Fantasy Football - 10 Tips & Tricks to Win Your League - Podcast for 8/13

by their play, by their performance, by their metrics, appears at risk. ETN was another one. You hated Rashad White, you hated ETN, and you were right on both. And I believe he still hates them. Just as people. Not as, not as fantasy assets. Just like the main. No, I don't have a problem with Rashad White this year. Like of the ADP for what he could give you, it's perfectly fine. It's just the, when you buy into a player, especially at the running back position early, and the only true checkmark in their box is, They're going to get a ton of volume. They're not going to be very good. Those guys are at risk. They can still end up keeping their job. Maybe someone in the, you know, the RB2 is not talented enough to take them off the field. That can happen. But these are situations that you need to pay attention to. And like the backups, it can take some time. It took Bucky some time to overtake Rashad White. So I'm not necessarily saying these are guys you've got to take in your draft. You know, another one was Tyrone Tracy.

With Devin Singletary. That was actually another situation we maybe didn't have as much confidence in Tracy, but Singletary was definitely an at-risk starter on that team. Yeah, and so maybe, you know, depending on the size of the bench in your league, you may not want to draft these particular players of these situations, but you need to have your eyes open and be paying attention because, like I said, it may not happen week one or week two, but. There are markers of, you know, the efficiency of the starter versus the backup, things like especially targets per route run because, look, we want pass catching running backs. It's so much more valuable than a carry. But just, you know, looking at things like that. They're running behind the same offensive line. And if the backup is just outperforming the starter by the end of the first month, there's a chance that things could switch over. So I took a look through the, you know, every team.

making my best projection of situations of starters, how entrenched, how much money are they going to make? How good are those players? And I came up with five teams where I thought there could be a transition. And also these situations are different than ambiguous backfields, which we talk about. Because ambiguous, you don't know who the starter is. These are ones where it's like, we know who they are. We're pretty confident we know who the starter is, especially when you look at ADP. The Chicago Bears. Yep. DeAndre Swift. Is DeAndre Swift the guy? He mean, he's being paid like it, but Ben Johnson has... He's not good enough to be deserving of being the guy. Right. He could be taken off, and Kyle Monong guy has been getting some buzz. I know he's a... Manonagai. You're adding a syllable. It works. Manongai. I mean, look, I love a good monomana joke, but I don't know that... We'll try it. It'll work on it.

But he is getting... That was good. That was good work. How dare your crows? What I'm hearing at a bear's camp is like... Menongue guy. Roshan... That's his name, though. That's his name now, Mike. It's not good, man. Okay. So the Bears situation. Andy, we know this is happening. I know. Let it wash over you. Like, Roshan is being talked about as just a specialty goal line player, which is, it could be interesting, but they're saying, like, Monongite. looks like the RB2. I watched the film. He looked good. He runs really hard. The Cleveland Browns. Jerome Ford is the entrenched starter because he's the veteran and Quinn Sean Judkins is a knucklehead and is still not a Cleveland Brown. It's like, okay, maybe Dylan Samson needs to be someone you keep an eye on. The Dallas Cowboys is just that one is a disaster of, did you guys see the quote about?

Javante Williams from the coaching staff, which started with, like, what are you seeing that's good about Javante? Ah, well, he's really mature. He's seen a lot of things in the league. He's mature? He's great with his teammates. There was, oh, come on. There was something on the field. There was no on field praise. Meanwhile, Jaden Blue has been getting praise in camp, the Minnesota Vikings. Aaron Jones is the starter. Jordan Mason is going in much, much later. It wouldn't like these, what's wild about these is. it's surprising when it happens every time. Yes. And I'm even willing to. Oh, look at this. I will be a man of honor. He is a man of honor. The Seattle Seahawks. If Ken Walker can't stay healthy, if he can't do what they think he's going to do, they have second round running back. Charbonnet in the wings waiting. These situations, it's probably not going to happen for every single one of them, but you need to pay attention and you need to be proactive like a week early. Wow.

When Waverdei hits and we're focused on, you're like, oh, I'm going to patch up my team with players who are performing right now. Sometimes you've got to go with a player who is not really bringing fantasy value, but you can see the sea parting in front of them that in a couple of weeks, that's going to be the starter. I am a little disappointed at your cowardice. Oh, what did I forget? Because. You know, you really were anti Rashad White on his inefficiency. Yes. And you were all, you've pretty much always said you don't think Travis ETN is that good. Right. But there's another player that you are always like, he's not that good. He's not efficient.

