Fantasy Football - Top 10 Things to Remember for 2026 - Podcast for 3/5

But look, don't over stack your bench with all upside stashes at the expense of playable depth. I feel like Mike has been pretty gifted in this department for years where he builds rosters that I look at. And what I actually, I think the most actionable thing here is let's say you put, you make good picks later in the draft and you put some nice bench assets, free agency or, you know, you go onto the waiver wire, you add some pieces and they perform. That's my moment generally where you flip them into. I flip them. I take a starter and a bench player that's performing and I try to turn them into somebody better. And I do it all the way through the bench. Then I use the bench to fill up on more waiver wire pickups. I think that for me, my thing to remember is I need to adjust that a little bit and really keep some solid startable assets, not look at them all as trade chips and trade bait. And.

really plan on those injuries to happen so that I can survive. Mike talks about another thing in years past, you know, kind of getting through the season in different phases, right? There's different parts of the season that you need to get through. Players are going to get hurt, survive every window of the season to make the playoffs. If you want to consolidate right around the trade deadline a little bit, if that makes sense, you've survived a bunch of weeks, sure. But don't just stack your bench with upside stashes. And then all of a sudden you've got to put a player in that has no...

potential to play it's a rookie that hasn't started you need to be able to step in those guys are going to get hurt it's a guarantee yeah i mean mike had like jalen warren and charbonnet just kind of rest in there i'm like why isn't he trading these guys it's the you know like if you hear people talk about the zero rb build like it's anti-fragile yeah yeah exactly that that's what it is is going on the the philosophy of that these players will get stronger as the year goes on because I know that the guys drafted in the first round or they're going to miss time. So it's being aware of that. I think the, you know, combining that tip, Andy, with the, the understanding the nuances and the differences of the time of year, what your team needs through the first four weeks and then what you need through the next four. It all.

holistically plays a part in creating your best chance at winning a championship. No, it makes sense. And I'm just looking from picks 11- through 406. So I think that's 28 picks. Six of the 28 didn't miss a game. So you're going to miss time. So remember it and plan accordingly. All right. Time to move on. Number nine. So be willing to stand your ground on. your rookie takes. This is a chance to, dude. No, it's actually, I have a couple different ways I want to talk about this. Because it's, rookies are, it's such a wild and like, it's not a straightforward path for rookies in fantasy football. And yet if you've been playing, you know, for at least five years or so, you understand.

that rookies are often a humongous part of fantasy football success. Now, because rookies get better as time goes on and then the guys who are making impact, impact players over the second half and in the playoffs, a lot of time we see that it's a rookie, but it can take time. And this is where it's difficult because to get those players on your team, if you want to draft them, you've got to draft them early. But you're drafting them early knowing that... There's a chance that this might, may not start working at least for it, like two months into the season. Trayvion Henderson was it, you know, through the first month of the season, it was an absolute disaster. And then through the first two months, a catastrophe. You know, he was on our show docs. So week six, we bring up like drop candidates. People wanted to drop Trayvon Henderson. And it was.

I don't really have a, like I can't convince you not to drop this player who's not getting any opportunity. It's all remandre, all this. And then, of course, remandre misses some time. And then you have the magic. They're right in the middle of the season where Trayvion Anderson is winning weeks by himself. You know, from week nine on, he was the running back nine averaging almost 17 fantasy points per game. And then that span week nine through 12 with no remandre. I mean, it was ludicrous the points he was putting up. Tetero and McMillan, it was a slower start for him, and then he ends up being the offensive rookie of the year. It started out slow, but the target share was there. In fact, he was one of six rookie wide receivers over the last decade to finish with a 26 plus percent of the targets, and it just can take time. So that's why I say when you draft those rookies,

It's hard because you've got to draft them early, but you know that you're drafting them for a certain time of the season. Of course, you want them to hit right away, which does happen sometimes, but you've got to be ready. And then I also wanted to talk about this from the standpoint of dynasty rookie drafts are coming up. You do not have to be beholden to this is how you're like, I'm the 105. I'm slotted for this player. It's okay. It's okay to take chances on the guys that you prefer because it's fantasy football. It's wild, man. Stuff goes sideways. It goes haywire all the time. And you're looking at the, like, oh, well, this wide receiver got drafted in the top of the second. I had the 108, so I couldn't possibly take him.

