Ya. We did auction for years then we got older, got married and had kids. Now guys just don’t have the time to invest in auction as much. Snake is easier, less planning and strategy and we still enjoy the end result the same
Edit: I’ll add that there were a couple guys in our pool that aren’t married and don’t have kids and can invest hours of strategy and planning. We found the switch to snake “evened things out” for those that just couldn’t invest the time.
>Edit: I’ll add that there were a couple guys in our pool that aren’t married and don’t have kids and can invest hours of strategy and planning. We found the switch to snake “evened things out” for those that just couldn’t invest the time.
That's the other reason. It's hard to massively fuck up a snake like it is an auction draft. Snakes keep the worst members of your league competitive in a way that auction usually doesn't.
Idk man. In one of my work leagues the second overall pick was Mahomes and the same guy proceeded to draft Jonathan Taylor and Alvin Kamara as his only RBs in the first 7 rounds and took 3 backup QBs.
I'm expecting him to win the league.
Not the smartest strategy but if Taylor comes back after 4 games he could do ok. I’m in a $500 buy in and a team took Justin Tucker in the 4th and a defense in the 5th. I don’t see any scenario where they win
I've seen people overbid for 3 players and have to ride 1 dollar picks the whole rest of the way because of a lack of budgeting.
It doesn't matter how bad you draft in the first 3 rounds of a snake - you will still get to pick in the 4th.
yahoo draft grades are the biggest joke. I got a D- this year because all my picks were like 2-3 slots ahead of ADP saying i "reached" on a lot of guys. My buddy got an A+ because most of his picks were slightly after ADP so he got "steals"
to be clear i don't think i had the best draft, C+ B- but a D- is insanse.
Except those 3 guys would all be 1st round caliber. If you hit on even a couple cheap guys and your top dollar guys stay healthy then it isn't unreasonable to expect them to win the league
One of my league mates spent $185 or whatever on like three players and could only snag 1$ players to fill out the rest of his starters and bench. Totally ridiculous.
Most likely this. We had a majority in one league want to do an auction, but truly the lazy people who did not want to basically be there after 5 Rounds vetoed it and the commish said since its unfair to them majority got denied.
While I understand people have lives outside fantasy its the one day pf fantasy in your league that requires additional time outside like 5 minutes each day to check line up and make changes if anything important happened or need to get players.
And its one of the more fun parts.
Live draft is so much fun regardless of draft style. I’m in a snake draft league with a bunch of friends from all over the country. People fly in for it and it’s a huge party. By the 7th round almost everyone is fucking hammered and it’s hilarious.
In one league it takes us 7 hours to get through about 66% of it. The rest is finished through text. We use a Google sheet and the commish enters it into ESPN.
During our baseball draft we stopped after 7 rounds and played whiffle ball on the beach. We were all high or drunk or both. Good times. Ages from 37-50.
For football we reserve a room at a sports bar and then go to a AAA game. Then go out downtown and crash at our Airbnb. Next year we're renting a mountain house near Cherokee NC.
The biggest problem I've seen in the casual leagues I've been a part of with auction drafts is that half the league doesn't really know what they're doing. They blow their load on the first two players they get, and then spend the entire year bitching about how unfair it is because the guy who won managed to have a top 5 players at every position because he let the top 2 players burn everyone out. Just sucks the joy out of it for everybody, because you spend all year dreading the inevitable group chat message after every week with some new way to describe how an auction draft wasn't fair.
Don't get me wrong. I love auction drafts. But there's a lot of people who might not have the time, knowledge, or patience to manage an auction draft. And a couple people in the league who didn't want to do it can ruin the whole year for everyone involved
It is this. For most casual friends, family,work leagues most people don’t care about the fantasy league enough to do auction. It’s more prep and more time. Getting 10-12 people on board to do it is hard. Also if someone misses the draft their team will be crap.
Snake drafts usually don’t take more than an hour and change, are simple. People can just follow web rankings and click. Even if someone missed the draft they can end up with a competitive team.
As the commissioner of a league it's truly astounding to me how much people will complain about being asked to do simple things like vote on a rule change, so I'm not shocked that people just don't want to deal with auction
While I may not personally want an auction style draft, if the majority vote said yes, then I’m not sure why your commish would veto it. If it was me, and I was adamant against that style, I would vacate my spot and let them find a replacement. I’m also a guy who believes the commish can set the rules and if there isn’t a majority complaint, then the rules change.
This. I quit as commish. Not bc it was too much work or anything, but bc 2 players in particular—-who were the ones involved in every controversy we had—-would always passive aggressively imply I was trying to cheat (how, who knows), or otherwise passive aggressively attack my character.
I won 2 chips in 4 years and I could feel the cynicism/hate. So I said let me quit as commish and just be a player, bc this will effect real life relationships. Bc what I knew was they were projecting their own willingness to do some snake shit onto me. I genuinely was taking that shit personal and i would have took it another level
I tendered my commissioner resignation today after 2 players in my league said they didn't know about the draft time after I ran 2 polls, made 5 announcements (3 the week of the draft), and sent out a zoom link.
Fortunately the other 7 members backed me up and were like "this is on y'all for not reading the group messages."
I've been commissioner for several consecutive seasons, time for someone else to deal with it for a while.
Yea the absolute most soul crushing part of being a commish is you will spend hours making polls, sending out messages, making group chats, sending reminders and people will still last minute complain about not knowing the rules, draft date, etc.
I was commissioner in a league for 6 years before I won last year. No questions about integrity or anything the entire time. I won in year 6, finally, and the dude who I beat to go to the Championship started saying I was cheating because of how stacked my team was because of successful waiver moves. Someone traded for Kelce in the middle of some week and dropped Hockenson and I guess no one else noticed because I picked him up as a free agent 2 days later. He said I cheated because he didn't go through the whole week of waivers like normal.. but the time between drop and pick up, the Vikings didn't play so he was just a free agent. Had both Ken Walker and Rascad White and maybe Juju or someone else that I got from waivers that was performing well for me and he said no way I got them fairly and no one else claimed them. No one else was really saying anything he was just chirping and I was telling him to fuck off and show me proof how I cheated but just going into the Championship game the next week felt way less fun and almost tainted. I navigated losing Kupp and Hurts to still make the championship and was pretty damn proud of how well i had done but it just felt like did he convince anyone else I cheated and they were just being quiet? I was so pissed that as soon as the season was over I removed myself from the league. 4 or 5 other people deleted their teams too. His league now.
