OT: Creative ways to determine draft order in Fantasy Football?

Submitted by Jehu the Damaja on
Our group is tired of doing the same old 'pick a number out of a hat' routine to decide our draft order. I thought a Mario Kart or Super Smash Bros. tourney would be fine, but there are a handful in the league who have a huge advantage over the rest of us, seriously. Same kind of deal for a punt, pass, and kick competition.

I saw on reddit someone suggested to have everyone go on chat roulette, and whoever sees a wiener in the fewest clicks gets first pick. It sounded funny but I seriously doubt that is chosen.

Any ideas or suggestions? What do you guys do to decide your league's draft order? There are 12 of us, and we have no out-of-towners, so any kind of competition is welcomed.

evenyoubrutus

August 6th, 2013 at 2:22 PM ^

Hour of power with Dogfish Head 90 minute IPA. Keep going until people begin to drop out and whatever order that happens is the reverse order of your draft. Last man standing gets first pick.

WolvinLA2

August 6th, 2013 at 2:24 PM ^

Ask the guys in the league how many chicks they've had sex with, and draft from most to least. When the guys at the end complain that they've been screwed, tell them they were due.

Socrates Johnson

August 6th, 2013 at 2:27 PM ^

at MIS. I am not a big race fan, but I have a passion for drinking and uecker. On race day everyone picks a driver from a hat and however they finish is the draft order.

 

BluePhins

August 6th, 2013 at 2:27 PM ^

If you haven't tried an auction draft I highly recommend it. Strategically there are so many more ways to approach it. And if I'm reading your post correctly it sounds like you all draft together in person which makes any draft exponentially more fun but auctions get nuts...Well now I have to go do a mock

Inertia Policeman

August 6th, 2013 at 2:38 PM ^

An auction is the way to go for sure. Everyone in my league was skeptical when the idea was brought up 3 years ago, but we would never go back now. There's way more strategy involved - spend a ton a stud and patch in with no-names? moderate amounts on all positions? Bid on players you don't even want to drive up the price? Bid on everyone so no one knows who you really want? The best part is if there's a guy you REALLY want (cough, Denard), you can get him as long as you're willing to outbid people. 

boliver46

August 6th, 2013 at 3:38 PM ^

is awesome.

Everyone gets a pool of funds, say $100.  They can bid whatever they want on whomever they want, but MUST fill the max number of slots (usually 15), so that sort of limits the max you can spend on your stud.  There are also usually rules about # of QBs you can take, etc. so someone can't load up with all stud RBs and try to trade their way into top players for other positions.

Here's a link to an example from ESPN:

Link

BrewCityBlue

August 6th, 2013 at 6:37 PM ^

We also do an auction where everyone starts with $100. However we don't say you have to save $ to fill out your roster with. If you run out of $ and still need more spots you have to wait til everyone is out of $ at which point the snake draft starts to fill out everyone's rosters. 

We actually have an auction keeper league (3 players max, at 110% (rounded up) of previous year's contract), so it adds a lot of extra intrigue. I got luck for $4 last year, but I can't keep him this year because i'd be keeping 2 qb's (I'm contractually obligated to keep Stafford because I leased his cheap contract for 3 years from my buddy who had Rodgers cheap already), so I'm trying to work out a 2 year lease or an outright sale of Luck's $5 contract this year. In short, crazy shit goes on in our league - I'm the commissioner so it's a total pain, but we do a lot of crazy deals in offseason and on draft day and it's a TON of fun. 

All I'll say is I would NEVER go back to a regular snake style draft. So boring, and a random thing like draft order has way too much to say about how your team ends up looking. 

Blue in Denver

August 6th, 2013 at 7:59 PM ^

We randomly determine a nomination order.  It's like determining a draft order with a standard draft except each person nominates a player for everyone to bid on.  It's common to have a rule that the person nominating a player must bid on the player to make sure a player is taken with every nomination (keeps the draft moving).  Since there's no noticable advantage to being early or late in the order, it does not reverse on even-numbered rounds.

It's ideal if you can get someone not in the league to be the auctioneer, but it's not required.

