So this post will consist mainly of my draft diary of the events that unfolded during the...draft. Is this pure copying of Bill Simmons past articles? Yes. But hey, it's got a personal spin, whatever! Give me a break, man. It's not like I'm applying for ESPN or something. Anyway, as commissioner, my big goal was to make sure the draft time was a reasonable one for everyone to be able to make and be ready for. After last year's draft-we-shall-not-deem-proper organized by Molly during Advisor Training (really, molly?) that half of the league missed, there needed to be improvement. This year's draft time was the day after Dis-O, in the middle of the afternoon, when our three undergrads (Molly, Peck, and Jaimin) would hopefully have gotten over the events of the night preceding. Harriet and I would suffer in turn, facing draft time starts of 3am and 5am, but hey, sometimes you gotta make sacrifices.
The league has certainly tried to raise the bar on team names this year, especially after some initial terrible names (TBA and TBD among them). The names, in draft order, were: 1. Hamstars (Molly's team, of course a lame name), 2. Boston Lemon Party (Peck, with a name referring back to his old team name Cleo Lemon Party. I like it, others are more iffy on it), 3. The Roethlisgropers (Mark), 4. el luchador (Jaimin), 5. McNair InThe Shotgun (Alex, and maybe the #1 name), 6. Victory Formation (Khadir. I really thought it was Harriet's the first time I saw it because it made me think of a cheerleader formation), 7. Hunter Smith (Ferras, honoring a punter not on his team anymore), 8. DoubleDsOnThatBitch (Harriet, maybe #1 or #2 team. Double D!), 9. Shane Falco All-Stars (me. I wasn't crazy about this name, which is a The Replacements reference to Keanu Reeves' character, but I hadn't thought of anything better), and 10. Slumdoggy Style (Faheem Patel).
The draft order was randomized by Yahoo 30 minutes before the draft. In a year where the #1 pick is a clear consensus of Adrian Peterson, Molly attains the fortunate slot. I mean, really, there's no question that Peterson is the #1 pick. Only an idiot would pick anyone else. Like, no question. Literally couldn't be an easier pick. In the 9 slot, I'm not crazy about my situation considering my 3rd round pick probably will be a tier below the elite players. There's gonna be some dropoff.
Along with the draft chat room within the draft program that Yahoo has online, Mark, Faheem, Harriet, and I are in a Skype conference call. And Harriet is drunk. On a Sunday night. It's 3am in the morning in 'Nam. How is she drunk and awake for this? Amazing. This might be more impressive than her championship performance in last year's season-that-we-shall-not-speak-of. WE ARE NOT TALKING ABOUT THIS, PEOPLE! NEVER HAPPENED. *From now on, I will use arbitrarily-estimated times to mark the diary events.
4:50am (Seoul time): Khadir lets us all know that he's drafting two leagues at the same time. That's great, Khadir. Oh what's that, you're gonna remind us about this several times during the draft? Awesome. I'm gonna shoot myself now. Or as some might say, Plaxico myself. Rumors on the Skypeline suggest that Molly might not take Peterson. Absurd! This is like suggesting that Favre is going to retire for real. It can't be true! Alex says he's stripping whenever a bengal, texan, or former owl is picked. Considering he doesn't have a webcam, this doesn't really do much for me. I mean, not like I'm interested or anything...what?
5am - Round 1 here we go! Molly is on. And with the first pick of the RFL Beast, Hamstars pick...........Adria...Michael Turner. Uh. Did this just happen? I'm stunned. OK, not really, because I'm laughing and making fun of Molly, but same thing. This is worse than the year Molly took Shawn Marion #1 overall in the NBA league and Marion fell apart and got traded to the Heat. OHhhhhhhh Molly. Amazing. It's alright Molly, people probably thought it was a good idea to pick Larry Johnson #1 in 2007, too. We start the draft off with what might be the worst pick in the top 5 rounds. Or so I think...(this is foreshadowing). Despite all our mockeries, Molly doesn't write a thing on the chat board. Very smart, I'm already caving in to his stonewall of silence.
