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

The Fantasy Footballer Studio is sponsored by Walmart. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Oh, it's good to be back with you for this special episode. Wednesday, August 13th. It's the Tap 10. Dips and Tricks. Coming to you live. I'm Casey Gason. Nice. Very nice. My daughter doesn't know it yet, but she's getting a CD player for her. Oh, a compact disc player? A compact disc player? Are we talking Walkman style? Like on the hip? Or are we talking boomba? Boomba. Jason, that'll be called a discman. Thank you. Oh.

Oh, man, I'm sorry. But I, my eyes have been open that the CD world is alive. It's well. It's thriving. We don't, what? Don't think it's thriving. We don't need those. I don't know thriving is the right word, but look, everything. It exists. Everything comes out on CD still. But nobody has anything to play the CDs on. And so, um, she, she wanted one. And it was very fun to shop for a boom box for the first time in 20 years. Hmm. I feel like CDs are like they made a tech jump, you know, right. We go from. So vinyl sounds the best. Look, nerds it does. Yeah, it does. And then cassette tape still has some of the warmth because it's an analog. And then you go to CD, which is very convenient. Yeah. Digital. You can switch tracks, all those things. Convenient. Yeah. Right. That's what it stood for. Exactly. But it's like once you make that jump to a digital tech where it has the convenience, why?

Like, I understand why people go back to vinyl, but why go back to CD? Right. When you can just stream. That's interesting to me. It is. I want that digital sound difficulty. If you get the, if you get the record player, which we have a record player, I love vinyl. But if you buy vinyl, it's like 40, 50 bucks. for the vinyl that's not the issue the issue i have with vinyl is it's like 40 or 50 seconds aside yeah yeah that is the hard what do you get three songs that's what it feels like i'm like i'm gonna put on this vinyl and then it's over it's like i gotta come half the time i'm just flipping the vinyl over yeah that's true but you can buy a cd still for like 10 bucks so it's like uh i don't know she she wanted to to get into it okay so that's um i don't even remember what that came from but that's that's what we're doing uh welcome in we've got a top 10

Oh, it was from Casey Kasem. That's where we were back to the... Casey Gasev. Back to the radio vibes. For you young children out there, Casey Kasem was a radio host who was famous for his top 10 countdowns. With a cool voice like that. He, I mean, was, still is. Like if... No. Oh, well, he is gone, but I'm saying they just replay his shows. Ah, okay. They're just like, hey, throw that on. Passed away June 15th, 2014. yes also the voice of uh shaggy did i see yeah we didn't know that uh we've got these guys are if if i ever go to a trivia night oh don't bring me off my list don't bring me goodness gracious

Today is a very fun episode. It is the 11th time we've done the top 10 tips and tricks, which I guess means we have 110 tips and tricks that we've revealed over the years. I love this show because this whole podcast is built around the concept of equipping you to make great decisions in your league context. Think about things a little differently. So we have some new things that we want to bring forward to pay attention to. Kyle the Borgogan himself, who helps us on show doc prep and with... uh these tips and tricks that we came up with helps us research them and he he said that he hates it because apparently this is the one episode a year that some of his league mates listen to of our show apparently they don't listen to the other ones i don't know why but uh he wins but this is the one they listen to and so we will break down 10 tips and tricks to help you win your league

on today's show, and we've got a mock draft episode coming tomorrow morning, any of my guys episode coming on Friday. Oh, man. So it is jam-packed. It is time for football. The big announcement, the UDK for Life giveaway. It is coming soon, so you need to pick up the ultimate draft kit. You know you're going to get it. If you already got it, you're entered to win, but we're giving away a UDK for Life and a signed Jamar Chase jersey. We're doing that on Monday. during a live event, we'll be answering your questions and giving those items away on a Monday live stream. So all you got to do is... If you don't have the ultimate draft kit yet, if you don't know what that is, you're hopping back in, that is our resource for draft day and for the whole draft season. There's research and articles, 100 player...

profile videos you can watch leading up to it. It's basically like little mini podcasts on every single relevant player out there. But all of our tiered breakdowns, all of our sleepers, values, breakouts, busts, guys to avoid, everything that we do the whole off season. That's in the ultimate draft kit. It's a great resource. It's proven to help make your draft better, set a good foundation. So if you're thinking about getting it, might as well get it by Monday so that maybe you get it for the rest of your life. No, that'd be great. And I was using one of the tools to develop one of my tips today, just some insights from it. But yeah, 75,000 original words of content within the UDK. What, Stephen King write this thing? 75,000 words of analysis. Feels like a little much. That does feel like too much. Like if you say it like that. How many thousands too much is that for you, Jason? How many total is it? 75,000. 73,000 too much. Yeah, are the non-readers out there? Like, oh, never mind.

