Just my take: The people you meet in fantasy football heaven (hell)

 

Fantasy football draft season is upon us. Soon you will be gathering with your friends and enemies to draft a fake football team that will mean more to you than any crisis currently facing the United States. Fantasy drafts are great fun and a time for comradery and competition. But there always seems to be the same people that gravitate toward this purely first world pursuit.

And if you don’t know one of these people, chances are you are one.

The Lucky Bastard

This person drafts like a monkey on bad acid. They spend most of their time away from the draft room, jawing with anyone who will listen. Their team sucks and the only thing that saves them is they hit the waiver wire like a post-apocalyptic wretch, scavenging for food. They make a few good pickups based purely on something they heard and their once crappy team is now beating your team. Welcome to real life.

The Expert

He knows everything and is not afraid to tell you why Adrian Peterson shouldn’t be the first overall pick. He’ll critique every move, roll his eyes at a reach and nod reluctantly when someone makes a solid choice. But he also never wins because he spends so much time over analyzing stats and game flow, his draft is as clinical and un-fun as providing a sperm sample in a doctor’s office with a cat poster on the wall. He refuses to recognize that someone dumber than himself could beat him because he had all the answers printed out in a notebook. This person sucks like a punctured lung.

The Crash and Burn

This person is hammered by the seventh round and despite their increasingly dubious picks, they throw a leaky propane canister on the fire by drafting Brian Hoyer with a wild, stab in the dark pick after they are too drunk to care. The horrible selections are overshadowed by the fact that they know they have no shot so they dull the pain with four pitchers of Coors Light before staggering off into the night. They will be out of it by the fifth week and will set their lineups about as frequently as Donald Trump says something nice about Mexicans.

The Ghost

Oh this Ghost is visible at the draft. They are front and center drafting and making mirth with the other fantasy footballlers. But once the season starts, the Ghost starts to fade from view and soon enough, they are but a haunting memory. Who were they? Why did the stop setting a lineup so soon? What became of their team? All great questions that will have to wait until they are resurrected the next season when you so foolishly invite them back into the league.

The Shit Talker

This guy isn’t afraid to harass you when you’re taking too long to pick, cajole you into decisions you don’t want to make and will never shut up about his fantasy football knowledge. But he never wins and will go down swinging in the form of constant blather and coulda-woulda-shouldas. Like a gorilla flinging its feces: keep your distance, have a laugh and enjoy the show.

The Stoic

The Stoic isn’t giving anything away as he sits there with a look of knowing contempt for the charlatans around him yukking it up with the other dill-rods in the draft. But while the Stoic has a handle on the best way to go about a draft, he is also about as fun as a colonoscopy performed by your mom. Fantasy drafts are supposed to be fun, but this drafter’s North Korean labor camp attitude has about as much allure as cancer.

The Clueless Simpleton aka the Punching Bag

No one knows who invited the Simpleton but they draft someone who has retired with their first pick and after someone feels pity on him and tells him to take it down and try again, they pick Jordy Nelson. These punching bags are nice for a weekly boost but beating them isn’t really an accomplishment is it?

The Transplant

This player has told you how great they are for years but you’ve never had the pleasure of being in a league with them. Until now. They talk a mean game, and you’re a little worried at first, but what you didn’t take into account was that they won their other leagues playing chumps and now have met some real competition. Their boastful declarations of fantasy greatness soon fade when they realize they’ve met their match. And then they morph into the aforementioned Ghost and fade from view. Enjoy their despair.