And you basically hate him with a raging fire. Oh, yes, yes. Joe Mixon? Yeah, and the Houston Texans are not on this list. The Houston Texans, like, I just too afraid of who it would be behind him. I don't think that one fits. I think that Joe Nixon. I'm saying Mike should think that fits. I honestly don't think it fits as much because I think Joe Mixon is his job is more secure of when he's back. He's the dude. They'll let him be the guy. All right. Makes sense. Those are some good opportunities to look at. Number seven. All right, this one is more like, what is this, philosophical, maybe just a mental approach to the game. I'm calling it become a stalwart. Now, we've always been of the opinion. You just play fantasy the way you want to play, right? Like whatever's the most fun for you. Now, for me, it is the pinnacle of fun when I win. It is the pinnacle of fun when I have won the league. I think a lot of people agree with you. Al Borland himself, has it been fun for you to have won the League of Record?

There's the trophy. Yeah, it's been pretty great. Yeah, so that is, look, what are you keeping that under the desk for? I think Josh keeps moving it under the desk. Oh, thank you, Josh. That makes sense. Thank you. But I'm going to talk about being, playing the game in a way that is trying to remove the emotional overreactions, to lock in, to become a stalwart. There are two types of situations that really. distort decision making in fantasy and one of them is the rose-colored glasses and what we think and want to happen what we want to happen as opposed to what maybe logic or is sitting in front of us should happen or also just like the burns the fantasy burns the hyper avoidance of certain players because well we don't like that team as much or maybe we just that player hurt us in the past and so what i think is the most advantageous way to have the most fun is to develop your inner stalwart to be able to

have an even-handed approach to fantasy that lets go of some of those extreme emotional reactions to be able to dig in and win. Because what happens is, I mean, there's a lot of examples of this that go well beyond, you know, your last season burns. It's also emotional attachment to the players you draft, right? Like, we all go and we build a roster. We spend all this time in the offseason with the draft kit. You build this perfect team. And so because of that, there's an emotional attachment that happens. Yeah, especially when they win for you. Yeah. And so sometimes you're unwilling to trade a player away based on the objective realities in front of you or maybe trade for a player that you thought was bad that's performing. Like that's probably the hardest one is to buy, like, oh, I knew that player was going to stink. They have three or four good weeks. You're like, no, I still believe they stink. Well, sometimes the reality is different. And every year there are certain players that we go in with maybe excitement or.

a bad taste in our mouth like Josh Jacobs after the Las Vegas year. It was like so easy to go into that season thinking this guy might be toast. But the NFL told us that wasn't the case when Green Bay paid him all that money. And his ADP ends up dropping and he ends up the RB5. Or in reverse like CJ Stroud, do we all not, we all want CJ Stroud to be the next great thing. Yes, we do. That rookie season was amazing. And yet Mike kept coming back to the fact that that our, that QB11 season was like riddled with, you know,

really bad performances, occasional great ones. And then last year he went so high in drafts, ends up the QB18, you were locked in on him early in the season, thinking it would all be great. That is an emotional overreaction. That is something you just want to will into being. And throughout the course of a season, you just need to try your very best to look at things with the least emotional reaction possible. Again, fantasy is about fun. If you want to find your perfect balance of... emotional reaction and fandom with, you know, kind of being objective. I don't care how you mix that vial. You know what I mean? It's fine. However you want to do it, that makes it the most fun. But I do think the way that gives you the best opportunity to win is trying to be disconnected emotionally from the players on your roster and willing to trade them. When you go name your team after a player that you drafted.

You are not going to trade that player. You're not going to trade that player or give up on them. You have to change your name. Because you got to change your team. Can you trade the name? Could you say, I'm going to trade this player and namesake? That's a great idea. Okay. It should, if you trade the player, if you're willing to trade the player, you should always trade the name with it. But that would be really confusing. Halfway through the season, all of a sudden, that team with that name is like. Wait, I'm playing him again? No, you're not. No, I played him for the first time. No, I played it. I played him last week. And it was a really roller coaster situation with like Mark Andrews last year. Very emotional. At some point in time, I did give up, right? Which kind of proved to be the wrong decision. But after week one, when the entire earth was overreacting to Isaiah likely.

