Fantasy Football Podcast 2017 - Frequently Asked Fantasy Questions, Part 2

on this show, if you've listened to us for more than two shows, you know that we are about the late round quarterback. We are about waiting on the quarterback position. It's fun to have Andrew Luck. It's fun to have Aaron Rogers. So, Mike, introduce us to the concepts of position scarcity, so we can start our discussion on draft strategy with that. Sure, so I'll focus on the quarterback. The deal with the quarterback is you only have to play...

One. So we preface this conversation. This is for single quarterback leagues. If you're talking to Super Flex or a two quarterback league, things change drastically. Yeah. Right? So this talk is just for single quarterback things. But here's the deal. Last year, 40 quarterbacks posted a top 12 week. The year before that, I believe it was 43. The year before that, it was in the 40s again. There are 32 teams. This is not an outlier.

This is what happens. Quarterbacks come in. If they're in a good matchup, they produce numbers because the NFL is set up. They have changed the rules to be a very pass friendly league. Look at Brian Hoyer last year, right? Backup quarterback for the Chicago Bears, a guy who's, well, he's going to be terrible. He was.

They moved on from the Texans. He's the backup to Jay Cutler. He's got a bad, wide receiver core. Comes in, the guys throwing 300 yards a game. Because matchups were great for Brian Hoyer. The same can be said if just all over the league, pay attention to the matchups. And the best part about these guys like Brian Hoyer, they're on your waiver wire. They are completely free.

Yes, it's fun. It's very fun to have Andrew Luck. You lock him in your quarterback one position and you let it ride out. You're going to get some top weeks. Yeah, you don't have to do any work. But if you're paying attention to the matchups, you can stream that position in for free, for no draft cost while your opponent had to spend high draft capital on Aaron Rogers or.

uh and your luck you're grabbing a stud running back to wide receiver two and and you have to play two of them two or more compared to the one quarterback yeah i i i would add to that you don't have to do the work necessarily in the sense that we we tell you all season long we got to do work by listening well by listening by picking them up all of that but but you know we we we look at

Guys that are available off of waivers every single week and make a quarterback streaming pick of the week. And I think last year we were, our picks averaged out to be the quarterback six, which is great. But here's a tangible, a tangible, tangible, that's right. Tangible statistical example of why.

quarterbacks are just not nearly as valuable as other positions, right? Let's say, let's take last year as an example. And you did it right. You drafted Aaron Rogers. He was the number one quarterback last year. You would have gotten 380 points out of Aaron Rogers. And you go, well, the number one running back last year only got 327. That's a pretty big gap of points. But here's a deal.

you only need one quarterback. And so if you look at the 12th quarterback that you need to play, 260 points. So that means Aaron Rogers scored 120 more points than the last starting roster player. But at running backs, when you need 36 deep, when you're talking about adding in a flex, the number 36 running back scored 100 fantasy points. That's 227 points difference. They're just worlds different between if I would much rather bump up.

my running back two, my running back three, and bump down my quarterback one because you score more points. It's just simple math. And the replacement value of the waiver wire is not there for running backs and wide receivers like it is for quarterback. And you can take advantage of this in your league because the perception on the quarterback position is often incorrect in fantasy league. So your league mates while they're drafting.

quarterbacks too early, you take advantage of that. And Mike said, you know, maybe you get a running back two, maybe a running wide receiver too. Maybe it's a one. Maybe it's your running back one or your wide receiver one based on how your league is drafting quarterbacks in the quarterback position. And also, it's an advantage to you in the trade world, too, if the perception of quarterbacks is greater than the value of actual quarterbacks. Yeah, I'm trying to pull up the precise numbers right here. But when I do all my bust research.

uh for the previous years it shows that it's it's much easier to get a top player than in in the top five rounds then as in like a top running back than it is afterwards so as in last year five running backs in the top 15 were drafted after the fifth round only five and it was the same for 2015 in 2014 it was the same

I mean, so there's, it would, and then there was three the year before that. So it's just your, your percentage chance of hitting on a on a stud running back or a stud wide receiver goes down the further you are in the draft. And if you've wasted one of those early picks on a tight end or a quarterback, you've just eliminated one of those opportunities. Yeah, I think that's a fair analysis there. So what is your draft strategy going in? Do you take a very rigid approach? You hear zero RB.

Is it best player available? Do you go RB heavy based on this position scarcity argument? What is your preferred draft strategy? Just summation? I go running back heavy. I know that zero RB. And if you're not familiar with zero RB, the approximation to kind of summarize it is just that running backs are fragile, they get hurt. You can hopefully find a replacement in the waiver wire and backup guys gain value as the season.

goes along, but you still have to, just like you have to hit on top running backs, you would have to hit on your backups. You have to hit on your waiver wire. There's lots of arguments for and against it. I just prefer to load up on running backs in the draft. So I guess I kind of mix a little bit of the zero RB theory is I want a lot of backups on my bench. That's what I do too, but I also spend earlier draft capital on...

on the higher end, what I perceive are the higher and running backs as well. But I will not lock that in and say I have to grab a running back in the first round. I don't have any rules like that. I think that's part of why. So I'm very similar to what you just said. I try to avoid risk in the first round or two to the best of my ability, which is impossible. But my problem with zero RB is not with the strategy. It can win.