5:04 - Peck gets up from his knees to get the gift that Molly has exchanged to him: Adrian Peterson. Man, Peck is one lucky son of a gun. This is followed by Mark taking DeAngelo Williams over his homeboy Maurice "Mojo" Jones Drew, although DeAngelo is solid and is also the name of one of my favorite The Wire characters. Oh D! DeAngelo had a major breakout season last year when he went on a TD melee. I make fun of Jaimin for not starting him against me in the playoffs; he claims he did. This is really a moot point. But Jaimin's wrong. Hymen takes Mojo, and Alex pulls a surprise with Steve Slaton. I would make fun of this pick more for being 7 picks early except I actually like Slaton a lot. But this also hints that Alex is just making picks so that he can make himself strip. Khadir "I'm a multitasker" takes Matt Forte, Ferras takes the first WR, Larry Fitz at 7.
5:10 - Then, Harriet freaks out on the skypeline. "Guys, I can't draft! How do I draft?" "Uhhhhh Harriet there's a button right there that says 'draft.'" Harriet: "I don't see it! Where is it!" After about a minute of this, Harriet finally gets out of her drunken stupor and selects Brian "I ruin fantasy playoff teams with my selflessness" Westbrook. Enjoy Westbrook lateral-ing to Vick with a couple yards to go to the endzone because he wants to see Vick score a TD. This leaves me with Chris Johnson, my board's 6th highest rated player, at the 9 pick. Sweetness! Sure, Lendale White, his running parter, might have slimmed up in the offseason by stopping his daily doses of tequila, but CJ is speedy and money on a run-first team. Gotta like him. This also opens the door to what I thought would be highly unlikely before the draft: Getting two Johnsons without reaching for them on my team. In that situation, I wouldn't be able to deny the desire to name my team "The Long Johnsons". Hopefully Faheem won't ruin my hopes.
5:14 - Nope! Faheem Kapoor takes Steven Jackson and Randy Moss back-to-back, opening the door to me taking Calvin Johnson. The Long Johnsons are born! I'm all sorts of excited about this opportunity. I feel good about this team already, even without picking anyone else. Alex mocks me, saying, "a lion?". Hey, Calvin could get TD catches even if JT Shep were his NFL qb. He's that good.
5:15 - Harriet takes Tomlinson with the 13 pick. Shockingly, LDT fell out of the 1st round in our league. Some leagues have him as high as #2-5. I probably would have taken him if I didn't want to make sure I had a WR. Fascinating. Drunk Harriet might be onto something... Jacobs, Andre Johnson, Drew Brees all go by. Jaimin takes Anquan "I can't feel my face!" Boldin a little earlier than most would with the 17 pick. Boldin ahead of Steve Smith and Roddy? Eh...then again, this is a man who would survive a smackdown from the Terminator and come back the next game for 100 yards. He's also a man that can literally do DeShawn Stevenson's celebration.
5:18 - Brady by Mark and Gore by Peck follow, leading us back to Molly. With all this time between picks, Molly have some idea of what he's doing, right? NOPE. Molly takes the clock down to the wire on both picks before taking Clinton Portis and Reggie Wayne. He also still hasn't written a thing on the draft board, and he isn't on skypeline where he could hear our anti-Semitic jokes. I mean, what? But he's really getting to me. Molly's silence is so powerful, I think he's convinced me that Michael Turner is the greatest running back since Jim Brown.
5:27, after Molly taking longer than it takes him to shave his chest hair - Round 3: Peck takes Steve Smith. Mark says on skypeline that he knows he'll be made fun of for this pick, but he's gonna do it anyway. I figure it's some random reach like Pierre Thomas or Jason Witten or something. The Roethlisgropers take.........Matt Ryan.
(pause)
(did he do that on purpose? yeah? yeah? we're sure about this?)
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAaaa man.
Although Ryan is certainly a fine QB, and a great one in real life, his average round was the 8th round. Mark could have taken him in the 5th round, and it would have been surprising. But the 3rd round? After already taking Brady? Fantastic. Molly, you are now off the hook. Let the "I really need a QB, Mark, let me trade my first two picks for Matt Ryan" jokes begin! I would note that after the draft, Mark changed his team name to "I am retarded". Nice.
