Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - #FootClan Mailbag Episode, Dynasty, Keeper, Commish Questions

So you could keep them for your first, second, and third. Right. You see what I'm saying? If I were in his situation, though, you would take all three wide receivers versus, I think green for the two is the value. I agree. And I think Ingram for a two is probably a very good value. Oh, and go with those two? You mean? I would probably take one of those first-on receivers, green and Ingram. Who would you take Hopkins or? I'd take Hopkins. I would take Hopkins, Green, Ingram. That would be my three.

I would take Hopkins, Green, Ingram, unless what Mike is saying is... He just says which three should I keep, and it gives you those choices. Well, then if I can keep Robinson, I would rather keep Robinson, and DeAndre Hopkins, and Mark Ingram. Those would be the three that I would keep. So you can't give up to... Just put this out there on an island. Robinson for a one or green for a two. On an island? Yeah, because... Then it would be A.J. Green for a two. Okay.

But my point is, you can't give up two first-round picks in a draft. You're also, yeah, I mean, you're in a three-man keeper. I'm trying not to drill down too far on that conundrum here because he's making you make decisions based on the head-to-head value of giving up this pick for that guy. That's the decision-making process here is, would I give up a one for Robinson or a two for green? Two for green. So by that logic, Green Hopkins and Ingram. Okay. Yeah, definitely not Tom Brady. Jack in Kansas for the draft this year.

I have the third pick in our snake draft, and it's a 10-man standard league. I was wondering if I could wait on a quarterback until late and pick up great running backs and wide receivers and then snag a decent quarterback like Tyrod Taylor in the fifth or sixth. Ben, first time, or what does I say? First three times looking for a change in strategy. Yeah, he's been first three different times, but now he's looking for a change in strats. Well, if you... I say first off, if you're winning...

You don't necessarily have to change your strategy unless your league is evolving. However, absolutely, you can wait. And especially in a 10-man standard league, I would be waiting. I would probably be the last person to take a quarterback. More than likely, somebody in the league will have taken a backup before I actually take my starter. A guy like Tyrod Taylor.

Farron Taylor should be following much farther. If you took him in the fifth or the sixth, that would be a tremendous, tremendous reach. He's a guy, let's look at Fantasy Football Calculator. Right now, he's going in the 11th round. What quarterback number is? 18th. Yeah, so he's... But that's the point. The point of why you can do this is Tyrae Taylor's the 18th quarterback taken off the board. Now, I'm not necessarily...

feeling great about him being my only quarterback on my roster if I'm moving forward with that but I wouldn't feel terrible about it your roster will be so locked and loaded with studs at running back and wide receiver and awesome flyers and handcuffs if you go in with Tyrod Taylor who's being taken that late

And if you're new to our show, the fantasy footballers, you hear us talk a lot about waiting on quarterbacks. And last year, what we do during the regular season is we have a segment during the week in which we recommend a streaming quarterback option. So that's somebody that you can sign off of your waiver wire and play that week because of the matchup and the performance trend of that quarterback. And last year, we did that throughout the season.

And I think we had that we averaged the sixth best quarterback. Right. So that tells you what you can do. And we try to make sure that that quarterback is available in at least 40% of ESPN leagues because we play mostly in ESPN, so that's the metrics that we use. But 40% of leagues. And we give you three options. And if you're, then you're looking at a 10-man league, that percentage is going to go even higher. So if you don't get a starting quarterback, if Tyrod Taylor bombs out, you're going to be able to stream.

from your waiver wire. All right, Judah in the suburbs of Chicago says I get... Judah. Judah. Judah. I get to keep one player that I lose the round where I drafted the mat or just give up a 16th round pick for a waiver pickups or trades. I picked up Des and Lev Bell off the waivers. What? Yeah, exactly. Thank you, Judah, for writing in. You are making my point for me. And I traded for Gronk. So they're my favorites.

I only get to keep a one. I have the fifth overall pick. I also have Marty McBride and Cooper. No, I'm not even, those guys aren't even consideration. If you're only keeping one and you get to keep. So who do you guys pick then? Levy on Bell. You get to keep who is either the number one or number two draft in the entire league for a 16th rounder. So you're just giving Levy on Bell the number two spot in your draft after you, I mean, your arguments don't they exist for Des Bryant?

Yes. Here's what I'll say. We're getting into August, or whenever you have to make your keeper choice, maybe you have to make it soon. But if you don't have to make this until August, and they're like, Leveon Bell might miss four games, might miss five games, then Des Bryant. And I feel perfectly fine with it. And they're all free, and they all make Jason's point. So if you're in a dumb league where Levy on Bell and Des Brin are on the waivers, then maybe your rules should not be.

One, you get to trade the 16th. Yeah, and if this is the first time you're listening, the fart noise I made and the upsetness I have is Keeper Leagues that allow you to keep a waiver pickup for essentially the absolute last pick that you have. You just get them for free. Jason's just not a fan of that. I don't mind it, but in this situation, he proved me stupid. It just creates an imbalance of power for a person. Just, Levy on Bell, Des. And I...

Yeah, but those guys should never be on waiver wire. But if you're not... Des was on waiver wire all over the place last year. If you don't have an IR spot, yeah. In a keeper league, though... Not in a keeper league. In a keeper, I can't see him being dropped. And you know who else I bet was on the waiver wire? Probably Jordy. So someone else is keeping Jordy Nelson for a 16th round pick. Yeah, that's a problem. Yes. You're in a dumb league.

I don't call it. Despair is dumb. If it's a keeper league where these guys are sitting there, it doesn't make any sense. Maybe they convert it over to a keeper league or something. Well, you only keep one player. So it's not like your, it's not a dynasty. These guys got hurt. They got dropped real quick. People aren't used to it. However, great job by Judah. Yeah. Terrific job. Very smart moves.

