Like most of you, I play fantasy football. Out of all the leagues I play in, one keeps my attention each and every day, all year long. This league is made up of a group of friends from college, a random assortment of guys who happened to somehow come together in our freshman year at the University of Tennessee and formed an intramural team. We played every sport we could back then. Some we were better at than others, but we played anyway.
After college, we all went our separate ways and lost the same frequent contact. This fantasy league brought us back together and now I talk to these guys more than any other friends on a regular basis. But that’s enough of the sappy crap.
This story is really about what may be the worst draft in the history of fantasy football.
Admittedly, I’m an asshole. I am that guy who always has something smart to say to most comments in our group. Sometimes I stir the pot, a lot of times the pot stirs me, but that’s who I am. This episode is not about me, though. This one centers around a friend who we’ll call “Teet.”
Teet, like me, can be a bit of an ass, loves to remind everyone that he won fantasy seven years ago and that clearly makes him the superior player. Last year he drafted Greg “The Leg” Zuerlein in the 9th round just to watch him shank a kick during his last ditch effort in the first round of the fantasy playoffs. This was easily my favorite moment of that season,.
This season, after much debate, we decided to have two keepers in our league. The one caveat to this was that we gave one guy, we’ll call hm “Teach,” the rights to Le’veon Bell since he drafted him last year before his ridiculous holdout and then dropped him at the end of the year. We also agreed pre-draft trades could happen, but none of us were too concerned about it.
About a week before the draft, Teet started expressing his desire to keep Baker Mayfield as one of his two keepers. Luckily, our commissioner, known affectionately as “The Snake,” is able to look up our rosters from each year. Lo and behold Teet did not in fact have Mayfield on his team at the end of the season. In fact, Mayfield was a free agent.
So, what does Teet do next? He picks up Mayfield from the free agent pool and tries to pretend that Mayfield was on his team all along. This is when the shit hits the fan.
Teet’s argument: Just like in real football, why is every available free agent not fair game during the off-season?
The rest of the group: You can only keep and control your team’s roster from the end of the previous season.
So, the battle rages for a week, every single day, over and over and over again. Finally, Teet relents and decides to follow the rules and select two keepers from his previously established team. I will let you decide which two players you would have kept from this list of his players:
Guess what? You’re wrong, he didn’t keep DeAndre Hopkins! He let him go. Instead, he kept JuJu Smith-Shuster and George Kittle. George freaking Kittle instead of DeAndre Hopkins!
Fast forward to draft day. You guessed it, with the first pick De’Andre Hopkins is gone. The next two players drafted are Devante Adams and Antonio Brown. Now it’s Teet’s turn, he has options, Travis Kelce (he kept Kittle)? David Johnson? No. Keenan Allen? No. Dalvin Cook? No. He didn’t choose any of these players available. Instead he chose Baker f’ing Mayfield!
I guess it was his way to get back at us for blocking his free agent pick up. Who knows what the motivation was. Nonetheless, after 3 rounds Teet has Mayfield, Smith-Shuster, and Kittle. His team spiraled out of control and landed him in dead last, according to ESPN’s draft analysis.
Stay tuned for what will most certainly be a dumpster fire of a season in Our League.
As always, Go Vols, even if we pay a team $950,000 to come beat our ass at home.
