Top 10 Tips & Tricks to Win Your Fantasy League - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/16

I'm going to go have some fun. Yeah, I'm going to go enjoy myself. Like your point now, huge change this year. And I do think that with the addition of Jarrett Stidham, they can get better. Look, New Orleans. Not according to practice reports. It's not going well for Stidham. New Orleans was a great third down machine. Last year, the Broncos were dead last and third down conversion. I'll be excited to watch what happens. Judy, post-hyped sleeper, Cortland Sutton. Don't. Don't. Dulcich been making plays in practice, Adam Troutman, Giovante Williams, Somaget-P-Rine. There's a lot of names. It does mean you have to cast your lot with Russell Wilson. But maybe you just put that out of your brain and say you're casting your lots with Sean Payton. So.

Before you move on from this tip, because I just want to throw one other team out there. You've named all these teams that basically just had really bad offenses. They've made these shifts, and you hope they get better. But sometimes the shift doesn't have to come just from a bad offense. I would also keep my eyes on the chargers with the addition of Kellyn Moore and a first round wide receiver and some health there. You're saying a level up. Even though they were good, I think they could level up from that spot. All right, moving on. Number eight. We're going to call this one Tears for Fears. We did mention that this is the ninth year of the podcast doing these types of shows. Coming up with new stuff is important. We want to gain an edge. But we got to do a callback for this one because the number one tip that I can give anybody during the draft season is you have to group your players in tiers, also known that you can call it into a bucket where you see the median outcome for these players.

is very similar. It's the foundation of the ultimate draft kit. Like when we have our projections, it puts these players together. Do not use a top 200 rankings sheet. People love it. You have forced us to put it in the UDK. We got backed into an alley and people. We should make them solve like a math problem to get access to the top 200. Because it just, it gives you no context at all. It doesn't really help you during the draft. Here's the way. The tiers that help you during the draft, right? Let's say you're in round three and you're going, do I need a draft a running back or a wide receiver right here? Well, I look at my wide receivers and these are all just hypotheticals. The wide receiver, oh, I got five guys left here in my tier three that I have grouped together. Or if you want to follow our advice, but that we've grouped together on the ultimate draft kit. But you look at tier...

three or so of the running backs, and there's two guys left. Well, the chance that you're going to get a running back of that caliber, if you pass on them right now, it's close to 0%. You've got to play the game. If you look at the wide receiver, sure, there's a chance you don't get one of those five, but the likelihood that one of them returns to you is pretty high, and it removes a little bit of the lights and the shine of a name. Because you can fall in love with the name of this player and risk it all and say, I know, I'm getting that player no matter what. But the reality is the probability that this player who is four spots down at the same position may be just as good. And you're sacrificing a player at a different position. And it's not really going to help the foundation, the build of your team. So like I said, if you're in a three wide receiver, how many elite wide receivers are left in this tier? If you're in an auction draft, it's still the same.

Like, know the tiers, know when you want to jump into a particular bucket of players, and Superflex. Quarterbacks, it's all the same. It's all supply and demand. Know the tier of the quarterbacks. Superflex just means that some of them are going to go earlier, so you have to know when to go in on certain tiers. It is... The way I have been drafting for years, it was the way I just, I kind of fell into this way of drafting before the show even started. I would, I'd make my own little spreadsheet and I'd color code and I'd say, I like these four players about the same. Right. And it really, really helped during the draft time. It helps you to not tilt. Avoid desperation. Exactly. Yeah, sorry. I just feel like that's the summary for me when I'm drafting is I don't feel desperate if I know I've got four guys in a certain bucket.

and three of them are still on the board at my pick, and I know how to play the game. It helps you have the advantage of playing the game. Yeah. Number seven. I call this one, oh gosh. Wide receiver won'ts. Yeah, baby. What? Is that the word won't? It's the word won't talking about wide receiver ones. It's wide receiver won'ts. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I. Yeah. I see it on paper. I see it on paper and it just. It made no sense. Uh-huh. You said it out loud the first time. It made no sense. We're at about 50%. 50% sense? Yes. Okay. Yeah. I'm going to try it one more time. See if we can get it. Hit me. Yeah. Wide receiver won. That was your best one yet. Was it was a little higher than 50? Yeah.