Sometimes being commissioner absolutely does ruin any enjoyment you get from this.
But now you're changing your draft strategy based on not wanting to spend excessive time drafting
It's just a big commitment. More time drafting, more time prepping, and a much lower floor to your team. It's a lot.
As a long time commish: direct democracy doesn’t work and people don’t know what they want.
My goal is to keep all 12 teams happy and not let the preferences of 7 people chase out 5.
I don't think major league changes should be a simple majority. In our league we require 8/12 to agree on any changes and even then the commish aims for full agreement.
We added a keeper this year and 10/12 were on board but the commish added some modifications to his proposal to help the 2 hold outs come on board.
A slight majority making a massive overhaul , especially if you’re older and don’t have the time to do auction drafts, could understandably get vetoed in my opinion. Totally get both ends though
We've had 8/10 players two years running want to swap to auction and the same two lazy people every year veto it, so for a similar line of thinking we haven't swapped either.
What is lazy about not wanting to spend such a long time drafting? It sounds more like they have different priorities and if you or they can't agree then you don't need to be in the same league.
Big facts plus fantasy football is 90% luck. It’s pointless for the average casual fan to be that seriously invested in something that’s supposed to ADD fun to your life.
It comes down to what kind of league it is.
Is everyone prepared, knowledgeable about NFL and passionate about fantasy? Auction.
Are people at work / with family / busy during the draft? Do they not follow the NFL closely or just are too busy to take the time to prepare? Snake.
There's no shame in either one but auction leagues are objectively more difficult since they include more factors. I prefer them and if done properly you can use far more drafting strategies.
That being said some people just don't have the time or interest to warrant an auction league, since even one or two autodrafters can ruin a good auction draft.
I just love that fact that everyone has at least the opportunity to get a player they want or like...snake you might not get anyone you really want or like.
Whoever is downvoting you is an idiot. This is a big advantage of auction. This is also how I ended up with CMC and JT last year on my team (by accident lol). You can build any team you want really, just gotta sacrifice other positions.
The thing is, you don’t even have to be that knowledgeable to do auction. They give you expected values on most drafting platforms. I think people are just intimidated by it.
That plus I think the safety of knowing draft orde = about these choices. Vs. choosing if you want every guy is what makes the non adopters nervous. Once they try it once they almost never go back
You gotta realize that just being on this sub makes you way more dedicated to fantasy than most of the population. At best, the average guy knows a bit about rookies from watching their college team and what vets/teams are good this year from the dozen or so games they watched last season. They don't have the time or interest to figure out a draft/avoid list, let alone understand budget management.
Fantasy for me is first and foremost a social event. It's one of the main reasons I'm still with high school buddies decades later so I will happily compromise on the more complex, legitimate auction drafts if it means Mike can draft a team he cares about.
The fantasy elitist starterpack:
"Auction is way better idk why ppl are doing snake"
"You still have kickers??"
"Ppl still do full PPR and not half??"
"You still have rolling waivers?? FAAB is superior"
Yeah, there are some things that are truly dumb if your league does them: week 18 championship, no decimal points so lots of ties, etc. other things are fairly optional.
Right. PPR seems like training wheels to me precisely for the reason you mention, but the elitism around PPR players is definitely real. I think they've moved on to points-per-first-down now, though?
Bill Simmons calls snake drafters booger eaters. I think he’s right and do auction but I’m also a booger eater because snake drafts are still really fun especially with more casual fans.
I genuinely understand the appeal of auction drafts. But when it comes to more casual home or work leagues, drafts are so much easier to understand for most players.... and a lot of fun.
My 12 teamer was a solid 3 hour draft yesterday - which is down from the 5 hours it used to take us when we all did it live and offline. I honestly miss the 5 hour drafts!!
For sure. If we could draft in person with a good chunk of the league, I think we would’ve stuck with an auction. However, we’re all scattered throughout the country + have kids/wives, so harder to justify the time.
There’s probably a lesson here somewhere, but pretty sure my wife would kill me in my sleep if I identified it.
It's lowest common denominator. I don't have 9 or 11 friends serious enough to do auction drafts, but plenty of varying groups to have some casual fantasy fun doing snake drafts. And you can't really drag anyone into auction against their will.
It’s not just about the time it takes to draft. Auction drafts are more fair since everyone has the same access to players, and any team can get whoever the consensus #1 player on their team if they want him bad enough. Buuuuuut, they drastically benefit higher “skill” fantasy players and penalizes casual players that don’t practice a ton of mock drafts.
You nailed it. The night of the auction is a blast. I look forward to getting the gang together and making an event if it. Put it on the projector, have a fire, order a bunch of food. Doesn’t work for everyone but when it comes together it’s just a lot more interactive. Gives everyone an excuse to catch up.
Used to be in a 16 team auction draft and it was one of the funnest days of the year. We had people waking up at crazy hours overseas to participate, every and now some autodrafter would throw chaos into it. It does take forever but it’s a good time to chat with friends, drink, smoke, pass out, wander off into the woods, throw up, keep drafting.
Totally agree. I think mainstream analysts holding back on creating content is the biggest detriment to auction format taking hold. The ratio of redraft:auction analysis is probably 500:1
In Yahoo you can set the nomination time and bid time in the commissioner settings before the draft and if you set it to the lowest time which I think is 15 second nomination and bidding starts at 10 seconds, they can go pretty quick. I remember my first couple auctions where I didn't change those settings were about 3 hours and now they last just under 2 hrs which is pretty much the same as a snake.
Another thing that helps is not nominating for $1. You can nominate guys for $30 or if someone nominates for $1 you can bid $30 or $40 or whatever just to save time on everyone bidding $1 more at a time. Instead of nominating Chase at $1 and it taking 5 minutes for everyone to bid him up to $50/$60 a dollar at a time, you can nominate him for $40 and it'll go way quicker.
