Bonus Episode! 10 Things to Remember for 2024 - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/10

And that was an incredibly bad mistake because it just takes one injury to one of your two starting running backs. And you're not, it don't get caught up and just don't get overwhelmed and fall in love with the smell of your own farts. Looking at your roster, always be trying to improve it. Yeah, it is one of the great illusions of fantasy football that what you're staring at, that perfect, beautiful specimen of a roster in week four, that's four and no.

The greatest illusion is that you are going to get to see what that team will do in the playoffs. Yes. Because it doesn't happen. It almost never happens. I cannot remember a team. I mean, my dynasty team last year seemed, we were talking about how lucky I was getting with injuries, week 10, 12, 13, and the shoe finally dropped, right? So, yeah, it is a good thing to remember that, look.

When the roster looks nice, take a picture, but it's not going to last very long. Yes. Prepare yourself. Number eight. This was called... Smell your own farts. Good ain't bad. Oh, okay. Sorry. That's right. Good ain't bad. Remember that. Yeah. Young stud players who have proven themselves on the NFL field. They came out and they're like, wow, they're really good. They're sensational. They are not going to go away.

just because the team brings in depth and more talent. And that's a lesson I needed to learn from this last year, specifically to two players you just mentioned, Andy, Travis ETN and Kenneth Walker. Both of these teams went out and got a day two running back, high draft capital for a running back. Tank Bigsby comes in to Jacksonville, and it was like both Travis ETN and Kenneth Walker.

Prior to the NFL draft, we were really, really, really high on. You know, we did our early rankings shows, and Kenneth Walker, he's just a stud. But then in the second round, they go and draft Zach Charbonnet and you're like, he's ruined. Kenneth Walker's ruined. I got unreasonably mad. Oh, yeah. That was the maddest you'd been all year. I...

know exactly where I was. You remember the moment. I remember the moment. I was sitting in my office and the news came through and I was a level of mad for a pretend game that I should not have reached. Yeah. It's one of those things where I thought for sure that with that kind of draft capital coming in, that these running backs would.

Not usurp the talent, but just destroy it. Just destroy the fantasy value. And obviously, you know, at the end of the year, Kenneth Walker got injured and Travis E.T.N slowed down a bit. But that wasn't because of this backup that came in. They were both workhorses. They were both workhorses because they proved themselves already. We saw it. The NFL team saw it. Look, if you dominate on the field, then you're good. You know, so I think about this year. Like, well, who could that happen to? Like, Kyron Williams.

dominated this last year. If they go out and spend a day two pick on a running back, I'm still going to be in on Kyron Williams. The team needs depth. Every team needs depth. We just talked about, you know, don't rest on your laurels, you know, build, you're good at running back. No, you're not. You're never good at running back. Go add someone. And that's true for NFL teams as well. So, Nico Collins, Tank Dell, there's been so many rumors of,

The Texans going out and getting a wide receiver in the draft or going after Mike Evans if he becomes available or whatever the case is. It's like. Alvin Camara last offseason seemed like he was set up for the worst scenario. You're going to miss time. We like Kendrae Miller. You had Jamal Williams. And it's Alvin. David Montgomery. You know, they, they, they.

It's been a huge draft capital. David Montgomery was still very good. If you're a very good player, you're a very good player. And I want to be less afraid this season about, oh, so-and-so added this player, so now my guy is ruined. No, if the guy's good, he's going to get his. The team is just better. Who was ahead of Keishon Vaughn in Tampa when that happened? Because I remember people being afraid of Keishon Vaughn in Tampa Bay.

But I don't remember who the starter was. I don't know if it was, it was probably four net at the time. I think that checks out. But I mean, that was, you know, draft season is very fun. The NFL, it's the bright lights. It takes over the whole world. So I think it's very easy nowadays to lose perspective on the way a team is built and pay so much attention to six months worth of rookie and bestball drafts to lose sight of the fact that

These players not only perform well on the field, but they also establish relationships with those teams oftentimes. So, yeah, it's a big time, good reminder to have. And we'll take a quick break and be right back. What's up, Foot Clan? You are confident and disciplined and focused on details, just like everyone here at the fancy footballers, right? Those are words you used to describe us. In other words, you were made to drive the 2026 Sierra 1500 Denali.

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So when you're on the clock, you can draft a winning team. I can think of so many situations where that element of being connected while you're on the go is fundamental to fantasy football success. I'm in the midst of multiple leagues right now where I am responding to trade offers. We are massaging the trade offer. We want to make sure that I'm the one that gets the player, not another player manager in our league. So trade offers, when you're on the go, all the news that's breaking so you don't make a mistake.

And my favorite thing, maybe I'll mention it. Look, you're sitting and you have a quiet moment. Somewhere out and about, you want to jump in the UDK. We've got the player profiles. You can watch all of those in there with T-Mobile. You can jump in on the player projections and our staff projections and all the 130,000 words of content. Again, T-Mobile making that easy to do, every bit of news. Things are changing all the time, new player contracts, all that good stuff. So from off-season to game day, every play is better with T-Mobile.

