TB XI Draft Successful Despite Efforts to Sabotage
posted Monday October 11th, 2010 by Crooks

On October 2, 2010 nine of the 16 Turkey Bowl XI competitors met at Kevin Rayer's humble abode to commence this year’s TFL Draft. Accompanying our nine combatants and potential teammates were Rayer’s roommates and former TFL MVP Tom Orio.

Now the draft, which is a very simple process, should have went off without a hitch, but when your team captains are Kevin Rayer and Paul Middleton, and their draft liaison is Tom Orio, problems are bound to present themselves.

Here are some of my personal highlights of the day’s difficulties. First, Paul was smashed. Of course Paul being hammered isn’t exactly an abnormal occurrence, but, while he was practicing his best mangina, Rayer was fairly sober. This may or may not have led to an advantage for Rayer. Secondly, Rayer and Paul, with the approval of Tom, made all their selections in one sitting, rather than completing a round, announcing it to the draft pool, then moving on. I’m not exactly sure if Tom approved of these capers, but I sure as Hell know he didn’t stop it. Thirdly, Tom and Paul were caught on video saying and doing some questionable things. I won’t venture into detail describing either person’s actions, but I will say that both were very entertaining. Tom, though, became the victim of his own style of humor when someone blurted out, “Tom ‘I’m not playing this year because my wife makes all decisions for me’ Orio.” Tom got pretty angry at this crack, easily forgetting that he was laying it on everyone else less than five minutes ago. We must remember that Tom is a very sensitive sole. Finally, Tom, Rayer, and Paul then thought they would try and be tricksters by mixing up the draft order and announcing their teams in non-sequential order. This led to a lot of confusion and people had no clue what was going on. All in all it was the weirdest draft ever. I primarily blame Tom. Blaming Rayer and Paul would be like faulting a newborn baby for spitting-up.

Rayer won the coin toss and chose to award Paul the number one pick. Paul used the first overall selection to sign Tuna. Rayer went on to select quarterbacks Tim Dougherty and Mike Trill in the first and second round. The second round ended with Paul’s selection of Mark Marcelli. Round 3 saw two linemen become team members as Rayer picked Keith Cottom and Paul selected Tony Laughlin. Round Four featured the stylings of Matt Marcelli and Chris Crooks; Marcelli went to Rayer and Crooks to Middleton. Rayer ended the final rounds of the draft by selecting Ian Hart, Jon Hart, and Sean Kelly, while Paul found picks of Rich DiNofia, Bill Pohlig, and Joe Simcox to his liking.

Both captains seemed fairly happy with their selections, but apparently trade talks are spreading. The captains have until Saturday, October 7 to complete any trades.

Finally, I’d like to make mention of the First Annual Rib Off that took place on the same day as the draft. Entries were made by Sean Kelly, Jay (Rayer’s Roommate), Tom Orio, and Matt Marcelli. Everyone did a great job preparing their ribs, but, when it was all said and done, Tom Orio was named the winner in very convincing fashion, defeating the second-place entry by 11-points.

2010 TFL Draft
Round	Team Middleton	Team Rayer
1	1. Mike Bucella	2. Tim Dougherty
2	4. Mark Marcelli	3. Mike Trill
3	6. Tony Laughlin	5. Keith Cottom
4	8. Chris Crooks	7. Matt Marcelli
5	10. Rich DiNofia	9. Ian Hart
6	12. Bill Pohlig	11. Jon Hart
7	14. Joe Simcox	13. Sean Kelly