The Fantasy MVP Show + Team DEF Strategy

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to the fantasy footballers podcast. Coming to you from draft.com studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Ah, welcome, man. It's going to be a good one today. Judging by the pitch of that opening scream, it's going to be great. I call him Tommy. Tommy touchdown. What? Your scream? No, no, no.

The intro. Our good friend. Our good friend to the show. Oh, man. I mean, I'm just such good friends with him. Yeah. At this point, whatever, I call him T. TC. TC. We have a great show today, Wednesday, August 22. It is the fantasy MVP show. He does his own stunts. Right. As do I. But he can't draft his own team. No. Oh, no. He needs some help. It's another level. Sorry.

We have a number of friends joining the show today to share their fantasy MVP picks for 2018, and we've each picked our own. This is a big show because there are certain players each and every year that set themselves apart that are on the highest percentage of championship contending fantasy teams.

Shout out to Jason last year. I believe your fantasy MVP was Karim Hunt. It was. I guess that was okay. Only you can pridefully exhale. Only you can. Look, it's taken me a long time to develop the prideful exhale, but I've arrived. You've mastered it. So we'll share ours on the show today. We'll share some news. Got a good quick question. I mean, the season is almost here. I think it's like 15 days away. You think?

I believe 14, 15 somewhere around there. It depends on when you're listening. That is very true. It could be tomorrow at this point. Do you guys check out the latest hard knocks last night? You're darn right I did. Did you see some of that slow-mo Josh Gordon running at the end? Yeah. Tell me something. Well done, HBO. Did he look a little bit like pink moose in that jog? He did look elite. My favorite parts of hard knocks was actually, it was very low-key. I don't even know if.

people realized what happened. There's the, there's the member of the staff. They're all in, they're all in Dorsey's room. Oh, I know. And they're talking about, hey, who has the most touchdown receptions from 2012 to 2017? I mean, he's getting the room hype. Yeah. Dorsey legit thought it was Jarvis Landry. Sure. He thought it could be Jarvis Landry. I don't know everything that goes into being a general manager of an NFL team, but I would have to imagine it's,

scouting a player that you trade a buttload of picks for and then give him a huge contract and you look at what he's done in the past. Yeah. And you think, look, I feel like you could ask any fantasy player that question. I knew it right away where he was going. Maybe you don't know what's deads, but you know it's not Landry. You know who it's not.

This is great. So it was just very funny moment for me. In case you're not aware, that's called the endowment effect. It's a psychological effect. When you own a player in that context, when you have somebody on your team, you value them higher. So he just assumed he had traded for the player that had the most touchdowns in football. We do that with our fantasy squad. So I guess I forgive him. I wanted to show that. That's a scientific proven fact. There's a scientist that won a Nobel Prize proving the endowment effect. And what he did was he gave five mugs.

to five people, and he said, how much would you sell that mug for? And they all settled in between $4 and $5. Then he asked five people, how much would you buy that mug for? And they all said $2 to $3. Because we value what's on our team even more. That is all you have to do to win a Nobel Prize. This is incredible. That was my takeaway. That was the only thing I could hear Jason or Andy saying is that I need to go win a Nobel Prize. Immediately. How do you, I mean, I don't know how. Brooks, look into that.

You might be able to do this. All right. Bucket list. Hold on. Nobel Prize. By that judgment, you can knock it out next week. This is a summer bucket list. Yes. Well, goals. All right. Quick question of the day. This is important. Name a team defense that you're targeting in drafts that has a good week one. Because that's how you target a defense in a draft. If you're going to pick somebody at the end of a draft, we had our listener league draft yesterday. And I queued up a bunch of defenses for my final pick.

And it was all based on week one schedule because I'm going to play that position week to week. And it's harder in week one because you believe you know something about an offense. Sure. But it doesn't always come to fruition. Like maybe playing, you know, San Francisco looks like a good matchup. I think they play Minnesota week one. Is that right? Correct. And that is a good matchup. For Minnesota? Yeah, for Minnesota. Because Minnesota is an elite defense. Andy, I'm going to let you go first because this is the defense that I grabbed.

in the listener league specifically for this matchup. Yeah, I took Carolina at home against Dallas. Oh, yes. Yeah, I mean, Dak will probably make something happen in that game, but he might throw a few away. It'll, you know, I like the fact that Dallas is on the road in that game. Carolina is a good defense. Yeah, last night I drafted the defense that I am targeting. I believe it was like the seventh defense off the board, so it wasn't the tip top.

But the New Orleans Saints are, one, they're a great defense. Two, they open the season, I mean, they open the season at home against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who don't even have their starting quarterback. Yeah. Gimmy, give me. That was actually my pick. I just saw you had put it in first. Right. And then forget just week one. I mean, I look at week one a lot, but it's also really valuable when you go, okay.

