Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - 5 Ways to Become a Better Fantasy Football Player in 2017

We don't need... Your news source. Yes, your news source that's quick. That's just, you know, when you're doing something that is normally in your routine, whatever that is, grab out your phone and look at that source and see if there's any updates. You know, there's several different options for this. You don't have to obsess. People say, I don't have the time for fantasy football. That's one of the intimidating factors for people even joining.

is thinking they're going to have to spend hours and hours study. Yeah, they don't want to have to look at the news every time they do something. That's why we're saying the quick draw, the short news, quick access. You just get in the habit of look at it every now and then when you're doing something that's routine. It will change everything about how much you know about fantasy football. Now, we're doing this show right now in June, and you're listening to it.

If you're listening in June, you probably have these apps. Well, we might be a quick draw source. Absolutely. So what are some good quick draw sources? For years, for me, it was just Rotoworld. The RotorWorld app on my phone. Boom. Little refresh every time I was doing something. I love updating. I love checking. But I don't have time to obsess. And neither do you. I understand. Not everybody has time to obsess 24-7 about fantasy football. We've talked about the Sleeperbot app. That's another great resource. It can be used quickly. And they also have notifications.

Maybe you didn't have time to check. Boom. They blow you up if something big happens. And it's quantity. I mean, sorry, it's quality over quantity. Right. You don't have to be checking all the time. Just make sure you don't miss something important. And you can do that with a quick draw news app. Twitter. Twitter is a great one. I want to stress the importance that is Twitter. Beat writers are on Twitter. I will say this, though. Twitter's great. And you should be on Twitter. But if I had to choose between Twitter and the Rotter World.

from an efficiency standpoint, I'm not going to choose Twitter. Absolutely. Because you'll miss stuff on Twitter. You will never miss something if you're looking at a headlines-oriented app. I agree. But let's say you're the person who, oh, yeah, I use Roder World. I open that up sometimes, but you want more. And you want to take that step forward. Twitter is the way forward. And what you can do. You know, I mean, if you look at my profile, you could see what lists I'm following. There's a list.

of beatwriters. And so Twitter has lists. You could just follow that list and switch over to look at the lists. And you could just scroll through nothing but NFL beat writers, Twitter accounts and see all sorts of stuff that never make it onto the headline only apps. And it's still a quick, easy quick draw. I'm talking not just right now. In season, Sunday morning, Twitter is crucial. When you're following these beat reporters who are talking about, you had someone who was questionable. Well, they're going to.

they're going to give you an update on how that person looked. Were they running gingerly? Were they favoring that leg? Well, did it look like all systems were go for that player? Is it blowing 40 mile an hour winds? Right. And weather, late weather updates are just, there's so much information available on Twitter if you use it properly. All right. So number two, find your quick draw news option. All right. Number three. This is my favorite.

Yes, and it's all-encompassing and very, very important for a player looking to get that extra stripe to level up their fantasy football play. And it is a simple overview, but we're going to dig deeper. There is no fear in this dojo. No. The only thing to fear is fear itself. Do not play afraid. And bees. But you can be afraid of bees. That's totally fine. Number three, do not play afraid.

In fantasy football, there are things that you're supposed to do. There are things that you're supposed to pay attention to. And what we're saying is when you want to level up from generic fantasy football player at the office to challenging competitive player going for a title, you can't play a free. No, it's never going to work. If you, you know, there's a lot of different ways that it comes forward. Let's take the draft, right?

That's one part of the season, a very important day in the life of all Americans. But at the draft... Of the world. You know, maybe you're afraid to... You're in the fifth round and you don't have a quarterback yet. There's that fear. And maybe you draft one not because you think it's the right strategy, but because you're afraid...

to miss out or afraid of what would happen. You're afraid of making a mistake. That's what it comes into. You're afraid of making a mistake. You're afraid of not handcuffing. You're afraid of the buy weeks that are coming up. You're afraid of not filling your starters or not having a quarterback soon enough. You're afraid of the strength of schedule. The strength of schedule is going to push you all the way off a player. This guy's great, but he's got the second hardest schedule this year. And what that comes down to is it's.

it's being afraid of making a decision that might get you ridiculed because you're not going with the normative option. There is the safe choice and then there is the one that gets you bad feedback. And I think the key to fantasy football is not being afraid and that comes from a lot of different things. Talk about like the handcuffing situation, Mike. This is great. I wanted to talk about handcuffing on the show. This is a perfect place to do it because if you're following.

uh the industry in twitter there's a lot of handcuff chatter going on right now and we talk about handcuffs a lot on this show so i want to spell out this is exactly how we do it we do not draft our handcuffs as much as fun as it is to say handcuff handcuff and feel like you're you're safe and you're secure your running back position we don't draft them it's a waste of a spot you are preventing ceiling you're preventing late round flyers

who give you value on a week-to-week basis to gain value on your bench. They waste that bench spot. And they always end up being your first cut. After week one, you're like, oh, well, I got to go get this new waiver hot. And it's who's going to go? Oh, my handcuff. So you have removed taking a shot in the draft for this guy that you're going to eventually cut. At the beginning of the year, we think you know who the handcuff is. A lot of times you don't.

