AutoDraft? Why?

[Jimboozie]

I only autodraft when I have hot dates with chics from the office.

Never would I autodraft for a cash league. No way, gotta have priorities. Man up.

[Mercer Boy]

Here are some thoughts as to why some autodraft:

Not everyone can be at the "live" draft.
League members have little/no FF experience or knowledge of players.
Commish/several owners are scared they will get killed by the few knowledgable owners in the league if they draft live.

It's very, very difficult to account for all situations in an autodraft...yet some novice FF's still feel more comfortable doing it that way. Most of the time the draft goes to crap anyway because some people inevitably leave their rankings the same as Yahoo's. All the QB's go really early leaving many RB's for later rounds. This presents problems for "good" drafters in that they can get good RB's but have to settle for lesser QB's.

[swyck]

Its quite possible to get a good draft from an auto-draft. No one is picking for you if you know how to pre-rank.

I'd rather take part in a live draft any time, and that is my preference, but I'm fine with an auto-draft. Plenty of reasons that an auto-draft can become necessary if you're in a league with people you know.

But people that can't figure that out -- even after days of deep thought -- probably wouldnt be able to pre-rank very well.

[spodog]

Except in some cases that I've heard of where the league is spread out over several continents and a live draft is for all intents and purposes actually impossible

We have done live drafts in years past with owners in Australia and owners in the UK.

Those owners are live on a conference call, and are tracking the draft results on the internet.

[PuntinFool]

If it's a non-money league then autodrafting might make things interesting for an owner. All prejudices are gone against players and you get some people that, on the surface, frighten you, but they may end up having a great year.

I'm sure Vick wasn't on anyone's early radar this year, but an autodraft might have picked him and given someone an interesting player. Also, autopicking staves off some of the hype that one can get too caught up in during a live draft. Let someone else draft some overrated players, who may or may not turn into duds... autodrafting sometimes avoids all that.

Then again, autodrafting gives you Curtis Martin in the 8th round, so yeah, pre-ranking at least a little bit is a good idea if you can't make the draft.

[Ditka in '04]

I will do an autodraft each year because I will join a stupid small 4 man league with 3 of my friends and we just auto draft. It doesn't matter in a 4 man league everyone has a team of studs

[Redskins Win]

Here are some thoughts as to why some autodraft:


Commish/several owners are scared they will get killed by the few knowledgable owners in the league if they draft live.

this works in favor of experienced owners.

When I was a noob matter of fact everyone in my 12 man league was a noob with the exception of the commish. we had an auto draft, he reminded us to rank players but no one rreally knew the signifigance of doing so, he killed us. and we all vowed to never do autodraft again. now one or 2 guys every season can't make it and pre rank their selections but they always get killed. this season was 100% turn out for the draft. i've written entirely to much.

[Kensat30]

Autodraft is to live draft,

As

Secret Santa is to Christmas Day

Seriously, you're gonna substitue your Christmas Day celebration with a secret Santa gift exchange at work? I don't care about your time and internet issues, you damn well better make time to attend your drafts. Get your priorities straight.

[Matthias]

Autodraft is to live draft,

As

Secret Santa is to Christmas Day

Seriously, you're gonna substitue your Christmas Day celebration with a secret Santa gift exchange at work? I don't care about your time and internet issues, you damn well better make time to attend your drafts. Get your priorities straight.

This is a good analogy, but I don't think it actually supports your point. The point is that you don't always have one or the other. You sometimes have both. You do have Christmas Day as well as your Secret Santa. You may have a league or two that you care a lot about that you carve out the time and scheduling to make work and there may be one or two that aren't that important and other things intrude or what not.

It's preferable to draft live. It's just not always possible.