Know that it’s too late. This is a league of absolute grinders. Definitely not a situation where half of us are just going off a draft list made by a reputable website. No. Everyone here has a full legal pad of notes and eight iterations of rankings, dated and notarized. People who know ourlads.com is the only place to go for depth charts. People who are definitely aware that Allen Robinson plays for the Steelers, and more specifically that he plays a position called big slot, which they’re also well aware of the need for the modifier big and the general location of the slot on a football field. You’re fucked. Just draft off the default rankings and throw your hands in the air.
Give up. You’re not going into this draft prepared to absorb value as Brandon Aiyuk gets drafted 26th among WRs despite finishing 16th at the position last season, while Deebo is drafted 16th among WRs despite finishing 39th. Don’t waste your time with that. Remember Deebo was that dude two years ago. Remember he revolutionized football and now every team tries to replicate his impact from that season. Forget that he was outscored by Donovan Peoples-Jones, and don’t even bother looking up who that is.
Instead, enjoy yourself. Take these approaches to making your draft memorable and fun.
Covet thy neighbor’s roster. Use your picks to unsettle the person next to you. Ignore your needs. Look at your neighbor’s bowl, see what’s missing, and take an extra serving of that from the communal plate. There is not enough food to go around. In this context, depriving others is equivalent to nourishing yourself.
Filibuster. Name names. Spend your entire time on the clock just rattling off names of available players, good and bad, just to get the next person overthinking. Overthinking leads to the best bad picks. I know from experience, drafting Kyle Pitts over Mark Andrews just last year. Did you know Drake London was a top-10 pick? Aaron Rodgers forced the Jets to sign Allen Lazard for like 13 million dollars a year. Bill Belichick has been trying to sign Juju for years and finally got him. The Pats and Titans were in a bidding war for DeAndre Hopkins. Calvin Ridley is already 29 years old. Adam Thielen is the 63rd highest paid WR in the league. The Bills did not sign any direct competition for Gabe Davis. Derek Carr throws a better deep ball than people realize. Never stop talking.
Trade up. There are like 55 good players. Ignore value and go get good players. Yes, picking up Romeo Doubs at like Pick 150 and watching him score in the top 100 is cool, but he’ll average like two points per game over the guy actually scoring 150th. Make that Doubs pick. But rounds earlier, when Christian Watson is falling to the mid-fourth, throw a 5th and a 9th out there and see what happens.
Trade down. Take more bites at the apple. No it’s not a contradiction. It’s the best of both worlds. It’s having your cake and doing and American Pie to it. Why draft Derrick Henry’s old ass when you could have both Lions’ RBs for the same price? Everybody knows when a team is good at running the ball, you want to start both of their RBs.
Reach. Seriously, don’t get caught up chasing value or waiting for value or whatever people do so they can say oh I got Jeff Wilson in the 8th Round and he’s the Dolphins’ starter now, and all I had to do was keep passing up better RBs because I didn’t like their price and then watch someone else draft them before they got back to me. But hey, I have Dallas Goedert and DeVonta Smith at value because of it, so… Snap out of it. Bijan Robinson is a generational talent. You trade up into the top five to get him, and you give up a top-five IDP pick to do it.
Ramble. Ask if a very retired player is still in the league, and then tell a story about something he did six years ago. Do it while someone is getting down below 20 seconds to pick.
Critique. Not right after someone makes their the pick, but about two picks before their next one. And critique a pick from two rounds ago. Mention how that’s not even the best player on that team, and drop a bunch of names of players drafted since that would have been better. Do it with food in your mouth.
Remember that the draft is forever, and it is your only chance to have a good season. Put all of your eggs in this basket. Get legitimately angry when someone picks a player you wanted. Get worked up the point of becoming sullen and despondent and accidentally fucking up your next three picks, and then complain about it for the back 30 minutes of the draft, interrupting other people when possible. Then also clog the chat throughout the year with, “But it would have all been different if I hadn’t drafted Michael Pittman and Anthony Richardson back to back.” It would have been different, and it’s important for you to remind us. Thank you.
Collude. This is key. Break the one rule we have. Test our mettle as a league. People keeping QBs, we should agree in advance to draft QBs early, and if one of us reneges, everyone gets to slap that person next time we see them—which, holy shit can we discuss the misogyny of the slap bet? Like, does anyone dare make a slap bet with Shelby and intend to win it? Is this patriarchy? Are we all Ken? Yes this is my second ad for Barbie in as many weeks. Watch it in theaters. Know that it’s not a perfect movie.
Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. Which is just solid life advice.
Here, have a look at my top 12 rankings, to get an idea of the first round (not including likely keepers):
1. Christian McCaffrey
2. Bijan Robinson
3. Derrick Henry
4. Justin Jefferson
5. Ja’Marr Chase
6. Austin Ekeler
7. Nick Chubb
8. STA (MIA)
9. Mike Evans
10. Darren Waller
11. Stefon Diggs
12. Jameis Winston
Draft rookies early. The rookie boom is not an NFT. It is real. You can feel it between your fingers. Multiple rookies are going to score in the top 20 of every position for the rest of time, especially role players like Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Zay Flowers, and Quentin Johnson. Jahmyr Gibbs at 200 lbs. soaking wet is for sure worth a top-20 pick splitting snaps with David Montgomery, in an offense that made Jamaal Williams a league-winning RB. Book it. Anthony Richardson can run fast at 6’4 240; he will definitely outscore perennial QB11 Kirk Cousins this season. Bryce Young at 5’10 195 pounds is a close second and also guaranteed to outscore Kirk.
Autopick is underrated. Default rankings are undefeated. You have more time to get a beer, change a diaper, have a pillow fight, argue with your spouse, holler at bitches on Tinder, rewatch Bijan Robinson’s first carry, find out who Sabrina Carpenter is, make a mojito, read the lyrics of Kanye’s Yeezus and realize he was going one level deeper than you thought in 2013, invest in UV teeth cleaning technology, order someone else DoorDash but make it something WEIRD, create a Threads account, talk shit, talk lots and lots of shit, preferably with food in your mouth. But make sure you disable autopick after every autopick so that every autopick takes the full 90 seconds and we aren’t even sure it’s a bit until the third time you do it because Cardi B famously said, “Drain the clock, not the cock,” and all of those words are relevant to points I’ve made thus far.
Fumble the bag. A fumble scrum is the most exciting play in football and definitely not, like, all the evidence you need that men are the inferior sex. And everybody chasing that bag, son. So you take the initiative and let that shit drop. Because like J. Lo said, “This city, this whole country is a strip club. You’ve got people tossing the money, and people doing the dance.” At least one of those groups of people is giving up something valuable that someone else is taking. There’s a lesson for all of us in there.
Finally, most importantly, and I cannot stress this enough
