The Fantasy Court + Rankings Debates, Stat Bonuses - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/2

Can we explore something with Joe Mixing and Delvin Cook? I said, sure. And in my head, I was hoping I'd get a pick and mixing for Dalvin Cook. Our consensus rankings as a group has Dalvin Cook hire. I've been in a ton of drafts in the last two weeks. Dalvin Cook goes ahead of Joe Mixing and every one of them. Yep. Except when I tried to make said point, he pointed out my player projections in the UDK. Oh no. Had Joe Mixed slightly higher in total fantasy points. Yeah. And it undermined my entire adventure. I hate that so much. I was, I felt the fool.

I thought I also told him I was going to take like six or seven touchdowns away from mixing real quick. And then we'll get back to the discussion. Yes. Have you looked at the rankings lately? That's right. That's right. So no, that was very. RB 34. I'll give you all my picks. But yes, it was quite the moment there where I was like, ah, this deal's not happening. All right. Let's go here with this question comes in from Andy's mustache in Long Island. I like that it's in Long Island. Yeah, I think the name is Andy's mustache. Yes. And they're from Long Island. It's funnier that they're from Long Island. I know. Do you like to win by blowing out the other team or a close nail-biting game? To win? To win. Oh, I want to dominate them. I want people to feel ashamed. I want them to look at me and say, wow, he's great.

I have that's just a statement right yeah for life nothing to do with fantasy football there there teach me Mike had you want them to say that yeah teach me yes if I could get that then I'd go blow out I will say you and I had a playoff matchup in the recent history where it was over by halftime and it really took like I was very happy to win yes but it took the air out of the sales like the I didn't even get in Like, enjoy the ride during the second half. You would basically depart it from the adventure. Yeah, for the win, if I have to pick between these two, I want to win by the blowout. If it's a loss, I mean, you never want to lose. Losing is the worst. It sucks. It is the absolute worst. But I always choose. I want the nail-biting loss because, like, that playoff matchup, I spent an entire week just, we're...

We're garbage talking in the office. We're getting so pumped. We can't wait to see it. Analyzing every decision. And then it's just, it's done in the morning. At half time of the morning games, like, well, that's a huge letdown. I don't even get to have like anything wild happened on, on that entire Sunday. After all that garbage talking. You're just like, yeah, well. Never heard of it referred to that way. What? Garbage talking? No, instead of like trash talking. Yeah, talk of trash. Maybe it's just a different way to say it. No, I understand. It's just funny to me. Poop talking. Refuse talking. Yeah. Keeping it safe for work over here. We're not all filthy, dirty mouth. Like trash? That's such a filthy word, Mike. All right. We'll go here. Twitter question from Aaron.

Has Damien Pierce passed Kenneth Walker for you in your... Oh, stop! In your dynasty rankings. I can't. It's a Pierce question a day, Mike. Just saw another screenshot of him going 101 in a rookie draft? 101. 101? Yeah. In a rookie startup? Yeah. No, no, no. Not a rookie startup, but I mean, you know what I mean. Rookie draft. I have seen it. Okay. Kenneth Walker was a second round pick. and he goes to a perfect situation of a team that historically has been very good. They're not going to be great this year, but I expect Pete Carroll and the Seattle Seahawks to figure it out sooner than later, and they will establish it. And Kenneth Walker, let's ride. This is their guy for the future. Damien Pierce was a day three pick, meaning that so many teams could have, they had the chance. They could have taken Damien Pierce, including the team,

That took him. They could have taken him many, many times. But he fell to this range. He's just, he is the running back this year that has the circumstances around him, the perfect storm has hit for him to be the starter. And I think he could be a good player. But he's on a bad offense. Rex Burkhead is still likely the past catching running back. Could Pierce take on that role? Sure. Like that, in the range of outcomes of things that can happen. Yes, he could absolutely do that. But Kenneth Walker is the much better player, the much better prospect. And it would just, it would be shocking if Damien Pierce has a better career than Kenneth Walker. The Houston Texans rushing expectations for fantasy points last year was terrible. I know they want to run the ball. But this is, it's not a perfect situation. And he'll be okay. He's going to be a starter. And he's a young.

rookie running back, which those usually do well, but there's very little draft capital invested in this team that will have a ton of really good draft capital going forward because they won't be a great team. Those type of players are more often than not replaced early in their career. So I like Damian Pierce more for redraft than for Dynasty. I agree. And I will add two more pieces of evidence into the court record here in the state against Damian Pierce. First of all, Steve Sladen. You remember Steve Staten? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Fantastic rookie year with who? The Houston, Texas. Disappeared after that fantastic rookie year due to draft capital and being able to move on to other options. But more than that, Jason, you said something and it's true. They want to run the football. Just like the Browns wanted to run the football with Isaiah Crowell. If you go look last year, you can remember how

much they seemed committed to the run. They were bottom 10 in total attempts. Houston was because they were getting pummeled. So they might have run the ball a ton in the first quarter when they were establishing it, but it didn't end up that way in the end. So do I think Damien Pierce is really talented and we'll have great opportunities to show that talent? Yes, I do. But everything these guys said is spot on. So you need to temper it. I think he's a great redraft pick to bolster your running back room. Not to lead it, but in Dynasty, it's huge risk. So if you're in a Dynasty league and you have him and the sentiment is where it is right now and you could go get a Kenneth Walker, I would do that immediately. Because I think clearly you can. If these questions are being asked, if the number one pick in rookie drafts is Damien Pierce, you can go get, you could go work him a Breece Hall deal. I mean, you could go put a player plus Damien Pierce Hall.