That's why we got the videos. We'll read it to you. Yeah. So there you go. Ultimate draft kit.com to check that out. We're going to jump right into the news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by progressive insurance. I want Al Borland to throw in that last piece of information on the UDK that you just threw in that because it's probably a fair thing to disclose at this point. I said at no haters. We did not use AI. We hire real people. Yes. It is all. 75,000 words written by non-robots. That's right. Yeah, that's a good, that's a good disclaimer nowadays. Kyle's not a robot. Kyle's as close as you can get. Right. Okay. We've got close to robots. We got close to robots. Yeah, it's like CIA. It's close to intelligent. All right. We got big news. Oh. Just yesterday we were talking about James Cook, who was back at practice. Talks were good. They were.

They were discussing things. So he came back to practice. Yeah, what did it mean? Four year extension worth $48 million, $30 million guaranteed. James Cook is their guy. It just shows peculiar whining works. Yeah. Look, it's one of those things where you're like, you've got to advocate for yourself as a player. You got to take the leverage when you can get it. But at the same time, his mechanism, his method. was so odd that you kind of like, dang it, why'd that work? Right? Is that a template? We're going to like fake go out on the practice field. Is that going to, and then you get $30 million? The template is go score 16 rushing touchdowns the year prior. Be awesome in the playoffs and help you stay in your games and then you can do that. Like I'm surprised that two of the deucers are not like walking out right now as a way to try to.

get a raise. They know that we'll just say goodbye. You know how many people want your jobs? It's so strange. Because this is how the Cowboys do it too. Why do we wait so long? If we're going to do it? If you're going to do it, just get to it. Are they? I've got an answer for that. Okay. What's your? At least maybe not in the Cowboys case because they have restructured DACPrescott five times. Yeah, because they've wasted money. And they screw up. Every big contract. And maybe this is a screw up by Buffalo too. Maybe this is the exact number that James Cook wanted in the beginning. But I don't think it is. I think James Cook came with a much bigger number. And this is the way the back and forth negotiation goes and you finally get to a place where it's like, look, you want to be that guy? You want to get in there? Take a little less. We'll go up a little bit. Let's do it now. I'm not saying there's not negotiations. I'm saying why does it like.

you would have known at the as soon as last season concluded hey look at our guys look who needs to get paid and look how skill players go like if i'm a running back and i have no more true like i only have this season and this is my time to cash in and i can get hurt this is what i'm going to do and it It's just, it's such a stupid dog and pony show. You're basically saying, why doesn't the team take seriously the threats earlier in the off season? And they, it's just human nature. Or, you got to watch it happen. Oh, yeah, we just procrastinate. Yeah, we got to watch them mispractice. My only idea is like, are the teams doing the exact same that we, the exact same thing we do in fantasy football where it's like, do your draft as late as possible because guys get hurt. And they're like, we're going to watch you during the off season.

And we don't want to sign you to a contract in February. And then in April, you're training and you get hurt. It's a game of chicken. It's a contract chicken outside of Dallas. Dallas is. Yeah, outside of Dallas. And I would also say outside of the Bengals. Those two organizations are run by some egos up top that get in the way of the money. But here, it's just a matter of I'm sure that James Cook would not have agreed to this deal. at the very beginning. I agree. I think it was, you know, they're getting closer to the season and they both start sweating and then they meet in the middle. That's why the Eagles are the best on organization. You don't want to miss game checks. They go out when you don't even expect someone to get an extension yet and go, hey, hey, how would you like this money? And they're like, that sounds great. Sign me up. And then they're ahead of the game. Naji Harris returned to jogging and individual football drills in yesterday's practice. A good soft jog.

