10 Tips & Tricks to Win Your Fantasy Football League

The saga continues. There's no information. We need to talk about it. Make sure everyone's aware. But it's really difficult when it's like it's all continual speculation. Yeah. Tony Romo. Do you want to comment? Tony, why don't you comment on Ezekiel Elliott situation? It's a coin flip. So I would imagine Tony's dialed in. He thinks it's a coin flip. Maybe. So I'm fatigued in the fact that I can't prescribe a true answer for Ezekiel Elliott. We don't know some things. We.

It's all about risk mitigation for the fantasy owner. Do you want to even take the risk? Do you want to blacklist the Andrew Lux of the world? That's kind of up to you. Right now, Frank Wright came out. He said he wants to make a call on the team starting quarterback for week one following the third preseason game. All we know about Andrew Luck is that they want to rehab this injury, that he's probably not going to be 100% if he plays. This statement is funny to me because Frank Reich.

You are telling me that after the third preseason game, if Andrew Luck is not ready, you're going to say, okay, Jacoby Brissette is our starter for week one. And then Andrew Luck looks like Charlie from the Mighty Ducks, who returns from his injuries. I woke up and it doesn't hurt anymore. And you go, nah, man.

We're going to stick with Jacoby. I mean, there's a reason. It'll be the night before the game and you're going to say, oh, Andrew, you can play? Great. You're the quarterback now. But the reason he's saying it now before preseason week two is clearly, I mean, the only reason to say it now is to send a message to luck. I mean, to say, look, I want to name this soon.

I mean, I would imagine there's a little bit of frustration. Remember, this injury happened a long time ago, and they came into camp, and once training camp started, day one, he was in a, you know, he was off to the side. Day two, he was on the field. Luck got back. So they thought the timeline was over.

And then he was out again. So I think there's frustration going on here. And to me, luck is off my board or at least down in the double-digit rounds. And like I said, pairing with another quarterback because I don't want to trust right now that situation. And I'm pretty much avoiding most of the Colts receivers. Tyoy Hilton, who's looked like a great value now scares me.

You know, we've kind of not been bullish on Eric Ebron already. And if you don't have luck, that's even worse. Paris Campbell is a rookie. I'm I'm avoiding the Colts if it's pricey. And I don't get the impression that he's frustrated with Andrew Luck myself. Like I don't jump to that conclusion. But all the peripheral weapons. Like T.Y. Hilton will still be valuable. People like, yes, the high end ceiling. Maybe that doesn't happen. He had games with Jacobi Bresset last year while injured where he's still.

was the top receiver. They came few and far between, but it still happened. Yeah, the consistency goes down. Funches? All the tight ends, Paris Campbell, all the outlook, even the running backs. It just gets so murky. O'Dell Beckham Jr. is dealing with a hip injury. Jason, are you worried? Yeah, I am. I'm going to actually talk about this in a little bit. I'm not worried like, oh, he's going to miss games. And I'll explain my worry a little bit later in one of the tips.

But it's just a reminder that I do think O'Dow Beckham carries risk that we don't necessarily apply to him in general. Amari Cooper dealing with a ligament issue in the foot unlikely to participate in the preseason. Matthew Betts, our injury expert from the ultimate draft kit, he believes his week one status is in jeopardy. We don't know how bad this is. The team doesn't seem to have that level of concern.

It was initially reported as a plantar fascia irritation. Now it's being called a ligament injury. We just need to pay attention to it. But his risk rating is going up for me today. Yes. Maybe some. We talked about the Cowboys' early season schedule. Those three games look real nice. Michael Gallup.

Might be able to start Michael Gallup in week one, week two. Could be a sneaky late round guy that you could start if you go heavy running back. Jeff Howell of the athletic reports Damian Harris is battling a minor hand and wrist injury. Seems like that would explain why he's not getting any more reps. Or at least, you know, it came out. They're barely giving Damien Harris any touches. Well, they're going to let him get healthy. Nikiel Harry returned to practice. George Kittle is day-to-day with calf tightness. That's about all I got for news, guys.

Great. Let's get to it. All right. As a reminder, grab the Sleeper app, the best most flexible platform for the modern fantasy football player. Download the Sleeper app. Get your league over there today. Before we get into the rest of the show, today's podcast is brought to you by ADT.

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Footballers, it's time for the tips and tricks. Tips and tricks. Can I, before we start the countdown, can I throw like a bonus tip that I just learned? Oh, number 11. Apparently, you don't want to be on our wall in the studio. Because I'm looking at, I'm looking behind you, Jason. Melvin Gordon's sitting down there to your right. Oh, no. And then I'm looking above your head. Mm-hmm. And Andrew Lux's up above your head. Oh, no. And so.

