Top 5 Ways To Drive Your Fantasy Football Commissioner Insane

I've ran leagues for longer than some of you have been alive, which means that when God was handing out the stupid pills, I got seconds, then figured out a way to make sure that everyone got their fair share of pills, because you wouldn't want the distribution of stupid pills to be just random. So in the course of my life, I've been subjected to all of the following. Multiple times. Use them in ill health.

5) Rule Pule. Are you the kind of person that can't leave well enough alone, especially when it could create some infinitesimal advantage? Then it's time to make life miserable for everyone in the general area, but especially the schmuck that's decided to try to lead the thing, by either continually whining about the same problem, or by endlessly agitating for some new wrinkle. If you are really good at this, you can keep bringing up the same rule change for years and years, to the point that your Commish wants nothing more than what you don't want. Then, you can pull the old reverse psychology move and send him completely round the bend. Enjoy!

4) Compulsive Trading. This one's especially great for people in keeper leagues, where the Commish is the poor slob who has to keep track of who owns who, and for how much against their salary cap. This is the guy who wants to trade picks in the middle of the draft, thinks about playing a monster year-long league where he can trade baseball players for football players and vice versa, and doesn't seem to notice when you delete the first five hundred trade propsals without comment.

The sad thing about this guy is that he doesn't carry it out in the rest of his life. I'd enjoy this guy a lot more if his life was just a constant stream of dealt lunches, switching subway seats, free-flowing pens and the like. Or wife swapping. That'd be amusing to watch, too.

3) Welchie. Playing for money is kind of necessary to keep things interesting for most of us, and collecting it is nothing bit misery for the Commish, who winds up sweating over whether or not he's got the right count, especially if it's a live draft with a pizza or beer run to complicate things. And if your commish is also the kind of guy that's sweating out his own draft, it's way too easy to sleaze your way out of things.

Of course, if you are actually playing in a league with owners who are welching on their bets this way, the Commish is somewhat to blame, since they misread the people involved in the first place. So they'll blame themselves. Bonus!

2) Bitchie McBitchFest. Say, isn't the draft room warm? Don't you have any better beer than this? I can't eat B-B-Q any more -- too heavy. And this stuff isn't, you know, good. Couldn't you order some salad? And the draft board just isn't very legible, my seat is all wrong, my laptop cord won't reach the power strip, the Wi-Fi is slow and my very existence makes every decent human being spit nails and go on killing sprees.

By the way, my fellow commishes, if you have any of these guys in your league, feel free to murder them in the most gruesome way possible. No jury will convict. Actually, there's a reasonable chance that they'll take up arms and murder the relatives of the deceased.

1) Change Agent. In my league, I start negotiating for the Draft Date 2-3 months away from the actual event. I then get "why so early" pules from the owners, who have the long-term memory of infants, and a lack of response. I then contact again, and again, and with about two months before the draft, we all agree on a date, but only after two or three people either threaten to drop out or actually bail.

Is the fun over yet? Hell no. In the next two months, we'll have at least two or three more sudden freakouts over the date as people suddenly realize that they've booked an overseas flight, have theater tickets, are expecting a child or some other moment of I'm Going To Have To Get Over The Urge To Kill Everyone Now. And hey, I know it's a pain in the ass, but can you find someone to draft for me, wipe my nether regions and otherwise drive up your blood pressure?

Add your own move in the comments. Then, speaking for all of the commissioners of the world, go gargle with Drain-O. Please...