno Boys were pretty accurate so I started using your website on a weekly basis. It has helped me significantly to the point of which I won a fantasy football league championship last year.

BBZ: Congrats on the championship and it is great to hear that you really trust what we are doing. Believe it or not the Boys are complimented all the time by appreciative fans that thank us for our hard work and dedication and attention to detail! And you are not the first to have said that we are better than so called “Professional Sources”, but it is always great to hear! Since you are so prepared now-a-days, how do you go preparing for your league drafts every year and what is the one or two things that you feel make the biggest impact in the preparation that you do?
 
ML: To help prepare me for my drafts every year, I usually buy a magazine or two and then browse through them. I am an avid ESPN SportsCenter follower and I also utilize all the great things that the Bruno Boys website has to offer. You guys are a great source for injury information as well as other important stuff! And I can’t say enough about the Bruno Boys Fantasy Football Webazine! On draft day I bring just my book to mark off the players that I draft and I basically go off of my memory for whom I should draft. In fact, last year I brought the Bruno Boys Fantasy Football Webazine to my two main drafts! The cheat sheets helped out immensely! Besides all of that, I always like to have an adult beverage in hand and I just have fun with it!

BBZ: Mike, that is what fantasy football is all about, having fun! That is great that you can enjoy draft day as many owners stress out. I have gotten away from the umpteen beers during draft day and have cut down to just a six-pack so I can focus my attention when the other owners are completely blitzed, but that is just a strategy I take into account. But believe you me, when the draft is done it is party time! And I do agree, our Webazine does help out a ton! This year we will be updating our rankings throughout the year as well as leading up to the draft! And for those that don’t want to print out our 100+ page Webazine as is, we will be providing a printer friendly version shortly! As we always say, Trust in the Bruno Boys! But the Bruno Boys also trusts in you! So if any of you in BBN has a suggestion on what you would like to see added to the site, please contact us and we will do our best to make it happen! And talking about making things happen, in 10 years I am sure that you have some memorable, and not so memorable trades that you have made. Would you like to talk about them?

ML: I have made too many bad trades to talk about, but there is one trade in particular that I am hoping will payoff this year! In a keeper league I traded Drew Brees for Larry Johnson. I am already stacked at the QB position and as thin as they come at RB, so I am hoping that LJ gets back to his 2006 form that way I can talk about this trade for years to come!

BBZ: Wow, I will tell you right now, if you are stacked at the QB position as you say, I love that deal for you! LJ is still a first round commodity! To trade a QB that is not even tops at his position for a first round RB talent is truly amazing! Great job! And as you can see by the Bruno Boys staff predictions, we are high on LJ this year as well! Talking about roster movement, what is your opinion on drafting your favorite players, or players from your home team earlier than they should go? Do you think that you can win with this strategy and what downfalls do you see coming from doing so?

ML: I had been a big fan of getting my favorite players on my team year in and year out! Basically I would have at least one 49er on my team, but lately that strategy has failed as the team is horrible. One year I had Alex Smith as my backup QB and I had to use him during as a bye-week replacement. I ended up getting negative points as he threw a bunch of interceptions as well as fumbled the ball a few times. I ended that season in second place, and the worst of it is that if I had won that game, I would of won the league that year! You live and learn man! You live and learn!

BBZ: Mike, that reason alone is why I am not a huge fan of drafting your favorite players ahead of where they should be drafted. I am a Lions fan and in Michigan drafts the likes of Roy Williams, Jon Kinta and Kevin Jones would always be drafted before they should. And I would take advantage of that by grabbing players that otherwise wouldn’t have been on the board. That is definitely a tough lesson that you had learned, but it is one that you can grow from and that is what is important! Learning from your past mishaps! And talking about wrongdoings, what mistakes do you see people in fantasy football doing as far as how they prepare for the draft, in season play and trading wise to which you feel hinders their ability to compete?

ML: Some of the biggest mistakes I see people making includes over thinking who you should start and who you should trade. I personally feel that if you look over the stats and go with your gut and not over analyze the situation, more times than not you will succeed! Also, going into the draft unprepared is probably the biggest mistake you can make! If you do your homework and prepare just as the Bruno Boys say you should, there is no reason that you can’t be successful. An example of doing it wrong is one year I had too many adult beverages and I forgot my magazine to boot. I ended up drafting guys way too early. My team was anchored by horrible players and even very solid waiver wire moves could not help me.

