MoSneaky Fantasy Football Online Magazine » Ideas to Improve Your Fantasy Football Draft

Ideas to Improve Your Fantasy Football Draft

14 May, 2007 League Tips

So you’re on the internet now and think you’re getting the hang of Fantasy Football. You do your weekly research on MoSneaky.com and various other Fantasy Football sites throughout the season.

Maybe you even won your league title last year. Well, I hate to break it to you Francis, but none of that matters to me. For as horrible as it may sound, right now I don’t even want to talk football with you. What I want to talk about is the comaraderie that comes along with our game. Let’s talk about the inter-league trash talking and rivalries that you’ve developed over the years. Let’s talk about the true essence of any Fantasy League, and that is its members. So in homage to those of you out there with a dedicated group of Fantasy Leaguers who year in and year out wage war against one another, I offer you some insights and suggestions on making your league KICK ASS!

Step 1: Never say “KICK ASS!”. That went out with high-fives, jelly-bracelets, and all things “radical” back in the 80’s. Strive for innovation, strive for the standards of the purist Fantasy Gods, strive for a league that is wickedly TITS!

But I digress, lets backup a moment.

A little background first. A group of senior editors and freelance contributors (including myself) at MoSneaky.com have been running a strong Fantasy League for almost two decades. Over the years the league has gone through many metamorphoses. Gone are the days of drinking beer and bitching about Bam Morris and Barry Word inside the comfortable walls of a dorm room. The frat party, indie-rock concert going days have slowly being replaced by an SUV, 8-6 jobs(for some of us), houses, and a live-in girlfriend who forgot all about the pleasures of providing oral sex. At any rate, priorities have changed and responsibilities are no longer as simple as picking up a twelver of Natty Light on the way home and trying to get into The Sorority Girl of the Week’s panties. Yet year in and year out, Fantasy Football brings us all back together. And it’s that coming together at the League’s Annual Draft that defines one of the greatest days of the year. I’m talking man-love, pure and unadulterated. A bonding experience that would make even Clint Eastwood feel like a bitch. Beers, old stories, some pick-up football, a few dead hookers, and all of it topped off with fantasy football.

So with that, let’s talk the Draft. Let’s make no mistake about it. Football knowledge varies amongst our ranks, and some managers no doubt, take their team’s preparations more serious than others. Yet every year come summertime, for one glorious weekend, every member of the league gets to be Lombardi all over again. We choose a spot throughout the country, get all of the league members together, and turn into 18 year olds all over again. After a day or two of general debauchery, we then seclude ourselves into an undisturbed area and spend the next 8 hours of our life determining our net happiness for the next 5 months. It’s amazing, it’s stressful, it’s aggravation and elation. All
together, it’s my number one cause of premature ejaculation. And all too soon, it’s over for another year, and back to 7 months of post-nfl-hermitting-suicidal-manic-depression. You know what I’m talking about.

The Location

Choosing your draft location can be more important than you think. First, there’s the issue of simple financing. Not all leagues can, or even want, to leave their local area for a draft. This is understandable …until you have a draft site in a remote location. Fantastic places we’ve held previous drafts:

1) Breckenridge, CO
2) Hollywood, CA
3 ) Lake Tahoe
4) Las Vegas
5 ) Chicago
6 ) Honolulu, HI

The key to these remote locations, is aside from draft day, you’re also provided a long-weekend mini-vacation with a multitude of entertainment options. So outside of drafting and pre-draft talk, we’ve also done some white-water rafting, played pick-up football on the UCLA campus, and gambled our pay checks away in Vegas playing “War” and “Skip-Bo”. “Vacation” Drafts may not be for every league, but I can guarantee you, it’s better than getting together in your next door neighbors basement on the last Sunday night before the NFL season kicks off. It is for leagues of close friends who are looking for a way to spice up the league, rather than the pure-money leagues. One suggestion in planning this, is to have 2 or 3 guys from the league appointed as the “Draft Committee”. These guys will then take input from the league, do some research on the web or over the phone, and get the place set up. We’ve been able to do all these draft locations for less than $100 each (not including airfare).

Tradition

Now in addition to location, another annual ritual our league has taken on is a Division Rivalry football game. Out of our 12-man league, we’ve split up into two divisions. From these divisions come our pick-up game teams. We find a park nearby our draft site and play for a couple hours on the Saturday before
the draft. It’s just another one of those things to spice up the draft and get some more trash talking involved for the rest of the year. And it seems like no matter how good or bad of shape people are in, the games always seem to be competitive and exciting. However, if you’re league is still relatively young, prepare early for the “nuances of aging” before division alignment. Evenly disperse the guys you know will be putting on 80-100lbs, and the ones that will have emphysema by age 28. This will prevent lopsided games come future drafts.

After football, pre-draft grocery shopping is in order. Hit the closest Safeway or Winn Dixie and load up on all the supplies you’re going to need to help you last for the next 12 hours. One piece of advice I’d include from experience: Leave the booze out of the draft. Having just a couple guys repeatedly throwing up on the front podium, and trying to draft Dominique Wilkens as their backup quarterback can ruin the draft for everyone.

Additional Ideas

Other ideas to make your draft better than the panty waist down the street:

Throw around the idea of a required Black Tie & Jack affair. (Pants optional)
Have an outdoor draft. Outdoor drafts leave greater options for the addition of explosives to be used during your draft, and wider location options for bowel release.
Two words: Pornographic cakes.
Borrow the podium with a P.A. system from your office conference room and have your commissioner announce picks from there. Expect the potential for pre-draft flatulence amplification to be exercised frequently by gaseous team members, so always shear-guard your microphone (This is a courtesy to your Commish so he doesn’t have to have his nose up to a microphone perfumed with sphincter stink during the duration of the draft.)
Have a video camera in the draft room to capture people’s expressions and comments when picks are made. Go back after the draft and watch the tape, which resolves in some hilarious shit! If it isn’t hilarious, doctor the images using Adobe AfterEffects and digitally insert giant flying penises slapping the face of the prior years toilet-bowl winner. Immediately send the video to team owners’ mothers and “America’s Funniest Home Videos”.
Take a look at MoSneaky.com before you go into the war room.

With these ideas in mind, take your league to a whole new level. Get away from the blasphemously impersonal internet leagues, and actually get your boys involved in something you’ve created by yourselves. You’ll have a great time doing it, and your friends will think you’ve got a 12-incher for sacking it up and taking your league to the next level. No need to thank us, just put a grand down on the Bears this year and give us a 50% cut when it comes through in Vegas.