The Draft can be intense, exhausting and a bit intimidating at times. But there are always plenty of opportunities to harass your friends and co-owners for some mistake they make on draft day. Just make sure you don’t make one of these very common and almost inevitable draft day mistakes. It is almost certain that someone will make the following mistakes.

Here we go, in no particular order. Somebody…

• select a player who has retired. (Years ago, two guys were fighting over Barry Sanders TWO YEARS AFTER he retired because they heard a ridiculous rumour.)
• unknowingly select a player who is seriously injured. (If you read my other articles, you know I did it my rookie year in a league many moons ago. Well, it happens to all of us.)
• draft a QB RB and WR from the same team. (Don’t you love these assholes?)
• take the maximum amount of time to make a selection in the first round. (I realize you’ve only had 6 months to prepare, so take your time. After all, I know your choice in the first round is a tough decision.)
• being late to the draft, hung over, with no research, and drafting a monster team. (I hate these guys. It’s easier to win the lottery 3 times in a row, but every year there’s someone who pulls this off.)
• they select players according to their abilities in a scoring system that exists only in their head, they vehemently deny that they were ever told the rules, they complain when someone reminds them that they wasted a pick or picks, and they cry all the time. looonnnggg. (No need to say anything here. You already know who you are.)
• don’t take notes, don’t look at the draft board, and REPEATEDLY try to draft players who were drafted in earlier rounds. (This has to be my pet peeve; these guys are usually dead drunk by round 3. Do you honestly think Terrell Owens is still available in round 6?)
• mispronounce the name of each player they pronounce. (I realize Houshmandzadeh is a mouthful, but you hear it pronounced by sportscasters all the time. And Chicago RB’s name is pronounced “Matt For-tay” not “Matt 40”, LT is not LanDainlium, and the Maurice Jones-Drew’s full name is NOT “Drew Jones, that guy from Jacksonville”).
• show up with no money, bring no food (we always bring a covered plate each) burn everyone’s beer, blow smoke in your face with borrowed cigarettes, borrow your cheat sheets and do research (and then lose them) because obviously $8 is more than you that they could save up in six months to buy a guide and, in general, try with each opening of their cake to prove that they are more of an idiot than they were 10 minutes ago. (Don’t be that guy. Really.)
• pay for your sexy tuxedo girlfriend to play and then spend all day choosing for her. (No conflict of interest here, huh?)

These are by no means the only mistakes made on Draft Day, but they are some of the most memorable.
If you’d like to share some draft day horror stories with me, I’ll be sure to use them in future articles. Simply contact me at the email address below. Good luck on draft day and remember, don’t be that guy.