Hopkins jerseys on the wall. Oh, don't. No, don't go there. The Reaper's the one that brought it up. He's fine. He's fine. He's fine. I got Julio behind me. He's coming back off the foot injury. He's fine. Our wall is recovering. Everything is fine. There's nothing to see here. Don't panic. All right. Let's get into the top 10 tips and tricks for 2019. Number 10. All right, number 10. I'm going to kick it off. Running back depth looks stupid until it doesn't.

That's tip number 10. You remember this offseason when the San Francisco 49ers signed Kevin Coleman, when they already had Derek McKinnon and Matt Breda and Jeff Wilson Jr. And Rahim Mostert, they looked pretty silly, right? A lot of jokes, comments made about how big the running back room looks. They signed another running back, spent money on him. It was a surprise, right? Nobody expected Kevin Coleman to go to San Francisco. Except running back depth.

Only looks stupid until it doesn't. Things change very, very quickly for fantasy football owners and in real life for the running back room. Look at them now. Imagine if Kevin Coleman hadn't been signed by San Francisco. We'd be sitting here going, okay, Matt Breed is a starter. Jeff Wilson just got banged up. So let's translate this to fantasy football. We had an article on the website looking at an injury history of round one running backs in fantasy football drafts.

What is the injury risk in the first round? I love going running back in the first round, right? Yeah. Well, the top end running backs who are going to carry the ball 200 to 250 times and then get the 50 plus targets. That's a huge difference. That's two players in one position. And one of the reasons we love late round quarterback drafting is because it affords you the ability to build depth at the position. Mike, you've done this better than any of us in recent years in all of our leagues, where you just kind of...

You just kind of just add another running back. Add another running back. Oh, that name doesn't look relevant. Look, you get as many scratchers as you can. You don't go to the gas station and buy, oh, one, this is it. This is the golden ticket. Yeah, you're not Charlie. Yeah. No one's Charlie. Yeah, only Charlie's Charlie. A jerk? In 2018. Owning a chocolate factory for free. He didn't have to do nothing. Speaking of another, what's going on with those grandparents?

Get out of bed. Grandparents just slept. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Look, I could do an entire podcast on Charlie. I know you could. Let's digress. In 2018, 33% of running backs taken in round one missed time due to injury. They missed 14 games. In 2017, of the six running backs taken in the first round, two running backs were injured. 33%.

In 2016, 33% of running backs drafted in the first round were injured. They missed 15 games. You go back to 2015, that was a bad year for running backs. 83% of running backs taken in the first round suffered an injury. They missed 32 games. That's when the following draft season, the first round was, like, entirely wide receivers. People were mad. So over that four-year sample, there were 12 injuries to running backs selected in the first round out of a possible 27 players. That's a 44% injury rate.

All this to say, you can't predict injury. You don't know when a guy is going down. You don't know what's going to happen. So depth is valuable once you need it. It's not valuable in the beginning when you look like, oh, man, I should have invested this pick on top tight in.

it will become valuable. And suddenly the late round additions of guys like Justin Jackson, Jalen Samuels, who fits the category, by the way, vacated targets in Pittsburgh may see some Jalen Samuels action. Darwin Thompson, who I'm rising on in Kansas City, Jamal Williams, whose name has not been uttered allowed all offseason. Well, the part where we said he's been hurt. Yeah, along with Aaron Jones, you know. DeL. Lewis, again, last year, we were in the office yesterday.

59 receptions, I think, last season, not mentioned. So those names, those guys, those late round flyers at running back, they start to become relevant. You need them. They're hard to come by on the waiver wire. Injury, workload, fumble problems can get running backs benched. So don't feel stupid when you add the depth to your team. Feel smart. There you go. Yeah, in the later rounds, I prefer to take my shots on just patting running backs instead of.

these wide receivers who may now become my wide receiver three. All right. Jason, you are up. We'll go ahead and we'll push this button. Number nine. Number nine is a history of rookies by Batilda Bagshot. Okay. That is a shout out to all my Harry Potter lovers out there. You know what it means. All right. Here's the deal. I'm glad somebody does. Oh, the people know. The people know. Excellent. It was a great joke. Here's a deal.

We need to utilize the extravagant amount of data we have on the history of rookies in fantasy football because it's a, it's pretty telling, right? Like, not every position we, I said this, I believe on yesterday's episode about tight ends, rookies, tight ends, they don't really hit. And the reason we say that is not just because it happened last year, right? Like,

You brought up, Mike, that year when 83% of the round one rookies, they got injured. The next year it was all wide receivers. Fantasy football tends to overreact based on what happened too recently. So you need to look a little bit wider, a little bit deeper, and take a look at the history. And I've got the data for you. I'll make it really easy. So here's your tip. All right, Bethelda. Break it down. Yes, I am Batilda Bagshot. Don't draft rookie tight ends.