Often overlooked and underrated, how you choose to make your league’s draft order can set the tone for the entire season. Is this year actually going to be serious? Competitive? Fun? There’s a million different ways this can be done to spice up your league’s off season, it just depends on your particular league and it’s players.
But before you even start stressing about how to determine your order, you need to make sure to make sure you have the big day covered.
Grab a FantasyJocks Fantasy Football Draft Board early to avoid any shipping delays. Still need a trophy? My personal favorite are their Fantasy Football Rings!
Here are 12 fantasy football draft order ideas for the season!
1. Bet on a Sporting Event
Sports on sports on sports. My girlfriend most likely stopped reading after that previous sentence. The wait for football season is grueling. My brain needs an alternative stimulation to get through the dog days of summer. Luckily, there are plenty of exciting sporting events that take place in the months prior to your fantasy football league’s draft date. Some events that can be used:
- NCAA March Madness Bracket (March, duh)
- NBA Playoffs (May-June)
- NHL Playoffs (May-June)
- The Belmont Stakes (June)
- The Home Run Derby (Early June)
- US Open Golf Championship (June)
- Little League World Series (Aug)
Choose whichever sports event best suits your league’s and you’re ready for the draft order competition to begin. For the first three listed, everyone fills out a bracket; best bracket gets first choice at their pick. For the events that hold favorites like horse races and the home run derby, use your leagues final standings from the previous year. From last to first, have the league members choose whichever horse or slugger they would like until everyone has a contestant. You get the idea..
2. Beer Game Competition
If you’re anything like me, in that you’re friends are 50% human and 50% alcoholics. Is there a better way to decide your league’s draft order than through a drinking game tournament/competition? If you’re in college, that’s perfect, tensions will run high. Apparently, everyone is the best beer pong player in the history of their fraternity. If you received your bachelors before Justin Bieber became a full-grown woman, even better. It’s likely your league hasn’t gotten rowdy in some time and a good bonding experience can only help rally the league before the season begins.
Beer pong tournament anyone? Teams of two, once a team gets knocked out, those two individuals play 1-on-1 to determine draft order. Last team standing repeats the 1-on-1 game as well, vying for the top selection of draft spot. Maybe a giant game of flip cup is in order. Whatever sinks your submarine.
3. Video Game Tournament
If you like sports, you probably like video games; mindless activities help you get away from your own reality. Sorry, that was depressing. But, the good news is you can get the best of both worlds with this option.
Set up a tournament, with the game of your choosing. Whether it’s Madden, NBA 2K, Super Smash Bros, Mario Kart, James Bond: Golden Eye, etc. Doesn’t matter. To make it fair, throw 10 game choices into a hat and choose from that. Set up a tournament if the in-game settings allow, or simply create a manual bracket using pen and paper, then play to determine the champion.
Just make sure none of your friends are German, or French, or whatever these guys are:
Winner, as always, gets their choice of draft spot.
4. Wonderlic Test
Forget the SAT, the CPA and the GMAT. This is now the most important test of your life. The Wonderlic Test is often associated with the NFL draft process, a measure teams use to gage a player’s intelligence off the field. You can find a sample 50-question test at www.footballiqscore.com. Have everyone in the league take the test, highest score gets first choice of his or her pick.
*fun fact - Morris Claiborne scored a 4, the lowest by any NFL player in history.
5. Pick From a Hat for a Draft Order Lottery
Boring, yes. But it gets the job done when you can’t get everyone physically together to act out a draft order event. Just make sure one or two of your buddies can join you or simply take a video of the random picking so the rest of your league mates know you’re not pulling a Brady. I recommend using Ping Pong Balls for added realism.
6. Texas Hold-em Tourney
Anyone over the age of 35 should have a soft spot for this one. Gone are the good old days of losing half of your monthly salary to bots on PokerStars. But a good ole fashion fixed buy in Poker Tournament is the perfect way to not only steal some cash off your buddies but also decide your draft slot!
7. Hold a Reverse Draft/Draft
Everyone agrees the draft is the highlight of the season right? Why not hold 2? Let me elaborate. If your league has been around for at least 1 season already, then you can choose your draft slot in reverse order of the previous years standings.
Instead of automatically assigning a member the first pick, they get first CHOICE of his draft slot. Gives you a chance to strategize based on your keeper given our keeper rules.
8. Punt/Pass/Kick Competition
Self Explanatory. Grab a ball, find a field and bring something to mark each attempt. Quick and easy way to establish your slot. (Also a quick way to crush the self confidence of the lucky person to finish dead last)9. NFL/Fantasy Football History Trivia
This one takes a bit of prep work and needs to be administered by an independent and unbiased third party. You may need to incorporate some level of a drinking game to keep some league members awake.10. Cornhole Comp
Have league members line up in the reverse order of last year's standings and begin tossing beanbags at a Cornhole board from the same distance away. The first person to get the beanbag into the hole on the board gets to choose their draft spot first. Repeat until all draft spots are filled.11. Paper Air Plane Competition
Another simple and easy idea. Each league member constructs their own airplane, writes their name on it and then lets it fly as far as possible. All at the same time. Just be warned that you will probably waste close to an hour of your life "researching" on YouTube.12. Test your MANHOOD (our favorite)
Who’s the true alpha dog of your fantasy wolf pack? Find out once and for all. If you’re over the age of 30, you will probably concede that you may not be as full of piss & vinegar as you once were in your glory days. IE – your testosterone levels are probably nosediving like a plane without fuel.
Here is your chance to check in on your man health and also determine your draft order.
Have everyone from the league order an at home testosterone test kit.
Highest numerical score drafts first, lowest last (or reverse order, if you want to show some sympathy to the noodle armed choir boy who has the lowest score in the league)
Either way, your league will be armed with some fantastic trash talking material for the upcoming season.