Just do it. You're like, because you know what, if I draft that player, everyone's going to make fun of me. Yeah, you ever looked at the, they're going to, they're going to mock my pet. And I'm going to, they're going to hurt my feelings. And I'm going to feel real ashamed that I did that. And they're telling me. I'm going to take Roy's Freeman because they told me to. Right. You just, no, man. If you don't want to take that guy, don't take him. Take someone else. It, it's, it's okay to withstand the, the. the peer pressure of you have to take this guy right here. You ever seen the NFL draft? And there is a really important distinction here because I think it is important that we say it is totally acceptable and good to mock and make fun of people. Oh, of course. That's the game. That's the game. That's what you want to do. Now, if you're the person getting mocked, you have to ask yourself one of two questions. One, was this a player I believed in and I like this pick?

and I'm getting mocked and so I don't care. Great. Or why am I getting mocked? Oh, I didn't, I had no clue. I didn't know. You know, then it's like, look at yourself. I'm saying, yeah, don't Raiders this thing and draft a kicker in the first round. That's not what I'm saying. I thought you were going with, wasn't it the Raiders? Yes. Who, who just drafted two years ago. They drafted the wrong human being. They called the guy with the same name. that wasn't the one they wanted to draft in the third round. That might go in your bucket of bad franchises do bad things. Yes. So I'm saying rookies can take some time, but also specifically for your rookie draft, man, pick the players you want. It's okay because maybe you're wrong. Maybe you're wrong on that player, but follow your own path. Don't, don't let the, don't let the peer pressure and consensus bully you into taking a pick you don't want to make.

It's extremely painful if you don't take the player you have conviction about. You take somebody else due to consensus. So much worse. And then that player turns out to be something great because, you know, you didn't stand on it. So it makes sense. Number eight. This one is a question on trends in the NFL. My question is, is the famous sophomore leap for wide receivers actually dead? This is. over the this is what I was talking about at the beginning of the show where in 2021 I wrote an article it was basically a cheat code you looked at the the previous five and ten years and that year two wide receiver was like just draft them even if you're not sure even if you don't believe the the year two is when most of these guys are really breaking out now what we've seen over this last five years and the last decade is that more and more frequent is it that wide receiver ones break out

in year one. The alphas come out and they get the opportunity from day one to just be on the field at all times. And it has had a reciprocal effect on the year to breakout. I was noticing this trend over the last couple of years, but this last year really put a, uh, put a nail in the coffin. So in 2021, the, you look at the wide receivers that were drafted in the first eight rounds. five of six of them improved in their sophomore year. That's great. 83% fires like, yeah. Sophomore bump. Yeah, the sophomore bump. The article was right. But then as time has gone on, 2022, only three of six improved. And some of those like Jahan Dotson. He was the hotness from his rookie year. He went hardcore the other way. He went hardcore the other way. Christian Watson went down. Garrett Wilson, who was the number one drafted there. He had a down year. Didn't even score 10 fantasy points per game that season.

The following year, the 2023 class, two of five improved. So now we're sub 50% actually being better than they were their rookie season. You know, certainly it rebounded last year. It certainly did. It rebounded all the way to zero of the top five improved in the 2024 class. So my league neighbors, BTJ, McConkey, Marv, and Xavier Worthy. This one was brutal. They all, I mean... They burns too bright. And so that is part of it, right? You can't just be like, here's a trend. It's like, here's a trend. Why? Part of it is... They dominated his rookie. Yeah, exactly. They dominated rookie years. Ladd McConkey, BTJ, and Lake neighbors were all fantasy wide receiver ones. They were top 12 in their rookie season. So it makes sense that it's harder for them to take that step up and go. But...

It's happening more and more frequently. Now you look at this year. And I guess what this is to me, what I want to remember is that I have gone into old drafts, you know, three years ago, four years ago, where even if I really didn't believe in a player, if he's a year or two wide receiver at a place where, you know, I'm just pulling the trigger. I'm just shooting on probabilities. This year you got, you know, Ibuka. Who was the hotness this year coming into year two? Is he going to get better? Mike Evans might leave. There's going to be a lot of reasons. I'll bet if Mike Evans leaves. He's going to shoot up draft boards. People will forgive him and be in. Matthew Golden sucked this rookie year, had all the opportunity, but he's still a first round wide receiver on a good offense, year two wide receiver. Go all in. Luther Burton was the hotness at the end of the season. It was like, wow. How many guys can be the hotness? Well, there's different parts of the season. You know, it's like if you're in Arizona or if you're in New York.

