Fantasy Football Draft

What happens at a Fantasy Football draft?  That’s what I’ve always wondered.  Yep, it has puzzled and enticed me for decades.

(Oh, wait a minute, I just heard about Fantasy Football a couple of years ago.  Well, I’m sorry, I get confused about the passage of time when I’m stuffed full of pizza and chicken wings.  …..Does anybody have a Rolaids?)

The draft is probably a very noisy, very exciting event, I figured.  Somehow, I pictured it being sort of like the floor of a stock exchange with people shouting and making hand signals and phones ringing and several screens displaying video footage of key players while other screens listed the most recent picks.  I pictured cigar smoke and secret whispered alliances happening in the corner of the room.

Well, the Men’s Fantasy Football League draft at our church happened today and it was actually very calm and orderly.  No shouting or hand signals.  No video screens or cigar smoke.  In fact, at one point, I think one of the fellas was laying on a pew in the sanctuary taking a nap.  (Either that, or, someone slipped him a “micky”.)

(In all my years of writing, that’s the first time I’ve been able to work the phrase “slipped him a micky” into a story.  I’m pretty excited about that.  By the way, I have no idea what  a “micky” is, but I know from movies and TV shows that it knocks people out.)

What I discovered, however, as a neutral observer, is that the primary tactics at the draft are actually mental and psychological.  The draft may have been laid back, sure, but there were whispered deals and strategic negotiations already taking place.  I saw an intricate mental game of suggestions, verbal feints, subtle hints, misdirection, and carefully calculated off-hand remarks, as the men smiled and joked and slyly selected the roster of players that they hope will mercilessly destroy all opponents, leaving them in a tangled mess of pathetic carnage lying on the floor.

The sheer cunning, the intellectual sleight of hand was a thing to behold.  It was clear, even to a novice like me, that I was watching masters at work.  I was in the presence of an incredibly high level of strategic genius.

I’m not a betting man, but if I was, I’d put my money on the guy who was taking a nap.