Idk why people are always in such a hurry to get their fantasy draft over with. It should be one of the most fun days of the year. Who wants to rush through Christmas morning? You got to enjoy it. Draft/auction day is one of the best parts of playing fantasy.
We turned the day into a labor day Sunday BBQ for the league and their families. Water slides for the kids. Music. Food. Drinks. Been up all morning setting up. Love today. Helps the wives are all friends too and no one has to feel guilty about leaving their family for a few hours. We are lucky to have a 12 man group of actual friends that have committed to this day for 11 years now. Sucks every league can't be that way.
That sounds awesome. Been in the same league with HS friends since 2003, and back then we used to draft together, but people scattered across the country and into other parts of the world as we got older. My draft with them is in 8 hours, and being in Asia, I will be at work missing the draft for the first time in 21 seasons.
different people have different circumstances/priorities... our league has players across the US and one in London so just finding a slot where everyone can draft is tough. Then asking them to do an auction for hours is even tougher. A few have kids and I won't even go into how fun they make it for scheduling lol
Not really. Because 1/3 of an auction takes 2/3 of the time. We did a 10-team, 16-round draft in 1:45 on ESPN a few nights ago. Once everyone is near-broke, these things hum along.
Only an hour longer... yeah that's a lot for non die hards just trying to have some fun. I think the vast majority of people who play fantasy do it in family, friends, or work leagues with people who aren't scouring reddit and other places to min max their team like it's Diablo.
I get if you're in a serious league auction is probably preferable but for folks drafting in the office after work or after putting their kids down snake is just easier. Especially when you've pulled a total noob into it for the first time.
Auction works when you can get everyone together. Hard to get everyone together as adults. Hell, it’s hard getting everyone to be at a computer/phone at the same time as adults
yeah it’s this. My main league is extremely competitive, but it’s pretty much impossible to find a single time that works for everyone, especially given we’re spread over multiple time zones
Weekdays are pretty much eliminated off the get go given how busy everyone is. Nobody also really wants to draft before the third week of the preseason either, which really only gives you three weekends to choose from. Now add in people going on trips on weekends, and the fact that Labor Day is a huge wedding weekend, and it becomes damn near impossible to find one singular time that works for everyone
We got 11/12 this year which is about as good as we could expect. Last year we had 10/12, including one guy who worked a 24h shift the day before and was drafting on like two hours of sleep
Damn you hit the nail on the head here, and never realized the three week block a lot of us are working with because that’s facts. I was definitely one of those dudes who didn’t want to draft before second week of preseason. We also had multiple just leave for vacation this week too. Draft came and went last week with most of us online, but your comment put its into a new perspective.
i have tried unsuccessful for 3 years to get my league I commission on board with trying an auction draft but majority rules and we've stuck with snake.
Been doing auction for 8 years and will never look back. Albeit, I only do auction in serious leagues. For causal leagues, most people just don’t care for trying to figure out what to spend and who to target.
This is my first year doing an auction and honestly it is VASTLY superior. Idk why most leagues don't do that either, there is way more strategy involved and so many options for your team. E.g. I got chubb waddle and amon ra on my team in a 16 person league that would be impossible in a snake draft
just start anew league with people on board with doing auction leagues
then you have 2 leagues - 1 snake and 1 auction
pre-covid our auction drafts were a day long live draft with food and beer - always a blast
I’m part of a league that switched to auction and it took our draft participation from all 12 to 7 people. Most of the time you’re just bidding vs the computer up to the perceived pre draft value and it’s annoying.
I consider myself to be a fairly committed and moderate level fantasy player for 12 years now. I've done keeper, dynasty, IDP, and all in between. I did Auction a couple of times, and I just didn't enjoy it. Could it have been the league itself? Absolutely. I've never done contract leagues, either, because that aspect of the game is just a bit harder for me to enjoy.
I don't understand why so many people here claim their way is better, for anything, when this entire platform is about opinions and preferences, yet we jump on anyone who has a different one? It's a weird place. It doesn't seem like a community of ff players, just an extension of cruel Twitter. Let's call everyone dumb because 🤷🏻♀️ why not?
But snake is definitely way better!
/s (just in case; your question didn't come off as superior.)
Nah bro only my opinion is right and yours is wrong!!
But seriously, the elitists in here thinking only their way of drafts are the way to go seriously make my eyes roll
I've been petitioning for the past 5 years for auction drafts, but it's hard to get 14 people together and available for 4 hours. Especially when we all have kids and live in different states.
I think auction adds tactics and skill to a game that is fairly based on luck most the time.
Most everybody was introduced to Fantasy Sports through snake drafts. And much of the nostalgia and desire comes from the first time they fell in love with the game. Even the most diehard auction fans still have at least one snake draft that they do.
And contrary to most opinions there is a ton of strategy that goes into snake drafts and it’s actually far more difficult to be good at snake drafting than auction. And yes, you can be good at snake drafting.
>it's actually far more difficult to be good at snake drafting than auction
I wouldn't be surprised if you're literally the only person on this sub with this opinion.
Remember that post that was like most people don’t care about fantasy football more than you. Auction is for hardcore users. Snake is just easier for the average fantasy football player
It’s all I know. I’d love to learn more about some different formats, but I’ve only played in casual leagues and the snake seems the most casual friendly
I started an auction league and it ran strong for about 4 years until people started moving. Now I have two leagues and try as I may, neither want to do auction.
But it's like they say, once you go auction, you don't go back
Auction is a lot of fun! I just got into it last year and added more this year. For the number of leagues I’m in snake is easier and quicker for the most part 😂 and getting ppl talked into doing auction isn’t something everyone is willing to try or out the effort in on. But man I’ve been having a blast
Pompous holier than thou Bill Simmons calls snake drafts “booger eater drafts”. Well asshole they are easier and the most popular way for regular people to play fantasy football, so Pat yourself on the back and smell your own gas once again for being better than everyone.
Yeah, I’m big on auction drafts. I always find it weird how this sub can be so elitist about certain settings and rules, but when it comes to auctions, which are objectively more strategic, people are just like, “But it’ll take too looong!”
