Addicts’ Draft Kicks off Season
FANTASY ADDICTS – Held on the night before Opening Day as it always has been since its first season in 2012, the annual Fantasy Addicts draft marked the transition in the Association from the draft season to the fantasy season. And true to form, it was an exciting draft to remember. Stretching for two hours through 32 rounds, the Fantasy Addicts draft is a real grinder, a marathon instead of a sprint, and as always, a rollicking good time. With 9 of 10 teams present, including the league’s two newest teams, Suspension Freaks and Kizzy’s Krackbacks – parkhallmark‘s The Great Khalil, based out of Malaysia was the only team not in attendance.
With a draft order that’s randomized just before the start of the draft, two-time Addicts Champion, monkeys on ecstasy sat at the head of the table and took David Johnson first overall to commence the festivities. At first and last in the draft order, were the league’s ‘professionals’. Picking number 1, monkeys on ecstacy holds at least half of all league records along with their two championships, and has a coach that once finished in the top percentages of a fantasy soccer league that was exclusively in Spanish….he doesn’t speak spanish or particularly know anything about soccer. Then, rounding out the rotation at 10th overall was the mysterious Coach Mighty Pats who has an ubiquetous presence in multiple AF Leagues and Tournaments under the same moniker with multiple first and second place finishes. Both of these two were all business, concentrating on personnel, and remaining absolutely silent for the duration of the event, Mighty Pats selecting the RB-WR duo of Melvin Gordon and Jordy Nelson at the first round’s turnaround.
The party at the draft tables between the monkeys and Pats, though, more than made up for those teams’ silence – it was filled with trash talk, inside jokes, player snipes, and generally unruly behavior; alcohol was allegedly flowing like Gatorade at the commissioner’s table. Acting as class clowns, Coach Crash of the Black Sheep and Dan “The Polish Rifle” Mayhoff of the Addicts’ rising power Orange Lantern Corp – 2016’s league runner-up – attempted to disrupt everyone’s concentration by keeping things rowdy throughout. Black Sheep snagged Le’Veon Bell from the third spot in the draft and then brought out the Muhammed Ali references when he appeared to be on his toes, staying a few picks ahead of everyone else through the early rounds – at one point letting it slip that he had cheat sheets on the other teams’ 2016 drafting habits from earlier Association drafts – but then fell ominously quiet through the mid rounds as he watched his IDP targets getting plucked up ahead of his turns. From the fifth spot in the draft order, OLC built their squad with Antonio Brown as their first pick, followed by a trio of high-upside running backs and a QB before being the first team to go after defenders, selecting the cream of the crop in the 6th-10th rounds while the rest of the league was still drafting borderline starters on offense. It was a masterfull strategy by The Polish Rifle: 1) joke with Texans superfan Houston Hostiles about stealing JJ Watt from him early in the draft 2) select Khalil Mack as the first defender off the board to sell the banter as just a joke 3) take Watt a round later to put together the best defensive tandem in the league and respond with a Super Villain laugh – MUAHAHAHA -at the Hostiles’ meltdown. OLC also managed to pick up Jason Pierre-Paul for a truly impressive trio of starting DE’s in a league where defense can literally win championships.
The Hostiles were picking from the 7th position and clowning it up almost as much as the Sheep and Lanterns. Their lead off swing was to select Devonta Freemon in the first, and though they missed Lamar Miller and JJ Watt, they did manage to secure DeAndre Hopkins and the Texans defense. At some point in the draft, Coach Crash’s nickname for his oldest rival, Uniballer, slipped out, along with the fell-out-of-a-tree-lost-a-testicle story, but the highlight moment of the entire draft had to be when the Hostiles stated that they’d “rather huff cunt”. He quickly claimed auto correct as the culprit, but the laughter was already out there. The Addicts’ only female, Coach Barb of the WhyNots, for her part, later said she was “glad to be one of the guys”. The WhyNots drafted from the 2nd spot of the order, and after leading off with Julio Jones at #2 overall, seemed to spend the rest of the draft either sniping players from, or being sniped by On The Rox who picked at spot 4…..that, and grabbing Jaguars and Lions where she could.
Defending Addicts Champion On The Rox, coached by Association Gold Star Award winner Rox, selected Mike Evans as the 4th player off the boards. As the newly installed Asst Commissioner of the Fantasy Addicts, attempted to bring a tone of decorum to the table, but there were LOL’s aplenty at the Sheep and Lanterns’ draftroom antics. The Freaks, coached by AF Registered Coach Shane Rocks seemed to fit right in to the party of snipes and smack talk that filled the chat applet, sitting at the 8th position and starting his squad with a LeSean McCoy pick. At the 9th overall draft position, Kizzy’s AF Registered Coach meigzoh appeared to follow the lead of the monkeys and the Mighty Pats and take a more serious tone as he began his Fantasy Addicts tenure with a money-in-the-bank pick of Aaron Rodgers at 9th overall. Neither Suspension Freaks nor Kizzy’s Krackbacks will have to wait long to see how their first FFAA draft played out, as the league dives right into Week 1 action with some great match-ups.