You went back, you watched the film, you calmed down after the game, you saw the opportunities that didn't quite work. And at that point in time, you know, we came out here and said, look, this looks like a situation that's going to be fine. Don't panic. Now, eventually I panicked. Well, because he rewarded your confidence, your confidence, Andy, with four for 51. And then we were, then we were safe. And then it was two games of zeros. Once the double goose happened, I definitely dipped. I don't. We didn't blame anyone for bailin then. But basically, we just get over attached to players emotionally. We don't trade them. We don't sit them fast enough. That's another thing. You're like, oh, this will be the week that they do the thing I thought they do in the offseason that maybe isn't really a reality anymore. But I think they'll do it because I believe they do it. So become a stalwart as much as you can to make the best, most objective decisions. Number six. My next tip is to avoid double.

onesies early in your draft. In fantasy football, we use the term positional advantage all the time. We're describing a quarterback or a tight end that puts you above your league mates at that position, right? Lamar Jackson, he was the quarterback one. He was better by two points over the quarterback to. Brock Bowers, who was a late round draft pick as the Titan won last year, he was awesome. And for years, it was Travis Kelsey and Josh Allen. It feels so good to leave your draft. stacked at those positions to grab, you know, this year, Brock Bowers, Trey McBride, you know, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, Jaden Daniels. These guys are awesome. And I love them. And I'm willing to take every single player I mentioned. But I want to talk about the positional disadvantage that it puts you at at the more important positions if you double up on the onesie position. The opportunity cost. Whenever you draft any one of these guys is something significant that you've got to factor in.

If you take Brock Bowers, you are leaving Josh Jacobs, Bucky Irving, Jonathan Taylor, A.J. Brown, and Drake London on the table. You are taking them off of your roster. If you take T. McBride, you are leaving Kyron Williams, Chase Brown, JSN, T. Higgins. Yeah, I did the McBride thing in our last mock, and I did not like what that did to my roster. It can be hard. If you get Lamar Jackson or Josh Allen where they're going, that's another. Josh Jacobs, Bucky, Jonathan Taylor. If you grab Jaden Daniels, you're leaving Marian Hampton, Garrett Wilson, Marvin Harrison. So here's the thing that I'm recommending. If you take one of those guys, any one of those guys, I'll throw Burrow in there as well, you're going to be fine. If you take two, you're really going to be wrecked. What happens if you take two? Let's just have a situation. I took Bowers in the second and Burrow in the fourth.

That means my running back two or my wide receiver two is going to be one of these guys because I've got to get multiple of those. My second starting running back will be Isaiah Pacheco or Aaron Jones or D'Andre Swift by ADP. That's going to be in my starting lineup. My second wide receiver is going to be... you know, Xavier Worthy, Zayflowers, Chris Olave. It's going to be hard when you're starting, you just can't double up those early round onesy positions because your depth at the far more important position to have depth that when you start multiples plus a flex is very difficult. Now, I think that if you take one of those guys, you know, there are people, there are running backs and wide receivers we really like in rounds five and six that might slip to you. You know, you might.

You might grab Travion Henderson or Tetaro and McMillan if you're going for the rookies. If Joe Mixon falls for a while and he's your running back too, you can probably, you know, be fine with that. It's just tough to try to bank on two of these very rare round five and six wide receivers that we really like to drop to you to where your running backs and wide receivers are good. So you have the positional advantage at one position that you don't need as much and you sacrifice. the far more important positions. So I would have recommended to everybody. Avoid the doubles. You will be behind your league mates at the two most important positions if you double tap onesie positions before the sixth round. No, it's good advice and it is very hard to resist sometimes. Those are big names, big players, most important positions a lot of the time grabbing that quarterback names that you know. I love grabbing one of those guys as soon as the other guys on the board are like, I've got a lot of question marks on.

on these names and if there's one of those guys left that are studs that you know there's no question about grab one of them then and then keep filling out your running backs on wide receivers all right we'll take a quick break and then count on the top five tips and tricks on today's show this episode is brought to you by prize picks preseason football is underway and college football is here so don't miss any of the action this season on prize picks Price picks is simple to play. Just pick more or less on two to six different player stat projections. If you get your picks right, you can cash in and win up to 2,000 times your money. Price picks is also the best way to get in on the action on sports in more than 30 states, including California, Texas, and Georgia. Prize picks puts their members first. So all withdrawals are fast, safe, and secure. This time of year preseason, I love taking the young guys with opportunity that I like.

