Pump the Brakes, No-Bell Prize Winners, Counting Crows

Get them something that they won't even be able to believe. You know, I mean. It's just a really cool gift. It's an unbelievable gift. Everybody wants to know a gift that's not the traditional normal thing. It's a great gift. And because it's an auction, you can, you bid. It doesn't cost you anything unless you win it. Here's some prices. Michael Thomas verified purchase one, 75 bucks signed jersey yesterday. Sounds pretty good. There's awesome stuff. Go check it out. Check it out every day, too. If it doesn't have what you want today,

Check it tomorrow. It's P-R-I-T-I-N-E-Oction.com. Make a free account. Tell them that you found out about them from the Fantasy Footballers podcast. All right. Let's go ahead and jump into another voicemail. Hey, guys. It is Brandon from Leftist Center of the California Wildfires. I have Greg Olson and Gronk on my team and we're past the trade deadline. I've been waiting to trade him off of a good week, but that it hasn't happened. So do I hold Gronk until he starts to do Gronkian things?

Or do I want to be the guy who drops wrong Gronkowski? Thanks, guys. Number one, stay safe, my man. I'm not dropping Gronk. You've held on this long. You might as well just see it to the end. It's not even a question in my mind that I would drop Gronk. The potential for Gronk and what he does to your roster is huge. Look, we talk about it being a disappointing year for Rob Gronkowski.

Well, a disappointing year for Rob Gankowski is better than any middling tight end when he starts. Obviously when he's injured. He has Greg Olson. Yeah. I still, if he's healthy, I'm playing him over Greg Olson. And here's the thing for Gronk. He has been able to rest for quite some time. The biggest knock on Gronk historically is he's going to be awesome for your team, but he's going to miss games. But when he comes back from those games, he's back to being Gronk. So that's...

That's the rob grasping at straw's hope that you have is that he's rested and once he's back through the buy week, he will be back on the field doing Gronkian thing. I will drop Gronk the second he has put on IR and not one second before. Sure. So if he goes on IR, sure, then you can't. Otherwise, you have to hold him. No way. Or if you can get trade value for him, someone else wanted to take the gamble, I'd be willing. But he said he can't trade. Then hold.

Yeah, I mean, absolutely. At the end of the day, the value of Gronk returning is high. And do you read much into these reports that have come out from peripheral sources saying, look, Gronk ain't back next year. They won't let him back in the building. This is the final year for Gronk in New England. And do you read that into his performance? Do you read that into their utilization? I mean, this is a team that who knows if Julian Edelman's ankle is going to be okay.

No, I don't read it too much in. I mean, this is a health issue. This is a back issue. If he was able to perform, he'd be out there both from his point of view and from the Patriots. This is just an injury. I will say I read into it for dynasty purposes. I've been saying this from before this season, trade gronk. If you can in dynasty, it's harder to do now because who knows? He might retire. Gronk next year, his contract, the dead money drops, if they're choosing to cut him.

It would only be a $2 million dead cap hit for the Patriots. That's pretty easy to move on if they want to go that route. Do you believe that if they went that route that Rob Gankasky would stay around for a couple years or retire? I think he would retire. I think he would play. What do you think? I think he would go sign. I think if he was cut, the pride level would make him sign. If he chose to retire and just leave.

On his own. He definitely has the pride, but the dude's got all the money that he needs. He can go out and be an endorsement king. His body is just absolutely beat up. Rob Gronkowski signs with the Los Angeles Rams.

Oh, that you were going to make me excited if you said chargers. Don't speak that to my Gerald Everett Dynasties. He wants to be out in Hollywood. He wants to do the rock thing. Let's get him out to L.A. Go to Philip Rivers. The guy that has, the targets tight-ins like crazy. Yeah, he would do okay with Jared Gough and Sean McVeigh. I think McVeigh would figure it out. All right. Let's move on. Another question here. Where does T. Y. This is from a name I can't read.

