10 Things to Remember from 2018 + FA Wishing Well

Is he? Did you take a look? No, I'm just guessing. He didn't look 53 in Spider-Man with that face tattoo. This is something we have to share while you look. Wow, what a guess by me. I just threw out the number. Yeah, that's pretty good. Look, I did not see the second Spider-Man with Andrew Garfield. It was the amazing Spider-Man too. Sure. It's the one that has Jamie Fox as Electro. I didn't see it. I didn't know anybody who saw it. And then Jason comes in.

Just a look on his face like he has, he found a treasure map, and he knows exactly where the Lost City of Atlantis is. I mean, he is. Two days ago. He is excited. And he says, guys, have you seen the second Spider-Man? Of course, we say, no, because no one has seen it. For some reason, Jason watched this a couple days ago with my son. It was bad. But Paul Giamati is in the beginning of that movie in a role that is...

insane and terrible skin head face tattooed. Yes. He is an absolute psychopath. And that's you, Brooks. And that's you, birthday boy. It's a role going like, what is esteemed actor Paul Giamati doing in Spider-Man 2 as this guy? Check it out. It's very fun. All right. Number four on this list. Shout out to dynasty owners. This is called the dynasty depth chart deep dive at the running back position. Decision. Because this is what.

Brooks does well. He adds the third and fourth string running backs if you have a Dynasty League with monster-sized benches. Because you have to think to yourself, hey, if this player gets hurt, who becomes the potential handcuff? And you might say to yourself, well, does that really work out? This makes no sense. Why add those guys? Well, here's the benefits that Brooks has received over the years. Here's just 2018 players that have emerged at some time.

to deliver some value. Brooks is the best of this, but he didn't get the best guy. Sorry, Brooks. All right. Damien Williams. That's the one he didn't get. Yeah. Damien Williams was an RB3. It was the RB3 from weeks 14 through 17. Justin Jackson started in week 15 on a high-powered offense. Jalen Samuels came out of nowhere, started three games late in the season. Gus Edwards. Who was Gus Edwards? Well, he was no one. And then he was the RB 16 for seven weeks.

Josh Adams started five games. Jeff Wilson Jr. Nobody knew that name. But if you could have had the fourth. Jeff Wilson Sr. certainly did. Certainly. Yeah, that he knew it well. And if you had the foresight to add them early on, then you were in great shape. So as a dynasty league owner, sometimes it doesn't look like.

Those names are worth adding to the roster. But if you're going to add them, look what's happened over the last year. Yeah, I mean, we talk about in redraft leagues and keeper leagues, normal, you know, smaller sized rosters, we talk about how difficult it is to handcuff because you think you've got the right guy. But then it turns out when the starter goes down, we were wrong. It wasn't Spencer Ware or it wasn't, you know.

whoever you thought it was going to be. It wasn't Echler in full time. It was C.J. Anderson. He steps up. You didn't think he was going to be the guy. But in Dynasty, where you got such deep, you know, ability to go after those third string running backs, when they hit, it changes everything. Because usually you've got a deeper starting roster as well. You need two flexes. You need to go deeper. So I love that tip.

Jump in real quick just to add on to that. It's kind of more of a tip. But if you're in a startup dynasty, grab other people's handcuffs late in the draft if they haven't. High-powered handguns. Yeah, I like it. I grabbed James Connor in a startup dynasty last year really late. Yeah, no, that's a good point. And I can tell you this. In a dynasty league, when someone else has your handcuff, you are biting your nails, you are holding your breath. And it stinks. It's the worst. Because in a dynasty league, you're building that team.

at a core position. And if you lose that guy and someone else benefits to the degree that a Jalen Samuel's owners benefited this year, that, that sucks. And if you want to make it suck for your friends, that's what you can do. Number three. Number three, this is one for me. I want to remember those who were... Tee-he. I want to remember those.

who were better than their end-of-season rankings. And we're in this weird in-between time right now where when I say some of these things, we'll remember them now. But I promise you, as you go through the off-season, you get closer to the draft, everyone starts looking and thinking and remembering full-season stats. Where did a guy finish? How did they do? And you can't remember the nuance of how they got there. So there's specific players that so clearly outproduced.

what their end-of-season rankings say they were, that I want to remember. I made this list of guys because I want to remember. And you can go back and listen to the truth episodes. That'll help. You can bookmark this episode, put a little slackbot reminder or something to yourself saying, hey, I want to come back and remember all these tips later in the year when we're getting closer to draft season. That's a lot of times when these tips will help you the most.

But I want to give you examples of what I'm talking about. So James Winston, quarterback for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They are all in now. It looked like he might not even be their starter hit. They're all in. Last year, he finished as the quarterback 22, which is trash. It's garbage. It's worthless for fantasy. But...

From week six on, which is pretty much when he started, because if you remember he was suspended the first three games, then he wasn't going to be the starter, came in in relief, so he kind of got half of a game. And this isn't even including a game where he got benched halfway through. From week six on, he was the quarterback nine on a point per game basis. He was actually very good for fantasy. I want to remember that going into next year with Bruce Ariens and not just look at, well, he finished 22nd. He wasn't that good. Josh Allen.

finished 21st. But in the last five weeks of the season, once he got back from his stretch where he missed, you know, and this is his rookie season, he was the number one quarterback. Those are things where you cannot, when we go into next year, you can't forget the stretches, you can't just look at where they finished last year. Leonard Fournett finished 40th, but he was actually 14th on a per game basis. Now that's still behind where he was drafted, but he's going to fall in drafts this year.