5 comments
Andrew Backus
So we draw out of a hat but pick one then decides where they will pick in draft 1-12. Pick 2 then can choose any spot left etc. pick 12 gets last spot available.
So we draw out of a hat but pick one then decides where they will pick in draft 1-12. Pick 2 then can choose any spot left etc. pick 12 gets last spot available.
Snoh
I also try to come up with creative ways and we’ve done these:
Made a big board with different sized circles drawn on it (numbered 1-14 (or however many draft spots you have)).The best/most desirable draft numbers (1,2, 13,14, etc..) are in the SMALLER circles and are drawn in the more difficult areas of the board.
Then you get a football and put CHALK on the tip of it- THen you take turns throwing the football (from across the pool or yard about 20ft away) and have to hit your draft number with the football. This turned out excellent and is very exciting.
Another one we’ve done is like beer pong. Get 14 cups and place in a beer pong triangle formation on the table.
-Have a “Legend” that list/pictures the numbers (1-14 draft spots) on a separate sheet of paper and you put the cups (with 1 shot of liquor in each cup) where the draft numbers go.
Then you have to make the ping pong ball into the cup with the draft number that you want (place the more desirable numbers in the harder spots to hit It doesn’t even need to be a neat triangle – You can have the most desirable numbers in random/far out corners of the table). Worked great and everyone loves beer pong.
I also try to come up with creative ways and we’ve done these:
Made a big board with different sized circles drawn on it (numbered 1-14 (or however many draft spots you have)).The best/most desirable draft numbers (1,2, 13,14, etc..) are in the SMALLER circles and are drawn in the more difficult areas of the board.
Then you get a football and put CHALK on the tip of it- THen you take turns throwing the football (from across the pool or yard about 20ft away) and have to hit your draft number with the football. This turned out excellent and is very exciting.
Another one we’ve done is like beer pong. Get 14 cups and place in a beer pong triangle formation on the table.
-Have a “Legend” that list/pictures the numbers (1-14 draft spots) on a separate sheet of paper and you put the cups (with 1 shot of liquor in each cup) where the draft numbers go.
Then you have to make the ping pong ball into the cup with the draft number that you want (place the more desirable numbers in the harder spots to hit It doesn’t even need to be a neat triangle – You can have the most desirable numbers in random/far out corners of the table). Worked great and everyone loves beer pong.
Devin Dicus
The last couple years I have been setting the draft order based off of a NASCAR race. We are drafting on Labor Day Monday and normally the Bojangles 500 is that Sunday. You take the top 10 drivers in the standings and randomly assign them to teams however you wanna do that. How they finish during the race determines your draft order.
The last couple years I have been setting the draft order based off of a NASCAR race. We are drafting on Labor Day Monday and normally the Bojangles 500 is that Sunday. You take the top 10 drivers in the standings and randomly assign them to teams however you wanna do that. How they finish during the race determines your draft order.
James
Trevor, you’re a genius! I’m giving this “shooting blanks” game a try. Thanks for posting!
Trevor, you’re a genius! I’m giving this “shooting blanks” game a try. Thanks for posting!
Trevor Dawson
What’s up! I’ve spent lots of time this season AND last season, researching the net searching for a fun RANDOM way to choose a draft order. With my group of friends, it HAS yo be booze oriented! After searching and searching…I’ve found nothing but the some old stuff. I decided to invent my own way, it was a HUGE hit, and I thought I’d share it with you guys. I calk it “Shootin’ Blanks”. Here’s how it works:
Take the number of people in your league and multiply it times 4. We have 10, so our # is 40. So I took 40 small, shot sized, paper cups. On the bottoms of 10 out of the 40, I wrote numbers 1-10. Then placed each cup with a # into a cup without a number. This conceals the number so no one can see it. With the other 20 BLANK cups, I simply doubled them up stacking 1 cup inside another cup. Now I have 20 doubled up cups. 10 have hidden #‘s in them, 10 are " BLANKS". NOW THE FUN BEGINS! Everyone gathers around, picks a doubled up cup at random, fills it with a shot of their choice (I’m a whiskey man myself!) On the count of 3… DOWN IT GOES! Once the shots have been taken, everyone removes the inner cup and looks underneath it to reveal their draft order. Some will have #‘s…some will be "Shootin’ Blanks", and will have to do another round! Its a fun RANDOM, DRUNKEN way to pick your order, and sets the pace for a BLAST OF A DRAFT! You’re Welcome!
What’s up! I’ve spent lots of time this season AND last season, researching the net searching for a fun RANDOM way to choose a draft order. With my group of friends, it HAS yo be booze oriented! After searching and searching…I’ve found nothing but the some old stuff. I decided to invent my own way, it was a HUGE hit, and I thought I’d share it with you guys. I calk it “Shootin’ Blanks”. Here’s how it works:
Take the number of people in your league and multiply it times 4. We have 10, so our # is 40. So I took 40 small, shot sized, paper cups. On the bottoms of 10 out of the 40, I wrote numbers 1-10. Then placed each cup with a # into a cup without a number. This conceals the number so no one can see it. With the other 20 BLANK cups, I simply doubled them up stacking 1 cup inside another cup. Now I have 20 doubled up cups. 10 have hidden #‘s in them, 10 are " BLANKS". NOW THE FUN BEGINS! Everyone gathers around, picks a doubled up cup at random, fills it with a shot of their choice (I’m a whiskey man myself!) On the count of 3… DOWN IT GOES! Once the shots have been taken, everyone removes the inner cup and looks underneath it to reveal their draft order. Some will have #‘s…some will be "Shootin’ Blanks", and will have to do another round! Its a fun RANDOM, DRUNKEN way to pick your order, and sets the pace for a BLAST OF A DRAFT! You’re Welcome!