Fantasy Football

First of all, I am biased to one Fantasy Football league. I am sure there are a myriad of great leagues out there. But I will always think OMRFL is the best. We are playing our 20th season this year. Yes, our league pre-dates the internet. We have had one ownership change in the last 16 years. We have rules unique to our league, like the Jake Plummer rule. Owners have auction drafting styles and everyone knows them. There is no such thing as a sleeper in our draft. Ten of the twelve franchises have won championships. No owner dominates. No owner consistently stinks.

Does this make me an expert? No. But when my Fantasy magazine of choice for this year says that Roddy White is the first Atlanta Falcon receiver of fantasy relevance ever, I chuckle. Apparently the writer and editor were not playing Fantasy Football in the days of Andre Rison and Terrance Mathis.

So now I get to the free leagues out on the internet. I participate in a few ESPN and Yahoo leagues, mainly just to practice for OMRFL and see what the general opinion of players is for the year. I maintain my teams for the most part, making the playoffs in most cases and winning a few titles. ESPN now has the live drafts, which on the surface always seem like a good idea. But after every draft I am frustrated, not by my team, but by how other teams operate in the draft room. There seems to be no draft etiquette. In every draft there seems to be at least one of the following:

No-show for the draft Guy (Mr. Short Term Memory)

In an ESPN live draft, you sign up less than 15 minutes before the draft in most cases. Who signs up for a live draft when they don't have an hour set aside to participate? Does the owner forget they joined? Fortunately, after waiting one round for the entire 90 seconds, that owner is switched to autopick and eventually ends up with all the guys no one else wants.

My Team is the Best Guy (Mr. Arrogance)

There always seems to be one guy who proclaims his team is the best.....after 3 rounds. Excuse me Mr. Arrogance, but in a 10 team league, everyone looks pretty good after 3 rounds. But we continue to hear about how good your team is for the rest of the draft.

Does anyone want to Trade Guy (Mr. Anxious)

Usually about the 5th or 6th round when things are slowing down, Mr. Anxious throws out the does anyone want to trade comment. Trading is fun. And I do agree, you are at the mercy of your pick as to who is available to you in Rounds 1 and 2. But Mr. Anxious doesn't want to swap first round picks and add a couple players to even things out. He wants your first round pick for his 3rd and 5th. He downgrades your roster to try and facilitate this type of trade. And he will continue to offer such imbalanced trades as the season goes on.

Mad at the World Guy (Mr. Hostile)

Not every draft has one, but sometimes there is a guy who for some reason, and I have no idea why, is just rude to some of the other drafters. You don't know anyone you are drafting with, but it seems this owner thinks everyone is a jerk and so he should be to. Personal insults, profanity, comments that don't make sense. You hope you don't have this guy in your draft room.

Takes the Whole Time Guy (Mr. Minnesota Viking)
I can stomach the first four profiles, but this one frustrates me the most. I know they give you 90 seconds to make your pick. There is no way it should take you more than 30 seconds to make a pick. But Mr. Minnesota Viking finds a way to use 80-85 seconds each time. Even in the first few rounds, when there is a plethora of talent available and there is no need to be searching to find players, the clock ticks away. Each round I am secretly hoping he has left the draft and will be switched to autopick. Each round the pick just makes it in (o.k., so if he was truly Mr. Minnesota Viking, the pick would be late). Unfortunately, there is often two or three of these. A nice clean 30 minute draft now takes an hour.

The author of this blog would like to acknowledge that females also participate in Fantasy Football and that his use of the male version of pronouns is simply for ease in writing this blog.


Until the next one...