Yeah, Keaton in North Carolina, when trading picks, how do you guys personally value them? For example, would you prefer having several extra picks in the middle rounds or invest heavily in having three picks in the first two rounds? Hashtag foot clan, tie it all. Oh, Keaton. Hey, I got a couple thoughts on this. Yeah, I was actually going to try to kick it back to you because you are, if nothing else, the king of trades. You make 100,000 trades in the off season every year. Just average. On average, yeah.

That was my peak. 127,000 was a couple of years ago. Here's the deal. One thing that I love about picks is this. I've never, to date, no draft pick that I've had has torn his ACL. I've had no draft pick ever tear his ACL. I've had nobody sprained his ankle while they're draft picks, is what I mean. If the actual draft pick is more valuable than a player sometimes because they can't get hurt.

You don't have, you know, in a lot of keeper leagues, you've got three or four keepers. Those guys, I mean, Jordy Nelson owners last year. Brutal. That's just, nothing you can do. But if you had traded Jordy Nelson for the right pick combination, that guy doesn't get hurt, you get to draft them. At least you know the guy's healthy on draft day. So let's look at this question, though. Maybe there aren't keepers involved. It's just everyone starts. You have 12 picks, and you can trade your picks around as you see fit. Yeah, and I'm a top-heavy type of player. I prefer having...

picks in the top half of the draft. I think your odds are much better to land on the right guy there if you do your research. And I also believe that when you start looking at the fifth round to the eighth round, you can kind of, I mean, the odds of getting a guy in the eighth round might be very similar to the fifth because you're taking more shots in the dark, I mean, in the dark perceptively. You know, people are, your research goes a long way in the eighth round. I completely agree. When you get past the sixth round,

Those guys every year for me, because we, you know, we obviously come in having done our research. That's what we do for a living. When we get there, I'm always wanting to take guys in that seventh or eighth round who I value there, who I know I'm going to get in the 11th or 12th round, and I value them there. So if I don't have those fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth round picks because I use those picks to trade up for thirds and fours, and now I'm backloaded as well. And I've got a lot of 11s. I feel like I'm going to be fine with the guys I grabbed there.

Yeah, I completely agree. That's kind of my idea, too. And I always figure the last couple of picks in my draft, I'm going to be dropping those guys, rotating them out for free agent signings pretty early on. So do you have anything you want to add to that? I just, if you, I would say a heavier research and deeper knowledge of the draft favors you having a bunch of middle round picks.

Let's say you're at, but it's a situation. So you're saying the opposite. No, well, I'm saying, look at it from this perspective. I think it favors you in all your picks. I feel this is what they're asking. Do you want a one, a two, and a two, or extra picks in the middle? And you would take the middle extra picks? Maybe. I would take the one of two and a two, leave a hole in the middle, and I feel confident that I can make it up later. That's about where I lean to.

But I understand, I see a lot of value in the fourth, fifth, sixth round. It's not saying I don't want picks there. Just saying I know that if I, you know, you can lock and load some of those top heavy picks, especially in 10-man leagues, those top-heavy guys are really, really important. Not to stay on this question too long, but if you are in a place where you can trade picks and you can, you know, keeper leagues with pick trading, a lot of times you see really lopsided drafts. You can't overdo this. You can overdo it where you have so much top-heavy picks.

that you're not taking anybody of value. And all of a sudden, you're having to get backup bench spots or you're thinking about your tight end where you kind of have to fill them in in like the sixth round because you're almost out of picks. You're not getting as good of value and you probably traded away too much to get them. I've seen that in several of our leagues. All right. Derek in Seattle.

It says, what's your opinion on draft position? Do you always like to have a certain spot or how do you decide where you want to draft from? In my league, we all fill out March Madness brackets and the best brackets get to choose their draft spot first. Yeah, nice. Second best bracket chooses their draft spot, et cetera. I've heard that method. I like it. It's fun. Yeah. I love competitions to earn your draft spot. But where do you want a draft? Let's say you win the March Madness bracket, Mike, your first pick. I hate...

uh hates pretty strong i dislike being on the corners i don't want to be first i don't want to be last if i can pick my spot i have my tier of top end studs where uh like last year it was around six or seven there was uh six or seven there was six or seven guys where if if i'm in the top three i would love any of those guys so i want to be

a round pick six or seven when that tier is going to drop off, because then my second round pick will be higher up in my next tier. Yeah, it's going to change every year. So this year for you, Andy, it's early. You can change. What would you select right now? I'm probably in the five range, five or six. Me too. I think I'm four or five. It's a little bit difficult right now because if certain guys...

step into rolls that we, you know, expect. You know, if Doug Martin was back, does he slide into that top tier? If Rawls is handed the job, does that affect how you view certain, you know, Rawls was the best running back in football for a period of the year, not saying he's going to be in that tier for me. But those decisions will come with time here. Yeah, I would take, I think, four, because I would like Antonio Brown, Levion Bell, Odell Beckham, or...

Adrian Peterson. Those are the four guys that I have at the top of my list. So we've talked a lot about, on the last show we talked about Breeze, and I think we're kind of in agreement. He's going to have a pretty good year, we think. Yeah, I like him. His year was deceptively better than 2014. He actually reduced his interceptions. He threw for the same amount of yards, better pass the rating. So here's a question from Michael in, I believe, Easley or Isley.

South Carolina. He said, will Matt Ryan bounce back after his bad year, or is he on a downward spiral? I would say, you know, we've seen this type of question come around every year. Is it, you know, is Matthew Stafford going to have a bounce back year? Those type of players, Matt Ryan had a bad year.