5:30 - At some point by the way, Ferras has joined us on Skype. I tried multiple times to be the one to invite him to the conference call with horrible failure until I realized that I couldn't do it because I wasn't the host of the call. D'oh. Anyway, Aaron Rodgers, Roddy White, and Marion Barber go. I'm very worried that I won't get a top-tier QB or WR. Only Peyton and Jennings are left in that tier for me, and there are two picks ahead of me. Ferras goes homer and takes Peyton, and drunk Harriet is up. She's a wildcard! She could do anything! She takes...Greg Jennings, the easy top pick left. Nooooooooooooooooooo...I feel crappy. Now I gotta go on trust and hope. Marques Colston it is. Colston has been exceptional every other year, and he was meh last year, so hopefully this is the year. As long as the bastard stays healthy. Faheem Dayal takes Dwayne "the next Braylon Edwards" Bowe and Phillip Rivers. I point out that for the last 2 days, Yahoo Fantasy Sports has had its main story about Bowe dropping passes and dropping in the rankings. I also realize that he's on my keeper team.
5:31 - We're in Round 4 by the way. Oh gee I'm up again. Now I'm worried. I could take Pierre Thomas and deal with the unwelcome situation of having multiple fantasy guys from the same team. I really don't want Ronnie Brown after having him the last two years to unenjoyable results. He's really just crushed my spirits both years with injuries and inconsistent play. I want Kevin Smith even less considering that would mean I would have two Lions in my team's top 4 picks. Oh gosh, oh gosh. Alright, I'm going with the frenchie! I now have two saints and two johnsons. There's a joke in there somewhere. Molly's silence has now convinced me that I should trade me top 4 picks to him for Michael Turner.
After the first 3 rounds, things are a little less exciting, so we'll bounce around a little for the highlights.
5: 34 - Round 4, Pick 5: Khadir takes Tony Romo. He now has Barber and Romo. WHAT A HOMER. I'm surprised he never got confused and took TO. At pick 6, Alex takes Kevin Smith. "a lion?" I say. Oh man I got him good. Peck takes Warner with pick 9. Of course. "See you in the finals," Peck says. Yeah. We'll see you in the finals. The CONSOLATION finals. Ohhhhhhhhh...
5:38 - Round 5: Oh man, the first TE rush is coming. I can feel it in the air. I really wanna see all 4 top-TEs get taken in a row. That is, if that row includes me. We get to the middle of the round to Khadir, and the tension is palpable. All the really good RB/WRs are gone, and the TEs are staring Khadir right in the face. With Cowgirls TE Witten as the top TE ranked, Khadir is in an internal struggle. "witten is right there, mocking me." Is he gonna do it? Don't do it Khadir! Don't do it! Of course, he does it, to the jeers of HOMER and uh, homer. Ferras declines the TE option to take Roy Williams away from Khadir's evil hand, leaving Harriet to take Tony Gonzalez. Gonzalez reminds me of Mariano Rivera, for his consistency, his niche position, and his hispanicness.
5:41 - In the first of several situations where I bank on Faheem Singh doing one thing (in this case, hoping he wouldn't stupidly take two TEs for whatever reason in my scared mind), I opt for my third WR in DeSean Jackson. Of course, Mr. Gandhi only takes one of the 2 top TEs left, going with Antonio Gates and rookie RB Knowshon Moreno (great name, not so crazy about his potential in Denver), leaving me the final top TE, mr. Dallas Clark. Honestly, I wonder if I shoulda just snagged Gates and his upside when I had the chance, but Clark will do. Uh, I'm starting to regret this now that I revisit the situation... let's just move on.
5:44 - Khadir gripes about still drafting in two leagues. How effin' long is this other draft? I ask Khadir if he wants to elaborate on his trail of tears of drafting twice. Alex lols. That must mean everyone did, even Molly! I broke him of his silence, I know it! Alex takes a Bengal, Chad Ochocinco, proving that he just wants to have an excuse to strip naked in front of his new roommate. "It's cool, man, I have to do this because of the draft, I swear!" Khadir still names his team Ocho Cinco De Mayo later on despite not having the guy, but it's a much better team name than what he had.
