Mace’s Place

Yesterday was my fantasy football draft with the league made up of guys I grew up with. 9 of the 12 guys in the league all rolled out of bed, half hungover Sunday morning and strolled into Eric’s place for the beginning of what will be a thrilling season. The other 3 guys were conferenced in through the internet to make their selections. As always, when you get this group of our friends together, random thoughts, comments, and one-liners are going make the event that much more fun. Below are what I felt were the top 10 things said at yesterday’s draft in order of occurance:

About 20 minutes before the draft starts, Travis walks in from the bathroom with the following proposal: “I’ll trade a 10th round pick to anyone who goes to see what happened in there.”

The draft gets delayed about 30 minutes due to technical difficulties and a late GM, but just as things are about to get underway, Eric’s neighbor comes to the door. Eric, not happy with yet another delay, answers the door with, “Did somebody park wrong? What’s up.”

The draft is finally under way. Jason selects Larry Johnson with the first pick. Hogmire, conferencing in from Jacksonville through MSN Messenger, is now on the clock. For some reason, he’s taking too much time for the 2nd overall pick in the draft. That’s when it’s clarified with, “Hogmire takes the most time because he’s IMing 12 year olds to take their panties off.”

Another one of the conferencing GMs makes their selection of Chester Taylor. A few of us look around the table and look at our lists with confusion. Finally Travis pops up and says, “Chester Taylor… who the fuck is that? I’m happy with that pick.”

The first few rounds are done and people are starting to lose a little focus. Eric mentions that he still has WMU star Greg Jennings on his list. Howard replies, “If you’re going with Greg Jennings, I’m going with Kyle Jennings.” Then someone asks which Jennings has a better shot at playing in a Super Bowl. (for those that don’t know, Kyle is a country singer we went to high school with.)

Scott’s wife was around for the draft and she had asked why we have live drafts when Yahoo can just automate them. Eric’s politely responds with, “Live drafts are fun… you can fart and stuff.” Very fitting with the group of nine live drafters who were all out late the night before and were eating brats and nacho dip since a 3 half hour before the draft actually started.

Still in the first half of the draft, Bobby selects Matt Leinart. After an uproar over the selection of Leinart so early, Rolly says, “Who’d he pick? I thought we were only doing NFL!”

The bulk of the RB, QB, and WR stars had been selected, so it was time to move onto other positions. Then, Jeremy Shockey and Todd Heap go back to back. With a satisfying grin on his face, Travis says, “Ah, here come the tight ends.”

Worth mentioning: 7th Round intermission for half the drafters to sing Cool It Now by New Edition

By this time, we’re getting into the territory of some of the unheard-ofs. Along comes the selection of Dallas backup RB Marion Barber. Eric, not knowing who that is asks, “Marion Barber… wasn’t she the lady on Happy Days?”

The final rounds had arrived and people were rounding out their teams with kickers. Kurt didn’t have one and was scouring for who was left. Someone mentioned that Janikowski was still available. He comes back with, “I don’t like a kicker fatter than me.” But after a second thought, takes him anyway.