Nile Davis was not the handcuff, even though that guy was drafted for years. Now, on the flip side of that, there are times when I'm okay when you're drafting a handcuff. Your player is suspended. Doug Martin. And you know who the starter is going to be. I mean, even Doug Martin is, we're pretty sure it's your quiz. I am. Yeah, but it could be Charles Sims. It could be Jeremy Nichols. I mean, we aren't positive on that. The only place you're.

more than positive is Pittsburgh because it's always one guy gets the entire job. However, while we don't draft them, as the season goes on, you're in week six. That's when it's okay to start picking those guys up because you're getting ready for a playoff run. The waiver wire is mostly picked clean. These guys who are the backup start to emerge as who will be the leader of the timeshare. You pick them up.

Get ready for your playoff run. And that's when you do it. And just to add to what Mike said, let's say you don't take your handcuff and somebody else takes their handcuff. Guess who their handcuff is? They're laughing at you until the end of week one when they then drop your handcuff and you can pick them up. I love, love in week three. Week three is always the time when someone who has my handcuff is desperate to trade him to me because he wants to cut him so bad.

But he just thinks. That's an excellent point. I mean, I just always, I'll give them, just give me anything for him. It's like, no, no, just cut him and I'll pick them up. When people come at you with trade offers for your handcuff in weeks two and week three, no. Yeah. No, no, no. No, thank you. And then I just want to, in dynasty leagues, though, I handcuff.

In the late rounds? Yeah. We're talking late teens. Yes, I will drive my handoff. Yeah, take a team. In terms of biweeks, that's different. That's different. Another question we get all the time. Oh, my goodness. Do I take this guy? He has the same. I'm going to tell you right now, I don't pay attention to. I would say zero point, unless I'm in a, you know, a basketball league. Sure. Or a super strange league where I don't get that many transactions or something. It's irrelevant to me. It's something a lot of people pay attention to.

It's irrelevant to me. I make enough transactions. I move enough players on my team. By the time my perfect buy week, I may draft to a perfect buy week. What are you going to do? Not trade players because you have them lined up perfectly. And what is perfect? Is it better to have them all in the same week? Is it better to have them all staggered? Right. I mean, just ignore them. Don't be afraid of them. No. And I think after my draft last year in our League of Record, I had like.

three wide receivers with a week nine by and it was like, oh, no. That's an eternity in fantasy football time. It never even came up because by that time my roster was different. You know, you just don't want to feel like you have to make pick X because of reason why. That's what you want to avoid. Just be confident in your knowledge. Don't be afraid. Pick who you want and things will go better. You know, trust your gut a little bit when you're in that draft.

Don't be reeling. Agreed. So have we kind of grabbed that one? I believe so. Exhausted it. I mean, we could talk about things like not being afraid to fill your starters. Certainly. Yeah. I mean, that's one where, okay, you get your running back. It's a draft benefit. Running back wide receiver. Now, okay, maybe I take another one in the fifth, right? So now my flex is full. Well, that means that your quarterback and your tight end need to be your next two picks is the early fantasy football.

player's mindset, at least if they haven't already got their quarterback by then. But it's okay to keep drafting great bench options for the more important positions and not fill your starters just because you're afraid that you don't have a starter yet. It's not that big a deal. The more you listen and the more you do all the other tips, the less fearful you will be naturally. Yep. All right. So know your league, not just your roster. Find that quick draw news option. And number three was don't play afraid. And we covered a number of areas where that applies.

There are more than that, by the way. There are other areas where I think sometimes fear takes over. Fear makes cowards of us all. Sure. There you go. Monty Python again, right? I think that was me. Yeah, I know. Number four, we've named it a couple of different things. I think the gist is this. It's the community of friends that you have. So how do you become a better fantasy football player? It seems strange. But I think...

Making your friends better at fantasy football benefits you as a fantasy football player. Yes. And I'm saying it in the same way that maybe competitive people in business have realized this long ago. How do you get better at your craft? Well, you don't just absorb a book and hide in a corner. The best business people in the world, the best people at whatever trade they do, they network. They network for advice. They network to see how other people have played before them.

and they learn from them. And so not only that, but it becomes more fun. And you all learn by osmosis to some degree, and you have a better opportunity to improve your game as a fantasy football player. There's several ways to go about actively doing this. Because, you know, for us in, you know, yesteryear, when we worked at our video game company, we would go to lunch.

and naturally be around four or five of us from the league. And maybe that's your situation, in which case you understand the benefit of always talking about it and just having fun and talking about different players who suck or who are great or whatnot. But maybe you're in the position where you don't have that yet. Either the people that are in your league that you're playing with, maybe they don't know enough, and or they don't play.

If you want to get yourself better at fantasy football, surround yourself with more people that play or introduce them to it. Or, I know this sounds backwards and crazy, but if you're in a league with someone who really stinks and they're not good at fantasy football, help get them better. I'm telling you, it will make you better.

Not just because you have to be better to beat the best, but it's because now you can have conversations with them. Now you can talk strategy. You can learn from more than just yourself. The ability to converse intelligently with those around you about fantasy football or anything like you were bringing up on business. You're going to make yourself better. We've always believed.

that the community of fantasy football players is the best situation for any player to enjoy what they're doing and to learn. And that's why we've gone out and we've set up our community at Jointhefoot.com. That's why we've set up the forums on the website, our community. So people can talk. I mean, we learn from you. You learn from us. We try to teach you how to think about fantasy football, but we don't have every answer in the book. And so you need to have a community of people to talk about as you develop your paradigm, how you think about the game.