In post-season fantasy football, the ability of a player’s team to stick around is just as important as his individual talent. That’s why Aaron Bruski was able to pick up Arizona receiver Larry Fitzgerald with the third selection of Round 2.

Four games later, the wideout’s two-touchdown, 127-yard Super Bowl effort grabbed Bruski the title of Mr. Fantasy Football in SportsBuff.com’s premier salary cap contest, with national champions dating back to its inaugural season in 1993.

Bruski finished fifth in the regular season to join the rest of the top eight finishers and Dave Gawron — who runs the Roto Commando blog and beat 75 fantasy experts in the VIP/Reporters league (finishing three disturbing spots ahead of Yours Truly) — in Vegas for the playoff draft.

Bruski’s Fitzgerald- and Willie Parker-led squad trailed Madonna Montz’s team by 11 heading into the big game but wound up with a comfortable 20-point cushion. Steve Homiak, who was in first place following the regular-season component of the contest, rode Kurt Warner to a third-place finish after using his first playoff pick on DeAngelo Williams.

The group traveled to Las Vegas on Jan. 4 for a three-day stay, conducting its purely serious business at Planet Hollywood. The post-season draft and VIP party took place at the nearby Hawaiian Tropic Bar and Restaurant. Sports Buff has been taking its top finishers on vacation since January 1995, when the first crew took a Carnival Cruise to the Bahamas. (Then again, maybe “vacation” is too favorable a word when you realize that you have to put up with Jeff Thomas the whole time.)

Bruski formerly ran a fantasy site called DreamWired.com and now writes updates for Rotoworld. Had Montz hung on, she would have been Sports Buff’s first Ms. Fantasy Football.

“Madonna’s regular season performance and post-season draft strategy from the sixth spot were extremely impressive, earning the well-deserved respect of the entire Sports Buff Nation,” said Thomas, founder of SportsBuff.com.

Here are the top eight, in order of their regular season finish, along with their first-round picks in the playoff contest:

1. Steve Homiak (Arvada, Colo.) — DeAngelo Williams
2. Rick Adelstein (Solon, Ohio) — Steve Smith
3. Brian Schmidt (Fort Myers, Fla.) — Brian Westbrook
4. Mark Severson (Sleepy Eye, Minn.) — Brandon Jacobs
5. Aaron Bruski (San Jose, Calif.) — Willie Parker
6. Madonna Montz (Belle Chase, La.) — Hines Ward
7. Kerry Bates (Powhatan, Va.) — Chris Johnson
8. Harley Pierce (Paw Paw, Mich.) — Eli Manning

(Note: SportsBuff.com and FantasySportsBusiness.com are owned and operated by World Fantasy Games.)

For the second year in a row, NFLPLAYERS.com — a subsidiary of the NFL Players Association — is teaming up with FoxSports.com to host a fantasy league made up of actual NFL players. (Well, mostly; Jay Feely is currently unemployed.)

The rest of the league roster comprises Maurice Jones-Drew, Steven Jackson (who’s holding out for a better roster), Will Witherspoon, Brian Brohm (how’d a rook sneak in?), Larry Fitzgerald, Cato June and Tatum Bell (whose team is bound to fall short of its talent level). The league has a distinctly Midwestern flavor, with half of the participants hailing from teams in that section of the country.

The league is viewable to the public, including full rosters and, already, a blockbuster transaction. It seems Bell sent Tom Brady to Feely’s team for Brian Westbrook. (Although the swap of first-round talents seems pretty even, Feely probably came out stronger. He still has Adrian Peterson and Laurence Maroney in the backfield, while Bell will start Ben Roethlisberger and his ridiculously tough schedule in place of Brady.)

It’s probably a bad sign for us Steven Jackson owners that the Rams back passed on drafting himself in Round 1 for Indy’s Joseph Addai. (Although the NFLPA site disagrees with the Fox recap, saying Jones-Drew actually had the first pick.) Fitzgerald, likewise, left himself on the board in Round 4 in favor of Torry Holt. (If only my leaguemates would underrate Fitzgerald as much as he does.) Other surprises from the top of the June draft included Brady going third among quarterbacks and LaDainian Tomlinson lingering until Pick 5.

Half of the participants own themselves, with each of the two linebackers qualifying in that category by drafting their teams’ defenses.