There's summer and there's winter. Right. That's what I'm saying. Just summer here, though. So I don't think it is quite the guarantee. And I don't, I wanted this to be a little shorter and have this be a question and a conversation piece on whether or not we should stop just automatically assuming that in year two, these players take a leap forward. That doesn't necessarily always happen. However, the data is starting to say, year three, which is. It has been more and more frequent. That was JSN. That was Zayflowers after a down year two got better in year three. Some of these guys are starting to, you know, even somehow Puka was significantly better in year three, even though he was great already. But I'm not sold on just saying that in year two, they're always going to get better as a wide receiver. I mean, unfortunately, and it's a cop out to a degree, but I mean, trends are.

based on context. You talked about how insane the numbers were last year for those guys. My league neighbors, hurt or not, was probably not beating 146 points per game or was going to be tough to do it. Brian Thomas Jr., certainly. I mean, those numbers, Ladd-McConkie, all alone there, it was going to be really, really hard. So there's going to be nuance. There's going to be, what do you define improving as, right? And how much does that matter in the equation? So. You know, there are players that, you talked about it, Luther Burton, it's like, that's not a difficult one to see him having a better sophomore year. Because he barely got it rolling. Slow start. I mean, he really didn't ever get it cooking for, you know, consecutive weeks. So that one's an easy one to see. Now, you know, Obuka, a lot of variables in the equation. Matthew Golden, he better improve or he's in the UFL. So it's good to look over a long period of time and see what the trends are. So you don't.

just lock into a strategy that is eventually going to burn you. Tetaroa McMillan was really good as a rookie. And so he's the one. And you look and it's like, well, he's going to take that leap forward. And he's being drafted almost as a wider receiver one. Right now it's too early to know. But he's the wider receiver 13. It reminds me a lot of his comp for me was Drake London. Well, he showed. And it was like year two. It took year three before he really is a perfect transition to the next. All right. Number seven, which is bad teams ruin good players. Yeah, and bad owners ruin good franchises. Yeah, bad teams ruin good players. Ask yourself, if I remove the player's name and just describe their situation, right, like a new quarterback, an uncertain offense, a transition year. You got to ask yourself, would I draft that player in the first two rounds?

or at their ADP. And usually you would say no if you remove the player's name from the situation. So I'm going to describe a couple situations to you and you tell me how in you are. All right. First one, a wide receiver on an offense with the fifth starting, different starting quarterback in five years with an offensive coordinator that you openly hate on a team who has fewer scoring opportunities inside the red zone than anybody in the entire league. Does that sound like, I'm out? They're worth the risk of a top two. Or a top two round pick. No, that sounds like a bad bet. That bad bet we made for years with Garrett Wilson. Garrett Wilson was that bad bet. We did it in 2023. He was drafted as the wide receiver 9. It was Aaron Rogers. It was Nathaniel Hackett. That combination. We still win in on him at ADP. Where's Hackett now? Yeah, I know. Yeah. Yeah, he's here. In 2024, we did it again with Garrett Wilson.

Wide receiver 7 off the board. Aaron Rogers was the quarterback. We didn't have a lot of confidence in that. Last year, you finally got an adjustment in the ADP. We wizened up a little bit. How bad were the Jets? The Jets? Over the last three years, dead last in those red zone plays. Tied or trailing on 93% of offensive snaps. You have to pay attention to the context these guys get drafted into. Let me do one from this here. Older quarterback who was cast off from his former team. New head coach, born before the invention of the transistor radio. Offensive coordinator who hasn't been in the NFL in more than a decade. Oh, wait. We drafted two players this year in the first two rounds of fantasy. Obviously, that was Ashton Genti and Brock Bowers. Did not work out for fantasy managers in the, you know. Bowers did. Other than the injury. Yeah, I mean. Second half, he was very good.

