The star of our next article in the Cats of Fantasy Twitter series — Rosie
The Cats
Rosie is a rescue found on a Facebook post-Siamese/Snowshoe mix. She was pushing 20 pounds when adopted and has since lost seven or eight pounds and is much healthier. Rosie was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and has a special place in the family due to another member of the family suffering from the same disease.
She is well taken care of by Steve (@DynastySanta), who is the owner, and is described as a “daddy’s girl.” The original owner of Rosie allowed her to free feed/graze and the result was this big chungus you see above and below. We’ll cover that shortly.
Rosie can be high maintenance and even though she loves her dad the best, she can occasionally become moody if she doesn’t feel like being petted or suddenly doesn’t want the attention she was asking for. However for the most part she’s just a nice lap cat and especially with Steve likes to sit back and enjoy the perks of being a cat.
Big Chungus
Artist’s depiction of Rosie staring lovingly at some fruit loops
Rosie’s former weight problem leads us to our cat topic for this week’s article, why do some cats become chonkers and others do not? And when they do become big honking chonkers how do we get these gigantic furballs to lose that weight? Let’s find out!
Beyond the normal reason why some cats gain a ton of weight, which is typically they are allowed to free feed or graze, there are other factors that can lead to some cats becoming overweight while others do not. The Harlingen veterinary clinic says it well here:
There are a variety of non-medical factors that have been shown to predispose animals to obesity. These include early-onset obesity, old age, overweight owners, a sedentary lifestyle (especially common for indoor cats), competition for food and a free-fed diet (as opposed to meal-fed). Females are typically more prone to obesity than males and genetics can also be a factor. (harlingenveterinaryclinic.com)
So while Steve knows that the previous owner of Rosie did allow her to free feed, it’s also possible that she has gained more weight due to her age or lifestyle or even the fact that she’s female. Before Rosie lost those seven or eight pounds she was at risk for many health issues including high blood pressure, heart disease, immune system suppression, diabetes, and many other adverse health outcomes.
The benefits of that weight loss that Rosie accomplished included a decrease in the likelihood of all those negative outcomes plus a reduction in the stress put on her joints plus many other positive factors like less likelihood of needing medications as she gets older.
To lose that weight, the process is similar to how humans do it, an increase in exercise via playing with your cat or encouraging play by buying interactive toys in conjunction with a modification to the diet will usually do the trick. If your cat is a free feeder or grazer, you can decrease the amount of food available in their bowl each day over the course of time.
You could even switch to a scheduled feeding setup where you feed your cat at certain times of the day and night. Cutting down on the treats and perhaps even trying to find a healthier brand of food (good luck with that, cats are just as picky as toddlers) can help as well.
Regardless Steve was able to accomplish this and Rosie is now a healthy weight and a happy kitty. She welcomes Steve into cat society, and we wish him luck in this year’s cat league.
Rosie, pre-weight loss, enjoying her status as a chonker.
The Draft
Justin Herbert is the anchor for Steve’s Superflex quarterback corps
Offense
Steve, a writer, ranker, and editor at IDPGuys and a known Philly guy, is no stranger to weird degenerate leagues and was more than ready for this. He knew to grab the value for his Superflex quarterbacks immediately, and with Justin Herbert (QB) he was off and running, he paired him with Matt Ryan (QB) and held Daniel Jones (QB) in reserve.
His strategy from this point was to secure value wherever it fell and grab IDP later on since he does write for an IDP website and could find IDP in the middle of the desert if we had to.
At running back, he grabbed Saquon Barkley (RB) and Tony Pollard (RB) for two solid young options and then went with some high-upside guys in James Cook (RB) and Kenneth Gainwell (RB). He took Isaiah Pacheco (RB) towards the end of the draft as a shot-in-the-dark running back on an excellent offense that’s an injury or two away from solid production.
At wide receiver, he went with Keenan Allen (WR), Michael Pittman (WR), and Jaylen Waddle (WR) for top-tier options and Drake London (WR), Elijah Moore (WR), and George Pickens (WR) for younger options with a ton of upside. His tight-end premium pick for that position was Zach Ertz (TE).
Steve is hoping for a resurgent Danielle Hunter just like the rest of us
IDP
Steve was able to wait on IDP and draft a ton of depth on offense because, like most of the staff at IDPGuys (where we had 300 years of combined IDP experience last season and have added a crapload of writers since then, and lord only knows that number now).
He is able to find IDP value late relatively easily. He grabbed Christian Wilkins (DT) at defensive tackle for a great option that fell to him for a beautiful value. At the defensive end, he went with Danielle Hunter (DE) and Za’Darius Smith (DE) for an excellent pair of starters, with George Karlaftis (DE) as a depth piece.
Steve knew about their scarcity in this format for his linebackers and also learned to stack some for depth since it’s a long season, and the injury grim reaper was striking 68% of the time last year. He ended up with Devin Lloyd (LB), Bobby Wagner (LB), and Zach Cunningham (LB) as his starters, with Kwon Alexander (LB) and Nick Vigil (LB) as great depth pieces.
At safety, he landed Justin Reid (S) and Tyrann Mathieu (S), and for corner, he grabbed Carlton Davis (CB) in a great week one matchup indoors against Dallas with Derek Stingley (CB), who as a likely starter on that Texans defense, should see a ton of production.
Conclusion
Steve is no stranger to leagues like this and was able to duck and weave through the ups and downs of this draft. He secured value at all the positions of scarcity and told me plainly that he will be paying attention and working that waiver wire. He’s looking good and should be a formidable opponent in this year’s cat league.
Thank you for reading this entry in the Cats of Fantasy Twitter article series! There are more to come, as fast as I can get them out. A special thank you to @DynastySanta for joining me on this insane journey. Make sure you go check out his work, and we wish him luck in this year’s cat league.
Keep an eye out for the next installment in this series! It will be here as soon as I can write it, and Faith can edit it and send it. Until next time!
