Fantasy Valentines + Mailbag Madness, Touchdown Music

Not a homo sapien. He was not a human being. He was, in fact, a lizard person. Yeah, and it was more than that was a string of a bunch of messages that said, oh, he's a crazy person. This is a cold-blooded. He's a cold-blooded crazy person. This is someone that is a reptile. I see why he has struggled to pick up the NFL because he, maybe he is, maybe it is because he's a lizard. No, because if he had lizard hands, have you ever seen a lizard climb a wall?

Oh, they're very sticky. They're lightning. They just climb up any surface that they want. If he had lizard hands, he would catch everything thrown at him with just with an open palm. He wouldn't even have to close his hand. It would just stick. It is very difficult to catch a lizard. But they got the tail. They can just shake it off whenever they need to. So for the unaware out there, Carry on Johnson tweeted out. Oh, back to Carry on. Back to Carry on. He tweeted out a picture of.

a bowl of cereal with milk being added on top on the left, and then a bowl of milk with cereal being added on the right, and he declared that he is a true serial person because he is on the... He declared a true... He was the true cereal? He wasn't even posed as a question? No, this was all the true cereal people really understand that it's got to be the one on the right, which is the bowl of milk and then you pour cereal in it, which is...

so incorrect and stupid and wrong that I will adjust my rankings. Wherever I finish with carry on, I'm going to move him one spot down. At least. Well, I still love him a lot. I think he's a phenomenal player. And I hope that if he can turn his cereal ways around, maybe that will affect his health. Maybe that's the health problem. Maybe he's eating too many cocoa puffs. Maybe. What's your favorite cereal, Jay? Cinnamon toast crunch. Although that's not even true. It's just what I say.

Because it is great. But Reese's puffs. Why do you say it? Because it is the 101. If we were doing a draft. So you're saying it's like the popular cereal. It's basically like saying my favorite player is Michael Jordan because one, I liked him a lot. Okay. And he's also, you know, consider the best ever or whatever. So it's the combo. I love cinnamon toast crunch. Sure. And it's considered the best ever. So I'm in. But Reese's puffs.

If those two boxes are right next to each other, I'll have a bottle. I'll go Reese's. I'll go fruit loops. Brooks, what's your favorite cereal? I probably go Coco Pebbles. Coco Pebbles? I like it, Brooks. That's an original pick. Delish. You don't hear that very much. I would. No, because this becomes mush. And what does Cinnamon Toast Crunch become? Well, at least it starts crunchy. It becomes mush the second the milk hits it. I bet if he ate his cocoa pebbles the way that Carrie-on Johnson eats them.

They would all be crispy. That's true. Maybe he's on to something. Shut your mouth. Next question. This one is from Instagram from SB roster 27. Are you buying next year? Matt Ryan will be a top five quarterback because of him flipping from great to me every other year. So the hard hitting science-based analysis of.

Matt Ryan's pattern of being terrible and then elite. He was not. Where did he finish this year? Do you know? Not great, Bob. Yeah, it wasn't. Well, he missed a couple games. He started the year pretty strong. Then he had a lack of weapons. Looks like Matt Ryan finished at 11. So outside the top 10 this year. And to speak to what the Instagrammer is referring to here, Matt Ryan in his career. So he finished 11.

This year. The previous year, two. The previous year, 15th. The previous year, two. Then 19. Then he was top seven. Then 15. Then top seven. So you've got this back and forth. And no, in no way, shape or form, do any of us here believe that that means that a bounce back will be good? This is not, and I know it's said tongue and cheek. This isn't prescriptive or predictive in what will come. But it is. It's fun.

Well, it's more than fun. There is actual value to this. And that's what I think I was trying to bring up when I was low on Matt Ryan coming into this season. It wasn't that I believe it was because he was going to have a continue to ping pong back and forth. It's because his range of outcomes has both. And so when I said he was outside the top 10 and got a bunch of grief for it.

I used this not as well. He went back and forth, so he's going back, but that half of the years he finishes poorly. Right. And half of the years he finishes great. Going into next year, I think there's a lot to be said with the weapons. Austin Hooper's a free agent. If he's not re-signed and Devonta Freeman is cut and they bring in a rookie.

I'm not going to be high on Matt Ryan. I'm not going to say that just Calvin Redley and Julio Jones are going to get it done. But, you know, look, if Hooper is back and the rookie they replace Freeman with it or they have Freeman as a pass-catching specialist or a really high-end draft pick, then, yeah, I'll be more in on Matt Ryan. I will be in on Matt Ryan. One, I think he's an excellent, excellent quarterback. I've talked about that a lot. But in his...

Like you said, in his range of outcomes is a high-end quarterback. But since the year 2012, he has averaged over 4,600 yards. Like, it's just a touchdown. You know that the yards are safe with Matt Ryan. It's just will the touchdowns actually come where he was, he had 26 this year with a touchdown rate of 4.2. The previous year, 35.

with a touchdown rate of 5.8, the year before that, 20 at a touchdown rate of 3.8. It's all over the place with Matt Ryan, so the touchdowns are inconsistent, but great quarterback always gives you the yardage. Will the touchdowns come through? I just don't know. I will say this. One of the things that is a little bit more prescriptive in this weird ping pong of his career arc is that...

the first year of a new coordinator, and it makes sense. He has not usually been the best Matt Ryan. That's fair. And people are using the fact that this is the second go round of Dirk Cutter as their offensive coordinator that this wouldn't be like a first year, Matt Ryan. It's not the ground up. But in reality, this is a new sister. Dirk cutter is not just coming in and doing what he did five years ago. If he was there the last five years, it would be new this year anyways. And so coming into this.