I won't go that high. All right. So it's a dumb. It's a dumb title, but basically, and this is what I was talking about with specifically Michael Pittman here, Andy. You know, we're always looking for just data that can help us make a decision and go, yeah, okay, the odds are that X is going to happen. Well, we took a look and at the bottom five teams. in pass rate over expectations since 2019 and how their corresponding wide receiver 1 finished. So basically, if you look at the teams that you project to be a very bad passing team, not bad necessarily as in they just suck at it, but the pass rate, who's going to throw the ball? They're too high T.

Yeah, exactly. They're going to run more. They're going to go slow. Bottom five teams in terms of slow, low passing offenses. Exactly right. Well, how does their wide receiver one fair? Because sometimes they've still got a solid wide receiver one as far as their name recognition or expectations or even just talent. But the wide receiver ones over that time, they average 95 targets and 10.2 fantasy points per game and half PPR scoring. That is the equivalent of wide receiver 35. And that is their succeeding wide receiver. That's the wide receiver one for that team. The best one basically averages the wide receiver 35. The only wide receivers to finish with just 13 fantasy points per game in those type of systems are giant touchdown outlier type of guys. It was Debo Samuel and A.J. Brown. Those two guys have gotten it done.

over 13 fantasy points per game. That was AJ Brown with Tannahill on that slower. He was really, he was really like the only wide receiver at the running routes at that point. Yeah. That was a unique situation. So everything we do in fantasy is just kind of bets on probability. It doesn't mean it's impossible for a player to have a good season like Debo did like AJ Brown did. But it does say like. The vast majority of times, no, they're not really great for fantasy. They're not going to get it done for you. So let's take a look at who we are projecting team-wise, stat-wise, are going to be in the bottom and as far as pass rate over expectation. And there's a couple names that sound juicy that you might need to be a little bit worried about if the team does not throw the ball a lot. Let's start with very similar to the AJ Brown, same system, same team. We're moving over to the Tennessee Titans.

They're the Tennessee Derek Henry's. They're not going to throw the ball a ton. And Hopkins is great. He's a superstar. But if the pie is small and there's just not, even if he's great and he's got, you know, 30% market share, which he needs, it still might not be enough to actually be valuable. And right now he's being drafted as the wide receiver 21, right? Behind him at wide receiver 22 and I find myself more in on this player. it's really a matter of do you believe the bears will continue to throw the ball less or will they will they step it up i think they will step it up but if they don't dj more is in trouble we talked about that to start when the trade happened it was like oh what a bad landing spot it's really a matter of do you think they're going to stay running that same system or throw the ball more uh michael pitman with the colts the colts look

to me to be a team, especially with a rookie quarterback, that is not going to throw the ball a ton. They're going to try to slow it down. I do think they'll have Jonathan Taylor there. They've got a mobile rushing quarterback. Why don't you mention that other one, that other name on the list? The Atlanta Falcons also project to be a run-heavy team that does not throw the ball a lot. So Drake London would be- And what's the other guy? What's the other guy? That would be impacted. Oh, I did not look up any statistics on tight ends in these situations. I'm so sorry, Andy. It was just Drake London. Yeah, Matt Collins. I was talking about Mac Collins. Definitely not Kyle Pitts. No, but you said the small pie lowers your odds. If you don't get a touchdown from those players in those games, you could have really low floors. Yes. The floors are low. The average is low. And so if you're looking at a wide receiver one that is, I would rather have a wide receiver two for a good offense than a wide receiver one for a bad one.

Makes sense. Number six. All right, this was pretty simple, but a really important reminder is you head into draft season. We're going to call it, don't double your trouble, okay? Oh, you toil and tubble? What is that or whatever? No, toil and bubble? No, no, keep trying. Boiling bubble? No, no, you're really undermining me here now. I have my apologies. Is that a witch, witch joke? Yes, mm-hmm. Yeah, you double, toil and trouble? Yeah. Is that right? Yeah. Did I, so I had it right. At some point you did. Oh, no, no. I don't think you ever said it. Don't double your trouble. Here's what we're talking about. It's not what I'm doing right now. Yeah, you're doubling my trouble. This is related to the onesie positions that you take within the first four rounds. And when I say a one Z position, let me be clear. I'm talking about drafting a quarterback in a one quarterback league or a tight end.