Yeah, I mean, I think there was still some underwhelming vibes with some of what he was able to do. You know, you started the year before the injury and maybe that was, you know, playing through it and stuff like that. But it was, it was tough. It was tough when you have to look at all of these risk factors, quarterback transitions and changes, offensive coordinators, lack of faith in a coach. And then say to yourself, well, it's all just going to work out because this player is talent. We did this. We did this game with a lot of players that we liked over the years. We did it with Tara McLaurin. We did it with DJ Moore. We did it. You know, if you don't have all those externals, you have a lot more to overcome and you just need to factor that in and ask yourself whether the risk outweighs the draft cost. Yes. Is the team environment so completely.

disgusting and gross that it can ruin a great player. And it is very possible to do that. And so you need to be careful. I need to be careful. And when the draft happens and these sexy players start going to teams that we don't have confidence in, you need to make sure that those situations are not going to destroy them. This is where the transition from Tetaroa McMillan has a year two watch. I love Ted. Do you really have? I love Ted. I think he is great. I think he's a, Gary Wilson, I love. Yeah. But it's a good point. He's going into year two. It's not a guaranteed leap forward. He's on a.

team that you don't expect to be great. They don't know for sure about the quarterback. But the quarterback is not prolific. At the very least, we can all agree on that. Correct. Yeah. So it puts a little pause in there. Obviously, the Jets project to be bad. Who are the other teams that like, I mean Cleveland on offense right now. Oh, okay. Yeah, you draft somebody, Cleveland on offense, Arizona on offense without a quarterback. The nice thing about Minnesota, if it's JJ and no one else. The nice thing about the Browns is they've done us a service and they have no one really worth drafting.

You know what I mean? They're like, let's not have. Judkins. Yeah, depending on the injury and his timeline back. How dare you, Harold Fanon. Yeah. You are, you are Mr. Fanon. I do. Apparently used to be. I do like Fanon over the other guys, but we'll talk about whether I'm Mr. Fanon or not in a minute. That's actually why we have Fanon lower than the other two of the sophomore tight ends. Yeah. Let's take a break and we'll keep going. Today's show is brought to you by your friends over at prize picks. Shoot your shot on prize picks and get $50 instantly in lineups when you play your first $5. That's right. Prize picks is now giving you $50 in lineups when you sign up and play your first $5. Prize picks is simple to play. Just pick more or less on two to six player stat projections. If you get your picks right, you could cash in. And we're talking all your favorite sports, basketball, baseball, hockey, UFC, soccer, college basketball, tennis, golf, e-sports, and more.

And now, prize picks has early payouts if your player gets off to a hot start. You might have the option to cash out those winnings before the game even finishes and all withdrawals are fast and secure. Download the prize picks app today and use code footballers to get 50 bucks in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code footballers to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Price Picks, it's good to be right. All right, we're back in the 10 Things to Remember. Here we go. Number six. So speaking of philosophies that change over the course of time is I am now firmly in this area. You know, we have dabbled, talked about this strategy. I don't know just how like rubber stamped I would have said that this strategy was. You know, to be when we started this show, you don't do this. No. And now I'm like, you know what? When you leave your draft.

In a single quarterback league and you draft two quarterbacks, I think that's okay. I think it's not only is it okay, I think it, there are situations where it is in fact a very smart thing to do. You're increasing your odds of finding a difference maker for that single quarterback position. The opportunity cost is like, okay, do I hit on one of these sleeper? wide receivers who is he's fourth on his depth chart or it's the it's the rb3 on a team you know where we've seen great returns for that didn't you know the it's a game of probability just always remember that for fantasy football there is no there is no binary black or white everything is great everything is probability and the way that things have gone lately hitting on a later round quarterback where that guy becomes a potential difference maker for you it is

The odds keep going up every single year, where it used to be, these are the quarterbacks who will be good. We've nailed it. We know they're going to be great. But it's like this past year, you know, you had going late, Dak, who, Dak just always goes late. And you just just always be grabbing Dak as a second quarterback. But Caleb Williams made the jump. Drake May. Almost the league MVP was going in the 12th round as about the 18th quarterback or so. It's a strategy where it felt like a misuse of your resources. But now I think that it can be really the move that you need to go to. And I'm not talking when you've drafted Josh Allen, when you've invested heavily one of your very, very high lucrative draft picks on a quarterback. We're talking if you get a guy in the middle.

