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Twitter Fantasy League, Week 1: #TheMoneyTeam

The Cut4 staff, in an attempt to create a fantasy sport they're actually good at, invented the Twitter Fantasy League. Here, you can follow their progress as they learn exactly how to play it.

Week 1 of the inaugural Twitter Fantasy League season is underway, and things are going quite well -- for most people. Yes, I invented the game and, yes, I did it to try to start a fantasy sport I'd be good at. I've utterly failed in that regard, as you'll see below. I am ashamed. I am embarrassed.

Dan, on the other hand, is a savant -- a regular Matthew Berry (I'll leave it to you to decide if that's a compliment). He's in the lead for the coveted Copa del TFL.

Note: We've made some minor scoring changes -- tweets using Emojis are now worth 1 point each and instagrammed photos of babies are worth 2 points.

Week 1 Standings

1) Team #WOHLO -- Dan Wohl -- 29 Points

Overall a solid week for Team #WOHLO. Michael Oher dropped a barrage of deep thoughts (mostly regarding the NBA playoffs), carrying the load for #WOHLO's positive point total.

Missy Franklin, unique amongst athletes in the champions pool in that this week mostly focused on her going to her high school prom, provided the extravagant hashtagging one would expect from a tweeter her age.

Dustin Penner, while mostly busy with the NHL playoffs, did provide some value as well, especially in directing some Russian-tinged trash talk toward his St. Louis Blues opponents.
 

2) Jackie Robinson Onassis -- Molly Fitzpatrick -- 25 points

Kerri Walsh Jennings knows her way around a beach volleyball court, but girlfriend can also serve up some gold-medal tweets. Jennings's penchant for retweeting fans just because they asked her to cost me three points, but her fondness for inspirational quotes and Instagram photos of her baby earned me a respectable twelve. Not too shabby at all.

Bernard Pierce has proved to be my most lucrative team member (and my favorite), thanks to a prolific stream of life lessons and not-so-deep thoughts. I love this man.

Victoria Azarenka? Disappointing. Until we decided to assign points for Emoji use, she had earned me a big fat zero - now she's +5, so I can't complain. And to be fair, she occasionally tweets in Russian, so maybe that's an untapped goldmine.
 

3) MyCousinTweeter -- Matt Monagan -- -1 Point

First pick! I had the first pick in the first ever Twitter Fantasy Draft! It was monumental. I would go down in the record books. There's no way I could screw this up. And then …

"You never win a fantasy league with the first pick, but you can definitely lose it."
-- Dakota Gardner, Twitter Fantasy League Commissioner

Team morale -- crushed.

But even though I'm at -1 after the first week, I've definitely seen some positives from my roster. No. 1 pick George Kontos has delivered some inspirational team slogans for his Giants mates. Novak Djokovic loves to take pictures of food (three this month already) and celebrated Greek Easter last week with friends.

And Vonta Leach. The Ravens fullback lost me 10 points for promoting his eighth annual football/cheer clinic, but he did make up at least a point with this very simple (and possibly lonely) asking-a-question-about-city-I'm-visiting tweet.
 

4) J.R. Smith and Sons Plumbing Co. -- Ian Kay -- -3 Points

Entering the draft, I had one strategy and one strategy only: volume. Grab the most prolific tweeters and let the supposed-to-be-a-DMs fall where they may. Also, don't take anyone who's still in high school. The moral high horse is worth a thousand mic drops.

So far the results are, um, copious. The quality, not as much. T-Sizzle brandished his hashtag shoehorn -- gold-plated, I'd assume -- and Ricky Berens' dry-land life is mostly kiddie-pool depth, but my only consistent scorer was offensive tackle/motivational speaker/foot model Bryant McKinnie. Berens also spent much of the week shamelessly pimping something called Ultra Swim 2013. If that's an underwater house concert, fetch my neon Speedo. If not, he owes me like 30 points.

5) Matt Christopher's Nightmare -- Dakota Gardner -- -60 Points

Why, yes. You read that right. Negative 60 points. I should start by pointing out that Brad Keselowski and Torrey Smith combined for a total of 55 points, which would easily have put me in first place. But, who cares? That couldn't matter any less.

There's a human being named Floyd Mayweather Jr, and he really likes tweeting about himself. His net point total was -115 points.

Really, I blame myself. Why would I draft the single most efficient self-promoter since Chad Ochocinco? How could I have been so stupid? Was it arrogance? Was it greed?

I believe fantasy sports are like golf:  I find them both to be a journey into the innermost depths of my soul -- a confontation with my darkest thoughts and cruelest visages of my ego and id. I will never be as good at either as I wish to be. I am constantly forced to face up to the truth of my identity and the limitations of my being.

But hey, there's always the waiver wire.

-- Dakota Gardner and the Cut4 Staff