He's better than where he finished. Carry on Johnson, same thing. Finished 33rd. But from weeks three through 10 before he got injured and after he finally got, you know, work and wasn't just relegated completely behind Legerrett Blunt, you know, he was the 13th running back during that time. Dalvin Cook, weeks 12 through 17, once he got over his hamstring injury, he was the RB7. You have Cooper Cup. Obviously, he was injured with the ACL, but he was.

He was a wide receiver won. He was 12th in per game. You had Julian Edelman, right? Because of the suspension, you don't realize that he was the 14 wide receiver 14 in a per game basis. All those are half PPR numbers. So I want to remember those players and make sure that next season I do not just go based on end of season. And it's not just end of season versus per game, right? Because some of these you need the nuanced.

context of suspensions or half games missed or things like that. I want to actually realize how good a player was and take them at that value versus taking them at just where they finished if you look at 17 weeks. Yeah, I love it. Number two. Number two, you know that this is a late round quarterback strategy show.

And it was very successful for those guys in streaming the position. And instead of looking at it from that angle, I want to look at it from the other angle. The argument that early quarterback drafters use. Early quarterbacks are safe. They're super safe, Mike. They're the safest position in fantasy. I feel like the voice of public opinion should have showed up for that. But whatever.

I don't need to show up. Everyone knows the early quarterbacks are the safest and the coolest. Maybe they're the coolest. Neither here nor there. I don't know if I can argue that point at all. Here is what happened last year. Only one quarterback of the top 10 guys off the draft board gave a positive return.

And that was Andrew Luck, who was the, he was drafted as QB9 and finished at five. Only three quarterbacks drafted in the top 10 came close to returning value. And that's with Andrew Luck in there. So I'm including Deshaun Watson, who was the second quarterback off the board. And you had to grab him in the fourth round. He finished at QB4. And Drew Breeze, QB6 off the board. He finished at QB8.

But everyone else gave you a massive negative return on your draft capital. And these were guys that you stuck with and you paid the price. Well, everyone else was throwing Mahomes, throwing Big Ben, throwing these guys where you just. Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson. Matt Ryan. Yes. Yes. Matt Ryan. I mean, Matt Ryan, Big Ben and Mahomes are like the three faces of you don't need to draft a quarterback early. But on top of that.

just how unsafe the position that's a bigger argument that's the bigger point you're making you need not just see both sides of this story they aren't it's not just saying they're not 100% safe because the way that the argument has been made in the past is look don't take one early because it's only it's a one a one start position and even if they're guaranteed it's not worth more than you're running back that's all true yes but then you add in the lack of safety and here

Mike, we were filling this show doc out, and we were each picking three items that were really important to us. Well, I pulled up two things. I pulled up end-of-season rankings, and I pulled up average draft position last year. And I wanted to try to identify some things there. First thing I noticed is I'm seeing Big Ben and Matt Ryan's name near the top of this list. And I'm going, boy, there's a lot of names at quarterback that just don't seem to correlate with the draft. I start to write up something on it. I roll up here, and you've already done the research. Yeah. Rogers, first, finish sixth.

Watson drafted second finish fourth, Brady drafted, third finished 14th. The argument you just said, only one gave you a plus return. I mean, even if you're neutral, it's not a good argument. Well, at least you gave up an early draft pick, though. So, you know, at least you gave up one of your really good wide receivers of running backs that you could have drafted. So that's cool. No, look, it's more ammo.

for the late round quarterback philosophy. Even when... Go with it. It's crazy. I mean, look, you drafted Carson Wins. You spent that money, finished 23rd. Banged up. Let it wash over you, people. We'll try our best. Whether it's cold water, we'll see. We'll break you out of it. Number one. All right, what's number one? On the list of things to remember for 2018. You know what it is. No. Remember.

To fix your league. Look, there's two things you got to do. You got to identify the problem. Step two. Fix it. Fix it. Fix it. Fix that problem. Look, do you have a week 17 championship in your league? Lucky for you, this was an in particular least very strong one that you bring to your league and say, guys, gals, what the heck are we doing? Look at my team.

Look at my super stud team that I did not get to play in Wake 17. You still like kickers? I mean, maybe you do, and that's fine. But if you don't, this is, don't forget and just keep re-rolling. Did you just say if you do, that's fun? It is. Look, I hate kickers. I put the ball on the tee. I know. And you came up and you. And I picked it up and I threw it really far.

Because I hate kickers. Did you know Jason when he goes out on the golf course? He does all his driving via right arm. Look. We let him do that. And then everything else, he can hit an iron. What's crazy is I'm so much better with my arm. Are you more accurate? As many strokes as I add because I can't get the distance, I'm still coming in under what I would have done with that golf club. You just look like an elephant? That, yes. Yeah, I mean, no, my point here is that.

I understand if people want kickers. I get the argument for I hate kickers. I want them out. But I was comparing that to like the week 17 where get out of here with that trash stuff. But now's the time to remember. What about your waiver wire? Is it just an open waiver wire where, man, every year the guy who doesn't have a job and sits at home gets first pickings? Do you want to move to the fab system? You know, where every day you put bids in and everybody has an equal chance to...