I honestly don't. I mean, I don't understand. Maybe this is just ramp up from inactivity. I don't understand how. Where's Darren Waller? What's that guy up to? We haven't heard from Darren Waller. That's a big ramp. But Najee is jogging individual football drills. I mean, I hope his eyes okay after that jogging. Greg Roman came out and said that Omari and Hampton will rotate with another back in week one, even if Najee Harris isn't available. And then said, hold on. We don't. Sure he will. Well, we. He's like, we don't know who that's going to be yet. That's up for, that's up for competition. But, um, yeah, Ladd McConkey back to 11 on 11s yesterday. He said he feels like he's close to 100%. We saw Nick Chubb and Damian Pierce, who's back and, uh, fully healthy. They're splitting first team reps in Houston. So we've talked about Woody Marks. Damian Pierce was on the shelf. Right now, Damien Pierce is back. And so that kind of throws some cold water on Woody Marks having really a chance to emerge there, I think, because.

Chubb and Pierce, like Pierce, I know you guys, Jason in particular, want to dump on Pierce all the time. This was a player that ran for 5.7 a carry last year. When he actually had the opportunity to rush the football, he was 5.7 a carry. Between the two of them, they can handle the business if Joe Mixing misses time. We hope he doesn't miss time. Day three running backs always take a long time. to work their way up the death chart. AJ Brown not participating in joint practices again. It's been a hamstring injury. I hate this. I had moved AJ Brown up and he instantaneously got hurt because I was really excited about the potential of that passing game for both guys to really improve. I'd like to see him get back to practice because he's missing. And he had gone back. He got back to limited. He got back to limited. But these are joint practices today. So I don't.

It sounds scary to me when I first read it, where it was like if you get back limited, like I think I can start working my way back from the hamstring injury, and then you don't practice. It's like, did you pull something? But this is now joint practices where maybe he's back in a limited fashion, but he's not going to go all out against another team, and that's probably for the best. Sederer's Sander's oblique injury when throwing, so he's going to be possibly missing more time, and that's a huge issue because he needs the preseason games to put it on display.

I had seen a blurb of the Browns of like Dylan Gabriel will start if he's healthy enough. Otherwise it's going to be Shadu or Sanders. I don't know what they'll do if they're both hurt. What did they sign? Huntley, was it? Oh, did they pick? They have six quarterbacks on the roster. That is not a joke. They have six. Really going the shotgun approach. And I don't, you know, yeah, I don't know what they're going to do. Breece Hall, he had a comment on the Chiron and James Cook. Contracts. Don't forget Deshaun Watson still on that team. He's one of the six. So, uh, Brees also said, uh, of the Kyran and James Cook contracts. They've done more than me. They're in better situations. I feel like I'm just as talented, but those guys deserve their payday and what they got. That is really sad. It's a disgruntled player. What isn't? He is not gruntled. This isn't a compliment sandwich because it starts off. Or is it? No, they've done more than me. Yeah, it's a compliment sandwich. They're a better situation. Good work. I feel like I'm just as talented.

but they deserve their payday. It's a nice thing to say. I like that they've been in better situations. He's just taking a shot at his own team. Yeah. He does feel like a player that is on the outside of the inner circle. But at the same time, you know, you talked about it, Justin Fields throwing to the running back position. There's still a world where he's highly productive and they're going to play the best players. So it's not the world we're drafting him in where he's going right now, but it's... It's still possible for him to be productive. At least you know he is playing for a contract. And he knows. And he's talented. He's out there right now this year. And what he does, what he puts on the field will determine what his market value is because he knows he's going to market. And so that's how I want my, you know, fantasy players. Hungry? Yeah. For money. Hungry for money. That was News & Note sponsored by Progressive Insurance. Quote today at progressive.com.

Progressive casualty insurance company affiliates and third party insurers not available in all states or situations coverage subject to policy terms, limits, and conditions. Well, we'll take a quick early break because I just want to get into the tips and tricks, which we'll do in just a minute. All right. Like I said, this is the 11th time that we have done a tips and tricks episode. There is a digital copy of our 55. I don't know. I guess I thought one of you guys. You got your hands on the box. It's on me. 55 tips and tricks. It's like a pump thing. I'm going to push it. Why aren't you pushing the button? I'm going to push it. My finger over the button is never prohibited or stops anybody from hitting anything ever. Thank you. But that digital book is available for all Foot Clan members that join the foot.com. It's time to get into it. Tips and tricks. Well, here we go.

We are into our top 10 tips and tricks to win your league for 2025, starting with number 10. I'm going to go with this. Here's my tip. Grab a few mystery bags. All right. Grab a few mystery bags. My son in the last several weeks has gotten me into Pokemon card collecting. in a very small way. Oh, collecting. That's what they call it. And so we open these packs together, and sometimes, you know, the expression that Mike brings up all the time, maybe it's a boat. Sometimes you get a hit, right? And my tip for fantasy players today, I alluded to it last week. Grab a few mystery bags, and what I'm talking about is rookie players from round six to the end of the draft.