Next season, Dirt Cutter is in tow and he's going into year two of the system. So if they get the weapons around him, I will be in on Matt Ryan. This one is from Shea Castle off of Twitter. How many leagues is too many leagues? Is it better to a bunch of different formats, scoring, or does that only make it more confusing? Yeah, I mean, this is a question that is to each their own. I can say that there is certainly a too many leagues.

You know, a lot of fantasy fanatics, and I am certainly a fantasy fanatic, would say there's no such thing as too many leagues, but I've played in so many leagues that I can't focus as much in the league or few leagues that I care about so much. So I have, like, a perfect example for this is as we started the podcast,

more opportunities came for leagues, and I was so hungry to just be in more and more leagues because more is fun. One of my best friends, he's had a money league, which I always talk about, my money league. I have performed very, very poorly in that league for the past two years because I just don't care about it. It's not that I don't care about it. It's just I get waiver exhaustion. I get...

trade exhaustion. I mean, because to really go through your league and make a trade, I mean, you're looking at your team, you're going, you're analyzing every other team because you can't just pick out a player. I'm going to go get Aaron Jones no matter what the cost. No, you've got to go find someone who's compatible with you, who's on the waivers. I mean, you have to do a lot of things in a league. And I just, I didn't have the mental focus for that league. So it was always like,

embarrassing of they know they know what my occupation is and they're like why we're kicking your butt you're like because i'm not i i don't want to just say well i didn't try because i'm sort of trying i'm just but i'm not i don't have the energy to put into that league

that will make me great at it. Yeah, and that's, you know, as we go through the year, our show tries to focus on that, the holistic approach. Right. Of fantasy football, not just, not just the information. Because we have all the information in our minds when we go and play in these leagues.

But then you have to apply that information to the context of the leagues, the situation. You know, you're making waiver claims. Well, what waiver priority are you? Because that's going to change in this league or that league of what I take. How much fab do I have? How much fab does my opponents have? What's my schedule coming up in this? What's the schedule of my number one opponent? If you have so many leagues where you're basically just saying these are the...

Players I like, the prices I like for them, and I'm just going to go shotgun that everywhere. You're not going to win those leagues outside of just dumb luck. You have to really have that context, dive deeper. And yeah, and so it's not that you don't care about that league. It's just you care about that league sixth most of your leagues. Yes, I care about the other leagues more. So it gets the least time and that. So, yeah, play in a, I like three, I can handle three leagues pretty competent. Recently, I have been trimming the fat, so.

My buddies league just folded. So I will be in our League of Record, our Dynasty League, and our Listener League. That's currently what is scheduled for me. And a co-owner in our Dino Junior League, Mike? Sure. But I'm a co-owner, so I don't feel the pressure of it. But I'm ecstatic that I only have three leagues. So the true answer is if it's still fun for you on a Tuesday night to go through every one of those leagues and make the proper waiver claims, that's the number. Yep.

For us, it's about three. Yeah, three or four. And then we have a couple teams we co-managed together. That's what's scheduled for me. Things will probably pop up. James in Kentucky, this one's from the website, says, I was wondering if you could give me some advice on podcast equipment. So this is not a football question. Okay. That's fun. Look, we're a podcast. Yeah. Advice on podcast equipment. Like, why did Mark Waltonberg just show up?

Hey, it's okay. I don't know. Just say, how'd your mother for me? Podcast equipment, like microphones, recording devices that are of good value for a home studio setup. Well, James in Kentucky. You're talking to the perfect man. We have run the gamut. We have had cheap equipment. We now have where we are fortunate that we have higher end equipment now. But honestly, if you really want to start a podcast, you can do so on a pretty decent budget.

There is a microphone that I recommend by a company. It's called a Berringer B1. It is a condenser microphone, which means that you will need an audio interface with phantom power for this microphone. If anything I just said is confusing, that means you need to jump on YouTube and get some audio tutorials. Because that's the number one thing is educate yourself about audio.

and you'll be all right and it's not hard it's not like oh you're telling me i've got to become an audio expert it's not rocket science no you just have to you just have to figure out how to use your microphone and you know in your audio input device and that that's it those are pretty cheap i mean they're they're not throw away money i think a barringer b1 like a hundred about a hundred bucks yeah uh you can get a pretty cheap uh audio interface and and then you will sound like a professional podcast yep right off the bat

And there's free audio editing programs out there like Audacity. And for an audio program, it's really just whatever you become comfortable using. They all basically do the same thing at this point. Yeah. I mean, if you're on a Mac, garage band is built in. Yeah, that's a little tougher to use for podcasting. I will say that. But, I mean, like 15 years ago, the audio programs did different things. Now they all basically do the same thing. Hopefully that helps you. Instagram from...

A. Alex Anderson. Oh, a Alexa Anderson. This one's for you, Jason. Yeah, because I don't know how to live with that Alexa. And I mean that genuine. No. Dynasty. I couldn't even turn my lights on anymore. Dynasty question. What do you do with Damien Harris? Damien Harris, Truther. There's probably people listening to this podcast right now. Who? Going who? So.