I’ve been back from Las Vegas for three days now, but I’m yet to fully comprehend all that happened there.
From late Tuesday night to the crack-of-dawn Saturday morning, I packed in three high-stakes fantasy football drafts along with my three WGR shows. With meals and, at least, some sleep, there was very little Vegas in my trip to Vegas.
So if sinking into a leather chair at a swanky sportsbook is what I crave, or settling in at a Caesars Palace craps table, that’ll have to be next time.
This trip was all about fantasy football.
Each year, the Fantasy Football Players Championship (FFPC) hosts its large, signature weekend of drafts leading up to the first NFL Sunday of the season. The premier FFPC tournament is known as the "Main Event", with live drafts going off at Planet Hollywood Thursday through Saturday. Both the "Main Event" and FootballGuys Championship (an expensive but not as expensive tournament, the FBG) have drafts running for weeks before this event; in the case of FBG, months. You can play in either or both of these tournaments online, without traveling to Las Vegas, but I think any fantasy player would agree that in-person is better, if you can swing it.
This year, I swung it.
My friends Louie, Adam and I arrived in Vegas on Tuesday night. I had the WGR show 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. PT each day, but the rest of my Wednesday was open. We had a nice dinner together, played a little blackjack at MGM Grand and talked about the big drafts ahead.
Thursday all along was the big day: "Main Event" in the morning, WGR show, party for the opener, then the “Bare Knuckle Challenge”, a 28-round, 12-team draft with no notes permitted. No phones, cheatsheets, nothing. All in your head.
It was going to be a long day.
I woke up Thursday at about 5:15 a.m. PT – almost two hours ahead of what I’d planned on. Louie and I partnered on a "Main Event" team that was drafting at 9 a.m. PT. I was worried about getting to the WGR show with Bulldog on time, as Chris from Naked City Pizza in Las Vegas, a popular joint for Bills fans, had invited me to host from there. That meant a 10-minute ride and time to set up.
While I was very disappointed at the time, a mistake I’d made in the sign-up proved fortuitous. At about 8 a.m. PT that morning, as I was drinking coffee, I realized that I’d signed us up for an online draft, not in person. I was so upset. The whole point of going there was to sit in that ballroom and draft live, with a board, and now we were going to have to settle for my laptop.
But online drafts are faster than in person, and that saved us. Louie and I were able to get to Naked City by 11:15 a.m. PT. It turned out that we had a technical snafu that needed the entire 45 minutes before air time to fix. Had we drafted in person, I would have left the draft early to head to the show, leaving Louie to finish the draft. I needed him to get on the air. As it was our special Bills season preview show, with guests and the Facebook Live video feed, I would have been in real trouble without Louie’s help.
That draft went well, I thought. (I always say though, everybody almost always likes their draft. “Oh look! Good players! No one is hurt! This team is great!”)
Picking sixth, we built a team around two stud running backs - Ezekiel Elliott and Jonathan Taylor. We took T.J. Hockenson in Round 3. Then a lot of receiver value, including 49ers wideouts Brandon Aiyuk and Deebo Samuel. (You can see already what an interesting and challenging Week 1 we had with this team.) Jerry Jeudy, Noah Fant, Ty’Son Williams (before the Gus Edwards injury), and Justin Fields for, hopefully, that late-season quarterback fantasy gold.
When the WGR show was over, 4 p.m. PT, I was exhausted. But I knew that my day was young.
The FFPC throws a big party for all the high-stakes players to watch the season opener, Dallas at Tampa Bay. I’d tried to sleep for a bit before the game, but that didn’t work. The game was great, and so was the party. All during the game, I’m drinking water going over players and average draft position in my mind. I drilled on who everybody’s kicker was.
(Three names were completely foreign to me as of that evening – Tristan Vizcaino of the Chargers, Matt Ammendola of the Jets, and Ryan Santoso of the Panthers. I walked around that ballroom all during Cowboys-Bucs repeating the name Ryan Santoso in my head. “Santoso” became our rallying cry. In the end, someone else picked him.)
Once the game ended, the 12 of us drafting in the "Bare Knuckle" filed into a separate ballroom. A few dozen others trailed behind us to watch. We drew playing cards for draft order. I pulled the four. The players who got one, two and three took those respective draft positions. I chose the 11 spot. This sort of baffled my friends. Why not pick four?
My thought was, I figured I’d need the extra time to think. I’d have 20 picks between mine, and that would give me sufficient time to think of names. And I wanted one guy behind me, so that, say, if he’d drafted quarterbacks already, I could push that off, or vice versa. I thought 11 was a good spot.
Having done this draft now, I would have instead taken the four. That’s because for all the value there was in that lengthy amount of time to prepare, it was really tough to keep track of the names in my head. I went by positions – who are the running backs that go here, receivers, tight ends, etc. – but as players were being chosen, it was a huge challenge keeping straight the players I’d had in mind, having no ability to write anything down. It was really hard.
My friend and teammate Adam implored me to get my running backs early. Taylor had fallen to Louie and me in Round 2 that morning, and I would have loved him at pick No. 11, so instead I went with Pittsburgh’s Najee Harris. I passed on Darren Waller for Harris, using Adam’s advice. I then picked Saquon Barkley in Round 2. (This, you can see already, led to a tough Week 1.) Lots of receivers after that, and that meant I had to scramble for quarterbacks and tight ends. Watching the run at quarterback made me, again, question why I chose the 11 spot.
In the end, this was a tremendous challenge that I loved taking on. I was happy to not have any gaffes, and to build a team that I think made sense. I never thought I was beating the room, though. I guess I sort of finally found that draft I didn’t love.
It’s a best-ball league, so no lineups or roster moves.
The "Bare Knuckle Challenge" team:
- Quarterbacks: Trevor Lawrence, Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold
- Running backs: Najee Harris, Saquon Barkley, A.J. Dillon, Leonard Fournette, Rashad Penny, Matt Breida
- Wide receivers: Terry McLaurin, Robert Woods, Mike Evans, Deebo Samuel, Chase Claypool, Elijah Moore, Dyami Brown, Rashod Bateman, Mike Strachan
- Tight ends: Evan Engram, Jared Cook, Jimmy Graham
- Kickers: Tyler Bass, Matt Gay, Ka'imi Fairbairn
- Defenses: Minnesota Vikings, Atlanta Falcons, Chicago Bears
Louie and I drafted another "Main Event" team Friday night, and that draft was a dream. We went against some top names, previous big winners, and everything fell just how we wanted it.
We drafted Travis Kelce at 1.03, Joe Mixon at 2.10, then George Kittle at 3.03. (FFPC drafts give tight ends 1.5 points per-reception). It was a unique build with two tight ends that early, and then we picked Patrick Mahomes at 4.10 for a Chiefs stack. After that, it was six receivers, then six running backs. Our friends joined us in thinking that this was an excellent draft for us.
We went out to celebrate, but not for long, as we had to leave for the airport the next morning at 4 a.m. PT. On the flight out, we were already talking about next year.
First, let’s see how this year goes.