in a one tight end league. Double, double, toil and trouble, fire, burn, and cauldron, bubble. You're welcome, Andy. Thank you. So I had most of the words. You had a bunch of words that you're throwing out there. Yeah. What I have no chance here. We all like positional advantages. We all would prefer to have Travis Kelsey versus everybody else. We'd all prefer to have Patrick Mahomes or Jalen Hertz or Josh Allen over everybody else. The problem is you play two running backs. You play two wide receivers, maybe three in your league. You have a flex position that you fill with a wide receiver or a running back. If you invest, I just want people to understand what they're sacrificing. If they invest multiple picks in the first four rounds on one Z positions, which is why I'm saying don't double your trouble. You want to take one? You want to grab the Andrews and the third? You want to grab the Mahomes or Allen in the second or third? I'm cool with that. I like having that positional advantage and you want that guy in your team.

But if you do it twice, if you go Kelsey and then you follow it up with Josh Allen, or you go Kelsey and you follow it up with Patrick Mahomes, you are sacrificing a tremendous amount of value at running back and wide receiver that is going to be very difficult to overcome over the course of a snake draft. For example, if you took Kelsey in the middle of the first and followed up with one of the three elite quarterbacks, your team is starting. This is just projecting on mock drafts. You're starting a running back tandem of you get Naji Harris in the third round. Then you go Hopkins, Sanders and Lockett. That could work out for you, but you are sacrificing depth at those positions because you did not invest the first or second round on them. You get a lower tier running back. Mike just talked about tiers. So you're a lower tier at both of those positions from round three on. So you've got to thread the needle. It's not impossible. Again, people do it. They succeed with it. But you are threading the needle. You don't have margin of failure.

at those other positions. Maybe, you know, another simulation of that same stack, you know, you got Brees Hall in the third round as you're running back one. There's a lot of risk there at running back one. Then you come back with Ridley. As your wide receiver one, I'd really like that to be my wide receiver too with the upside. You are sacrificing a lot of depth and a lot of, you're putting yourself in a position of disadvantage at running back and wide receiver. to have those onesie positions where they also have to be perfect. You take Kelsey, he has to be the best in the league. You take Mahomes, Alaner Hertz, they have to be a top three quarterback or else you are costing yourself tremendously. And that, frankly, it doesn't repeat that way all the time with these players. Justin Herbert last year, a perfect example. You invest in a tight end early and you go Justin Herbert.

You were going to be in big trouble in fantasy. So my recommendation, my tip would be don't double your trouble. If you invest in a onesie position, leave it either tight end or quarterback and then draft the other one later in your draft. Number five. Calling this one flexi and I know it. I'm flexi and I know it. Because every day I am shuffling. But look, toil and trouble. See, that doesn't even make sense. No. What are you talking about? I should have hit him with a do, do, do, do, do, do. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that works. Look, we want to win the flex position, right? We got our two wide receivers, our two running backs. But don't forget about that flex guy down there. Get flexy. And here's the thing. In drafts, backup running backs, it's not really the best idea in insurance running back, someone who is just here because what if the starter?

goes down or what if my starter goes down? Well, I'm going to have this player here. It is such a low hit rate of knowing who the true backup is. How much work are they actually going to get? We all remember DeAngelo Williams coming in here for Leveon Belt. That's burned into your brain because that was a true league winning running back. But it just, it doesn't happen that way. That's why I want to recommend targeting. Flex with Benefits players because these are running backs that you can start. Flexed with benefits. But there are benefits should the player in front of them miss time. Look, we just talked about David Montgomery. Maybe his true ceiling, it won't be there when Jamir Gibbs is healthy. But if Jamir Gibbs miss his time, David Montgomery, like this isn't a, this isn't the.

Maybe he's the backup. Maybe he'll be the guy if Jemir gives him this time. No, this is a one B on the team who just happens to be going a little bit later in the draft. A.J. Dillon, he still has that upside playing along with Aaron Jones. And you could start him in a pinch. Antonio Gibson, I think, is one of our favorite, quote, backup running backs because he's taken over the J.D. McKissick role for the Washington Manders. He's going to get those high value touches in the receiving game. Brian Robinson probably still profiles as the goal line running back. But what if Brian Robinson missed his time? Or he's just, he continues to be a plotter. And then Eric Bienomi is like, no, I want my athletic Antonio Gibson in there. Samage P. Ryan for the Denver Broncos. Same situation with Javante. That one's even more volatile. I can't believe that Javante is ready to go. But is he ready to go? To the point of like, is he really? Like is he actually going to be able to.

