Chris Baysden's Season III DRAFT REVIEW
Despite my classic "The lights are on, no Doak," line, I've never been good at leads. So let's get right to the point. We had a draft. Some people did good (Cabbage Patch Kids). Some people did not so good (Can anyone say Thunder Chicken?)
Here's the lowdown on 'em all:
Cabbage Patch Kids: Most coaches want more control than a third world dictator running a military junta. Jimmy Johnson, Bill Parcells and Mike Ditka come to mind. But even after a strong finish last season, the Articles of Confederation (AoC) decided absolute power isn't all it's cracked up to be, so he brought in the Brew Crew to be his player-personnel man.This new version of the Wonder Twins got a couple of great running backs, using the fourth pick to nab the bruising Terrell Davis (Wonder Twin powers activate: form of a bottle of Excedrin) and getting Eddie George (shape of wounded knee) in round two. The wideouts are impressive -- Jimmy Smith and Randy Moss look poised for great seasons. Isaac Bruce is something of a question mark, but the Kids have Derrick Alexander to back him up if necessary.
Since defense wins championships, the Kids grabbed perennial power Pittsburgh. But waiting to take a QB after the first couple of rounds forced them to go with Warren Moon. The Old Man is nearly unstoppable when he's hot, but he's been taking hits since the Truman administration. Still, with Jake Plumbob backing him up, the Cabbage Patch Kids look like the league's best team on paper.Unfortunately, they play the game on grass -- and sometimes turf -- but never paper.
After last year's championship season, Stone Cold Steve's Hodges' Podge of a team knew it wouldn't be an easy task repeating. Finishing first in the league means finishing last in the Brett Favre sweepstakes, so Hodges' Podge was counting on drafting another star from last season: Corey "Hamm" Dillon.
Unfortunately for Podge, the Jaywalkers were also hungry for "Hamm" and grabbed him with the number five pick. Poor Podge went into convulsions and the draft had to be stopped while participants waited to see if the former commish would be able to recover in time to make his first round pick -- or if they'd just have to skip him that round. Fortunately, Hodge didn't die on the table (coffee, that is, not operating) and regained his composure long enough to take Jeff George. Said fellow owner Ron Batcho, "Mmmmmmm mmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmm." Roughly translated: "It's a good thing I didn't have to give him mouth-to-mouth."
Hodges drafted some good receivers -- Tim Brown, Rob Moore and Yancey Thigpen -- but looks awful weak at running back. Hodges hopes the Marshall (Faulk) Plan will be enough to contain his fellow owners. If not, he'll be forced to use the Natrone Bomb on them. More likely, Podge will find his backfield resembles Ground Zero -- as in 0 points from Week 1 on into the long, cold, nuclear winter.
On to the Jaywalkers. The Trader King may not need to do too much swapping after an impressive draft. He landed two solid running backs in "Hamm" and Da Bus, while also stealing Brad Johnson in the fourth round. With a solid receiving corps to boot, all you can wonder is how long it will take before King trades all his good players away to "El Diablo."
Speaking of the devil, what happened to the Thunder Chicken? After this draft, it looks like you can put the emphasis on the "blo" in El Diablo.
Time will need a MASH unit to take care of his injury-prone running backs, while his receiving corpse (intentionally misspelled, thank you very much) is full of has-beens (Jerry Rice, Terry Glenn) and never-will-be's (Michael Westbrook, Muhsin Muhammad). Only QB Mark Brunell can save this team. Luckily for Time, Brunell may be pregnant with a 30-plus touchdown season and if he delivers that baby, the whole league will be drowning in offensive afterbirth.
Speaking of berthing babies, there's no more Beanie Babies in the league. That was good news for the bottle caps, who were able to draft Brett Favre with the number 1 pick since beanies didn't return for his birthright. Favre alone will make Roncho a contender, while Ricky Watters and Cris "X-Files" Carter may put him over the top. All in all, not a bad draft for Big Daddy Cool.
One word of caution: If he wins a week, watch out for the victory dance. 5-0 regulars can tell you, Ron doin' "the Batcho" is something like a force of nature -- only twice as destructive.
Destructive is a word often associated with Berserkers, which brings us to Kevin's Ringers. I would make some shit up about the Ringers to make fun of them, but Kevin's case, truth really is much stranger than fiction.
According to Ring, he made up 500 pages of notes, consulted with inside "contacts" and brought his girlfriend to the draft to give him advice -- and he still couldn't figure out that Terrell Davis was the best RB in the draft (and don't even get me started on Chris Warren). At least he brought food. Better luck next year Kev.
Now for the draft dodgers. I'll give credit to Swamp Thing for going interactive to draft his team, but there's nothing like being in the dark, smokey room on the most important day of the year. Even without being there, Swampy still managed to make plenty of early enemies. His selection of Terry Allen drew a declaration of war from T-Buzzard, while the Jaywalkers broke down crying after losing his Ch-Ch-Chmura pet. Swampy also took a kicker before anybody else, drawing further ire from T-Buzzard.
Keep an eye on this one fellas, a rivalry could be brewing.
Finally, we come to Proctor and Gamblers. After looking at this lineup, only one word comes to mind: killer. Drew Bledsoe, Ben Coates and Curtis Enis? This guy is the reincarnation of Rob Sadler! Watch out Swampy, he's gonna be after you for John Kasay fastern' you can say, "Moonshine."