Meet the 7 Types of Fantasy Draft Guys
In order to defeat your enemy, you must first understand them.
As draft day looms for fantasy leagues, it’s important to understand how other teams will draft. And I’m not talking about legitimate draft strategies — I’m talking about the types of guys that will be at your draft. Ladies can absolutely qualify as one of these guys if they meet the criteria. Let’s dive in.
**Editor’s note**: At least 50% of these descriptions are me describing myself. Being obnoxious is not necessarily a choice. I was born this way.
The Pick Judge
“Love that pick.”
“Yikes — he’s in a dual RB system this year.”
“That’s a solid choice…in 2021.”
For some reason, this manager is under the impression that everyone needs their seal of approval on every single pick in the draft. This person knows the value of each player in the draft — but somehow went 5-8 last year. To make these comments somewhat tolerable, prior to the draft set a line (I suggest 3.5 picks) with the remaining members of your league to see how many picks in a row they can not comment on.
Shut up, Greg.
The “Thought He Would Fall” Guy
“Dammit, I wanted him!”
This guy seems to not have a firm grasp on the linear nature of time itself. They went into the draft thinking that they would simply get their pick of the litter, absent any other teams. They’re 12 picks back, Justin Jefferson is drafted and they think “I’d like to go on the record and say that I think that he’s a good player.” Any player drafted on their board (which is literally just all of the best players) is an injustice that must be announced to the league.
The Reverse Psychologist
Now here’s a guy who took AP Psychology in high school. As his pick approaches, he’ll do one of two things:
Start hyping up players that he wants other managers to take instead of his guy.
Trash his own guy.
Now, this is easy enough to spot early on. Veteran reverse psychologists will move quickly onto reverse-reverse psychology and simply announce their true opinions to the group. This is where it gets tricky. But really, why should you care about this guy’s opinion? You have gotta block out their noise and focus on your own squad — even as they move into triple reverse psychology. Unless your only goal is to ruin their squad. If that’s the case, get inside their head before they can get in your’s.
The “Draft Is Today?” Guy
Every commissioner’s worst enemy.
The “Model” Guy
This is a very specific type of guy who thinks of himself as an analytics expert — he throws out sabermetrics and acronyms like it’s his job. The model seems to lack some fairly critical features, such as:
Rookies & retired players
Players that have moved teams
Season-ending injuries
Anything other than the number of points scored last year
This will be the worst drafter of the group. But at least he’ll believe that he’s smarter than everyone else for a couple hours — and isn’t that what this is all about?
The Homer
The perfect person to be next to in the order. They’ve deluded themselves into believing that their favorite team will finally be good. They will handcuff, chain, stack, (and any other similar concept) players from their team. And who wouldn’t want every available piece of the high-octane Denver Broncos offense?
The Wildcard
It’s a fool’s errand to predict exactly what they will do year-to-year. But this person will do something that blows everyone’s mind. Shoutout to my co-worker Michael who I assume had the sort button set to descending and took Charlie Whitehurst in the 3rd round of the 2017 fantasy draft.