be in football shape. And Charbonnet for the Seahawks kind of fits in there as well. So take a chance on some of these players. This is the whole idea of the zero running back concept of loading up on wide receivers because they tend to stay safe. They don't get hurt as much as the running back position. And then you take running backs later who gain value over the season instead of compared to your ADP or. the early running backs, if they get hurt, you just, you're tanked, you lose a bunch of value. So just remember, flex with benefits, you can play them, and then there's massive upside should something shake out, unfortunately, for their starter. I like it. Number four. All right, this one is about finding discount versions of the same thing later in the draft.

Is this like buying generic? Yeah, basically it's buying generic. It's saying, hey, I could save some money. It's like the R.C. Cola of the... I would like to buy the tissues, please. You know, I'm getting the same thing here, or I'm getting 90% of the same thing, but it costs a lot less. Okay. And so the tip here is that when you isolate specific examples and you... personally believe, yeah, I think this player is 90% of that player is going later. It's really to not draft the first version. That's the tip. The tip is to not draft the brand names, to wait on the generic version that you can get later because fantasy football in the draft, it's all about opportunity cost. That's what we're doing. Travis Kelsey is great.

Travis Kelsey is a great... Yeah, there's no shade on his output. No, but when you draft Travis Kelsey right now, where he's going, you know, the fifth, sixth pick overall, you're sacrificing a huge opportunity. You know, it's... Bejan. Austin Eccler, Bejohn, Robbins, Cooper Cup. Sequan. Those are the players that... They're great players. Now, Kelsey is as well. So it's not a matter of... It's looking at it and going, okay, Austin Echler, he's going to get 100 targets. Is there a discount version, someone later in the draft that I can get that can give me 90% of what he does? Probably not. There's not a lot of Austin Ecklers out there. To me, I believe Mark Andrews is a discount version of Travis Kelsey. Two rounds later in the middle of the third round, you can grab him. I've talked about that a lot. He's the Amazon basics version. He's the Amazon basics of Travis Kelsey. Those are good deals.

They're good deals. I don't recommend the batteries. You know, the batteries are, they're not good. Yeah, what's going on there? They're dead to really talk about this. We've all noticed this, right? It's unbelievable. They have to put like 10% of the juice in that battery. Those batteries come like ready to die. I'm not joking the other day. I had to change four batteries. I put in four Amazon basics. The thing didn't work. Brand new Amazon basics. Took those output four of the bunny in there. Sure. It worked. I thought the thing was broken. The brand new batteries didn't work, but go on. So that terrible example of this situation. The gray ones are better, Al? Yeah. Okay. The gray Amazon basics batteries. Not the orange good stuff. Yeah. Stay away from the orange. There's really. There's tip number 11. Thank you, Al. Yeah. Bonus tip. You came for fantasy football advice and yet you're getting life advice. Battery advice. Yeah. Dead batteries are the orange ones. Go on. So this is why I'm personally not drafting Kelsey in the first because the opportunity cost that I give up.

Let's talk about the second round quarterbacks. Mahomes in the second. Three rounds later, you can get Justin Herbert, and I believe he is 90% of Mahomes this year. And that means it's not like he's going to be better. It's now I get another second round draft pick. I get a super valuable player that's going where Mahomes is, and I'm going to pair him with. Herbert, who is 90% of what I would have gotten in the second round. Jalen Hertz. I love Jalen Hertz. But in the second round, how about three rounds later? You get Justin Fields. He's going to be 90% of what you're getting in the second round, and then you get that second round pick. Other examples that I personally think are good generic discount versions. So I am more inclined to avoid the first so that I can just add to my roster with other good options. Keenan Allen.