Okay, because that is where you're getting into a place in fantasy football where sometimes it feels like the right thing to do is dial in some veteran known names and commodities that seem like they're going to maybe be able to bounce back. And I'll just highlight last year what those names were. It was Nick Chubb in the 8th, Zach Moss in the 8th. Marquis, Hollywood Brown in the eighth, Giovante Williams in the eighth. But sitting there in the middle of the eighth round as well, Ladd-McConkie. All right. And that's what we're talking about with the mystery bag opportunity that you have in drafts. This is something I've done more and more over the years, in part by necessity. Sometimes you play in leagues, you trade away earlier round picks. You have less opportunity in the middle rounds. And I want somebody that is going to give me a chance at being a true hit.

Last year, Brock Bowers is another example. This was a late seventh round pick. People were dialing in Kyle Pitts ahead of him and a bunch of other opportunities. Every year there are players like this, we just don't know what the rookie is going to be. And not every rookie is going to work out. But time and time again, we see these later round opportunities. You know, Jalen Wattle was a ninth round pick when he came out and had an over 100 catch rookie season. Justin Jefferson was an 11th round pick. We were worried about him. It was Olabesi Johnson, and he was behind other players in the depth chart due to the preseason. Brian Thomas Jr. last year was a ninth round pick. You know, you have rookie running backs historically. David Johnson, Jeremy Hill, Lev Bell, Antonio Gibson, Miles Sanders, Kenneth Walker. These were all players drafted outside the first six rounds.

in lieu of some of these old heads that we think are going to bounce back and give you an opportunity. On average, three rookie wide receivers per year. This is the big stat here that I want to have stand out for you. On average, three rookie wide receivers per year, drafted round six or later end up as top 24 wide receivers. I want a chance at a boat. I want a chance. It's a gambling man. I want to gamble. because the upside is so tremendous. We play to win. Mike has been on the don't play scared situation. You're not going to hit on every one of those players. But when you hit, that hit can be very, very valuable. It can bring you forward several rounds of ADP value more than these other players that are drafted in the later rounds. This year, a good example. Tyler Warren's a ninth round pick. You're going to dial in Tyler Warren? You're going to dial in somebody like Dalton Kincaid in the 10th round.

Like there are opportunities to, or Jason would probably say, look, Tyler Warren, a few picks after Evan Ingram? Do we know what Evan Ingram's ceiling kind of is? Right. Does he still have it at 31 years old? And I'll be clear, like Addison was another situation as a rookie. Jordan Addison was like a ninth round pick. Sometimes you're going to get Traylen Berks. And I'm sorry for you if that happens. But sometimes you get Addison. Sometimes you open the mystery box and it's something four, five, six, seven rounds. better than what you meant to take. And if you shoot your shot on multiples in terms of the rookies, I think you're going to hit on one and it's going to be worth it. Even if it's a 50% shot, to me, that has been very, very valuable. Because when a rookie, here's the other last caveat, when a rookie starts to break out, or they give you a game, or they give you some potential early in the season. Let's say you spent three or four picks on rookies late in the draft. Everybody believes it.

Everybody buys in. It's trade capital. It's excitement. You know, Garrett Wilson was a late pick. Yeah. So these are players that you take. You don't necessarily see the path. Maybe they sit a little bit further behind the depth chart. I think that's a huge part of it, is not seeing the path, which is part of why those rookies then go there. Like when Garrett Wilson was drafted, I think he was 10th overall right around there. And it goes to the Jets. You're like, They stink. Yeah, same with Waddle in Miami. They stunk. And exactly the same thing with Jan Waddle. The dolphins stink. We can't possibly see a way forward for that. So their ADP is real low. You get rookies like Malik neighbors and Marf where you're like, oh, I see the path of this really highly drafted rookie turning into something special. But it's like these, like Waddle was a, what, the fourth or fifth pick overall. And we often let the situation. To a terrible team. Just just completely.

push you off of like it's impossible it's look it's not the situation look at the situation last year with malik neighbors versus brian thomas junior malik neighbors path so clear and obvious everyone knew right brian thomas was like man is the christian kirk is there evan ingram is there it's a bad team is trevor lawrence good enough i don't know and that's why he was in the ninth round do you see the names that were drafted around brian thomas before and after him i do not dandre hopkins i would take brian thomas christian watson Yeah. Gus. I mean, Brian Thomas finished as a top 500 receiver. Gus Edwards. He's probably one of the best picks last year. Tua and Goddard. So, like, in part of the evaluation needs to be just talent. Just talent. Just, like, betting on talent will help you more than it will hurt you. Yeah, and the depth chart figures itself out when talent is on display. So, uh, grab a few mystery backs. Number nine. This tip.

