Fantasy Football Podcast 2016 - 10 Tips and Tricks to Win Your Fantasy Football League

way, way, way better than the ninth receiver. And that's going to happen at every position. So as you go in your draft, it helps you decide, should I take a running back here or a wide receiver? You look at your tiers and you go, well, I've got a tier two wide receiver still on the board. Even though, you know, the best running back here is so-and-so, I've got a way better value in the other position. Or another way you can use it is by going,

Okay, I might have a better tiered player in another position, but there's only like one guy left in a certain tier in a position I need. That's when you take a guy. You want those last guys in the upper tiers because you group players who are similar together and you get the most value. It's extremely helpful for knowing on the clock which position to take. I always draft tiers and I recommend it highly.

I wish we could have made you tear up this past season and kept you in the losing column in our league of record, but it didn't happen because we drank your tears for years. Yeah, well, I drink. We do have a lot of people who write us and say, you know, they ask for the top 200 on the ultimate draft kit and things like that. And look, we have the top 200 in there, but the way to draft is tears. The way we recommend it every single time is...

is to do the extra bit of work. That's why we have the tiers in the in the printable cheat sheets now. It's so that that is easier for you to do and you will draft better that way, right? Absolutely. Way better than a top 200 list. We put out the top 200 list because people want them. Don't use them. Yeah, I mean, it can be useful if you want like an overview, but don't let that be the only thing you draft off, right? So that is it. We have keep an eye on the IR at number 10. We've got tearing up for number nine. Number eight.

Number eight here, and we got, I'm thinking, Arby's. Woo, running backs. Running backs. Of course. You're thinking RBs. I get it. And here's the thing. Look, the fantasy community is freaked out. We have jumped the shark, so to speak, on the running back, and we think they are trash. They're garbage. All they do is bust. Wide receivers. They're so safe. That's why, that's all I'm taking is wide receivers because I know that running backs are going to let me down.

And look, yes, running backs bust at a higher percentage than wide receivers normally. But last year was an abomination, was an outlier for the running back position. Okay. So of the top 12 running backs drafted last year, six of them were busts. It's no good. And by a bust, I'm also including an injury just because of... Sure.

Like Lev Bell wasn't really a bust, but he got hurt. So you're considering him a bust. And you compare that to only three wide receivers busted last year. And you think, well, this is the way. This is the way of the future. However, go back to 2014. Only three running backs busted in the top 12. That includes Adrian Peterson, who got suspended for an entire year. Right. I'm pretty sure he would not have busted. And you compare that to, oh, how many wide receivers busted? Three.

The exact same amount. Go back another year. Six running back busts in the top 12, 50%. But four of the top 12 wide receivers busted. Look, and then you go back one more year even. It was four and four. So, look. Did your numbers last year include Jordy? I'm just curious. The injury for Jordy, do you know? Jordy Nelson was, let's see, where I'm looking at that. So here's the top 12 ADP. No, because he wasn't.

It was free season. Yeah, he was a free season. He should be an example of another guy that... Don't draft early. There's a other tip. There's a free pro tip. There's a bonus. So my point is, yes, the running backs busts slightly more. However, they are more valuable because they are harder to get. And when you're drafting, you should always have more...

You either have an even balance of running backs or wide receivers or I skew to running backs. Because in, let's say my wide receiver four, come week six, if somebody gets hurt, all of a sudden that wide receiver four does not elevate to a wide receiver one. It's just not going to happen. However, my running back five, if given the right opportunity in front of that.

of that player. All of a sudden, he shoots to a running back one. They can gain value over time where a wide receiver just is not going to do that over the course of the season. And I would throw in on that. Another reason why running backs on your roster are more valuable than wide receivers on your roster at the end of your draft is because wide receivers are way, way, way deeper. If you need to go pick a guy up off of waivers to play this week for one of those two spots.

You're going to be just fine if you need to pick a waiver wide receiver up and start them any week of the season. You can find that guy. You want to do that with running backs. It's just not going to happen on most weeks. I feel like it sounded angry during that segment. No, no. I think what you did was you sounded cautionary for everybody out there who's overreacting. And look, there can be an argument made that because of that overreaction, because of the way your league mates will draft, running backs are at an all-time value mixed with the fact that they are more important.

That argument that we've made forever about position scarcity is true. It doesn't mean that we aren't extremely excited and confident to draft an Odell Beckham Jr., Julio Jones, and Antonio Brown, and A.J. Green. Those guys are great, and they're extremely reliable. But you cannot overreact to those numbers. Mike broke down the past few years. Last year was a bit of an outlier, and you always see that pendulum swing, so I like it. Number eight, I'm thinking are bees. All right, let's move on. Number seven.

All right. Number seven here is know your surroundings. This is a draft day tip. When you draft, now there's a lot of different ways you draft, right? Sometimes you use a draft software. You're just in an online draft. Sometimes you're at a place where you're using paper. In person. In person. And there's no, there's just you've got to track this. Polygram.

Yes. Maybe you're living in the future and you're drafting by hologram. Right. Any of those situations. Any possibility. You need to know your surroundings of what the other teams are doing. Okay. I'm not talking about like you've got to know the tendencies of other guys. That's helpful. Or what shirt they're wearing. I am specifically. Or their underpants. No. I am specifically talking about a very easy to do tip that helps you big time in drafts, which is track.

