Hosting a Fantasy Draft - Starting a Fantasy Football League (Part 8)

In Part 7 of this article series we discussed how your fantasy football league is defined by it’s league configurationn and constitution. In this article, we'll cover the 3 most pivotal hours of the fantasy season: the fantasy football draft. Championships are won and lost at the fantasy draft and it is here that your fantasy supremacy should begin to shine.

For most fantasy football enthusiasts, the most exciting part of the fantasy football season is the draft. There are several ways that your league can draft players but the two most popular methods are the serpentine draft and auction draft. Both types of draft can either be conducted in person (live) or through a hosting service (online). Most fantasy hosting websites have user interfaces specifically dedicated to conducting a draft. These interfaces are getting more and more sophisticated and are a nice fallback option if you absolutely cannot hold a live draft (the preferred option, as we’ll discuss shortly).

Serpentine Draft

In a serpentine draft (derived from serpent or snake, which slither ‘back and forth’), teams choose players in sequential fashion, switching order at the completion of each round. Before the fantasy draft begins, each owner is assigned a number (1 - 12 for a league of 12 teams) and this is the position that the owner picks in the first round and all odd-numbered rounds. In even-numbered rounds the order of draft selection is reversed; this means that the owner with the 12th pick also picks 13th (Round 2, Pick 1), the owner with the 11th pick also picks 14th (Round 2, Pick 2), etc. Each player can only be chosen once, so after a player is off the board he cannot be picked again.

The serpentine style of drafting is designed to equalize the value of each draft position. Typically, the 1st selection of the 1st round in the draft has the highest value, so to offset this owner must wait until the last selection in the scond round (24th overall) to pick again. Likewise, the 12th position of the 1st round is the worst spot of the 1st round, so this owner is awarded with the 1st pick in the 2nd round. Serpentine drafts are far and away the most popular form of drafting and it is a tried-and-true system.

Auction Draft

In an auction-based draft, each player is literally auctioned off and given to the highest bidding owner. Unlike a serpentine draft where owner have to select from the players remaining in the player pool, under the auction system each owner has an equal chance to land any and all players. Some people consider auction drafts to be fairer than serpentine drafts because any team can obtain any player if they play their cards right.

Draft Scheduling

It’s always best to draft as close to the NFL regular season as possible because every year key players inevitably go down with injuries during the pre-season. The closer the draft is to the regular season, the less of a chance that a team will lose a key player before the season even begins. In addition, numerous positional battles take place during the pre-season so the longer you wait to draft, the clearer picture you’ll have of depth charts around the NFL.

Conduct a Live Fantasy Draft

One of the best things you can do to build league camaraderie is schedule a yearly, live fantasy football draft. Live drafts are a great venue for discussing the upcoming season, talking smack about your victories from the previous season, and proving your vast fantasy knowledge to your fellow owners. A draft can be as elaborate or simple as you choose, depending on your budget, just be sure that your commissioner has done his homework and has a plan in-place before you begin.

Fantasy football drafts can be held just about anywhere: bars, restaurants, or even an owner's home. If your league owners are located in the same geographical region, one option could be to take turns holding drafts at each owner’s house. Even if one or two of your league members cannot physically attend the live draft, they could take part via an online draft room. If you’re contemplating pursuing this route, spend some time researching your fantasy service's "draft room" user interface to get famalier with how you and your remote users will enter picks as the draft progresses.

Thoughts on Auto-Drafting

If you cannot personally attend your fantasy football draft at the designated time, you may be tempted to "auto-draft". Through auto-drafting, the computer will make your selections for you using either your pre-defined player rankings or the default player rankings of the hosting service you’re utilizing. The problem with auto-drafting is that the computter chooses your players from a singular, linear list and cannot make logical decisions based on the players that are currently on your roster. I have seen a computer auto-draft 7 quarterbacks in a row for a team that couldn’t attend; the season didn't go well for this owner.

If you find yourself in a situation where you absolutely cannot take part in a fantasy draft, try to get another league member to choose your players for you. Provide them with a cheat sheet detailing your player rankings and give them a rough idea of which positions you'd like to target first. This is a favorable approach since your friend can use some type of judgment to ensure your roster has acceptable balance across all positions. Remember, not only is the majority of your success during the season a direct result of the draft, but fielding a completely un-manageable team (such as a team with 7 quarterbacks) is also unfair to the other members of the league. Use auto-drafting strictly as a last resort.