Preseason Power-Up + Crucial Draft Questions

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Ride home before you start drinking. Designate a sober driver. Call a taxi, a ride chair. It's easy nowadays. If someone you know has been drinking, take their keys and help arrange for them to get a sober ride home. We all know the consequences of driving drunk, but there's one thing for sure. You're wrong if you think it's no big deal. Drive sober or get pulled over. All right, guys. Let's get into the mailbag. Mailbag. Mailbag.

All right, if you have a question for the fantasy footballers, go to the website, the fantasy footballers.com. Click to submit a question button in the menu or dial our voicemail hotline 302-464 TFFB. We'll get into some voicemail questions on the show today. You can send us questions. We put a post up yesterday, so we got questions from Instagram, Facebook, social media, and the website. Let's go ahead and start with the voicemail. Hey, ballers, this is Joey from L.A.

I bought the UDK this year for the first time. I've been listening to the show for a few years. I wanted to know how to balance tier-based drafting and overall rankings. Because if there's a big tier break and the next tier is a lot lower-level running back, how do I balance that if there's a much higher-ranked wide receiver in the overall ranking still available? Thanks. This is such a great question. I'm so happy we have this. Good job, Brooks, and good job caller.

Look, if you haven't been in the ultimate draft kit, so we've got our top 200. Everybody loves having a top 200 rankings. We've got a really important tutorial video that you can watch where I tell you to print it out, crumple it up, and throw it away.

Everyone wants the overall rankings. Everyone wants the quarterbacks and the wide receivers and the running backs all sorted in so that it's nice and easy because then you look and this guy is so much higher than that guy. So clearly he's the right pick. But this caller is nailing the question of, okay, so how do I successfully draft in my draft? And it's not a matter of, well, there's a tier two wide receiver.

but a tier three running back, which tier is better. This is about roster construction. This is about when you're in your draft, in your league, do you need two running backs and two wide receivers and a flex? Do you need three wide receivers? Do you have two flex? Is it two QB? When you draft tier-based, positionally separated, you're constructing your roster in a way where you go,

I want to make sure whatever it is that works for your league. I want two stud running backs and then I want to load up on wide receivers. Or I want to, you know, if I start wide receiver heavy, I'm going to need more running backs. How many quarterbacks are left in tiers that I like? Look at each position totally separately from one another. And as you go, when you come onto the clock or you're close to, you know, when you're a couple picks away, look at your roster and say, what position do I need?

then go look at the tiers and decide independently. The top 200 lists, here's why they're bad, because the difference when you sort all players in between a wide receiver and a running back that are 15 spots apart are possibly nothing. You know what I mean? But it's so enticing to say this guy's so much higher, I've got to take him. Take the position that your team needs based on what you're seeing in the tiers.

Yeah. Does that make sense? It makes perfect sense. And at the same time, I understand why, I mean, we get more requests for like getting the top 200 into the app. And people want the top 200 for the exact reason. People ask the question, please tell me what position to draft in each round of my draft. It's the same reason, right? You want to know, do I go running back, wide receiver, running back, running back, wide receiver, tight-in quarterback. You'd love to have a template like that. And sure, you can draft that way if you want to.

It's just not the best way to draft. We want you to win. It's not optimal. In your league. So we're doing our best to help you. And I think that that's the tier-based separated position approach. Yeah. And that's why we, like we did not have a top 200.

in the ultimate draft kit when we launched the ultimate draft kit. On principle. Like a couple of years ago. On principle. So that's why there's a disclaimer video in there so that Jason can say what he just said to you again to reiterate. We do have it though. If you want it and you need to use it. The ultimate draft kit has everything you need. All right. On Instagram, Jake has a question. What's the earliest? You would be willing to take Todd Gurley in drafts. Jake, I'm glad you asked this question because we're getting a lot of...

different reports about Todd Gurley. Yesterday's big report was Sean McVeigh has clocked Todd Gurley at 21 miles an hour in practice. Faster times... See out there with a speed gun? It's amazing. It's amazing. It's amazing. And the thing is, that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It really, sure, it's great to hear that he can run 21 miles an hour in a straight line. Sure, that's neat.

But all the reports have been that Gurley's looked really good in camp for weeks. McVeigh also came out and said, we also just don't know how the knee's going to respond when you're in a game. That's the headline, right? That's the real headline. Yes, the problem with Gurley is not, is he a great player? Can he be explosive? Can he score a whole bunch of touchdowns? It's he has an arthritic knee that for fantasy purposes.

feels like a ticking time bomb and you have no idea if it's going to hold up for 16 games, is it going to hold up for two games? That's why there's huge amounts of risk for Todd Gurley. Having said that, where am I comfortable taking him? The back of the first round, the early second round. I'm still going to take the shot on Todd Gurley. I do believe that the Rams this season will take every opportunity they can to manage that knee.