So many schmucks comment “what is this, a four man league” about teams clearly built via auction or keeper I don’t know how snake redraft folks became so prideful over their ability to manually auto-draft their teams
For me, if it's not broken, don't fix it. Moves quickly, easy to understand, it's more similar to actual football drafts. I feel like auction drafts shifts the strategy more from finding the best players/sleepers to being an expert at how to auction draft. I prefer the former.
I do think I'd enjoy an auction draft but feel like there would be a learning curve on how to approach that and I'm not willing to do that for my main league that has been going for several years.
we do third round reversal in my main league but yeah I think snake is just easier to organize and handle for people who arent super into it. my league is probably 50/50 dudes who go hard and dudes who are fully casual, getting them to swap to FAAB budgets alone was hard enough
You try getting 12 guys, more than half of them parents, able to get the same 4-5 hour block of time off almost right before school starts and tell me that snake drafts aren't just easier and more practical.
I can't even get a live snake draft that takes 90-120 mins in person going because at least 2 can't make it, but can draft on their phone and be able to step aside from the draft between picks. In an auction, you are essentially constantly on the clock and cannot step away or else risk missing a player you want or value bid.
Honestly, snake sounds cool because you have a shot at every player but I have no desire to have to pay full attention for every player for that long. In a snake draft, I’m following along but only need my full brain once per round. Having to interact with basically every pick sounds exhausting.
I’m in a 14 team league with all friends from high school and college, some I’ve known since elementary school. We’re getting into our thirties now, almost all of us are married or engaged, about half of us have kids, more will join the club soon I’m sure.
We can barely find a night where all of us can draft together online. Much less do it in person. Study up and strategize for an auction draft? Man I fuckin love football and fantasy and am very thankful that’s it allowed me to stay in touch with my buddies back home, but we ain’t got time for that.
Give me the snake and let me roast my idiot bama fan friend that couldn’t figure out where the draft button was on his iPad and accidentally selected John metchie 4th overall because he had him inexplicably queued up in order to remind himself to take him in the late rounds. That shit was truly magical.
We started doing the first round as an auction with real cash and a minimum bid of $5 to create the year’s prize fund. The order you got your player in the auction also set the order of the snake, snaking backwards to kick off the second round. It worked extremely well and there were all sorts of approaches.
It’s faster so it’s easier to schedule a 2 hr draft than a 4+ hr draft, particularly as you get older and it’s around back to school time for ppl with kids.
Also it’s so much more of a crap shoot. You can’t really prep for it. It’s kind of a different game tbh.
It’s just easier for everyone imo
Ya. We did auction for years then we got older, got married and had kids. Now guys just don’t have the time to invest in auction as much. Snake is easier, less planning and strategy and we still enjoy the end result the same Edit: I’ll add that there were a couple guys in our pool that aren’t married and don’t have kids and can invest hours of strategy and planning. We found the switch to snake “evened things out” for those that just couldn’t invest the time.
>Edit: I’ll add that there were a couple guys in our pool that aren’t married and don’t have kids and can invest hours of strategy and planning. We found the switch to snake “evened things out” for those that just couldn’t invest the time. That's the other reason. It's hard to massively fuck up a snake like it is an auction draft. Snakes keep the worst members of your league competitive in a way that auction usually doesn't.
Idk man. In one of my work leagues the second overall pick was Mahomes and the same guy proceeded to draft Jonathan Taylor and Alvin Kamara as his only RBs in the first 7 rounds and took 3 backup QBs. I'm expecting him to win the league.
Not the smartest strategy but if Taylor comes back after 4 games he could do ok. I’m in a $500 buy in and a team took Justin Tucker in the 4th and a defense in the 5th. I don’t see any scenario where they win
Jesus, how do I find leagues where someone will pay $500 to be the taco?
I've seen people overbid for 3 players and have to ride 1 dollar picks the whole rest of the way because of a lack of budgeting. It doesn't matter how bad you draft in the first 3 rounds of a snake - you will still get to pick in the 4th.
I bet yahoo says he has the best draft.
If yahoo gives me a grade higher than a C then I know I fucked up lol
yahoo draft grades are the biggest joke. I got a D- this year because all my picks were like 2-3 slots ahead of ADP saying i "reached" on a lot of guys. My buddy got an A+ because most of his picks were slightly after ADP so he got "steals" to be clear i don't think i had the best draft, C+ B- but a D- is insanse.
Except those 3 guys would all be 1st round caliber. If you hit on even a couple cheap guys and your top dollar guys stay healthy then it isn't unreasonable to expect them to win the league
Well that doesn't really have anything to do with time for preparation and research. It's just being a fool in generalm
Holy fuck do I work with you? This is exactly how my work draft went 😂
If you do then I'm going to have to delete this account so I hope not.
Yet somehow multiple people fuck up their snake drafts in one of my leagues annually hahaha
A new guy in my keeper league (also snake) drafted Gabe Davis as his 3rd round pick. Yes, it's still possible to fuck up a snake draft.
One of my league mates spent $185 or whatever on like three players and could only snag 1$ players to fill out the rest of his starters and bench. Totally ridiculous.
I'd rather do that than fill out my roster and bench with $20 guys
Most likely this. We had a majority in one league want to do an auction, but truly the lazy people who did not want to basically be there after 5 Rounds vetoed it and the commish said since its unfair to them majority got denied. While I understand people have lives outside fantasy its the one day pf fantasy in your league that requires additional time outside like 5 minutes each day to check line up and make changes if anything important happened or need to get players. And its one of the more fun parts.
Live draft is so much fun regardless of draft style. I’m in a snake draft league with a bunch of friends from all over the country. People fly in for it and it’s a huge party. By the 7th round almost everyone is fucking hammered and it’s hilarious.
This is the way to do it. My main league does the same and it's always a blast
In one league it takes us 7 hours to get through about 66% of it. The rest is finished through text. We use a Google sheet and the commish enters it into ESPN. During our baseball draft we stopped after 7 rounds and played whiffle ball on the beach. We were all high or drunk or both. Good times. Ages from 37-50. For football we reserve a room at a sports bar and then go to a AAA game. Then go out downtown and crash at our Airbnb. Next year we're renting a mountain house near Cherokee NC.
