Drunken GFY Fantasy Football 2012 Keeper Draft Recap

“Fu*k Roy Heelooo!” That was stated at the midway point of Saturday’s GFY Fantasy Football 2012 Keeper Draft. But I’m getting ahead of myself …

This draft happens to consist of myself, Jamey Eisenberg (CBSSports) and Eric Mack (SportsIllustrated.com) – notice how I put myself first? That’s ‘cuz I was writing Fantasy at CBS well before those two (Emack was in the newsroom initially). They both play on a (formerly CBSSports) softball team with me.

For those unfamiliar with our rittarded softball buddies, feel free to read over this primer. Many of us also take awesome baseball trips together to places like Boston/NY/Philly and Washington, D.C.

For the past few years, we’ve done a non-keeper Fantasy Football league, so this year we wanted to ramp up the fun and make it a keeper league. We also usually do our drafts at the bar after a softball game, but this year, we wanted to make an event out of the draft. And when the strip club couldn’t confirm the reservation, we decided to have it at George’s house (he has a pool).

The following pictorial should help tell the story of how the draft went. The first five or six rounds went great, but once we were officially inebriated (most of us), things came unraveled.

GFY Fantasy Football 2012 Keeper Draft

First, we needed everyone to show up on time, at 11am on a Saturday (Aug. 18). Why so early? No idea. I tried to get everyone to agree to at least noon, but someone (Dwyne) had a pedicure or something. So we had it at 11am.

Dwyne’s roommate, Dr. Joe, was nowhere to be found. After many phone calls, we gave up and decided to just draft for him (which basically meant he’d have a FAR better team than if he showed up in person.)

Secondly, after much discussion, we decided that the only players that were NOT keeper-eligible, will be the ones drafted in the first seven rounds.

Dan Goetz – we each call each other DG2. It’s so cute that he thinks he’s DG1. This was him grilling some awesome chicken wings. (RECIPE: Sprinkle garlic salt (with parsley) liberally over chicken wings, drizzle with olive oil, then grill for 20 mins on the grill and get a nice char. This was DG2’s greatest contribution to the world! Amazing wings!) He also kept trying to draft Jeff Demps too early, to which we all told him to just wait and he can have him late (He’s a Gators fan.) Finally, he ended up with Percy Harvin, Chris Rainey, Emmitt Smith and Demps.

After pretending to be worried about Dr. Joe, we finally found out that “his car wasn’t working,” so he wasn’t going to make the draft. Yeah. Right. If he means it won’t work because it’s at the bar and he’s at some chick’s house, then that makes more sense. And apparently, the Internet connection he uses worked off his car because he was unable to get online too. Finally, he blamed his car for why the Red Sox suck this year.

The laptops were set up under the patio roof. This was where a few of the guys hung out, away from the sun, near the beer and food, and near the CBSSports.com draft room.

George has this weird mini-podium  (left) next to his pool (guessing some pool stuff is in there? The pump? A huge diving board?) So I decided to hold court there as one of the three commissioners this league has. (I’m preseason rules guy, Jamey’s draft commissioner and Tresky is in-season commissioner. My god, we’re lazy.)

We had lots of discussions about making this a fun keeper league. We also wanted to incentivize it, so that people stay in it year after year. So I suggested what we did in another keeper league of mine – your yearly league fee is actually 150% of what it should be, and that extra you pay each year goes into a pot. That jackpot builds up for four years, and on that fourth year, it’s a Super Duper Bowl, with a payout that’s three times the normal amount. In other words, if you normally put in $50 each year, you put in $75 – then in Year 4, rather than a $600 payout, it becomes a jackpot payout of $1,800!

Only a few liked the idea, and everyone else was lukewarm. Emack was flat-out against it.

“I hate that idea,” said Emack. “I might not live that long!” This was said with two beers in front of him, an Italian sausage in one hand and a cigar in the other hand.

We agreed, and we didn’t feel like naming the league, “The Emack Memorial League,” so we dropped it.

On the left in the above picture, in the white tshirt, that’s Frank-O. He was the human draft killer.

• Every year, you could always count on this being said, AT LEAST 14 TIMES, “Whose turn to draft?” … “Frank’s.” And really, you only hear it 14 times because it’s once every round.
• He had a pick in the middle of the draft, which surely killed any momentum we’d get going around the turns. He was like a draft speed motorcycle cop.
• Frank-O prefers a 14.4 modem.
• Once, the time it took Frank-O to pick Lawrence Phillips actually outlasted Phillips’ career.
• Frank-O’s new nickname is Frank-Slow.

Strangely, Frank-Slow is also one of the lead programmers at CBSSports.com, and he was always quick to get something fixed when we needed it. Also, he’s from Buffalo. Not sure what any of that means. I can’t crack on him too much, though, since he got me beers and sausages and chicken wings and grilled drumsticks while I was in the pool. Frank-O is awesome!