I hate what this discussion has become because we all like Damien Pierce. Yeah. Another thought experiment to do. And like try to be honest and realistic with yourself because we're talking Dynasty next year. Who is more likely to be a first or a second round pick? Kenneth Walker or with Rashop Penny gone after a one year deal or Damien Pierce on the Texans. That's right. All right. We're going to jump into the face off. Fantasy Faceoff, presented by Draft Kings. It's back, boys. The Fantasy Faceoff. Jason has the first ever case of Fish Face PTSD, flooding back with the sound of that drop. But if you weren't with us last year, Mike, why don't you summarize what Fantasy Face Off is all about? So we jump on to Draft Kings. We set ourselves a DFS lineup.

For the rest of the season, like last year, it will be the main slate, which is all the Sunday games. But for this one in particular, this is our first time ever doing this on the face off. We are doing the Thursday night showdown, which is the Bills versus the Rams, which is, it's really unique. It's real front. The player pool, obviously much smaller, but there are different strategies when you're playing. If you've never done it, so the one game matchup, the Thursday night. You pick your captain and their salary goes up, but you get 1.5. You get one and a half times their fantasy points. So a whole new element of strategy here comes in. So we will do that. The week will play out. And then on the following Friday's segment, the loser of the three of us will spin the wheel of shame. And.

some sort of ridiculous, humiliating costume will appear. I mean, it really is shameful. I fear. We've talked about throwing money into these every week. I'll just be honest with the listeners. We just decided no, because we don't care about that part. We're like, you're playing to protect yourself from pain. But yes, the Thursday night showdown is actually the one that I won the million. Yes. It's one of my favorite to play because you're so focused on one game. And so we are going to share our lineups right here right now for the Thursday night game. Let's begin with the captains, which are 1.5 times the salary cost and 1.5 times the reward. I went with a quarterback, which I don't often do with the captain, but I did go with Josh Allen. It felt the most safe and comfortable thing to do. Certainly.

And I'm just trying not to get shamed here. Yeah, you know what? I, so when we started doing this and the, you know, the numbers were out and we could go in and play around, I was so excited because I love playing the captain showdown. And I went in and I made it really quick the way that I usually play trying to find a super cheap captain. I did not think about the fact that I'm only trying to beat two people here because. I would much rather have Josh Allen as my captain. Instead, I went with the cheap route Isaiah McKinsey. Only $3,600 as a captain. It allowed me to put a ton of other players in my lineup. But, you know, I need Isaiah McKinsey to go off. And that's like a more a big pool tournament style play. I don't like it against two other people. Are you criticizing your own lineup already?

Yes. A little bit. Yeah. Well, that being said, if Isaiah McKenzie scores, you're in great shape. And I'll be really worried. Mike, who's your captain? I had started. It was going to be Josh Allen. And then I did some retooling. And I have Gabriel Davis as my captain. Oh, I love it. And so he came in at 10.8K for the salary cost. And this will be interesting of because if McKenzie or Gabe Davis get a touchdown in this matchup, that's. That's a huge, huge hot start. All right. I think I'm going to just read you the remainder of my non-captain lineup here. Matthew Stafford for 10,800 in the lineup. Gabe Davis, non-captain for 7200. Alan Robinson is sitting there at 6200 and in my lineup. Went with Darrell Henderson, 4,800 in the first week against Buffalo.

and then finished with Isaiah McKinsey, who is priced, where's he out for non-captor? 2400. He's, he's very chalk because he's so, like his price. Oh, his price compared to Crowder? Yeah, because these prices came out a few weeks ago before everything like completely flipped on McKenzie versus Crowder. Having said that, we know that McKinsey has been missing the last couple practices. I don't know if he's back today or not, but he's been missing some time. The reports say that we're not worried about week one, but that's something that will have to be taken into account. If he's missing, all of these lineups will be completely redone. The rest of my lineup, I went very weird here, no running backs. Well, it's just all pass. It's 100% passing. I have both quarterbacks, Josh Allen and Matthew Stafford. I've got Diggs, Gabe Davis, and Alan Robinson. So I'm just hoping for a passing shootout that goes through Isaiah McKinsey. And you could afford.

literally five non-captain stars, really, because of the McKinsey captain. Yep. Because of Gabe Davis as my captain that left me the budget, I have both of the quarterbacks, Josh Allen and Matt Stafford. I have Stefan Diggs. The chalk play of McKenzie, and then I have Daryl Henderson as a cheaper play as well. Which we both have in there. All right, it will be fun to follow along and see who gets the first wheel of shame spin next week. That was Fantasy Faceoff presented by our friends at Draft King's Sportsbook. Download the Draft King Sportsbook app right now. Use the promo code Ballers to get $200 in free bets instantly when you place a $5 bet on any football game. That's the code ballers only at Draft King's Sportsbook.

That is going to do it for today's episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Good luck in all of your drafts. Yes. I am not speaking to these two gentlemen, of course. Bad luck to both of you tonight. Until next week, farewell. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FFBallers.