The Draft Manifesto: 10 Fun Ways to Determine Your Fantasy Draft Order

For many, draft position is one of the most important elements in determining the success of a fantasy team.  Some managers believe getting the number one pick and locking down the most valuable player in the league is a must.  Others covet the middle picks so they can avoid runs.  Some weird managers want the #12 pick so they can go back to back.  Regardless of what pick you end up getting, there can be fun found in how you determine which pick you get.  Sure, you can have ESPN randomly assign picks or you can draw playing cards, but you also could spice it up with one of the following options:

Use Another Sport:  Randomly assign F1 drivers, or Belmont Stakes horses or NBA draft prospects or American Century Championship golfers (or something similar) to each manager.  The order that they finish (or get picked) is the draft order.  

Let Madden Decide:  Randomly assign each manager an NFL team and randomly set a bracket.  Sim the games and let the 1st place winner pick his draft position first.  Second place picks second and so on. 

March Madness:  Have everyone fill out a March Madness bracket.  The winner gets to choose their draft spot first and then follow on down the line.  Obviously, you’ll need to set a tie breaker (most lower seeds picked?).

Hide and Seek:  Play a big game of hide and seek.  Have a neutral party (not involved in the draft) be the seeker.  First person found picks their draft spot last (or picks last), last person found picks their draft spot first (or picks first). 

Fantasy Playoffs:  Before the NFL playoffs, have each manager choose a starting line up from the available teams (or have a draft using the reverse order of the final league standings).  Using your scoring system, keep track of the fantasy points scored by each team.  You can do this as a one week competition or add up the points throughout the playoffs.  The team with the most points picks their draft position first and so on.

Pizza Parlor Tickets:  Each manager gets $20 to spend at an arcade (John’s Incredible Pizza/Chuck E Cheese/Dave and Busters) that gives tickets for playing games.  Whomever earns the most tickets with their $20 gets first choice of draft position.

Door Dash Race:  Have each manager Door Dash something to the draft.  The person whose food arrives first has first pick, the person whose food arrives last gets last pick. 

Reality Show Decides:  This is a long play, but randomly assign each manager a contestant from a reality show (Survivor, Amazing Race, Big Brother).  The reverse order of when their contestant gets kicked off is their draft position. 

The Wonderlic:  Download the sample questions from the Wonderlic (30 questions. 8 minutes) and have each manager take it.  Highest score picks their position, lowest score gets what’s left over. 

Match Madness:  Each person in the league buys a one month Tinder Gold account (unless they already have one).  Have AI create female versions of everyone based on their picture.  Create a Tinder bio with the AI generated picture.  Tally all the right swipes at the end of the month. The person with the most swipes gets first choice of position, the ugliest dude gets what’s left over.