Ian Joy Clementine's on Instagram. I enjoy Clementine. I was trying to read it as a name, not a front, not a sentence. Ian. Ian Joy. Ian Joy. I enjoy. I forget. Sometimes we haven't been able to sneak a lot of mailbag on the show lately. I forget how much fun it is to decipher these. This dude loves oranges. Oh, you can't get enough. Clementine specifically.

Where does T.Y. Hilton? So easy to peel. Rank rest of season among wide receivers. Top 12. Don't get me started on peeling regular oranges. Oh, goodness. That ain't worth the effort. No, it's not. You would step one, put a slit in there, peel off a couple pieces at step two, throw in garbage. Yeah, it's troubles. What do you do with T.Y. Hilton? Yeah, T. Yelton has been disappointing. He doesn't have the best matchup this week.

You know what his biggest problem is? Eric Ebron. No? No. It's that W.R. next to his name. He's not a tight end. Oh, because Andrew Luck only throws to tight ends. If he reclassified himself. What if he put, yeah, what if he said, I'm a tight end and he put on like really, really big shoulder pads? It'd be fun to watch, but he would probably still fail because this is not working out for him. I don't know that T.Y. Hilton is a top 12 rest of season. No, to me. He is to me. He's close. Yeah. Top 12. Mm-hmm.

Has he had a top 12 week this year? I think he had one. But I don't know. He still is. Okay. Well, let me, let me ask you guys some names. Four catches, one catch, three catches last three weeks. Names that are obviously ahead. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just laying it out there. Names that are obviously ahead. Antonio Brown, Julio Jones, O'Dell Beckham, Michael Thomas, Devante Adams, Adam Thielen. Stefan Diggs. Stefan Diggs. Tyreek Hill. Yeah, probably. Brandon Cooks.

Robert Woods. Robert Woods, I would agree. So then... How many is that 10? That's 10. Keenan? Yeah, I'd take Keenan. I would probably take Keenan, but they're about the same tier. Juju? I would take Juju. I would take Juju. I would take Juju. I would probably take Jiu-Jude. So maybe he's not... Top 15. It's actually good to lay that out a little bit because I would definitely take Keenan over Hilton. But that's about where the break is because then you're dealing with guys like Josh Gordon and...

Tyler Boyd and Alshon Jeffrey. I think I would take Tyoy ahead of. You didn't say AJ Green either. Oh, AJ is ahead. Or Julio, I don't think. Did you say who? Yeah, he was in the beginning. Would you take Josh Gordon or Ty Hilton rest of the season? That's a great question of me. Yeah, it is. And I would, I lean Gordon. I lean Gordon as well. Yeah, actually I do. I do too. All right. Here's a question from Instagram. I'm sorry, from Facebook. Paul Davenport says, who's got a better rest of season outlook? Larry Fitzgerald or.

MVS, Marquez Valdez Scantling. Rest of season, I'm going to take Marquez Valdez Scantling. I'm going to take the number two wide receiver for Aaron Rogers, who can play well at home, can play well on the road. I still believe that Larry Fitzgerald has good weeks in store, but he's going to be up and down for a low scoring team. That's not where I want to put my fantasy chips. Yeah, I would go MVS for sure. There's a lot more upside to him, a lot more big play.

capability with his 43940. I agree with the upside, but I will point out, Byron left, which has been the offensive coordinator for the Arizona Cardinals for two games. In those two games, Larry Fitzgerald has received 12 targets and 10 targets. Oh, you don't have, I mean, I agree. You clearly have not looked at our Thursday doc yet. What? Yes, sir. What? Is that a little, uh, a little spoiler. Okay. Start of the week preview? Yeah. Woo.

Okay. Yes, little John just made. It's all, yeah! It's all 90s, early 2000s references right now. All right. Let's move on, voicemail. Hey, guys, Matt from Long Island, New York here. I just wanted to ask two quick questions. Number one, quick question is, I need to know what Mike's main character in class was for World Warcraft. And number two, I wanted to know if this is a good time of year for any...

dynasty tips in preparation for next year because I am a first-time dynasty player this year. I love a show. Thanks a lot. You guys agree. Well, first of all, congratulations on the dynasty experience. It's super fun. My dynasty team is being maimed each and every week, so depth is always the tip I give for dynasty players. I would also say that sometimes you can identify in a dynasty league, especially a new one that you're in.