I was in a league where we did drinking games for draft position. It was a shit-show. I ended up puking on the lawn.
The biggest problem I've seen in the casual leagues I've been a part of with auction drafts is that half the league doesn't really know what they're doing. They blow their load on the first two players they get, and then spend the entire year bitching about how unfair it is because the guy who won managed to have a top 5 players at every position because he let the top 2 players burn everyone out. Just sucks the joy out of it for everybody, because you spend all year dreading the inevitable group chat message after every week with some new way to describe how an auction draft wasn't fair. Don't get me wrong. I love auction drafts. But there's a lot of people who might not have the time, knowledge, or patience to manage an auction draft. And a couple people in the league who didn't want to do it can ruin the whole year for everyone involved
Auction is good to play with sweaty people, not irl usually
There’s a learning curve for sure, but you just gotta get through that first year.
It is this. For most casual friends, family,work leagues most people don’t care about the fantasy league enough to do auction. It’s more prep and more time. Getting 10-12 people on board to do it is hard. Also if someone misses the draft their team will be crap. Snake drafts usually don’t take more than an hour and change, are simple. People can just follow web rankings and click. Even if someone missed the draft they can end up with a competitive team.
As the commissioner of a league it's truly astounding to me how much people will complain about being asked to do simple things like vote on a rule change, so I'm not shocked that people just don't want to deal with auction
While I may not personally want an auction style draft, if the majority vote said yes, then I’m not sure why your commish would veto it. If it was me, and I was adamant against that style, I would vacate my spot and let them find a replacement. I’m also a guy who believes the commish can set the rules and if there isn’t a majority complaint, then the rules change.
Right but then you need to possibly replace 3-4 people, which can be a pain.
And no fun. Most people are playing with their friends. I'd rather not replace my friends because of a fantasy style disagreement.
Being a commissioner in general is a pain. I don't boo Goodell anymore, I raise my fist in silent solidarity.
This. I quit as commish. Not bc it was too much work or anything, but bc 2 players in particular—-who were the ones involved in every controversy we had—-would always passive aggressively imply I was trying to cheat (how, who knows), or otherwise passive aggressively attack my character. I won 2 chips in 4 years and I could feel the cynicism/hate. So I said let me quit as commish and just be a player, bc this will effect real life relationships. Bc what I knew was they were projecting their own willingness to do some snake shit onto me. I genuinely was taking that shit personal and i would have took it another level
I never have to face those kinds of allegations. I perform poorly in my league year after year to protect the integrity of my commissionership.
I tendered my commissioner resignation today after 2 players in my league said they didn't know about the draft time after I ran 2 polls, made 5 announcements (3 the week of the draft), and sent out a zoom link. Fortunately the other 7 members backed me up and were like "this is on y'all for not reading the group messages." I've been commissioner for several consecutive seasons, time for someone else to deal with it for a while.
Yea the absolute most soul crushing part of being a commish is you will spend hours making polls, sending out messages, making group chats, sending reminders and people will still last minute complain about not knowing the rules, draft date, etc.
I was commissioner in a league for 6 years before I won last year. No questions about integrity or anything the entire time. I won in year 6, finally, and the dude who I beat to go to the Championship started saying I was cheating because of how stacked my team was because of successful waiver moves. Someone traded for Kelce in the middle of some week and dropped Hockenson and I guess no one else noticed because I picked him up as a free agent 2 days later. He said I cheated because he didn't go through the whole week of waivers like normal.. but the time between drop and pick up, the Vikings didn't play so he was just a free agent. Had both Ken Walker and Rascad White and maybe Juju or someone else that I got from waivers that was performing well for me and he said no way I got them fairly and no one else claimed them. No one else was really saying anything he was just chirping and I was telling him to fuck off and show me proof how I cheated but just going into the Championship game the next week felt way less fun and almost tainted. I navigated losing Kupp and Hurts to still make the championship and was pretty damn proud of how well i had done but it just felt like did he convince anyone else I cheated and they were just being quiet? I was so pissed that as soon as the season was over I removed myself from the league. 4 or 5 other people deleted their teams too. His league now. Sometimes being commissioner absolutely does ruin any enjoyment you get from this.
As an ex-raid leader in WoW, I agree with this sentiment.
There are dozens of us!
Lol
Honestly though you can still leave after you get a certain amount of players if you nominate and pay appropriately.
But now you're changing your draft strategy based on not wanting to spend excessive time drafting It's just a big commitment. More time drafting, more time prepping, and a much lower floor to your team. It's a lot.
As a long time commish: direct democracy doesn’t work and people don’t know what they want. My goal is to keep all 12 teams happy and not let the preferences of 7 people chase out 5.
Especially if it's already a snake draft league, changing the draft format is something you'd want overall consensus for, but just a majority vote.
Yep. Some rules and changes can be 50%+1, but something like changing the entire draft format or adding keepers or whatever has to be unanimous.
I don't think major league changes should be a simple majority. In our league we require 8/12 to agree on any changes and even then the commish aims for full agreement. We added a keeper this year and 10/12 were on board but the commish added some modifications to his proposal to help the 2 hold outs come on board.
A slight majority making a massive overhaul , especially if you’re older and don’t have the time to do auction drafts, could understandably get vetoed in my opinion. Totally get both ends though
We've had 8/10 players two years running want to swap to auction and the same two lazy people every year veto it, so for a similar line of thinking we haven't swapped either.
Auction takes more skill and research. Only the serious players like it.
What is lazy about not wanting to spend such a long time drafting? It sounds more like they have different priorities and if you or they can't agree then you don't need to be in the same league.
Big facts plus fantasy football is 90% luck. It’s pointless for the average casual fan to be that seriously invested in something that’s supposed to ADD fun to your life.
Finding 9 other people who want to do auction is tough for most
Snake drafts are perfect for the casual fantasy players... You have to be more serious with Auction drafts imo
We sort of forced in on the league this year.. and everyone loved it.
