Bounce Backs + Waiver Wire Tilt, King of Texas - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/15

This is a really good strategy question that maybe we should have had on yesterday's waiver episode while you were setting your lineup. But for future weeks... Better than never. Yeah. For future weeks, the way that I view it, and tell me if you guys view this any differently. I will. The really intricate ability to make a bunch of different waiver moves that would essentially be a tree of thought where you're going to want this guy if you get that guy, but not if you...

you know, miss out on that guy. You don't want to drop, you don't want to pre-drop your players in that situation. You have more ability to set specific transactions. By not dropping them early. By not dropping them early and building your waivers off of the drops. Now, can I give an example of that? Please. To make it clear. So let's say I was going in on a running back and I'm going to drop. I could drop Marquez Callaway. And I could do it right now and then just.

build out that, or I could do it on signing of the player. Well, because I only want maybe one running back to add to my roster, I would make all my running back claims, all with the condition of dropping Callaway. Therefore, only one can process because that player's connected to it, whereas if I dropped a bunch of guys off my bench and put those saving waiver claims in, I could end up with three running backs. Exactly. And so, but it's much easier.

to pre-drop. And so if I don't have a situation where... Sometimes it feels good. It's just, look, I'm in a lot of leagues. Oh, we're one minute away. When you're in four or five leagues, sometimes it's easier to just pre-drop your players and then make a huge list of waiver priorities. And I do that when, you know, if I'm just going after a bunch of different wide receivers and the, you know, it's all the same position, I'll pre-drop the players. Weird.

We are one minute from finding out how much I overpaid by. This is, oh, wow. This is, this is interesting because when we came into the studio this morning, walked it through the door, it was literally like we walked in the door and went, just held our breath until about 30 seconds from now. We are in it. We are in it with you guys. This is not, you know, us up in an iron.

Tower. Iron tower. Wow. I mean, like, we're not fancy. We're hardcore. So wait, we're still in a, we could be in a tower, but it wouldn't be ivory. No, no, it'd be iron. Is iron greater than ivory? No. It's just more hardcore. It's not greater. Or steampunk. Right. Is marble a bit above ivory? Like if it was a marble tower? That's a great question. Probably not. Hmm.

Because you've got to take the ivory off the elephants. See, Jason, stop talking because he's trying to refresh the page. All right, go to the next voicemail. Whatever. Here we go. What's up, ballers? Just want to know if Michael Pittman Jr. is a stash or trash candidate after week one. Great question. And I'll jump in. And 100% he is still a stash to me. He ran the most routes of the Indianapolis wide receivers. I am trying to not play him.

And he's making a face. So we'll get to the waiver wire report. I'm guessing he got him by like one or two. But Michael Pittman, I think he is still the wide receiver to have on your roster from the Indianapolis Colts. But something to monitor. We don't know if this was a game plan against the Seahawks or not. Naim Hines accounted for 23% of the targets for Indianapolis. Jonathan Taylor accounted for 20%.

of their targets. That's 43% of the targets went to the running back position for Indianapolis this week. Pittman is still a hold because you've got to give them more than one week. Every wide receiver is inconsistent. But what sucks about Michael Pittman is he's playing the Los Angeles Rams. What I was saying is if you have an option, I'm trying to pivot away from him. In our double flex league, for example, I will likely be playing Jamal Williams this week over Michael Pittman. Yeah, I definitely wouldn't play him.

I thought that if you're looking at dropping him, that's where you might want to hold another week or two. I don't think you should drop him. But I think Zach Pascal has just as good of a chance of being a contributor fantasy-wise. Let's move forward. Wait, let's move forward. You sure? I'm sorry. Did you get him? Okay, you got him. What did you do? Let's hear it. Oh, it couldn't be better. Oh, no, Jason. I'm not happy. All right, let's hear it, Andy. Well, I hit it again.

Can you, can you shut that down? No, you can't. I've got to shut it down. Was Al trying to shut her down? Is that what happened? Okay. I mean, I could dance the rest of the day. I didn't know what. Holy balls. Whoa. Look, I told you. I'm extremely desperate for a running back. Apparently Jason wanted to ruin me on the show. I want to storm out of here right now. I want. Now, why would that be?

really, really wanted Elijah Mitchell. We've got a double flex league, and while I've got two good running backs, I wanted a third, and my double flex really has a problem. So picking them up, I think, I said this. If it turns out to be last year's James Robinson, he's worth 100% of your fab. So you've got to make the choice. There are easy paths for this to be a bad pickup, but I went hard in the paint. And part of the reason that I went hard in the paint, and I mean hard in the paint. Yeah, we'll reveal.

is because, Andy, you are in division with me, and I know how desperately you need it. Okay. My co-manager and I, we talked about this, and I went up from, I started the morning at 82. I started the morning. What? 80. And I went up to 86. And I went to 91, baby. Congratulations. Yeah, I mean, it could just completely submarine me, but I had, I had no choice. I had no choice in the matter.

And I think the whole point about the backfield is you will get something out of Elijah Mitchell. You might not get what you hope. It might not be James Robinson. But I had no choice. I tried for three days to make trades for running backs. Naim Hines was a target. Couldn't get Naim Hines. Miles Gaskin was a target. I would be buying semi-low on Miles Gaskin. He was still a double-digit player in week one, but it was a difficult Patriots matchup. I would be buying low on Miles.

I'm happy. And yesterday when I put in at 80, when I asked my co-manager, it was kind of like, well, if someone beats us, are we going to be mad? And it was like, yeah, we got to go hard in the paint. So I didn't know it would be you, Jason. I had no idea it would be me and you. You're still tilting. I am very tilted. But let's have a great show. Eyes of a sad man. You see what you did to him, Andy? Oh, this is so great that we record right during this time every single week. Next.