And Michael, let you get to your World of Warcraft question in a minute. But in a new Dynasty League, I think there's a lot of value to be found in players that have two or three, one or two, one to three years left on the shelf because they're not attractive to Dynasty owners. Nobody looks at them and says, man, I really got to get, I don't know, let me give, Lamar Miller or maybe, or he might be a bad example because I don't really love him in Dynasty. But there are players that have one or two years left that you can get super cheap. Like shady? Sure.

Yeah, I mean, you might be able to go out, and this will be a decent example, but maybe you can trade Equanimia St. Brown or a player of that caliber that has a lot of perceived upside where you know 80% of those guys don't pan out, John Ross, right? Right. And go acquire a guy that has real value for a couple of years and set the table for your team. So that's one of my...

pieces of advice at trade deadline now is who's going to have a year or two of value left and who can you acquire on the cheap? And I would, my tip would just be spot track. Yeah, that's exactly what mine was going to be. I mean, that's a website to look up player contracts. Being aware of player contracts is as important as being aware of player age in Dynasty. Everyone goes, oh, who's young, who's got a long career left? But it's.

You know, it's more than that. It's whose opportunities are going to come up because someone's about to be cut. You know, we knew that coming into this past year with Cortland Sutton. He had a huge future because there's no way they were going to keep Emmanuel Sanders into Marius Thomas. They might not even keep Emmanuel Sanders after this year just based on the cap situation, what they can get rid of guys for at the end of this year. So knowing salaries and what their contract situations are.

is very important. Yeah, it's all about the expiring contract. It's about finding players who have flashed at least a little bit, which if they flash, they're probably owned. But there's going to be guys on your waiver wire who are about to go on to a new team, perhaps a new opportunity. These are flyers. I mean, they rarely pan out. And this year in particular is pretty tough. It's far more interesting tight ends.

That might be on your waiver wire that have a new opportunity coming. What about pre-breakout wide outs? I mean, if you had been in on juju early last year, that would have been great. Well, but you still, I mean, you had to draft juju in the late first, early second round of rookie drafts. I mean, but there was a time, I think, when people probably perceived, I don't know, John Ross and juju in similar breaths from a future perspective.

Sure, yes. I'm just saying, is there a DJ Moore or a player of that caliber where you can go target them before a breakout? Yeah, you can try, in my experience. That's harder to do. First, guys that were drafted in the first round wide receivers, even if they bust that first year, they don't really lose their dynasty shine. People still hold the value because they drafted them. Exactly. And for your very important question, Torin Druid named Walton. That was your first ever character? That was my main character. Your main character? Yes.

I was there in the vanilla days. Oh, Torin. You know vanilla's coming back. Is it? Yeah. Really? Yes. To the, like, official? Yes. An official blizzard release. Speaking of it not sponsored. I was to, yeah, not sponsored. I was a Torin warrior.

Oh, very nice. So speaking of spot track and contracts, and we brought up stuff earlier, I wanted to look this up because we've talked about it a couple times in the office. Joe Flacco's contract situation, if they want to cut him, he's owed basically cap hit of $26.5 million next year if they keep him. He'll be a dead cap of $16 million. So they'd save $10 million, but they would still have to have a dead cap hit of $16 million if they cut him.

which still might be worth it. I think it's very possible they do move on. Saving 10 million is saving 10 million. That's what I say. Lev Bell doesn't say that, though. Here's an interesting question. By the way, Jason, we've been doing some work. Obviously, we talked about this on the show a few days ago. I'm sure we'll tweet about it, but we've been working to refine some of our processes, getting our weekly rankings up, improving our algorithms, improving our predictions.