2014 Mock Draft: Team Brokaw

Elliot Trotter, Team Brokaw

Offense: Beau Kittredge, Bart Watson, BJ Sefton, Timmy Perston, Hector Valdivia, Adam Holt, Danny Clark

Defense: Nate Castine, Russell Wynne, Ken Porter, Brodie Smith, Miles Montgomery-Butler, Teddy Brower-Jarus, Brett Matzuka

Subs: Dane Olsen, Cole Sullivan

When it comes to drafting teams or doing just about anything in life, I don’t like being bogged down by decision-making. Every action has infinite plausible reactions. I didn’t want to worry about having to game-plan for other teams. I didn’t want to worry about carving this perfect offense in which everyone has a very specific role, and must execute a specific strategy. While that make sense in theory, in the real world there are tons of factors that impact the success of a team. In this draft’s scenario, our team is measured by success in a theoretical tournament with very little time to practice. Regardless, when a team actually goes from practice to a game so much of what is practiced is thrown aside and teams are left with bare-bone fundamentals. If there were several seasons of planning that could go into refining and testing a team, I’d be able to know who fits into what roles better and would develop those specifics. However, that’s not a reality here.

Furthermore, I don’t profess to be observant enough to know the strengths and weaknesses of every player out there. I doubt any of the other owners had the time to assess every player in the world. I chose to draft in broad strokes.

From the get-go I intended on focusing on what I see as those fundamental elements to good players and an overall good team: confidence, experience, and impact. There were some additional characteristics I sought after, like leadership ability, but confidence, experience and impact were the keys. While I certainly tried to draft handler types, receivers and defenders, I wasn’t looking for any purebreds. I wanted to choose players that I didn’t have to worry much about fitting into specific roles. I wanted players who could do a little a bit of everything and/or had some particularly outstanding ability. Knowing I couldn’t, and wouldn’t want to, draft an entire team as is, I generally leaned on experience to be my chemistry but did try to spark that chemistry by choosing players who had played with at least one other player on my roster. Lastly, I wanted my team to be threatening. All of my players met my base requirement of all-around excellence, but I was also on the look out for players that did something extremely well and would force other teams to adjust.

With exception to Hylke Sneider and Martin Cochran, I essentially got all of the players I wanted. I was actually quite surprised that the other owners let me draft who I drafted.

I was lucky enough to have first pick of the litter, which made the rest of my picks all that much easier. I drafted Beau Kittredge, who is simply the most dangerous and effective player in the game right now. It would have been easy enough to build a team around Beau, but luckily enough I didn’t really have to. I was surprised when the draft snaked back to me and both Bart Watson and Nate Castine were available to me. Both are great all- around players, with Bart having solid leadership experience. Despite a recent bout of fit-fat, Nate has continued to be a innately excellent, and now very experienced player, who is far easier to attempt to contain than stop.

Continuing on, I held to my fundamental drafting principles, picking up a series of fantastic all-rounders, bolstered by some threat players with outstanding abilities like Timmy Perston, Ken Porter and Danny Clark.

While I came to the draft with a short list of players I wanted on the team, I tried to remain flexible throughout the draft, picking up pieces I felt were missing, like someone with handler defending ability or big throws. Inevitably, my game plan continued to change as well based on who I was able to pick up. With Perston, Clark, Kittredge and Porter in my arsenal, I started to look for more players that could get stuff done on defense as well as jack huge bombs for my awesome receivers to have their way with.

Home Stretch Rounds

By Round 11, I felt I already had a team strong enough to beat everyone else out and was looking for picks to round out my team or continue to fit with my drafting philosophy. To my surprise, Brodie Smith was still available. I suspect some concern about attitude or more likely his injury status kept Smith from being picked up earlier. Truthfully, I don’t know what Brodie’s injury status is, but his recent re-resigning with the AUDL’s Wildfire should be enough indication that he’ll be ready to play. How many healthy knees do you really need to jack a disc into a trash can?

Further, I knew that with this experienced team of vets, Brodie would be able to split into the background and do what he does well, make plays. I decided to make the darkhorse move to pick him up. I knew that regardless of how he could contribute to the team and if he’d be a great fit, it would cause some of the other owners to make choices as responses to my pick. Brodie is the crowning example of picking threats and forcing other teams to adjust.

From there I picked up another all-around player in Teddy Brower-Jarus and the sharp wisdom and strategic genius of Hector Valdivia. Maybe Hector isn’t the player he used to be, but his leadership compliments Bart’s well and I’d feel good about putting the disc in his hands.

My final two picks were probably the riskiest out of the bunch. Machine’s Dane Olsen is a bruiser with big throws. I don’t know how he’d fit in with the rest of the team, but I know he’d work hard and put some discs out.

Cole Sullivan was another odd choice. Cole made an impact in winning Doublewide their championship in 2012. Again, he’s more of a handler type that has the athleticism to fit just about anywhere. Without Brodie on the roster, I probably would not have picked Cole up, but I liked the fact that Smith and Sullivan had played together and wanted to utilize that chemistry.

Configuration

Many of the other owners are putting their rosters into offense and defense configurations. Brokaw is flexible enough to have players flow from O to D on a point by point basis depending on who’s hot and what matchups look like. If I had to pick starting lines, they’d look like this:

Offense:

• Beau Kittredge
• Bart Watson
• BJ Sefton
• Timmy Perston
• Adam Holt
• Danny Clark
• Hector Valdivia

Defense:

• Nate Castine
• Russell Wynne
• Ken Porter
• Brodie Smith
• Miles Montgomery-Butler
• Teddy Brower-Jarus
• Brett Matsuka

Subs:

• Dane Olsen
• Cole Sullivan