He's a discount Amman Ra. He's a couple rounds later. He's doing mostly the same things. In fact, Kyle put this in here. He had to flex because he's Mr. Keenan. But Keenan Allen had more top 24 weeks than Amman Ra last year, despite not playing until Week 11, which is pretty crazy. That's impressive. Khalil Herbert, we brought him up a little bit ago as a cheaper version of Rashad White. So I'll bypass Rashad White. Dallas Goddard. cheaper version of T.J. Hawkinson. And, you know, you look at your, at who you believe is the same type of players, same archetype who's going a couple rounds later and then avoid the first one. Number three. All right. I'm speaking to the heart of fantasy players here. And we're going to call this history does not always repeat itself. And this is my warning to the listeners out there. It would be a lot easier. If it did? If it did. Look, watch out.

for what I'm calling historical burn bias. I want to pull out the tube of Alivara and give you some, you know, spread it all over those burns so you can start fresh this year. Players that have hurt you in the past, it's very, very difficult to give them a clean slate, right? I don't know if this is like, you know, like a band comes out with like two albums that are terrible in a row, and how are you going to view the next album that comes out? Through the lens of those past two. And guess what? That's not going to give it a fair shake. Christian McCaffrey is an example of this. He had the injury run of 2020, 2021. Everyone passing on him saying, hey, he's going to get injured again. I'm not falling for that again. Flips the script goes RB2. Saquan Barkley, same thing. The injury run. He's not elite anymore. He's going to get injured again. Last year flipped the script. RB6.

Monster workload, 371 opportunities. Even Miles Sanders. He's a trap. He's had no touchdowns in 2021. Last year, best season as a pro, big contract in Carolina. We as fantasy players spend so much time talking about these names. We invest our heart and soul into them. Half of you change your team name based on a player's name. When they let you down, we can become a resentful, blinded. Fool me twice. Shame on me. It's just. You need to see the whole picture, not just what the player has done to you in the past, but what is the truth of their situation, the offense, their actual health. There are very few players that, you know, you hear us say it all the time on the UDK rankings. We're not baking injury in unless a player is like off the chart historical. He's got an ongoing injury that's chronic, like the girly coming back. Yeah, Tony. But most players were even Tua.

We're going into the year looking with a fairly clean slate on the injury front because any player can get injured at any moment. And if a player's burned you in the past, but you have an opportunity to get them at a value and they have a clean slate, you're going to make a fair-minded, clear decision. Let those burns go. Don't hold it against these guys because history does not always repeat itself. Number two. Number two, we want to talk about... The dome field advantage. See, that's how you do it, Jason. Right there. Wide receiver won. That's a big gap between those two. So you can use this one. I mean, just when you're targeting players, but I do also want to talk about, you know, in the context of streaming quarterbacks looking for low-end starters. Look no further than players who are simply playing indoors.

Kyle took a look at every NFL game played in September. And because we're talking about early, we'll want to get off to a hot start, okay? Over the past five years, every game played in September. We're talking 271 games. Games that were played outdoors, 54% of them hit their under. Gross. They average 45.4 points per game. What if they got a retractable roof? Okay, we can at least Open it when we want to, close it when we don't want it open. 47.7 points per game. 52% hit the under. Okay? Better? Slightly better. Better? Closer, warmer. Enter the big, beautiful, air-conditioned, climate-controlled dome. Everybody's comfortable. The patrons, the players, and what happens? An average combined score of 50 and a half points. 54% hit the over.

The home team average over 25 points a game 30. You're a dome salesman. That's right. I'm glad. You're a door-to-door dome salesman. That is a badge of honor. He's just got to make one sale. He does only have to make one sale. If anybody out there wants to buy a dome from me. So again, outdoors in September, 45.4 points in a dome 50.5. We're hitting the over 54% of the time. This is what we want. So if you're looking for flex options or quarterbacks to start in September, week one, Tennessee and New Orleans, Mr. Christopher Oliva, Tampa Bay at Minnesota, Miami at the Chargers. Week two, Seattle versus Detroit. Detroit is the perfect example of the dome team. When they're at home, comfortable in the dome. I don't want to look at the Detroit's guy.

That one you can dome it up. Oh, okay. I don't care about that, but man, this is where fantasy and reality depart for me. But so is the point is there is actual numbers to back up playing inside gives you more fantasy production. Yes, there are the NFL people that say, well, no, I want, I want to be out in the elements. I don't. It gives you better football. I want, I want, yes, no, I want, Andy, more points is better football. Yes, more points is better football. The experience of going to a game is better if you can have it outdoors, period. Sure. I mean, why don't you guys move all the stadiums, domes in Denver, so you get the mile high air too. You want to do that? All games played in Denver in a dome with rocket boosters on the ball. Rocket boost?