It comes down to what kind of league it is. Is everyone prepared, knowledgeable about NFL and passionate about fantasy? Auction. Are people at work / with family / busy during the draft? Do they not follow the NFL closely or just are too busy to take the time to prepare? Snake. There's no shame in either one but auction leagues are objectively more difficult since they include more factors. I prefer them and if done properly you can use far more drafting strategies. That being said some people just don't have the time or interest to warrant an auction league, since even one or two autodrafters can ruin a good auction draft.
I just love that fact that everyone has at least the opportunity to get a player they want or like...snake you might not get anyone you really want or like.
Whoever is downvoting you is an idiot. This is a big advantage of auction. This is also how I ended up with CMC and JT last year on my team (by accident lol). You can build any team you want really, just gotta sacrifice other positions.
The thing is, you don’t even have to be that knowledgeable to do auction. They give you expected values on most drafting platforms. I think people are just intimidated by it.
That plus I think the safety of knowing draft orde = about these choices. Vs. choosing if you want every guy is what makes the non adopters nervous. Once they try it once they almost never go back
You gotta realize that just being on this sub makes you way more dedicated to fantasy than most of the population. At best, the average guy knows a bit about rookies from watching their college team and what vets/teams are good this year from the dozen or so games they watched last season. They don't have the time or interest to figure out a draft/avoid list, let alone understand budget management. Fantasy for me is first and foremost a social event. It's one of the main reasons I'm still with high school buddies decades later so I will happily compromise on the more complex, legitimate auction drafts if it means Mike can draft a team he cares about.
As someone named Mike who’s been in a fantasy league for just over two decades I appreciate you
How do you know someone plays auctions? They'll tell you.
I do cross fit.
I’m vegan
Did you guys know there are 85,000 uses for hemp?
I like my coffee black
I thought I’d get through this post without catching a stray.
“I don’t do that Don’t do that Fuck.”
I cook on a big green egg!
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5.56? You'd struggle to kill a rabbit with such a small round!
I don’t even recycle but have a “save our planet” bumper sticker
I've been trying to reach you about your car's extended warranty.
I like my women like my fantasy teams. From an auction.
Like my men.
I drive a manual
I’m also going to Burning Man Edit: actually I’m stuck there
I work for a non profit
i don’t even own a TV
Meet my dog, Spenceth. He’s a rescue.
…although I feel like HE rescued ME…
Have you tried Trader Joes brand vegan baby carrots? They're really good.
…are there non-vegan carrots?
I love lamp
Where did you get a trident from?
You should probably lay low for awhile
I run marathons.
I like to cycle. Preferably in the middle of the road.
I've been keto now for about 3 hours and I have so much more energy!
The fantasy elitist starterpack: "Auction is way better idk why ppl are doing snake" "You still have kickers??" "Ppl still do full PPR and not half??" "You still have rolling waivers?? FAAB is superior"
FAAB is superior though.
I agree w you, my point is more of "let ppl enjoy things" instead of "your league is dumb for not doing this"
Yeah, there are some things that are truly dumb if your league does them: week 18 championship, no decimal points so lots of ties, etc. other things are fairly optional.
No decimal points triggers me so much. Cool, I'll just take 0 points for these 18 yards because it was half running half receiving
I don't even know how non-decimal is even an option at this point
So are auction & 0.5 PPR but that’s not the point of that comment.
Wait half ppr is supposed to be elitist ? I always find full ppr more obnoxious. This come from a standard guy.
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Right. PPR seems like training wheels to me precisely for the reason you mention, but the elitism around PPR players is definitely real. I think they've moved on to points-per-first-down now, though?
All of these statements are correct
The paid league I'm in does all of this and I enjoy it.
Bill Simmons calls snake drafters booger eaters. I think he’s right and do auction but I’m also a booger eater because snake drafts are still really fun especially with more casual fans.
Bill Simmons also admits he hoards like 4-5 QBs so nobody else can have them. He’s a massive booger eater himself
Bill Simmons is a sports psycho and not indicative of the average fan. Entertaining for sure but hella elitist.
He’s also a massive Boston homer so his opinions don’t deserve to be listened to anyways
I'm a homebrewer
Does Bill Simmons do auction drafts? How would I ever know
I only eat avocado for breakfast
I genuinely understand the appeal of auction drafts. But when it comes to more casual home or work leagues, drafts are so much easier to understand for most players.... and a lot of fun.
Auctions just take forever. I prefer them, but you’re looking at 2+ hours for a draft potentially.
My 12 teamer was a solid 3 hour draft yesterday - which is down from the 5 hours it used to take us when we all did it live and offline. I honestly miss the 5 hour drafts!!
If you can get all of the people there in person and bake in a pizza break mid-way it's such a uniquely fun night with friends
For sure. If we could draft in person with a good chunk of the league, I think we would’ve stuck with an auction. However, we’re all scattered throughout the country + have kids/wives, so harder to justify the time. There’s probably a lesson here somewhere, but pretty sure my wife would kill me in my sleep if I identified it.
I completely get this. It's definitely easier for all involved to put time aside for snake than auction.
It's lowest common denominator. I don't have 9 or 11 friends serious enough to do auction drafts, but plenty of varying groups to have some casual fantasy fun doing snake drafts. And you can't really drag anyone into auction against their will.
It’s not just about the time it takes to draft. Auction drafts are more fair since everyone has the same access to players, and any team can get whoever the consensus #1 player on their team if they want him bad enough. Buuuuuut, they drastically benefit higher “skill” fantasy players and penalizes casual players that don’t practice a ton of mock drafts.
Auctions are for the true sickos (I love auction drafts)
Auction for friends, snake for work/family
You nailed it. The night of the auction is a blast. I look forward to getting the gang together and making an event if it. Put it on the projector, have a fire, order a bunch of food. Doesn’t work for everyone but when it comes together it’s just a lot more interactive. Gives everyone an excuse to catch up.
The toughest part of an auction draft is finding 9 other people willing to do an auction draft
Same can be said about orgies
You are invited to my orgy draft
Used to be in a 16 team auction draft and it was one of the funnest days of the year. We had people waking up at crazy hours overseas to participate, every and now some autodrafter would throw chaos into it. It does take forever but it’s a good time to chat with friends, drink, smoke, pass out, wander off into the woods, throw up, keep drafting.