You can succeed there, but my problem with that is I like to stay fluid in a draft. I like to wait to who falls to me in that first round and then that second round and make the right positional pick there. If you're going zero RB, you've got to go zero RB. You have to say no matter who falls to me at, you know, this third pick, I've got to get a wide receiver because that's the strategy. So, you know, when I go into a draft, I'm really, I am focused on tiers.

And I think that that is the most important thing you can do in your draft is tier every position. And we tiered them in the ultimate draft kit if you want to look at what our tiers are and say, this is a tier one wide receiver. This is a tier two running back. And when you get to your spot in round three, you go, man, there's still a tier one wide receiver on the board, according to my tiers. And I'm in the tier two, tier three running backs.

I'm taking this tier one. I mean, it's just, it's really clear, and it gives you a powerful team. It really helps you focus on the studs, on the real high upside guys. You know, it's like teams in the NFL draft that say, I'm taking the best available. That's kind of, they've got their big board, and they do that. Yeah, so like real NFL teams, you say, I have a round two grade on this guy, and now it's the fourth round, and there's a guy on the board who's a round two grade for me.

Another way to say that is value. Yeah, you're looking at your draft and you're seeing what is the best value that I can get? And if you make value-based decisions throughout your fantasy draft, the end result is gain after gain after gain, and that should put you over the top.

with your opponents or at least set the foundation right you don't win your league at your draft but you set a strong foundation that you build upon week over a week and so if you get value at those positions it gives you flexibility gives you opportunity for sleepers and for breakouts and it gives you the best possible chance to stack the cards in your favor so let me ask you guys this it's a question we get a lot frequently asked question how much do you factor the team a player is on and so we're talking about the good

or bad offense situation or a good and bad quarterback throwing to your wide receiver or vice versa, right, a quarterback that has a lot of talent, maybe doesn't have the wide receiver core. Talk about offensive lines. Do you have an overarching thought on that? Is that just a piece of the puzzle? It's certainly all of those things are a piece of the puzzle, and they're each different. So a strong offensive line correlates to me for a...

for running backs. I much prefer a running back with a strong offensive line. I mean, you talked about, so the Buffalo Bills. Well, you just talked about Latavis Murray, right? Right. It's say the Buffalo Bills, number one in the league when it was running backs yards before contact. Who dominated last year? LaShawn McCoy and even Mike Gillisley, when he came in in his limited opportunities, put up usable fantasy production. The Cleveland Browns are, which people.

They would say the average football watcher may not realize this. The Cleveland Browns had a good offensive line when it came to running backs, which is why Crowell had not a fantastic year, but a pretty good year. 4.9 of carry. Right. And he just, and he was a, I believe, a two. So he was usable. So that, that factors in. Those, those pieces correlate for me. Absolutely. Meanwhile, I'd prefer to have wide receivers on a team with a good quarterback.

Yeah, I think that that's, we've said in the past, you know, myself especially, that I prefer players on winning teams. I think that that can be a little bit debunked when you look back at, okay, the top X running backs, the top X wide receivers, did they win the majority of their games, did they lose? There's different ways depending on how you're playing with the data. You can look at like the average of all of them and then it really kind of looks like you don't need to be on a winning team or you could take a team by team.

For me, though, I would employ this strategy more in DFS, where for running backs, a favored team is really, really important. Yes. Because obviously, if you're up in the game, you have more opportunities to run the ball. You probably scored more. If you win, you always score more. That's kind of part of football. Is that how winning works? Yeah. And so, well, you would, you're...

That's not necessarily given because whenever coaches are interviewed, how did you win? Well, we went out there and we scored a little bit more. Yeah, that's one of the big FAQs. How do you win? But when it comes to the draft, you know, I like higher powered offenses, better lines. I prefer, I mean, look, if an offense is great and the defense is not so great, a la last year's Green Bay, a la last year's Saints. I like.

the players from those teams, but so much of the projection going into future years, you're going to get wrong on that. What teams are, you know, what defenses are great? Because of parody and turnover? Exactly, because of parody and turnover. So you can't over-emphasize that unless you're talking DFS and you're going one week at a time looking at all the information. We'll have that in the DFS pass, but at the draft. Mike isn't singing and dancing and playing music and...

and kicking off his shoes if Rex Burke had signed with the Minnesota Vikings. True. He, you know, LeGarrett Blunt scored 18 touchdowns last year. True. I'm just going to back you up. So the opportunity on a great offense is in the red zone a lot. It certainly weighs in there, right? But I think it weighs heavier on the polls where you have the really good and the really bad.

I think those things weigh very, very heavily and influence. Those are more than just split decision type of situations. But in the middle, when you're in the middle, I think those are times when you have to look at parity and historical data and say, look, sometimes we can't predict. You can't look and say, oh, well, you know.