Top 10 Things to Remember for 2021 - Fantasy Football Podcast for 2/25

When I have the, I know, it's tough. There's no way. No, no, no. I know. Now, there's a caveat to this. I feel like we really need to follow up on this one. Yeah, we do. Like maybe trade them to meet. No. I want, no, absolutely. I want to remember this a month into the season. I need to like set a timer right now to remind me to bring this up on the show one month in because I believe in what I'm saying here. This was one of the notes I made to myself, you know.

mid to three quarters the way through the season. And I'm not talking about the superstar of superstars, right? If you draft Tyree Kill and Devante Adams and Michael Thomas and they're great, you paid a ton for them. But there are always these wide receivers who are just dominating and you think it's never going to go away. Here's an example. The top 15 wide receivers going into week five included Tyler Lockett, who was the number two, he was unbelievable, just couldn't ever cool down. Amari Cooper.

D.K. Metcalf, who would have gotten you anything you want in fantasy, Odell Beckham, Robbie Anderson, C.D. Lamb, Rookie Sensation, already top 15, and Cooper Cup, who had a great start to the season. These guys can net you a lot, and here's why I'm saying to trade them. I talked about this all throughout the season. We talked about it a lot on the truth of the wide receiver series. Wide receivers, all of them.

outside of like the number one, two, and three guys are super inconsistent. All of them. So if you know that you've got a month of good games, you know that they're not going to keep doing that. It's just not going to happen. It's the exact same thing as a wide receiver who has four great games later in the season, and yet it feels completely different, right? If they have four great games at the end of the season,

Well, they sucked, and then they just got lucky. But if they have four great games at the beginning of the season, they are legit. They're for real. It's part of the game plan. It's never going to cool off. Because you think they could be. Exactly. They might be. I mean, this could be the new normal, especially with someone like Robbie Anderson, because I want to relate this again to real life. I had Robbie Anderson. He's in a new home. He dominates for four weeks.

This is the new normal for Robbie Anderson. I resisted trading him. I thought about trading him. I didn't trade him. I wish I traded him. And I get it. And it's not to say that this will have a 100% hit rate. Nothing in fantasy football. Nothing has a 100% hit rate. But the statistics say that these guys are not going to keep up the pace they start with when they're dominating the first four weeks of the season. And it never feels like they'll cool off. They've been great for four weeks.

You can sell them for a king's ransom. And at that point, you, I mean, let's say they don't cool off, right? It's Stefan Diggs, right? Now, he would have been a mistake to trade him after four weeks. But if you're getting value on Hopkins. Yeah, if you're getting that level of value in return, then so what? If you still could make a good trade having traded Stefan Diggs away.

But if it turns out that the statistical probability of these wide receivers not staying this consistent and hot through the rest of the season comes to fruition, you're going to maximize your value. So a month into the season, I'm going to be trading my wide receivers who are on fire. It's going to be tough. It's going to be difficult. I'm going to have to watch this segment again to remind myself that it's the right move. All right. I think it's my turn. Number eight. All right. We started from the top and now we're here.

I took a look at the first 20 picks in this past year's draft. Those prize picks, those spectacular guaranteed superstar picks, nine of them. Nine of the top 20 picks, quote unquote, delivered for your fantasy team. That is less than 50%. This is something that it bears repeating every year.

Six of them failed, struggled due to injuries. We know CMC and Barclay and Michael Thomas and injuries are going to be a piece of the equation in the top 20 picks. Four or five other ones underwhelmed severely. You know, Zeke, maybe that's the offense and what happened. Clyde, Kenyon Drake. Here's the thing. We say it every single year. You don't win your league at the draft. You have to stay water. You have to remember to roll with the punches and you have to continuously build depth throughout the year.

The mindset that would be the most problematic for a fantasy football player that we need to remember each and every season because we spend the entire off season painting a beautiful picture of our team. And you've got your two running backs and your two wide receivers and you've got your flex and everything is, it's like chiseled into stone. You think that they're locked. You think you have a position locked down and you just don't. And this, this.

number that I'm bringing up here. Number eight is to remember the fact that you will never get to autopilot your season based on the draft. You will never get to autopilot it based on maybe you're in a league where you've secured three or four picks in the top 20. That still does not mean that you have the season on lockdown or on autopilot. And so I thought it was interesting to look at those top 20 picks and just see how, you know,

sideways it can go on any given season. So it's better to have people waiting in the wings. It's better to never kind of rest on the laurels of the draft and, you know, settle for whatever you have on your bench. You need to be making moves. You need to be keeping up with it each and every week. Yep, I agree. When you are building a house, you lay down your cement foundation and you're not done. You don't call it a day. Like, I got a super sweet slab.

This is where I'm sleeping now. Oh, man, you got to finish the house. Pay attention. When your slab gets some cracks in it and the foundation breaks because CMC's gone, you still want to have a house, right? You got to do what you got to do, man. Mix it up. We're really into construction over here. I do man things. It's back to you, Mike. Number seven. All right, number seven. This is a reminder. And we all know this.

But I just want to take a second to, I don't want to forget to remember. And I want to highlight what happened last year. Russian quarterbacks equals fantasy football. The hero are the top 10 quarterbacks in rushing yards last year. Lamar Jackson, Kyler Murray, Cam Newton, Russ, Tassum Hill, Deshawn Watson, Daniel Jones, Josh Allen, Jalen Hertz, and Patrick Mahomes.

