Fantasy football preview: Snake draft or auction draft?

Tuesday afternoon on Twitter, Bill Simmons of The Ringer posed an interesting question that I’ve surprisingly never thought to ask. He used a Twitter poll to ask his followers if, when it comes to fantasy football, they prefer snake drafts or auction drafts.

The results of the poll are a little surprising, with snake draft winning by a pretty large margin.

In the comments, however, it’s a completely different story. Just about everybody who replied to the tweet said they preferred auction drafts. I only saw maybe one or two arguments for snake drafts. Some people even got a little PG-13 with it, with one Twitter user saying something like “People who prefer snake drafts also prefer missionary.” That’s Twitter for you… always staying classy.

But with the NFL season (finally!) getting ready to kick off in less than a month, and with football fans everywhere getting ready to partake in endless fantasy football drafts throughout the month of August, it’s an interesting question to ask. So what do you all prefer? Snake draft or auction draft?

Personally, I’m a snake draft guy. Not to say that auction drafts can’t be fun; the whole concept of an auction draft is really cool, and it’s perfect for the fantasy addicts who absolutely live and die with their fantasy football teams. It takes a ton of Matthew Berry-esque fantasy knowledge and strategy to be able to build a good fantasy team through an auction draft.

I wouldn’t call myself a fantasy football addict, just a fantasy football fan. Last year, I didn’t play at all because I was too burnt out on it. The year before that, I played in three fantasy leagues. This year, I’ve gotten back into fantasy baseball for the first time in five years, and I plan on entering a fantasy football league this month. I prefer snake drafts because they run almost identically to a normal draft, and I love the process of a regular draft. I also enjoy that it only takes about 45 minutes to complete a snake draft, whereas an auction draft can take up much of an entire day.

As much fun as fantasy sports are, I just don’t have the time or energy to commit an entire day to a fantasy draft. I will always stick to the simple snake draft, but plenty of people prefer auction drafts, and that’s perfectly fine.

Either way, it doesn’t really matter which draft type you prefer. We’ll all be drafting fantasy football teams very soon, and that’s the important thing.