Top 10 Fantasy Football Auction Dirty Tricks

Look, your auction league is a nightmare. It's filled with hyper nerds who spend their every waking hour listening to podcasts, reading premium Web sites of insider information, and divining the average draft position of every possible sleeper. It's maddening. And it's time to level the playing field. It's time to bring the dirt.

10) Starting the early bidding for Adrian Peterson... of Chicago. This long-standing switcheroo can absolutely ruin your relationship with the poor schnook that isn't paying enough attention, and on some level, it's a defensible play. That level would be the 8th level of Hell, where liars such as yourself reside in Bolgia Seven, where your soul will be eternally tormented by vengeful reptiles, at least if Mr. Dante has anything to say about it. But on the plus side, you've sucked money out of the pool. Carpe diem, baby!

9) Wifi blocker. A fairly common device at your local spy shop, this little beauty can put your Net-addled (or even better, teleconferencing) opponents on tilt by simply taking them back to the stone age of non-connectivity. They should have printed out those spreadsheets anyway, right? As these can be pricey, it's best to pick it up the date of your draft, then return it later. And keep it well hidden, for heaven's sake.

8) Plumbing problems. A dangerous ploy, but a surprisingly effective one, especially if the host has put in a fine supply of tasty beverages for the draft. Just camel up and drink nothing, while sabotaging the plumbing sometime in the first hour. Then, when the sleepers and keepers are coming off the board, refuse to let the draft slow down while the authorities deal with the backup. We're drafting here, dammit. Cross your legs and buck up. You'd be surprised how poorly the thought process can become when a man's only thought is of fertilizing the plants.

7) Zach Miller, Jacksonville. What, you though the Peterson play was your only move in the realm of mistaken identity? Even the small moments are tasty, really. My apologies in advance if Miller the Other winds up out-pointing his Raider counterpart.

6) Porn For The Win. You'd think this wouldn't work over the years, but you'd be wrong. The best way to play this is to either let a few mainstream skin mags skip loose throughout the draft room -- hell no, those aren't mine -- or go very direct and find the most dramatically awful stuff imaginable and ask your league mates if they think it's faked. I mean, even if it is, you have to admire the attention to detail, don't you? And good luck trying to get your head back on to the bidding now. It's basically malware for minds.

5) The Steve Smith Ploy. In general, insulting another owner's picks isn't a dirty trick. But adding some confusion to the mix, by repeatedly asking if he means the *other* Steve Smith, and/or insisting that the other Steve Smith is already owned? That's just good annoyance, especially if you actually get the guy checking to see if he has, in fact, named the wrong guy. It's even better if one of the Smiths gets hurt or suspended before your draft.

4) Live Porn. If magazines work like gangbusters, you don't want to know how well a real live pro works. Or even more to the point of nuclear winter, two. Just have them, you know, give each other backrubs during your picks. I guarantee that there will be any number of owners that forget to bid. Or close their mouths.

3) The Adonal Foyle Method. The longtime Golden State scrub hacked out a decade-long career through two unique attributes. The first was that Foyle was erudite and a great interview off the court. The second was that on it, he emitted a powerful stench that made opponents give him a wide berth on any rebound that wasn't necessary for a win. That first attribute won't win you a thing in a league... but the second one? Especially if you decide to raise your arm for full ventilation on each bid? Men have failed for less.

2) Speak and Spell. An auction is a lot like a poker game, in that giving out false information is frequently a winning play. So if you make people spell Houshmanzadeh, ask what team Terrell Owens is on now, and talk about how you were sure that Brett Favre fellow was really going to retire this time.... well, it will make your big raise for Arian Foster mighty surprising. Enjoy.

1) Collude. If you know that you don't have the chops to win your league, why not just ensure that someone else won't, and hire yourself out to a rival? You could wind up negotiating a freeroll on the league while creating a lifelong enemy, or at the very least, make someone impressively paranoid. (Hi, Al!) You'd be surprised just how much enjoyment you can get out of a league that you aren't going to win.

Add your own in the comments, of course. And enjoy those Dante circles of Hell. (Here's the one I'm booked for...)