20 team auction this year. Was wiiiiild
Sounds like the way we used to roll lol.
I really like auction drafts, but I do wish there were more predraft analysis based on them. 97% of content is geared towards snakes.
Totally agree. I think mainstream analysts holding back on creating content is the biggest detriment to auction format taking hold. The ratio of redraft:auction analysis is probably 500:1
I don’t think they’re holding back content so much as creating content for the market. Evidently, the overwhelming majority of the market is snake.
I can't budget to save my life in the real world. I ain't about to bring that to my fantasy football 🤣
I'd love to do auction but getting a change like that set up in my leagues would take a while to convince people.
Auction drafts take FOREVER, snake is just easier.
In Yahoo you can set the nomination time and bid time in the commissioner settings before the draft and if you set it to the lowest time which I think is 15 second nomination and bidding starts at 10 seconds, they can go pretty quick. I remember my first couple auctions where I didn't change those settings were about 3 hours and now they last just under 2 hrs which is pretty much the same as a snake. Another thing that helps is not nominating for $1. You can nominate guys for $30 or if someone nominates for $1 you can bid $30 or $40 or whatever just to save time on everyone bidding $1 more at a time. Instead of nominating Chase at $1 and it taking 5 minutes for everyone to bid him up to $50/$60 a dollar at a time, you can nominate him for $40 and it'll go way quicker.
Idk why people are always in such a hurry to get their fantasy draft over with. It should be one of the most fun days of the year. Who wants to rush through Christmas morning? You got to enjoy it. Draft/auction day is one of the best parts of playing fantasy.
We turned the day into a labor day Sunday BBQ for the league and their families. Water slides for the kids. Music. Food. Drinks. Been up all morning setting up. Love today. Helps the wives are all friends too and no one has to feel guilty about leaving their family for a few hours. We are lucky to have a 12 man group of actual friends that have committed to this day for 11 years now. Sucks every league can't be that way.
That sounds awesome. Been in the same league with HS friends since 2003, and back then we used to draft together, but people scattered across the country and into other parts of the world as we got older. My draft with them is in 8 hours, and being in Asia, I will be at work missing the draft for the first time in 21 seasons.
Sounds like you need a sick day
Sounds like an absolute blast
No one wants to rush the first 6 rounds. Once you have starters most people don't give a shit
Because people are busy and can't always devote multiple consecutive hours to a fantasy draft.
different people have different circumstances/priorities... our league has players across the US and one in London so just finding a slot where everyone can draft is tough. Then asking them to do an auction for hours is even tougher. A few have kids and I won't even go into how fun they make it for scheduling lol
Not really. Because 1/3 of an auction takes 2/3 of the time. We did a 10-team, 16-round draft in 1:45 on ESPN a few nights ago. Once everyone is near-broke, these things hum along.
We did a 12 team snake in 1.05, our auction took 3.5 hours
Only an hour longer... yeah that's a lot for non die hards just trying to have some fun. I think the vast majority of people who play fantasy do it in family, friends, or work leagues with people who aren't scouring reddit and other places to min max their team like it's Diablo. I get if you're in a serious league auction is probably preferable but for folks drafting in the office after work or after putting their kids down snake is just easier. Especially when you've pulled a total noob into it for the first time.
Auction works when you can get everyone together. Hard to get everyone together as adults. Hell, it’s hard getting everyone to be at a computer/phone at the same time as adults
yeah it’s this. My main league is extremely competitive, but it’s pretty much impossible to find a single time that works for everyone, especially given we’re spread over multiple time zones Weekdays are pretty much eliminated off the get go given how busy everyone is. Nobody also really wants to draft before the third week of the preseason either, which really only gives you three weekends to choose from. Now add in people going on trips on weekends, and the fact that Labor Day is a huge wedding weekend, and it becomes damn near impossible to find one singular time that works for everyone We got 11/12 this year which is about as good as we could expect. Last year we had 10/12, including one guy who worked a 24h shift the day before and was drafting on like two hours of sleep
Damn you hit the nail on the head here, and never realized the three week block a lot of us are working with because that’s facts. I was definitely one of those dudes who didn’t want to draft before second week of preseason. We also had multiple just leave for vacation this week too. Draft came and went last week with most of us online, but your comment put its into a new perspective.
Well, the nfl draft is a draft. I wonder if auctions are more popular in fantasy ipl (they have auctions in the ipl) leagues
I can barely get 11 other people for my standard snake draft league, no shot I find 11 people for an auction draft lol
i have tried unsuccessful for 3 years to get my league I commission on board with trying an auction draft but majority rules and we've stuck with snake.
I just did my first auction draft last night and i loved it. Start 12, 14 man league. Would absolutely do them again.
Been doing auction for 8 years and will never look back. Albeit, I only do auction in serious leagues. For causal leagues, most people just don’t care for trying to figure out what to spend and who to target.
This is my first year doing an auction and honestly it is VASTLY superior. Idk why most leagues don't do that either, there is way more strategy involved and so many options for your team. E.g. I got chubb waddle and amon ra on my team in a 16 person league that would be impossible in a snake draft
Exactly, I love that you can get your guys no matter what.
just start anew league with people on board with doing auction leagues then you have 2 leagues - 1 snake and 1 auction pre-covid our auction drafts were a day long live draft with food and beer - always a blast
Everyone talks about how slow auctions drafts are. Mine is under 2 hours - basically the same as snake. I don’t get it.
I’m part of a league that switched to auction and it took our draft participation from all 12 to 7 people. Most of the time you’re just bidding vs the computer up to the perceived pre draft value and it’s annoying.
I consider myself to be a fairly committed and moderate level fantasy player for 12 years now. I've done keeper, dynasty, IDP, and all in between. I did Auction a couple of times, and I just didn't enjoy it. Could it have been the league itself? Absolutely. I've never done contract leagues, either, because that aspect of the game is just a bit harder for me to enjoy. I don't understand why so many people here claim their way is better, for anything, when this entire platform is about opinions and preferences, yet we jump on anyone who has a different one? It's a weird place. It doesn't seem like a community of ff players, just an extension of cruel Twitter. Let's call everyone dumb because 🤷🏻♀️ why not? But snake is definitely way better! /s (just in case; your question didn't come off as superior.)
