A draft day in the life of Max Cohen (of Pi fame)

Max spends his early hours haunted by the possibility of the perfect draft. He stays tucked away, hunched over his computer, Euclid, in his dimly lit apartment on the edge of Chinatown. Grafting number systems, creating new running back prediction software, looking for a ghost in the machine. This is his draft day:


7:45 AM

Sitting in a nearby park on a bench surrounded by a swirl of delicate garbage. Max is furiously typing away on his laptop looking for sleeper ratios while calculating his opponents drafting tendencies on a round-by-round basis. His cell phone rings the MNF theme as he fishes it out of his pocket, eyes never leaving the computer screen.

His mentor, Sol, is on the line,

"The draft is at 5 o'clock today, you must learn to calm the mind and relax. It's been a month, Max, you haven't taken a single break!" Sol is earnest and loving with his plea.

"But I'm SO CLOSE," Max emotes after a thoughtful pause.

10:00 AM

Millie, Harriet and Blanche are jostled during their daily mid-morning stroll around the block when they see Max feverishly tearing through a full-to-the-brim trashcan on the corner of Essex and Grand. He's screaming obscenities and muttering something about the Larry Johnson Matrix.

Suddenly, his body becomes rigid with self awareness as he acknowledges the old women and their palpable disgust. Max attempts to disarm this situation but, due to his lack of human social contact, comes off more of a wandering vagrant than before:

"I just threw out something and I didn't realize that I needed it. It's just a printout," he explains calmly. Then, correctly sensing that he is getting no sympathy, barks at the old women, "I LOST MY DATA!"

1:30 PM

Max is on the roof, surrounded by binders of depth charts and 3rd down efficiency statistics, rocking back and forth. He takes a mental inventory to himself as the wind plays with his already mad genius hair:

“Failed treatments to date: Beta blockers, calcium channel blockers, adrenalin injections, high dose ibuprofen, steroids, Trager Mentastics, violent exercise, cafergot suppositories, caffeine, acupuncture, marijuana, Percodan, Midrine, Tenormin, Sansert, homeopathics. No results. No results...”



4:30 PM (30 minutes before the draft)

The ending of a phone conversation between Max and Sol:

Max: "...So, MAYBE, even though we're not sophisticated enough to be AWARE OF IT, there is an underlying order...a pattern, beneath every 'Go' game. Maybe that pattern is like the pattern in the stockmarket, like in NFL Football. The two sixteen number."

Sol: "That is INSANITY, Max!"

Max: "OR MAYBE IT'S GENIUS! I have to get that number!"

***CLICK***

6:54PM (moments after the final pick)

Max walks outside and is immediately mobbed by a group of well wishers and admirers. They want to congratulate him on the perfect fantasy draft and buy him a beer. They want to talk to him about how he got such great value even after the 13th round. They yearn to know the secrets so that they might win their own fantasy leagues.

Max cuts through the crowd, yelling with a fiery purpose, "Damn it already! Stop following me. I'm not interested in your money. I'm searching for a way to understand our world. I'm searching for perfection. I don't deal with mediocre materialistic people like you!"