Of that list, only Cam, Tayson Hill, Daniel Jones, and Jalen Hertz were not top 10 quarterbacks at the position. But of that list, only two guys, Cam and Daniel Jones would be considered a disappointment. Look at Taysam Hill. In his four starts, he was averaging 21.6 points per game. Jalen Hertz and his four starts averaged 23.7 points per game. That would have been top 10 at the end of the year.

It's just the way that fantasy is scored. You cannot underestimate how powerful, or overestimate, I should say, how powerful the rushing ability is to the quarterback. When 10 yards is a point compared to 25 yards is a point, it just is a difference-making machine. Seek out the players who rush at the quarterback position. That's who you want to be looking at.

I know that Lamar kind of disappointed for... Relative to... Hopes and dreams. Yes. But he's still finished as a top ten guy. And he... It's because of the rushing that he was able to come back. And when you are looking at next year's draft, like, that's why Jason is so bullish on Jalen Hertz. That's why I am so bullish on him as well. I don't... I don't care how good he is because he runs the football. He's also good.

I don't want to steal your point because your point is accurate. Go on. But that's why we can disagree on Jalen Hertz. But I agree that he's going to run the ball a ton, and that just turns into a safety net for fantasy football. And even Cam Newton. Cam Newton was an incredible disappointment, but he still had his moments where you could plug and play Cam Newton due to all the rushing and the rushing touchdowns. You just wish you would have thrown the ball a little bit better over the course of the season.

So make sure in your draft, you are targeting someone at least who runs the ball a little bit more than just the, it's hard to be the statue true pocket passing quarterback and really be an elite fantasy football quarterback. It's not impossible, but it's just much easier for these guys who run. Yeah, I agree completely. It always is disheartening because, you know,

I look at some of these guys and, you know, Jalen Hertz, Lamar Jackson, they're good examples of like, they're, they're not great quarterbacks, but at the same time, they're just for fantasy. They're as good as you can get. And was that your attempt to like just make Jalen Hertz and Lamar Jackson just in the same sentence together? Like they just belong.

in same company? Well, it was more than an attempt because I did it. So I would say that was, you know, it was a success. These guys, these guys, the MVP and then Jalen Hertz. Right. You know, those two guys that are so similar to the MVP and Jalen Hertz. Um, future. Lamar Jackson didn't win MVP his first year in the league. Well, we know who Jason thinks going to win it in the second year. All right. It's got it hurt so good. All right. Let's get to number six. Number six.

All right. I want to remember that mid-round wide receivers are better than mid-round running backs. And really, I could title this, mid-round running backs suck. That's really the point. Mid-round running back suck. And I've got a...

guide us here because mid-round a lot of times you're thinking like okay was that mean like rounds like six through ten i'm speaking after those first two rounds the first two rounds are so valuable in fantasy everybody knows it if you've never played before you can understand that of course the first two rounds have the best players outside of that rounds three through seven is what i'm talking about as mid-round

wide receivers are so much more valuable than running backs. I thought this going into last season, it came true again. And if you really look at those rounds, three and four especially, just don't grab a running back, man. And this is why, like last year, we want to stay water. We want to be fluid. And if the draft falls to us, I'm not locking myself in that I have to go running back, running back, or I won't take a running back later. I'm never going to lock myself in. But I want to remember the truth that

usually those mid-round running backs suck. And mid-round-wide receivers have a lot of hits, a lot of really potential value there. And let me give you an example here. So over the last five years, there's been 112 running backs taken in rounds three through seven. 62% of the time they miss on their value. They don't provide value. 22.3% of the time, almost a quarter of the time, they are a complete landmine.

Just alighting that pick on fire. They finished 25 spots behind their ADP. And less than 10% do they provide like league winning value. Look at this last year. Rounds three and four. You had James Connor miss. Chris Carson miss with injury. Todd Gurley sucked. Now you had Jonathan Taylor at the back of the third. Now that was actually the best pick. You got bailed out. But you got right. Andy, you drafted. You drafted Jonathan Taylor.

Did you, were you happy with that pick midway through the year? Well, I think the bailout Mike is referring to is just Mac being hurt too. So, I mean, no, I was mediocrely impressed. Sure. And he had the great end of the season. So he was the best pick. The next best pick in the rounds three and four was Melvin Gordon. That was actually a hit. Where was David? Gurley was a hit for a while.

Yeah, so Gurley was a hit for a while, but then he sucked and no longer has a career. Lev Bell sucked. David Johnson was a good Leonard for. Yeah. Rahim Moster. Like, they're all misses. Now look at the fourth round wide receivers. Adam Thielen, Amari Cooper, Calvin Ridley, A.J. Brown, Robert Woods, D.K. Metcalfe. So build your teams. This is why you draft running backs early. Exactly. Because if you want that wide receiver early. Or super, super late.

Yeah, right, exactly. So, you know, mid-round wide receivers are just, they are much better odds on. They're much better bets. It's a good thing to remember. Mid-round running backs. Yeah, I went and I took a look back to 2017 and was, you know, evaluating these 80, by their ADP, like, did you finish at least a couple spots within your ADP? Or you could.