I agree with others here that this is the only way to do fantasy sports.  An in-person auction draft is a blast.

davking1980

August 6th, 2013 at 2:31 PM ^

Guy I work with ties their draft order into the Kentucky Derby, kinda similar to the NASCAR one above.  Each guy in the league gets 2 starting positions assigned at random.  They use the highest finish of the 2 horses for each person and rank the draft order as such.

Side bonus is that he also hit the trifecta this year using his 2 numbers and a 3rd he picked, won $4,000.

cp4three2

August 6th, 2013 at 2:31 PM ^

Then figure out what to do with the money. Person who bids the most gets first pick, person who bids the least gets last pick. 

 

If you really want to make it interesting. Say that the person who bids the most gets 2nd pick and a portion of the money, with second highest bid getting first pick.

maizenblue92

August 6th, 2013 at 2:32 PM ^

Play the Hitler Game on wikipedia. Click random article and then fewest clicks to get to Hitler's page. At the end break all ties with additional rounds of it.

Silverware

August 6th, 2013 at 2:33 PM ^

I’m in need of something like this too but our league has guys all over the place (Chicago, Minneapolis, Denver, Detroit, Phoenix, San Francisco). 

Something we can do over the interwebs would be awesome!

boliver46

August 6th, 2013 at 2:41 PM ^

order in distance from the Big House.  Furthest away picks first since they are least likely to have the copious amounts of Michigan information inundating their daily lives.  They should be rewarded for their suffering!

gdep10

August 6th, 2013 at 2:39 PM ^

We assign each of the 12 teams one of the top 12 golfers at the PGA Championship as set by Vegas odds. Draft order is based on relative finish of each team's assigned golfer. It adds some intrigue to an already entertaining tournament.

boliver46

August 6th, 2013 at 2:43 PM ^

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drive competition...longest goes first, etc. etc. you KNOW you were thinking something else.

/dickroll'd

johnvand

August 6th, 2013 at 2:46 PM ^

I'm in a league that uses the daily 4 lotto.  Everybody is assigned a day, the 4 digit number pulled on your day is your number.  Picks assigned by descending order of lotto results.

Suavdaddy

August 6th, 2013 at 2:46 PM ^

So much more strategy, more involvement and, importantly, ever so much more fair.  Serpentine drafts are not fair and actually rather routine.  the problem is that given the crazy amount of FF information, the tops of drafts across leagues look almost identical.  the result is that, say, the 3rd pick in every league ends up winning it because they took players x, y and Z in the draft (right down the list). Saw it several times before we switched to auction - I would never go back.  

Use $100 in fictional draft dollars and you need to have $1 for your last roster spot on draft day.  I promise it takes about as long as a regular draft.  Best to find an outside other friend to auctioneer.  

B-Nut-GoBlue

August 6th, 2013 at 3:12 PM ^

You go through a normal draft order, each person picks a player and that player is put up on the auction block.  (You COULD potentially have dumb people put up kickers right away and slow the process but that probably won't happen).

goblue7612

August 6th, 2013 at 3:23 PM ^

One way to avoid people putting up absolutely random players, is that the person who puts the player up on the block, must also bid a minimum of $1 on him. But this also makes putting up kickers that you wouldn't mind getting for $1 a sound strategy early on.

The most entertaining part is when one player puts up A. Foster, and most people realize it's not Arian Foster but a different A. Foster, except for that one guy in your league who is only half paying attention and he gets screwed.

creeBlue2

August 6th, 2013 at 4:07 PM ^

I would say do an Auction Draft, but i know Auctions arent for everyone.

With that being said I think a beer olympics is in order... Not only do you decide on the order of the draft, but also have a great memory filled (or forgten) day.

LAwolverine

August 6th, 2013 at 4:23 PM ^

Put 12 snails on the table and see which ones go the farthest from the center in 5 minutes!



But in all seriousness, you could pick games over the preseason

Seth

August 6th, 2013 at 7:30 PM ^

Everyone gets to pick five different FBS teams. The first to get a new football commitment from one of their teams goes first, second goes second, etc.