Week one, I went Caleb Johnson and Trey Benson more and more, and you know your boy cashed. So get in on the action, download the app today and use code footballers and get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That's code footballers to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. Prize picks, run your game. All right, it's time to jump back into it, starting with number five. Tip number five, we're going to be talking about anticipating offensive system tier jumps. Okay, that's a lot of words, Mike. Yes. It's over 75,000 words right there. The NFL is full of parity. Teams jump from worst to first. It happens every single year. And offenses jump from bad to competent, sometimes even a jump up to a really good, strong offense. It happens every year.

When it happens, it feels like it comes out of nowhere because pretty much for this to happen, the team had to have been bad. You know, and it's like, well, that team was bad last year. There's no way they can turn it around. Lo and behold, it just happens every single year. In fact, at least three teams jump 13 or more total touchdowns from the previous year. And that is over the last decade that we get three teams that make a very significant jump. Yeah, it's the... The Washington commanders, right? They were horrifically bad. They overhaul everything. They bring in Jaden Daniels. They hit on that. And now we want all the Washington commanders on our fantasy football teams. So it's about trying to project which teams, which of the, you know, at least three teams are going to make that jump. So look at last year. Were they dreadful? Okay. Well, that's the first check mark. But then it's figure out what happened.

Tua, last year the Miami Dolphins, who had been a very prolific offense. Tua misses, you know, half the year. And all of a sudden that team looks bad and we have bad feelings about the Miami Dolphins. A couple years ago, it's happened to the Cowboys with Dak Prescott. He's gotten hurt. Then the Cowboys look like crap. They come back or Dak comes back. Look who's a high-powered offense again. Things like Strength of Schedule. San Francisco, Per Warren Sharps, Strength of Schedule analysis. It just, it looks so easy. And obviously it won't be as easy as it looks, but there are some clear path. There is a clear path on there. And then this is a big one. Offensive coordinator change. Four. So last year we had, you know, a good amount of teams to jump up. And four of the five.

from last year, it was an offensive coordinator change. And you can even factor in if you want to say, hey, Aaron Rogers is kind of a four of the five jumps. Yeah, four of the five jumps from last year. And if you want to say Aaron Rogers is part of the OC of the OEC of the Jets last year, that would be five of five. So in fact, over the last three years, 10 of the 11 teams that tier jumped had a new OC or a new play caller that year. So it's looking at the teams who were bad. And then this year, do we have new play callers or new OCs?

the best candidates for this, you know, and I have one team in mind. I wonder if you'll mention them or not. And, and the thing about that is when there's, there's players from these teams, it's baked into their average draft position of that player is on a bad team. And so they're, their goal later in draft. This is what helps you find guys who are really going to help you win, not just the early picks, but the later guys. So this year, the teams that, uh, have we got new player callers, new OCs that are interesting. that could make this jump of over 13 touchdowns to really help your fantasy team. We got Chicago with Ben Johnson. That's the obvious one. Dallas, they changed things up. They got Clayton Adams at the O.C. position. The Vegas Raiders. You got Chip Kelly in there, who has given us historically really good fantasy players in the past. Like New England? Hey, we got Josh McDaniel. I mean, he's back. We're back, baby. And then in Cleveland, Tommy Reese. So we have.

You didn't say the team I was thinking about. Tell me to mention it? Yeah. Because first it has to be a bottom 10 team. Like is it Tennessee? No. Oh, okay. Give it to me. Jacksonville. Sure. With Liam Cohen. Yes. And the bad vibes and the fact that you had the number two pick, which, you know, Jacksonville is sitting there going like, well, there are not good feelings around that team. There's good feelings around Brian Thomas Jr. But we're talking about the backfield we don't love and all of that. But like. Liam Cohen should be able to do something special. You know, that's one situation that jumped out to me. So I love that call because Travis E.T.N. is left for dead in drafts right now. He's a bum. He's worthless. It's Bayshell Tooting that everybody wants now this year or Tank Bigsby. And, you know, Trevor Lawrence isn't good. But if he brings in a good system and Trevor Lawrence is an above average quarterback, that could be a very good offense. They have weapons there. But so just, you know, the summary is.