Why not take a player late? Because so many times now we're seeing those are the quarterbacks who are taking the jump and they're becoming the player that it's a week-to-week thing. It does fold into the all your players get hurt situation. Yeah. I mean, that does happen at the quarterback position. They're not immune from it, obviously. But saying that that's okay, that is the transition from where we used to be. Yes, it is. For sure. Number five. All right. This one will affect Fanon a little bit. The tight end dead zone is deader than ever. It's all of them. It's just the whole position, people. There isn't a dead zone. There's some studs. And then there's, and then there's death. I don't know if everybody listening would understand what you mean by a dead zone when you talk. We've talked about RV dead zones. Maybe we should. So the tight and dead zone has at times, you know, changes based on the year. But you know, the fifth.

Sixth round tight ends historically have always been just terrible bets. Just awful. Waste of picks and you're ruining opportunities to draft relevant players at other positions. But what I'm calling the tight end dead zone, especially this last year, is if you're not Trey McBride, I mean, you could throw George Kittle in there, but he got injured and Bowers in there who got injured. Everyone else sucked. The difference between the Titan 2, this is fantasy finish at the end of the year, Titan 2 and Titan 12 was 1.3 points per game. It's irrelevant people. It is completely, that's the tightest spread in six years. Fanon was good down the stretch. He was on the waiver wire. End of the year, Loveland was like, oh, hey, he's breaking out. Waverwire pickup. He was drafted, and then he was a waiver wire pickup because he was averaging like 2.3 fantasy points per game. Kyle Pitts, the number two tight in. Waiver wire. Dallas Goddard.

was a waiver wire pick. And here's the thing. So basically, my strategy is this. What I'm going to remember is I am, I would love to draft Trey McBride. I would love to draft Brock Bowers. And then I'm checking out. I'm not going to fall victim to, oh, this player's good, that player's good. I like this name. I like that name. I'm going to let everyone else go. Here's why. Laporta was the tight end four drafted last year. He was drafted over wide receivers and running backs like Jameson Williams and D'Andre Swift. They made differences. Kelsey and Hawkinson were the next tight ends drafted a round later. They were drafted over Chris Olave and Jalen Warren. They made impacts on fantasy football. Mark Andrews was next. Drafted over Travis E.T.N. and Emeka Ibuka. Mark, Evan Ingram was next. Drafted over Judkins and Giovante Williams. Like, we didn't love Giovante Williams. There's a reason he was in the ninth, tenth round.

But there's opportunity. There's lots of misses in those rounds. But I want to take shots at these guys who actually could make an impact. These tight ends in the middle and late rounds, they're not making an impact. Najoku drafted over Scatibu and Pittman, who were looking good. So for me, give me Trey McBride and Brock Bowers, and then I'll see you on the waiver wire. I'm going to keep taking shots at all the running backs and wide receivers. I can stock up. Maybe I'll grab that second quarterback like Mike's saying. It's going to be okay. You're going to be okay because the gap, the difference between these guys, they're really not all that crazy. Never forget David Najoku, T.J. Hawkinson, back to back on our league of record fifth round. Yeah, I mean. Wasted picks. Just delete them from the earth. Take a shot on someone that could actually break out. These tight ends aren't going to be it. And, you know, I know Tyler Warren had looked great before the Daniel Jones injury. That's great. He was 10.7 fantasy points a game. That would have been.

Yeah, that would have counted. But that's 0.4 points more than what Dallas Goddard scored. Yeah. No, no, you can find value there. Yeah. Number four. Well, I'll keep it short. I'll make it simple here, but this is number four thing to remember. A good waiver pickup is a good waiver pickup. Sometimes we ignore players on the waiver wire because we think we have those positions figured out on the team. This goes into the staying water. This goes into the acknowledging that injuries are going to happen. Player performances, the rookies that Mike talked about, their performances change over time. There were a lot of players that performed really, really well last year. They were sitting on the waiver wire, and you might have thought to yourself, I don't need that guy because I have this guy. Harold Fanon was rostered on 6% of teams in week two on the waiver wire. If you had Brock Bowers, you were going to pass on the opportunity to pick up Harold Fanon because you had the position figured out. Well, an injury happened and you didn't, and that would have been a big, big difference because he was the tight in five.