Last year, I titled my piece: "How I Botched the RotoWire Steak League Auction," and that team finished with by far the most points in the league. So maybe my assessment doesn't mean much. But I'm happy with how things shook out this year, the details of which I'll get into below.

This season, the league was only 14, rather than 16 teams (actually it's now two 14-team leagues with the winners of each meeting in the final Week 17), but everything else is unchanged. It's a 1-QB, 2-RB, 3-WR, 1-TE, 1-K, $200-budget auction, with three IDPs (one defensive lineman, one linebacker and one defensive back.) It's standard (non-PPR) scoring, and there's no flex position.

Of course, the key isn't to win this league (which pays out ~$250) but to avoid buying steaks, i.e., losing the total points side bet which can cost you north of $300. In case you haven't heard me mention it incessantly on Sirius XM, we've done this league since 2000, with half the participants buying steaks in a given year, and I've only bought twice, once for myself in 2005 and once for myself and two others (last place) in 2010. Every other season, I've eaten for free, putting me about $1500 to the good, steak-wise. (Actually, given I order the full shrimp entree as an appetizer and the surf and turf (market price) as my entree, let's call it $2000.)

This year, my strategy was to buy expensive players I liked early in the auction for anything resembling fair prices and figure out the end game later. Because we moved from 16 to 14 teams, and there is no flex, this league isn't much deeper than your standard 12-teamer - at least at RB and WR. As such, it made more sense to go stars and scrubs. The shallower the league, the higher the replacement value and the less valuable the mid-level players are. The deeper the league, the lower the replacement value and the more valuable anyone with a guaranteed role is. Because most people price players based on past experience, I suspected the top end would largely be too cheap, now that the league got considerably shallower from one year to the next.

Here are the results:

I went after Allen Robinson (love him especially in non-PPR where his red-zone and big-play ability gets him TDs and his modest targets for a superstar don't hurt as much) and David Johnson (Le'Veon Bell without the suspension) right away, looking to add another star receiver or two. But I got "stuck" with Jordan Reed for $20 and Drew Brees for $18 while price enforcing, and I was fine with that. I also got DeAngelo Williams for $7 while bidding up Bell-owner Joe Bartel who knew what I was doing and stuck me with him on purpose. That was fine with me as it buys me four weeks to find a back to go along with Johnson. I spent up for Brandin Cooks and with only $30 or so left, broke my budget on Sterling Shepard for $16. That was the one place I might have held off and had more control over the end game. But there were still decent upside backs like Spencer Ware and Paul Perkins for $1 each.

Bottom line, I got two first rounders (Robinson and Johnson), a second rounder (Cooks), a third-rounder (Reed), two sixth rounders (Brees and Shepard) and a seventh (Williams). That means I traded a fourth and a fifth for a sixth and a first, while tossing in some 8-10 rounders for 11-13s. I'll take that deal any time.

As for IDP, I attribute a lot of my eating (as opposed to buying) to having success with them. I targeted Jason Pierre Paul (the No. 2 lineman in 2014) for $1 as it looks like he's his pre-injury self in camp. And I was willing to pay a bit for LaVonte David and Ha Ha Clinton Dix, two top-five IDPs at their positions.

Finally, I made sure to get Andy Dalton as a reserve because Brees is great at home and below average on the road. I'll use Dalton for most of Brees' road starts and hopefully wind up with top-three QB stats.