May I suggest......
Use two steps to the initial draft process: bidding for draft position at player position and ranking players in order of draft preference.
Each team will draft 70 players from a pool of over a thousand. In order to make this process manageable, each of the first 50 rounds of the draft is limited to a specific position, or pairs of positions in later rounds. These 50 rounds are divided into 5 "superrounds" of 10 rounds each. In order to determine the draft order for each round, an auction is held for each superround. Within each superround you have 1000 points to bid for draft position at each round. Each superround has a slightly different mix of positions.
Round 1QB
Round 2 RB
Round 3 WR
Round 4 LB
Round 5
S
Round 6
T
Round 7
DT
Round 8
DE
Round 9
CB
Round 10
C
Round 11
QB
Round 12
FB
Round 13
WR
Round 14
LB
Round 15
G
Round 16
T
Round 17
DT
Round 18
DE
Round 19
CB
Round 20
K
Round 21
S
Round 22
RB
Round 23
WR
Round 24
LB
Round 25
G
Round 26
T
Round 27
DT
Round 28
DE
Round 29
TE
Round 30
P
Round 31
QB
Round 32
RB
Round 33
WR
Round 34
LB
Round 35
G
Round 36
S
Round 37
KR
Round 38
CB
Round 39
TE
Round 40
C
Round 41
QB/RB
Round 42
CB/S
Round 43
DT/DE
Round 44
LB
Round 45
G/T
Round 46
K/P
Round 47
WR/TE
Round 48
KR
Round 49
RB/WR
Round 50
LB/CB
You start with 100 points assigned to each round. If you were to bid, say 400 points on Quarterback, you would have to remove points on one or more other positions, making it more likely that you will draft later at those positions. Ties are broken randomly.
If you attempt to save your bids with more or less than 1000 points in each row, the system will evenly (as much as possible) add or remove points to each column until it evens out at 1000.
Three hours before the draft, your bids will lock, and returning to the draft page will reveal which draft slot you won in each round. You may continue to order players at each position until the draft runs.
Clicking on the position abbreviation in the bidding grid will take you to a page displaying all of the players available at that position. Most of these are players who actually play that position, although a few may be players at other positions that qualify for the position being ranked. The two special teams positions on the draft grid, Kick Returner (KR) and Holder (H) may be a variety of positions as there is no native positions for these roles. Kick Returners are most often wide receivers, although running backs, safeties and cornerbacks round out that list. Your Holder is usually your third-string quarterback with good Hands, although punters and occasionally offensive linemen will show up on this list as well.