Well, do they play the Patriots week, too? Because then I'm going to need a different defense. But they go from the Buccaneers, listen to their first five games. The Buccaneers, the Browns, Falcons, Giants, Redskins. So the Falcons are not a great matchup. But that's one out of the first five that I would say are, you know, is not a plus matchup. Very interesting. The team I'm going to throw out the Baltimore Ravens. They open the season at home against what we can presume will be Josh Allen.

A John Shannon led Buffalo Bills, the Baltimore Ravens defense versus a rookie in his first game. I'm very interested. And week two, they get to take on the Bengals who have, they did not put out their Sunday's best. Dalton's still a rookie though, right? Isn't that the, no? He just uses that excuse? The confidence level. They will be, what, without Jimmy Smith, though, the first? Don't care. Yeah, they're still a good D. Yeah. You can target those rookie games.

That's a good way to go. All right. Here's a question, though, for you. Last year, when you look at the, because we're talking fantasy MVPs, and when you look at the players that were most commonly on championship teams last year, it was Alvin Camara, it was some of the big names that you already talked early, obviously. The Eagles defense was actually in that top 10. We don't prioritize defense. Nope. And I don't like looking at something like, okay, the Jags are going to be a great defense.

But if you draft a defense, draft a defense to lock in a defense, that seems like a problem, right? Yes. Okay. Yes. There is a very large problem with people reaching for defenses because you don't want to play the waiver wire game. And look, we talk about this. Like when you draft a streaming quarterback, you're attempting to lock one in. When you draft a streaming titan, Trey Burton, you're hoping that you've got a locked and loaded week in, week out starter.

But you don't want to do that with defenses because you can stream an Indianapolis Colts defense against the right matchup, and you'll have a top five weekly play, whereas you can have a great Philadelphia Eagles defense, and when they're playing the Packers, you're going to want to sit them. You got to want to pivot. I just want to point out, I'm looking at fantasy football calculators, their historical data. Last year, the Philadelphia defense. Really into that data.

The Philadelphia defense that was on so many championship teams, the 11th defense off the board. Yeah, and that's the case every year. You get so much turnover at the defensive position. You got turnover in personnel on the different rosters. And you don't even, I mean, remember two years ago when the Texans had a complete polar opposite first and second half of the season just based on injuries? Players go out.

So, no, I wouldn't reach on a defense. That was a question. Nor would I. Brooks had a follow-up question there. How early would you reach on one? I wouldn't. Be sure to check out Footclan giveaway.com. Still giving away that autograph, DeAndre Hopkins jersey. A couple copies of Madden and the UDK for Life. If you don't have the Ultimate Draft Kit, check it out at Ultimate DraftKit.com. I believe the giveaway deadline is the kickoff of the season, which is between zero and 15 days away. Right.

All right, I'm not going to get into a full news segment today. I want to get into the MVP picks, but I want to mention a few things. If you got the sleeper app, you've probably already seen them. That was my sleeper alert. Nice. Nicely done. Inception's alert. That one's more of a bwong. Oh, it's the length. That's all it is. The length of bwa. Yep. Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said Doug Baldwin will for sure.

Be ready for week one against the Broncos. Rashad Penny back in pads, and Carol says he'll be ready for week one. Was he winking and chewing gum at the same time? Well, he certainly was chewing gum. I don't know if he was winking. Yeah, I'm going to need video. We'll talk a little bit more about Dougie B. Oh, oh. So, uh-oh. Nothing to see here. Not if you call him that. We won't. Oh, I like it. Adam Shaheen, bears tied in, diagnosed with the sprained right foot. I think there was more concerned when he was initially injured.

It's nice to see something trended the right direction there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, as a fantasy owner, people want to make that into Trey Burton snaps. But yeah, it's good for the player. Good for the person. Let's get into it. Who's your fantasy MVP? It's a big deal, guys. Got to have that MVP. Huge. Do you even know who yours is right now, Mike? You're darn right, I do. Oh. Okay.

I know you're on the fence between a couple players before he started the show. So let's kick it off with Friend of the Show.

Brad Evans from Yahoo! Brad Evans here from the Yahoo Sports and my fantasy MVP this season is actually one of the best values on the board. A guy going in the early to mid-60s in terms of average reposition, and that is Royce Freeman of the Denver Broncos. Yes, put the keys ignition, press pedal to the metal, rev that engine. The Rolls Royce is going to do some work for fantasy purposes this season. I think he's going to be the second most valuable rookie rusher and all of fantasy land because, after all, say, quads.