Don't get over concerned about how bad a team was last year. Look at the team. Look at the changes that they have made. Did they bring in a new OC? Because teams move up. And every single time they move up, we go, whoa. Didn't see that coming. Who could have possibly seen that? It happens every year, man. Yeah, yeah. So you have to try to find your best shot at predicting those situations. No, it makes sense. All right, moving on. Number four. All right, number four. My final tip of this top 10, it is doing the tight-end dance, all right? And it kind of piggybacks on what Jason was talking about with the onesie positions. If you don't end up with one of those, you know, the Bowers-McBride Kittle, which in most situations, you know, Bowers and McBride, I think the way we view them is that they are fair and appropriate picks at their draft cost, but they do cost you something, right, in terms of what you're trading. Jason mentioned the names earlier.

George Kittles kind of been the favorite of our group. But if you look at our value scout tool, and if you don't know what that is, we have built it out, added it to the EDK this year. What it does is it takes our rankings and our true value of a player, where we think they really belong in drafts, their true value and compares it to your platform's average draft position because your league mates are drafting ESPN sleeper, Yahoo, NFL, whatever. They're drafting and they're seeing those default lists. Those default lists are based on where those players are going on those platforms. And so our tool compares our true value with those platforms and kind of says, hey, we think this player's worth maybe five or six, seven picks to be higher in the draft or lower. But when you look at how we view the tight-in position, we basically look at Bowers, McBride, and Kittle. Pretty much their true value is about where they're being drafted. But beyond that at the tight-in position,

The TLDR, the summary, it's like we don't think that the Leportas, the Hawkinsons are worth where they're going in drafts because of the other options that you have at tight-in later on. And so it can feel a little uncomfortable going into your fantasy season without a true, you know, monster tight-in, Bowers McBride Kiddle. It can feel a little uncomfortable. But people need to recognize that... doing the tight-end dance, streaming the tight-in position where, look, every week we get on and we tell you streaming defenses that we think are good options this week. You can stream the kicker position every week. But tight-end overall, it really can be pieced together in, I think, a more predictive way. Yes. Because the defensive numbers that we start to get four, five, six weeks into the season, you really see what teams are vulnerable against tight-ins. It's a scheme thing. Some teams, their personnel, and the scheme that they play.

just allows that area of the field to get eaten alive. And so the offense that faces it targets that because it's just good football and it happens every week. It's very predictable in a way that it's not with the other positions. We, behind the scenes look of the fantasy footballers, one of our in-season tools is the stream finder where, you know, instead of just a strength of schedule for one particular team. we look at which teams are getting beaten up by a particular position. And every week we do a starts of the week segment. And every week is one of the starts of the week at the tight end position is going to be that tight end who's playing the team who gets beat up by tight ends. And it works just magically over the course of the season. Yeah. And I think part of that is just like, okay, if a team's weak against wide receivers, well, every.

teams starts a bunch of wide receivers. If a team's weak against running backs, there's a lot of committees. If you're weak against the tight end, there's normally one targeted pass catching tight end. It makes it easier to predict. And the other aspect that you can look at, you know, beyond the defense they're playing when you're looking at streaming tight ends, look at the metrics that matter. That's a series we've been doing with the Just the Tips weekend mini series. But if you look at what's the most important thing for tight ends, routes, receptions, targets, yards after catch. And so you can start to look at increased opportunities. A good example of this last year, if you remember the show, I was doing this. I was in the position to stream tight ends. I was on the way to a championship game against Al Borland, our champion now. But the path to the championship game went with, it was like Britain Strange. All of a sudden had a bunch of opportunities in the offense. Chigacanquo from weeks 12 through 17.

elite usage in the offense. He was 25 plus routes per game, six plus targets per game. All of a sudden, he was winning people titles. Number seven tight in, number three tight in. And then almost nine fancy points in the championship week, not a bad week. Targets 10, 11, 7 out of nowhere. Undrafted, not picked up on waiver wires. You could just grab them off of the waiver wire in week 15. This happens more predictably at tight end. And so doing that tight-end dance, if you don't get one of the top guys or you don't want to spend that cost, you don't want to take McBride at the expense of Chase Brown, this is the way to do it. It is more predictable. And you can find those opportunities. This year, I'm telling you some names to pay attention to pay attention to. I knew it. And then I'm going to mention some, I'm going to mention a rookie. The man has become a meme. He has become a meme and he's like, he's still like 16 years old. Now you're a meme. Now you're a meme.