There was this wasp’s nest right next to where we were drafting (George only had a week’s notice that we were drafting at his place.) To get rid of the wasps, George used one of those long automatic lighters that you use for grills or candles or what-not. He was either trying to smoke the wasps out, enrage them into a stinging fury or light their cigarettes. Kadoche also tried to karate chop the wasps (he has seen waaaaay too many cartoons).

The draft lottery was done this way: Rather than being selected to draft in a specific order, we allowed each owner to choose where they wanted to draft. So we did a lottery before the lottery, to decide who got to pick where they wanted to draft first. The funniest part – Eisenberg put names in the hat rather than numbers. So when someone drew, they pulled a name, who then got to pick where they wanted to draft. (Did I say that was the ‘funniest part’? Weird.)

My name was pulled first, so I got to choose where to draft. As you might recall, I’ve said all summer that the third pick in the order is the best place to draft this season, since you get the third of three great running backs and a higher second-round pick.

That’s me on the left, with Chuck and Tresky. Note the floating beer pong table, with the huge hump on the left side. That’s from when Emack decided to do a cannonball on it last year. He’s like the kid in the neighborhood that used to come over to your house, break stuff, and then asks, “Why do you always have broken toys?”

With three Fantasy Football writers (Emack, Lamey and I), and a handful of guys that used to/still do work at CBSSports.com (Frank-O, Tresky, Dwyne, Kadoche), there’s always a lot of good Fantasy banter going around after our softball games and during the drafts. I swore I was going to remember some of it for you (like how Jamey thought LeGarrette Blount was good and I disagreed vehemently), but the beers made me forget.

I do remember, however, Emack doing 20 minutes on guys with thick legs. “You know why I like Jacquizz Rodgers?,” said Emack. “Because he has thick legs. I love players with thick legs. Ray Rice has thick legs. Maurice Jones-Drew has big, thick legs. Michael Turner, too. Barry Sanders had thick legs …”

It went on like this for quite a bit, with Jamey and I just staring at him.

NOTE: Jimmy, Chuck, Tresky and Dr. Joe are all Patriots fans.

Jimmy picked up BenJarvus Green-Ellis in the fourth round, to which Chuck commended him on his pick. Then, in Round 6, Jimmy and Chuck found out that BJGE now plays for the Bengals. Chuck looks over at Jimmy in the pool, holding a beer, “Dude, did you know the Law Firm moved to Cincinnati?” He did not.

Here’s the thing about Patriots fans, and Boston fans in general over the past decade – they suck to play Fantasy sports with. They suck because they always draft their players too early, but their players reward them by being awesome and outplaying their draft slot (see Tom Brady, Wes Welker and Rob Gronkowski last year).

If I drafted nothing but Buccaneers every season, I’d likely be a horrible, horrible Fantasy Football owner. It’s not fair!

It was after this point, as the beers settled in and the sun beat down, and mostly everyone stayed in the pool, like big, chubby crocodiles, only poking our heads up to make a pick or to sip our beer, that Chuck got grumpy.  It was his turn in the middle rounds, and he asked which RBs are available. Someone offered up the Redskins second-year tailback, to which Chuck famously announced, in a strong Boston accent, “Fu*k Roy Heelooo!”

Of course, he ended up taking Helu anyway.

Remember how I mentioned Frank-O took forever to draft? He also pulled this one on us:

• In Round 6, Frank-O took QB Eli Manning. No complaints there. Then, in Round 7, he took rookie QB Robert Griffin III. We said, “Frank, why would you take RG3 there? The NEXT round is the keeper round.” And he replied, “I know! I took him so no one else could grab him as a keeper! You’re welcome!”
• When his eighth-round keeper pick came around, and he took his customary 40 minutes to make his pick, I yelled, “Hey Frank, Robert Griffin the Fourth is available!” That got some good laughs. Then I peed in the pool.

Jamey actually had some family stuff to go to later in the afternoon, so he had a vested interest in this draft finishing as quickly as possible. If he didn’t do the stickers, the other 11 drunk guys would have taken forever doing it. So kudos to him for stepping up! (Oh, and he’d run inside and get me beers when I needed them! GOOD GUY!!!)

As far as my team is concerned, yeah, I waited much, much, much too long for a QB. But when you have the Frank-Os and the Joeys and the Kadoches drafting three apiece, I figure I’ll be able to snatch one up off of waivers for cheap. Or I can trade a WR for one. Michael Crabtree’s lookin’ pretty gooooooood!!

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this draft recap – and follow along with us through the season. I plan to recap what happens after our softball games at the bar. I’ll do this for two reasons – 1. Some solid Fantasy Football minds are gathered for some beer and wings and chatter. 2. We’re a bunch of jackasses that say some funny stuff once in a while.

As far as the league, yes, Jamey’s team is loaded for bear. Here’s a link to the GFY Fantasy Football 2012 Keeper Draft results and a list of each team’s roster. He had the advantage of the first overall pick, not being drunk, and getting paid to research stuff all day. If he doesn’t win this league, we will mock him mercilessly.

(Or if he doesn’t win, either way.)