The first round of the draft is decided by lottery. All other rounds will follow reverse order of standings, like in the past. The rule, used since the 2004 season, is intended to give less incentive for teams to lose games in order to get a better draft pick.

Here are the results of this year's lottery:

Lottery Result	Team	2008 Finish	1st Rnd Pick	Later Rounds
1	Matthew's Mighty Men of Marietta	12th	#1	#3
2	Blue Ridge Bombers	13th	#2	#2
3	Stamford Team Buddah	14th	#3	#1
4	Carolina Mudcats	11th	#4	#4
5	Arkansas Golden Falcons	8th	#5	#7
6	Sardine City Straphangers	10th	#6	#5
7	Hoboken Cutters	9th	#7	#6
8	Tampa Bay Plunkers*	7th	#8	#8
*Under new ownership; name to be announced

For the just the second time in the six-year history of the Draft Lottery -- but for the second year in a row -- the league's worst team didn't get top overall pick. In a karmic coincidence, the team that had been in last place almost all season long, only to get hot at the end of the year and finish in 12th, lucked into the last overall pick. The league's worst team fell all the way to the No. 3 spot, the worst draw in league history by a last-place team. Just three of the eight lottery teams are picking where they "should" be based on the standings.

It was a shocker as Matthew's Mighty Men of Marietta jumped up two spots to claim the first overall pick in the draft. The Mighty Men finished tied for 12th, but "won" the tiebreaker and thus the weaker draft position. But that didn't matter as the Mites -- with just a 12.5 percent chance of winning the first pick -- beat the odds and are now on the clock for the first pick of the 2009 draft.

As we noted earlier, it's just the second time in league history -- but the second year in a row -- that someone other than the last-place team won the first pick. Last year, the 11th place Blue Ridge Bombers jumped up three spots to claim the No. 1 pick; this year, the Bombers finished tied with Marietta for 12th place, but came in 13th after losing the tiebreaker. The Bombers drew the second position in the draft as expected, but they have already traded that pick to the D.C. Bushslappers, putting the Landsman brothers at the top of the 2009 draft... Picking third are Stamford Team Buddah. They had a 50.2 percent chance of winning the first overall pick; after Marietta won it, they had a 57.4 percent chance of getting the No. 2 pick. That went to Blue Ridge. Of the 159 balls now remaining in the lottery hopper, 128 of them belonged to Stamford; the odds finally went in their favor as they won the No. 3 spot. Perhaps it's the revenge of the Garden State as the Buddhists announced a few weeks before the draft lottery that they would leave New Jersey for Connecticut? The No. 3 position is a new record for worst draft position by the league's last place team... For the second year in a row, the Carolina Mudcats got the pick that was expected. Last year they finished 5th from the bottom and drew the #5 pick; now they've finished 4th from the bottom and drew the #4 pick... Another big winner were the Arkansas Golden Falcons, who moved up two spots to the #5 pick despite finishing 8th last year.

The Sardine City Straphangers have been in the draft lottery all three years of their existence and all three years have gotten unlucky. Once again they are drawing one spot lower than expected -- this year they are picking 6th in the first round, despite finishing with the fifth-worst record... The No. 7 pick falls to the Hoboken Cutters, also one spot worse than expected after they finished with sixth-worst record... That leaves the No. 8 pick, as expected, to the soon-to-be-renamed Tampa Bay Plunkers, who had the eighth-worst record. The Plunkers have been sold and are expected to announce a new team name shortly; sources in the Commissioner's Office say the franchise is likely to move to Amityville.

Despite a second straight upset for the No. 1 overall pick, finishing last is still the best bet when it comes to delivering the "expected outcome." The last place team has picked first four times in six years, or 67 percent of the time. That's actually a lot better than expected considering the last place team "only" has 50.2 percent of the balls in the hopper. Next is a tie between the 13th and 12th place teams, who have picked where they should in half of the six lotteries. This is the very first year that the team with the fourth-best record has actually won the No. 4 pick; in the previous five drafts, they'd moved up twice and down three times. One trend that has continued for all six years: The team with the seventh-worst record has never won the No. 7 pick! They've moved up four times and down twice, including this year.