Temperature check, Robert Woods. That's a question coming in from Instagram. Chris Eckers, the Rams, obviously 20 for 26 for Matthew Stafford, highest pass rating of his career ever in his first game for the Rams. You had nine targets for Cooper Cup. You had three for Van Jefferson, four for Robert Woods. Cup was the man. My temperature check on Robert Woods to quickly answer this is, it's totally fine. I mean, Robert Woods is going to be heavily involved. If it wasn't a single game sample size,

You know, you can pick one game out last year and decide it was a Robert Woods game or a Cooper Cup game. They're going to use both players. I would be holding just like I drafted him. Yeah, I'm at a solid 98.6 degrees. I am the normal human body temperature, whatever you drafted him to be. I still think he's very involved. I will say this. Had a nice touchdown. Oh, my goodness. I do have a fever for a Cooper Cup. But it does not mean that it comes at the...

expense of Robert Woods. I think Robert Woods and whatever we believe in the Rams offense with Matthew Stafford, which I believe in neutral game scripts, is going to be very pass heavy, and I think it's going to succeed. So those things might benefit Cooper Cup more if he is indeed the full season target leader, but I also think those things benefit Woods. And just a reminder, the Rams opened the game with, what was that, an 80-yard?

Touched, whatever. To Van Jefferson. To Van Jefferson. No more targets that drive. And that means that there's no more targets during that drive. That means the Rams have already scored seven points. So that's a huge, that's an unfortunate opportunity that is taken away from both Cooper Cup and Robert Woods. And my note for Robert Woods to be, bro, you got to get in on all these breakfasts. Oh, yeah. Get in there early. You need to get there five minutes before Cooper Cup. Open the door for Stafford. Have his tray ready.

Bake a keesh. Bring it in. Oh, yeah. A nice keesh. A nice keish. Because that's not the go-to. That's not the norm. Cooper Cup is showing up with oat meat. You guys like keish? Oh, no, they're disgusting. I think they're awful. You don't like a good keesh? No. Oh, man. They're always. Ow. Not for me. Pro-key. Okay. Anti-Kish. Brooksie. What? All right. All right is where I'd put it. I'm not like. Brooks is pro-Kish. The difference.

Well done. If my choice is no breakfast or kish, I'll go kish. Otherwise, I'll choose anything else. Give me a bowl of cereal. I love a keesh. Really? Yeah. What's in a good kish for you? Eggs. That's it. It's like just a, would you like an egg pie piece? It's such a weird texture. Yeah, they'd rather just have scrambled eggs. Right, exactly. But do you want it shaped like a cake? Call it a keesh. Yeah, I can pick it up. It's portable. It's normally got some burn edges and stuff too.

A little different. A little crispy texture. All right. You can't pick up scramby eggs with your hands. Looks like a savage. Scramby eggs? Mike is pro-Kish. And he likes eating breakfast with his hands. That's what we learned. All right. Brandon Lee writes in on YouTube. Has the outlook on Michael Thomas changed since James looks good at quarterback. And what week would you try to acquire him in a tray? This is a good question because obviously you need to act. But Michael Thomas is not back for a little while.

And I still feel like I want like a, I don't know, two-game sample size of James Winston to understand what to do with him. I'm not changing the outlook for Thomas off of one week. James looked incredibly efficient, but this was also a run and defense-led offense. Maybe that's because of the efficiency of James Winston. But that's not factoring into the trade value of Michael Thomas to me. The question becomes, Jason, I'll throw this to you.

Because the price for Michael Thomas, every single week it goes up slightly. So if, for instance, I didn't have Michael Thomas in the League of Record, what week would you try to trade for him? I think this is your best week to do it, but it's totally team dependent. Because like you said, the team that drafted Michael Thomas, they were well aware. Let's say you have five bench spots and no IR. Okay.

So if you have five bench spots, no, I are. This is a very team dependent. If your starters look strong and you're set up for success, then I would make that trade offer and try to get it because I think he will be good. But the reality is the teammate, the league manager who drafted Michael Thomas, they did it knowing they were going to have to wait. They were prepared for that. So it's really taking advantage of look at that team.

and see if they have problems. If they have problems and they need starters and they're going to need to play the waiver wire and now they have the regrets, this is the week to do it because every week that goes on, they're closer to getting them back. So I think you've got to, you've got to jump now if you want, but I don't, this is not me saying, you should go out and jump and try to trade for Michael Thomas because of James Winston at all. My outlook on him has not changed one iota.

Twitter question from Cam Edgecombe says, what are some strategies you can use to increase the number of trades people make in your league? I will say this. Sleeper does a really good job with their trade block. That is a feature I have always thought was awful because you can do it on all the other platforms and no one sees it. On Sleeper, you put a guy in the trade block. I had three trade offers for him in less than 10 minutes because wherever they put it on the platform,

People see a face pop up and they know, hey, I'm going to go make an offer. But that is a way of saying, communicating about the teams in general is how you get more offers. Yeah, you can also include other things to throw into trades. Obviously, a lot of our trades in our league of record include draft picks in future years because we're a keeper league. You can turn on fab budget trading to incentivize a trade. You know, you can.

I'll trade this player plus 10 extra fab to sweeten the deal to push a trade over the top. I know I am pro fab trading. We do not have that in our League of Record. We voted on that several times. But if that's your goal, then if your goal is more trades, that's one way to do it. And this is a league culture that in our League of Record, there's heavy trading. It's happening usually.

at least once a week. And then I've had my other leagues where I knew one point of contact in that league. And he was like one of my best friends. But I didn't personally know anybody else in the league. I had no other way to communicate with these people besides sending them an offer inside of the system. I would often have to text my friend to be like, dude, can I get this person's number so I can actually try and communicate with them? But that's...