BBZ: Mike, I agree, being unprepared for draft day is the worst deadly sin that you can ever do when it comes to fantasy football! And to throw this out to all the readers, the number one mistake you can do when you head to the draft with information at hand is to be going solely off of your printed Fantasy Football Magazines that you buy at the store! These magazines are prepared MONTHS in advance of the actual draft date! Information is usually very outdated by the time draft day rolls around that you would be better off just reading up on players and winging it! Seriously! I can not stress this enough! Use and abuse us Bruno Boys! There is no question that we will not answer and we will provide you with everything that you need going into the draft! All for free! You don’t have to pay a dime! But if we help you and you see us at the bar enjoying Sunday football, a drink of choice on the house would be nice. Haha. In all seriousness though, on football Sundays, what is it like around the Loftus household?  

ML: On football Sunday I usually wake around 8 A.M. PST, 11 A.M. EST and make sure that my lineups are set. I then turn on ESPN and watch 2 straight hours hoping that all of my players are not hurt and that they are going to play. Depending on if the 49ers are home or not, I then make the drive out to “The Stick”. Either way I will be watching Direct T.V. and watching all of my guys perform with excellence (or so I hope). Usually, I am arguing with whomever I am watching the games with, usually my dad, about what game should be on the tube. I normally use the “LAST” button so much on my remote that it is almost broken by the end of the day.

BBZ: That sounds like a pretty darn good ritual to have! I am new to the Reno area so I am hoping their cable company will provide the NFL Network, or something similar. That way I can watch the games. If not though, I always have umpteen casino’s to choose from! I appreciate how candid you have been so far in this interview. I would like you to now give us a short story of your fantasy experience, either good or bad. I am sure you have one of those! Let us have it!

ML: I have both, the good and the bad to speak of! One of which is great, the other funny, but not so great for me so-to-speak. Fantasy football is something that brings all walks of life together! The President of a company can be drafting with a lawn care specialist and no one cares nor does it matter! There is only one thing on everyone’s minds, and that is to draft the best team possible! Each and every year more and more people start playing and in turn the bigger this game gets. All of my experiences have been great for the most part, but the greatest is usually on draft day! Winning championships are nice, but drafting with all of my friends, drinking beers and heading to the bars afterwards is second to none. It is one of the GREATEST days of the year! For a bad experience though, let’s just say one year I had one to many “pops”. I drafted Dominick Davis the year he was injured during preseason, despite the fact that he had already been ruled out for the year! That is what one too many adult beverages will do to you!

BBZ: Ouch! At least the benefit of having one too many “pops” is that you don’t usually remember the whole night. So the awful drafting probably was short lived. As you said before; live and learn! And as you said about living and learning, what is the biggest lesson that you have learned while playing fantasy sports?

ML:  As I said earlier, preparation is key! I never used to prepare, but now I do! And with the help of the Bruno Boys website and all the publicity that fantasy football receives, I have done a much better job at preparing!

BBZ: Talking about preparing, the NFL is about to get going on their camps and the annual Brett Favre saga is back again, with Green Bay hinting around the bush that he is not really welcomed back, but that he won’t be released, do you think that Brett Favre was in the right or wrong for asking for his release?

ML: I think this is a must subject! If the guy plays, he will put on a show most weeks! But, he better stop acting like the way he is or he might be the Roger Clemens of football! Always un-retiring!

BBZ:  LOL. That is funny you said that! I always say that he reminds me of Michael Jordan or Roger Clemens! That being said, let’s rap this bad boy up! Let’s hit the BURNING QUESTION OF THE WEEK! With the Tom Brady’s and the Randy Moss’ of the world emerging as top fantasy point producers, is it time to stop thinking about RB’s being a must in the first round?

ML: It all depends on how your leagues’ scoring is setup, what your draft spot is and what owners are drafting around you as some owners value players differently. Personally I can see myself grabbing a guy like Moss or Brady towards the backend of the first round in a standard scoring league!

BBZ: Loftus, with that being said I wish you the best in the up-and-coming 2008 season! Keep spreading the word about the Bruno Boys!