Who other teams have drafted, specifically what positions. So I'll give you a great example of something that happens every single draft that I'm in unless I'm on the turn. If I take a pick and I go, I'm six or seven picks, you know, away from my next pick. And I look at my tiers, right, my other tip, and I say, there's only two quarterbacks in this tier that I really like.

I start to think to myself, well, that's a good time now. If I need to get a quarterback by that tier, I go, okay, it's time to pull the trigger. But you know what I'm going to do before I pull the trigger? I'm going to look at those seven picks in between me and my next pick, and I'm going to go, oh, wait, everyone but one team already has a quarterback on their roster. So I'm not going to take that set. I'm going to take...

the quarterback that's left at my next pick and grab a better value at this pick. And the thing is about this is it seems really straightforward. It seems well, duh, but so many people don't do it when you're on the clock. And I would encourage you do it before you get on the clock. Because sometimes if you're on that two minute timer, you just feel like, oh, I got to make my pick. And you're not prepared to know what's coming on in between your picks. I'm going to add to that another example of why that is so important to do.

oftentimes you are in a draft and you see the opportunity to trade up right if you're doing trades inside of a draft you see the opportunity oh my gosh i got to trade up and grab this guy that's still on the board sometimes you don't have to trade up to let's say number 21 because nobody from 21 to 25 is going to draft that guy so you trade up you you trade up to number 25 and you have to pay less to get up to that point because you know the other players ahead of you aren't drafting that position so i think that's great when to hold them

Got no one to fold them. Yes, Mike, you invented that line just now. That's very, very good. That was really good, Mike. Very poetic, huh? Yeah. Wow. You should start a chicken place. All right, let's move on. Number six. Number six, we're going to call this one Master of Trades. And of course, I'm going to go ahead and take this one. Of course. I'll interrupt and just say the reason Andy's taking this is because he is truly the master of, I will compliment you.

Nobody trades as much as Andy. And I think you win most trades. Not all. I have done this so well that this year, it seems the world is banning me. In our league of record, I have been in arguments with people who are just disparaging all of my offers now. So I think that there is an effort to stop me. But look, yeah, yeah. That's another pro tip. Disparage everybody. Yeah, that's another. Yeah, exactly. So.

All right, so let's talk about this, Master of Trades. And what I want to talk about in particular is the two-for-one trade. If you are getting the best player in return, I love overpaying. Now, you might say, wait, what? You need exact value. No, you don't. You do not need exact value in a trade. I love two-for-one and three-for-one trades because what you realize, and you need to realize about those trades, is that it is not a two-for-one trade. You are sending two-for-one trade.

You are receiving one player, and then you are receiving a roster spot to utilize on a waiver wire pickup. A lot of times you don't think about it that way. You need to think about who you would want off a waiver wire and include him mentally into the trade you're doing to decide if that value is there. Because that is the thing that pushes these trades where, look, everybody in the league in your league loves their own players.

That's the reality. Some way, way too much, right? But you look at your own players through rose-colored glasses, which means to get rid of them, a lot of the time you need to be temporarily mesmerized by the trade offer. And so a lot of the time that I've had success doing trades, it is by sending an offer, not sitting there in back and forth and back, look, I'm going to send you two guys. Shockin-aw, baby. Shockin-aw. That's a great way to put it.

because I'm going to get a roster spot to open up, and I'm going to end up with the best overall player in the trade, and then I'm going to move on down the line. And you know what? I'm going to listen to the fantasy footballers. I'm going to have smart waiver. You should listen to me. Smart waiver wire pickups that I can then move those guys, or they can step into my roster. So look at your trades with the waiver wire pickup, with the extra roster spots in mind, and, you know, go out and get your guy. That's what I say.

Yeah, well, those top, the top end guys that you normally need to trade two or three guys to go get, they are, they score a different level of points that gives you a positional advantage. So when you plug in, you know, okay, maybe I lost a point or two here or there on those waiver pickups versus those other guys, you're gaining, you know, the four, five points per game. It ends up, you know, giving you a much better chance to win. All right, moving on.

Number five. Number five here. We're going with the information super highway. Look, I've heard about this. I don't know if you have people have heard about this. There's this new thing called the internet. It is full. I think those are on those big three and a half inch floppies. Well, the internet's where you go and you get your gold records printed. I think it's, I'm just going on record. I think it's going to be big. Right. It looks very positive for the internet. I think it's here to stay. Look, there is so much information out there.

And if you are the master of information, you are the master of your league. And there are several great places to do this. Twitter, if you are not on Twitter, please make an account. I'm not saying you need to participate in conversations. Just be there for information. Yeah, we don't need you to tweet every, like, meal you eat or anything like that. You can do that. I do that. But if you don't want to do that, that's okay. And we're talking about...

Beat reporters are on Twitter giving you instant information. The fantasy footballers are on Twitter. I was getting there. We're on Twitter. We're giving you instant information. It's just, it keeps you at least two to three steps ahead of people. And especially on a game day situation, you want to know if somebody's going to be out?

Go to Twitter because the information is going to be on there first. Then there's other great tools like Roder World. They put up information and give you a nice blurb about it. But you know where they get their information? Twitter. Yeah, no, they really do. So get on Twitter and follow these people. And if you want, here's a Bingner's tip for Twitter. Follow me, Jason, or Andy. Look at who we follow. Look at who these other news reporters follow.