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I'm excited for this one. Look, you have a bit of a reputation around these parts as being maybe an aggressive, persistent trader. Would you agree? That's a foul reputation. That's a nice way to put it. Yeah, I mean, and one of the things that I think holds a lot of fantasy players up is they are unwilling to lose a trade perceptively. Yes. And I think that it's a pride thing.

It's obviously you're trying to do the work, right? You're trying to make sure that you're on the perceived winning side. Everybody wants to win the trade, right? But what do we define winning the trade as? And, you know, for me this year, what I think is important is that you want to make sure that you're getting the difference-making player on the roster. We've talked about that before in two-for-one, three-for-one trades. But early in the season for me, what I recognized was that there were two players in my mind that were league winners.

definitively in fantasy football this year. And they were Amun Ross St. Brown and C.D. Lamb. And I know that a lot of players that we have in our league, opponents, teams in our league, when you get into trade discussions, sometimes it's like they have to have the last word, right? They have to have the last tweak to the deal. They have to make sure that they have one little tweak or one little addition, and it can disrupt the ability to get a trade done.

And so the thing I want people to remember is they go into next year, if you have that conviction, the conviction that Mike had about Dak Prescott, the conviction that many of us have about certain players as you get halfway through the year, if you believe somebody's going to be a difference maker slash league winner, what I'm saying is is be willing to go out and lose a trade in the public's perception, right, in your league's perception, to get the trade done. You're saying, Vante Mac.

No matter what. Vant. Yes. I'm saying you go Costner. If you have to go Costner. I don't care if I'm perceived as a winner. I wouldn't trade after number one. Right. To do it, but you know. Do it just no matter what. Don't get bogged down in the tiny minutia details. Don't get bogged down in the little asks and the pesky additions to the trade. If you want to get these players that are very hard to get.

For me, it was waiting for a couple of teams to kind of get on the fringe of contention and then throw the kitchen sink at them to guarantee that I can get one of these players onto my roster. You know, we've talked about the philosophy. Obviously, if you do a two for one, three for one trade, you get to go right to the waiver wire and pick up a couple extra names. If you've traded three for one, I think sometimes people get worried that they're going to be criticized for the trade that they make.

But if you have the conviction, like I did, that C.D. Lamb was a must add if I wanted any chance at a championship, be willing to lose the trade in the public perception if you want to win a title. It can make the difference. Don't get bogged down. It's not like every player at the moment a trade is being made is going to play the exact same way the rest of the season. I think sometimes people just get stuck and that's why deals don't get done. Yeah, that's fair. Sometimes it's because we're just cowards.

Yeah, and I think that that is, it's like the fear of the loss is more powerful than the potential of the victory. But we're not playing to win second or third. And I think it's really important to be willing to throw something else in to get the player you need. And it's, I would even tack on a thing at the end of, be willing to, to lose, perceptually lose the trade. And just be willing to be at the end of the day, swing.

You may be wrong. I mean, it worked for you this time. Yeah, you could be wrong for sure. But I've done those trades and they get hurt the next week. I mean, that kind of stuff can happen. But the point of you're playing to win. You're playing for first place. You're not playing for second. You're not playing for third. So you have to be willing to take some gigantic swing because if you strike out, whatever, man. It's not the difference between. But if you hit, it's you're talking about a forever championship.

You are, it's very hard to win a title. Very hard. It's very, very difficult. Number six. All right. If the risk is, this is not a catchy title, but it's just, it's right to the point. If the risk is already built into the ADP, don't be afraid. And we have too many players every single year that we're all nervous about a new situation that has happened to that player. But it's, fantasy football is the game of economics.

Things that happen, we get afraid to draft players, their ADP goes down, and now the risk of everyone being correct, it's already baked in there. It's already in there. Some examples. Stefan Diggs, with Minnesota, was an emerging player where his final three years with the team, what finished as wide receiver 20 in 14 games, wide receiver 11 and 15, 21 in 15 games.

He gets traded to the Buffalo Bills, which I still think at the time with the information we had, Josh Allen did not look like a franchise quarterback. He was coming off of, I believe, two straight years of being the most inaccurate quarterback in the league. And so we all got nervous about Stefan Diggs, who Stefan Diggs looked like a rising superstar who just got banished to a land of mediocrity. And at that time then, he was going in the sixth round.

as the wide receiver 27, and he has a massive breakout campaign. Josh Allen has the huge massive breakout campaign. So those that had the courage, which my point being, it's not really courage. We were all scared to draft him, and he went in the sixth round. He's drafted as the wide receiver 27. It's like a real Jameson Williams type of risk. That's what I was talking about earlier. It's like it's baked in. Yes.