It's called the pendulum swings every year. And we talk about this from year to year that whatever happens last year is what everyone expects to happen next year, except that doesn't happen this year. That happened two years ago, four years from now. And I want to focus on what we saw last year, what worked last year, what didn't work, and how to take advantage of it for this year. So last year, the early first round. We only had three running backs drafted. It was super wide receiver heavy because that's what worked two years ago. That meant that all the stud running backs were pushed down. Saquan Barkley, Derek Henry, Jemir Gibbs, Kairn Williams. These were the league winners last year. And they were all drafted at the very end of the first or most of them into the second round as people were gobbling up wide receivers. And the second round, the rest of the second round, when you were getting kind of the second tier of...

wide receivers, they all busted. Then last year happened, it played out, and it wasn't the wide receivers that everyone was drafting early that dominated, but it was the running backs that dominated. The running backs just stayed healthier last year than they usually do. The top wide receivers got injured more than they usually. C.D. Lamb was injured. Pooka was injured. AJ Brown. Chris Olave. Or they just disappointed. Tyree Kill was the number one pick. Poof. He stunk. Marvin Harrison was supposed to be the hotness in the first round. It turned out he was a bust pick. And so. What that means is we try to do whatever won last year. So this year, since running backs won last year, we should all draft running backs. Everyone's drafting running backs. Look at the average draft position. It's saying that's what won last year, running back. So grab the running backs. Except that isn't how life happens. Life is chaotic year to year. And while it could absolutely repeat, running backs could be the best. It could also be the opposite. But what we know is that the draft cost is going to follow.

The pendulum. The pendulum and whatever happened last year. So this year, not surprisingly, is therefore the opposite of last year. On average, across all platforms, there are only three wide receivers being drafted inside the top 10 ADP. Jamar Chase, Justin Jefferson, and C.D. Lamb, you know, on average from platform to platform. And everybody's focusing on the running mix again. So my recommendation this year is go against that grain. If you're a late round first, you know, if you're a second half of the first round draft pick, I'm going to go against the grain. I'm going to focus on the top wide receivers that are being pushed down, not because they are better, but because they're the better bet, statistically speaking. Instead of first round running backs and second round running backs that now have yellow flags, a lot of them. Like Ashen Genti, okay, I know he's the hotness, but he's got some yellow flags. We talked about this on the running back show. He's a rookie on a bad offense that we haven't seen before. Jonathan Taylor.

Bucky Irving, maybe even CMC. These guys are right now, I think, being overdrafted, but what is more important is that's pushing the value down on wide receivers. So Ammon Ross St. Brown, Puka, Neighbors, Nico Collins, Brian Thomas Jr., A.J. Brown, Drake London. They are all being drafted at the 1-10 or later deep into the second round. And I feel like if I'm just looking statistically, not talent of the player and what I believe, but just like, You've got to make bets that you're trying to win the majority of time. It seems like the value to me is there. So in this specific draft, if I'm drafting at the end of the first round, I'm not going to fall trapped to the ADP and draft questionable running backs over stud-wide receivers. Just because that's what running backs worked out last. Exactly. Yeah, that makes sense. Number eight. All right, we're going to talk about at-risk starters. So last year, we had an episode where it was, players you are embarrassed to love.

Okay. And in that episode, I brought forth Bucky and Tank Bigsby of players like looking at who they were, you know, draft capital for for Bucky. It was a third day running back. Tank is competing with a first round running back and had himself a very embarrassing first year. And so it wasn't necessary that I loved those players in particular. But I looked at the situation and thought, I think the starters could be overtaken. This episode last year when you brought Bucky up was the first time I believed you about Bucky. Oh. It was, I mean, because in the off season, like the Rashad White thing was working. This was a good team. They were very successful. He caught almost 100% of his passes. Like that was the arguments I was bringing to the table for Ashad White last year. This was the first, but you had always stood up against his inefficiencies. Yes. And so you're saying that look for situations where the starter themselves.