Some teams don't get the luxury of doing that. I think they've afforded themselves that luxury with Malcolm Brown, bringing him back, drafting Daryl Henderson, and being a team that's generally in having a large lead in a number of games. So I do think they'll just take advantage of the chance to not put him out there when they can. I agree with that. And so that's part of the risk. Look, I'm thinking in my head about Marshaun Lynch years ago. When Marshall Lynch was in Seattle, he had chronic issues with his back.

And it was like, misses a couple days of practice, shows up on every injury report. More often than not, Lynch was fine, and you could play him. You still had it in the back of your head. I have no doubt Gurley will end up on more practice reports, injury reports than you ever want. And people will play roulette on Sunday. The roulette on Sunday will be, do I play Darrell Henderson? Do I play Malcolm Brown this week? Because Gurley...

is a little shaky. They took them out early last week. Do they not play him this week? That's going to be a lot of the question marks going around, Ty Gurley. Yeah, and I harken back to the top 10 tips and tricks episode where if I'm in the first round... All the way back to yesterday? All the way back. If I'm in the first round, I'm avoiding risk. The talent is there. The upside is there. I'm not saying Gurley's a bad pick, but I am saying I'm not drafting him in my first round because I'm going to avoid risk. I'm just going to avoid...

The busts whoever I get if I avoid a bust, look, they're going to be good. Maybe they'll be outscored by Gurley, you know, on the season. So for you, well, if your draft order pulls up and you're like, okay, I'm in the back of the first round. More often than not.

you're going to end up with a top tier wide receiver. Or you're going to take Dalvin Cook in the first. I would take Dalvin Cook over Todd Gurley right now. But I'm saying you're in the first round. Taking Dalvin Cook there would not be optimal for ADP. The back of, no, I agree. But really, if you're at that turn, if you're near there, you're not going to get Dalvin Cook later. So it's where you have to take it. So for me, I'm probably ending up. I mean, we saw this in the juju draft.

we ended up with two wide receivers. The wide receivers that are falling to that area in the draft, when you can get, if Hopkins falls or Adams falls, Julio, yeah, I probably will take those guys over one of the running backs. I was going to say, in a lot of drafts, my driving to work determines whether I'm taking girlie or cook. If I had a real, if I'm on the freeway and I had a quick stop behind somebody and it got a little scary.

And I got a little risky. I take cook that day. When I don't, when I have a smooth drive, I go girly because I'm feeling a little bit risky. When is, when is that feature going into the UDK? Is that good professional advice? Yeah, it's how was Andy's drive today? The truth of the matter is, thumbs up or thumbs stay up? Yeah, yeah, we don't know how.

active girly will be. That's the truth. We don't know. I'm glad that he's running at a high miles per hour. It's much faster than I can go. Let's go ahead. Deliver a pizza. Oh, my goodness. Let's, if he could use one of those, like, bikes on the field, that'd be neat. Let's go ahead and jump into another voicemail question. Hey, Ballers. This is Veronica. I'm in a 10-seen Dynasty week. We've already done our draft, and it's 2 QB. I'm stuck with Lamar Jackson and Kirk Cousins.

What kind of backup quarterback should I be picking up? Is it more like a Tannahill or is it a deeper dive for a young player? Thanks. Well, good question, and I'm glad you brought up a two-quarterback league because that's where I feel like Sam Darnold is going to shine for you this year when you talk about an emerging type of talent. Someone's got him, though. He's not around to pick up. No, not for her specifically. I was just saying when you look at the upside of Sam Darnold, none of us are saying he's going to be a quarterback one. We're saying, hmm.

there's some upside. There's some improvement there. There's some, maybe I like him more than Mr. Trubisky there. So if you're in a two-quarterback league, you can take Donald later than you can take some of those other players. So I was just mentioning that. For you specifically, I don't think you're in trouble with your wrong quarterback. I think you have great quarterbacks. Yeah, I mean, ideally you would want three and maybe she just didn't say the other quarterbacks she might have on the roster if you're in a two-quarterback league. In a 10-team league, it's possible that even a starter like Fitzpatrick.

could be out there, probably rostered, but I would definitely pick him up if he's out there. I would handcuff Lamar Jackson. I mean, if you're in a dynasty, and to me, that is still Robert Griffin right now. Even with the... Yeah, because he should be back early enough, and I don't... I'm not projecting that Lamar Jackson's getting injured week one, but I do think there's a good probability that he goes down. If he does, I think Robert Griffin could be fantasy relevant. So if you've got a deep bench in a dynasty league, that's someone that I would...

look to have as well. Josh Rosen is another player that you can pay attention to when you're looking in the Ryan Tenne Hill who might have an opportunity this year range. Rose is going to get his time. Yes. Because you're going to get the bad Fitzpatrick game and then you're going to get a shot with Rosen to see what he can do. And there's a good practice day for Rosen and a good practice day for Fitzpatrick right now, but you traded for him and he'll get a chance.

There's a chance that Case Keenham is out there on the waiver wire. In reality, too, by mid-season. Tanna Hill is not necessarily a bad pickup either. If you're talking deep dynasty, because there is a world where Tana Hill or where Mariotta...