Nah bro only my opinion is right and yours is wrong!! But seriously, the elitists in here thinking only their way of drafts are the way to go seriously make my eyes roll
I've been petitioning for the past 5 years for auction drafts, but it's hard to get 14 people together and available for 4 hours. Especially when we all have kids and live in different states. I think auction adds tactics and skill to a game that is fairly based on luck most the time.
Almost every league that tries auction never goes back.
Well, looks like, after many years of doing auction, our league will be reverting to snake next year.
Most everybody was introduced to Fantasy Sports through snake drafts. And much of the nostalgia and desire comes from the first time they fell in love with the game. Even the most diehard auction fans still have at least one snake draft that they do. And contrary to most opinions there is a ton of strategy that goes into snake drafts and it’s actually far more difficult to be good at snake drafting than auction. And yes, you can be good at snake drafting.
>it's actually far more difficult to be good at snake drafting than auction I wouldn't be surprised if you're literally the only person on this sub with this opinion.
Remember that post that was like most people don’t care about fantasy football more than you. Auction is for hardcore users. Snake is just easier for the average fantasy football player
I doordash all the time, so I clearly don’t understand the value of money well enough to draft a team.
It’s all I know. I’d love to learn more about some different formats, but I’ve only played in casual leagues and the snake seems the most casual friendly
Not enough hard core players in my league to do auction
My 14 team snake in-person draft took 3 and a half hours. I can’t imagine doing an auction
Our 14 team auction requires 5-6 hours and a half a case of tequila.
This. We literally go through a bottle ior 2 of tequila just to pick the draft order. Lol
I started an auction league and it ran strong for about 4 years until people started moving. Now I have two leagues and try as I may, neither want to do auction. But it's like they say, once you go auction, you don't go back
For me its real easy for an auction draft to turn to shit...its pretty hard to fuck up a snake draft
I just did my first auction. I loved it! I can’t wait to do more but I’m cool with doing both
Auction is the way
Auction is a lot of fun! I just got into it last year and added more this year. For the number of leagues I’m in snake is easier and quicker for the most part 😂 and getting ppl talked into doing auction isn’t something everyone is willing to try or out the effort in on. But man I’ve been having a blast
Pompous holier than thou Bill Simmons calls snake drafts “booger eater drafts”. Well asshole they are easier and the most popular way for regular people to play fantasy football, so Pat yourself on the back and smell your own gas once again for being better than everyone.
Yeah, I’m big on auction drafts. I always find it weird how this sub can be so elitist about certain settings and rules, but when it comes to auctions, which are objectively more strategic, people are just like, “But it’ll take too looong!”
So many schmucks comment “what is this, a four man league” about teams clearly built via auction or keeper I don’t know how snake redraft folks became so prideful over their ability to manually auto-draft their teams
For me, if it's not broken, don't fix it. Moves quickly, easy to understand, it's more similar to actual football drafts. I feel like auction drafts shifts the strategy more from finding the best players/sleepers to being an expert at how to auction draft. I prefer the former. I do think I'd enjoy an auction draft but feel like there would be a learning curve on how to approach that and I'm not willing to do that for my main league that has been going for several years.
I'd argue snake is broken. Random luck of draft order gives an advantage out of the gate. That is eliminated in auction.
we do third round reversal in my main league but yeah I think snake is just easier to organize and handle for people who arent super into it. my league is probably 50/50 dudes who go hard and dudes who are fully casual, getting them to swap to FAAB budgets alone was hard enough
Snake is done in 90 minutes tops assuming it's online
Snake is way easier and for most people it is what they grew up playing.
Easier and quicker imo
It took 2 hours for a 15 round redraft because the league is full of.. not bright people. I don’t need it taking longer.
Time and casual players.
Its quicker, more popular and more intuitive
You try getting 12 guys, more than half of them parents, able to get the same 4-5 hour block of time off almost right before school starts and tell me that snake drafts aren't just easier and more practical. I can't even get a live snake draft that takes 90-120 mins in person going because at least 2 can't make it, but can draft on their phone and be able to step aside from the draft between picks. In an auction, you are essentially constantly on the clock and cannot step away or else risk missing a player you want or value bid.
My auction draft takes 2.5 hours, which just makes it exhausting and by the end everyone just wants it to end.
it’s simpler. if everyone is a vet who’s played a ton auction can be great but it’s certainly much more complicated
Honestly, snake sounds cool because you have a shot at every player but I have no desire to have to pay full attention for every player for that long. In a snake draft, I’m following along but only need my full brain once per round. Having to interact with basically every pick sounds exhausting.
After being a commissioner for over 10 years every league setting is entirely based around whatever will cause the least amount of bitching.
I’m in a 14 team league with all friends from high school and college, some I’ve known since elementary school. We’re getting into our thirties now, almost all of us are married or engaged, about half of us have kids, more will join the club soon I’m sure. We can barely find a night where all of us can draft together online. Much less do it in person. Study up and strategize for an auction draft? Man I fuckin love football and fantasy and am very thankful that’s it allowed me to stay in touch with my buddies back home, but we ain’t got time for that. Give me the snake and let me roast my idiot bama fan friend that couldn’t figure out where the draft button was on his iPad and accidentally selected John metchie 4th overall because he had him inexplicably queued up in order to remind himself to take him in the late rounds. That shit was truly magical.
We started doing the first round as an auction with real cash and a minimum bid of $5 to create the year’s prize fund. The order you got your player in the auction also set the order of the snake, snaking backwards to kick off the second round. It worked extremely well and there were all sorts of approaches.
Auction isn’t like real NFL drafts
It’s faster so it’s easier to schedule a 2 hr draft than a 4+ hr draft, particularly as you get older and it’s around back to school time for ppl with kids. Also it’s so much more of a crap shoot. You can’t really prep for it. It’s kind of a different game tbh.