The Ultimate Guide to Your Awesome Fantasy Football Live Draft
Because if you’re going to end up with Mark Sanchez anyway, you might as well have a good time doing it.
It’s fantasy draft season, and all the rankers are a-rankin’. Most drafts take place over the interwebs, which, while convenient, is – in scientific terms – totally fucking lame. Sure, there’s plenty of ways to digitally spit in your friends’ faces, but it’s always preferable to be within actual striking distance when your pick gets snaked. And luckily for you, we’re here to tell you how to make your fantasy draft a home run. Sorry, a three-pointer? A goal? Oh, we got it: a boundary.
Where should you hold your bitchin’ draft?
– Your house: It would be awesome to do this whole thing so close to home, where you have your own stuff, dependable Wi-fi, and a bed to pass out in after it’s over, right? WRONG! Unless you want your house to end up as run-down as Terrell Owens current career status, we’d take this puppy elsewhere.
– A bar: You’re getting warmer now. Bars are built for debauchery, and none of your Grandmother in-law’s precious collection of crystal cherubs that were farted on by the original Secretary of Commerce are there for anyone to destroy. Plus, they have all of the booze!
– A hotel room: Now you’ve got it. Hotels will probably have better Wi-Fi than most bars, plus you can throw a chair at a fellow drafter without finding yourself out on your ass with a giant Samoan man standing over you, the same giant Samoan man who wouldn’t even let you get your DAMN SWEATER FROM INSIDE THE DAMN BAR. Just keep an eye on the mini-bar: $16 pistachios seem like a good idea after 20 beers, but when you’re playing American currency for them later, you may think again.
What delicious treats should you be stuffing into your face?
Now let’s cover what you should be shoving into your mouth, before we tell you what draft picks should be coming out of it. We could tell you what to eat, but we are also the folks who just ate a bowl of EZ Cheez mixed with hot whiskey for lunch. Instead, we asked the big guns what they prepare for their shin-digs:
Marc Murphy, Landmarc and Ditch Plains:
“I absolutely love pig wings. They’re the shoulder of the pig, so they have a lot more meat on them and they’re unique. My favorite sauce to use is the traditional Franks hot sauce with butter. It’s fantastic! Also, one of my favorite shortcuts for a great guacamole is to get some fresh haas avocados, mash them up and use a ready-made salsa verde. It’s so simple, easy and delicious.”
Daniel Holtzman, the Meatball Shop
“Growing up in my family, football season was a guy thing – an excuse to wear what we want, eat what we want, drink what we want, and be as loud as we want. When I think about football, I think about beer, chips, pizza, and wings. And I always make a ton of different hot sauces since they can go with everything.”
Tim Love, Lonesome Dove Bistro and Love Shack
“My Elk Sausage-Foie Gras Sliders with Blueberry Jam are memorable, easy-to-eat snacks that will keep people full and happy during your Fantasy Draft party. Impress your friends, and probably the next five people they talk to, with these bad-ass sliders. They are very masculine yet say ‘I’m a killer cook’ at the same time.”
John Stage, Dinosaur BBQ
“I love serving wings. My home-schooled BBQ chicken wings are simple – preheat your oven to 350F, take about 3½-4 lbs of chicken wings and season with 3 tbsp of our Red Rub (or your favorite seasoning). Cook about 30 minutes until wings are 160-165 degrees. Take wings out and turn your broiler on high. Coat wings with ¾ – 1 cup of Dino BBQ sauce (or your favorite BBQ sauce) and broil for 5-6 minutes until skin and sauce start to caramelize. Flip wings and broil for another 4 minutes. Flip again to blister and char the skin. Once they’re out of the oven, you can toss in the remaining BBQ sauce, or serve as is.”
Paul Kahan, One Off Hospitality Group
“It sounds kind of old-school, but I would do a different take on burgers, baked beans, and potato chips. I’d set up a build-your-own-burger bar with all the fixings: great mustard, ketchup, kimchi, jalepenos, pickled green beans, and brussel sprouts. Beyond interesting toppings, I’d put out coleslaw, simple homemade baked beans with bacon hot and bubbling out of the oven and good store-bought chips.”
Dale Talde, Talde and Pork Slope
“War room eats! Make it as real of a NFL war room as possible. Finger food only, quick bites, because quick decisions need to be made. Nachos, running back, sausage, quarterback, meat ball, wide receiver, tater tot, kicker. That’s how it should go. And lots of beer and whiskey.”
What should you be punishing your liver with?
It’s the draft, so there is really only one option for what you should be drinking: draft beer. The degree of awesome with which you get hammered on it is up to you, however. If you’re thinking small, you always could try to dig up a Heineken keg can from 5 (or so) years ago. These little guys were pulled from shelves when someone realized the number one thing that people like about kegs is that they hold a shit-ton of beer, not their stupid shape. The next logical step puts you at a 5 liter mini-keg. These are moving in the right direction, but are usually cashed by the third round, before even Peyton Manning is off the board. If you’re truly serious about getting stupid at your draft, you’ll invest in the Danby Draft Beer Kegerator (pictured above), which comes with everything you need out of the box and will still be pouring cold beer long after your friend joke-picked Aaron Hernandez in the last round.
How should you figure out who picks first?
Whether you’re looking for the best way to figure out your draft’s order, the latest Apple rumors, or unspeakably horrifying images, Reddit has you covered. This thread (as well as a few others not far away) drop some creative (and yes, also occasionally horrifying) ideas. Such as:
– “My friends and I go on chatroulette/omegle and whoever sees a wiener in the fewest clicks gets first pick. If you get female nudity before you get a wiener, you automatically get first pick.”
– “Mario Kart tournament.”
– “We do preseason pick’em. We pick the winners of the first three weeks of the preseason and then draft that last weekend. Whoever gets the most wins picks where they want to draft and so on.”
– “Everyone shoves a firefly up their ass. Turn off the lights. The first guy who farts and it glows in the dark gets first pick. The rest draw straws.”
– “We were randomly assigned Olympians in the women’s 20 km racewalk.”
What should you use to draft?
Getting together in the flesh just to sit and stare at your laptop (and talk in the chatroom, if you want to bring it up a notch) is completely antithetical to the whole point of getting all your smelly buddies into a room together. So invest in a draft kit, and make everyone notice that Stan just took an injured Rob Gronkowski in the second round (the mocking is so much more fun that way). Here are a couple of our favorites:
Bruno’s Draft Kit
Bruno’s offers a range of kits, along with apparel and other cool stuff. But the pièce de résistance is a laminated draft board, perfect for soaking in the beer from your freshly tapped keg, and perfect for re-use in future years. Because let’s be honest here, you are going to want to do this again.
CommishKit.com
These guys have been in the game for over 12 years now, and they include everything you need, including corrugated cardboard draft board, so when you drunkenly try to suplex Charlie around the 11th or 12th pick, it’ll survive. They also hold an annual “Hottest Fantasy Football Babe” contest, which in case you hadn’t noticed, is right up our alley.
Finally, and most importantly, who should you draft?
I don’t know, man. That’s up to you. I hear that Tim Tebow guy is pretty good.
Also check out The NBA Rookie Class of 2013 Talk About the New Season And Dunk On Each Other and The Manning Brothers Go Full Boy Band in Hilarious New Ad.
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