5:48 - With Round 6, Pick 9, Peck takes Darren McFadden. On a side note, I write on the draft board "LIANG PUT MOLLY DOWN". That was probably one of my better insults of the day... Molly takes forever again. At this point, his silence has gotten to us so badly that he has convinced us that we should all donate $1000 minimum each to his Birmingham synogogue. Damn he's good. At this point, Harriet really wants to go to sleep, but we're not really close to done yet. Odds on Harriet making it through the draft? 50%? 60%? This is the kind of thing you wish was on centsports so that Molly and Peck could bet 20 cents on it.
Hey, remember when Mark took Matt Ryan? Just checking. Hilarious.
5:54 - Round 7 arrives, and we have another tight end run! Gotta love the runs. Not the bathroom kind. Starting with Peck, we have Owen Daniels, Greg Olsen, Chris (my man!) Cooley, and John Carlson. That's a murderer's row of potential right there. I finally land a QB at pick 9 of the round with Matt Schaub of the Texans. Will like it if he is healthy. After not being able to grab a top-tier QB, I'm OK with him at this point though. I also took Schaub here under the impression that Faheem wouldn't take Derrick Ward with his next two picks. He even said on Skype that he didn't really like him.
5:55 - Faheem takes Derrick Ward. "I lied to you about not liking Derrick Ward!" FAHEEEEEEM! KHANNNNNNN! Although hoodwinked, you gotta move on, so despite losing the potential Michael Turner of this season, I turn to Chris Wells, the Arizona rookie. In hindsight, apparently he's losing the battle to Tim Hightower. Oops. At least he was one of 3 backup RBs I got anyway, along with Ray Rice and Donald Brown. One of those has to pan out, right? Right???
6:00-6:15 - The draft really starts to hit a lull here. The chat room is pretty silent; even our Skypeline is talking less. Harriet is probably asleep. Molly's silence has broken me into freeing the Indian people from their British colonial oppression.
6:20 - We'll skip to Round 11. In a whatever pick at this point, Ferras takes Josh Morgan from San Fran. It's Harriet's turn. She's not really doing anything. We ask her what her plan is on the skypeline. No answer. A minute's gone by. Harriet? Harriet you there? Harriet? SHE WAS ASLEEP. DRUNK GIRL WAS PASSED OUT ON HER LAPTOP. Harriet wakes up in time to grab an RB, but what's happened has happened. Classic times in the RFL Beast.
6:25 - Ferras takes another whatever pick of Ted Ginn Jr. I was fine with it at that point, but here's a funny comment from Alex after showing dislike: "you'd have done better picking ted ginn sr." Heyo! Later in the round, Jaimin takes the first kicker in Round 12, Stephen Gostkowski. We remember the time Mark drafted a kicker in the 9th round, and Mark reminds us that he won that year. Great. He's gonna turn Matt Ryan into a championship, isn't he? British wanker.
6:35 - Khadir is shocked to discover that yes, Harriet really did fall asleep. No, that was not a joke. Khadir realizes that we've been on Skype this whole time and wants to join us. Uh, Khadir, we mentioned that we were on Skype several times during the draft chat room.
6:40 - In the final round. Not much to see here. Oh heyo! In the midst of random final grabs and kickers, Alex takes Jarrett "JARRETT DILLARD" Dillard. Now he's just pushing it, but it's good to know we got an Owl on a roster, at least for now. We end the draft with Faheem's pick of Mr. Irrelevant of the draft, David Akers, and Molly's silence convinces us all to send him trade proposals of our top picks for his kicker and defense.
Looking at my roster, I'm pretty satisfied with the draft. I certainly felt better prepared this year, and I feel better about my depth than I usually do. My players drafted, in draft order, were: Chris Johnson, Calvin Johnson, Marques Colston, Pierre Thomas, DeSean Jackson, Dallas Clark, Matt Schaub, Chris Wells, Ray Rice, Donnie Avery, Domenik Hixon, Donald Brown, David Garrard, New York Jets D, and Nate Kaeding. I got 2 solid RB starters with 3 potential good backups, 3 good WR starters, a solid TE, and a potential breakout QB. And I got the Johnsons. I feel good about it. We'll see what happens in the first week against Faheem Parikh, though. I would write about the other teams, but I just want to sleep now. Maybe next time.
Thanks for reading, if you've actually made it this far. I'll be shocked if you have. I promise my next entry will be far shorter.
