10 Tips & Tricks to Win Your Fantasy Football League - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/18

Mike Evans, Odell Beckham Jr., Alan Robbins, Juju, Adam Thielen, Amari Cooper, DJ Moore, A.J. Brown, Cooper Cup, Calvin Ridley, Cortland Sutton, Tyler Lockett. I want almost all of those guys. In fact, there are six of those players who are literally right now ranked as one of our top 12 wide receivers. You're drafting wide receiver ones throughout that range versus...

The only running back in that range who we rank as a running back one is Andy has Lev Bell at 10. Neither Mike nor myself do. That's it. So I want you to be aware of that range heading into this draft where maybe those first two rounds you are going running back. I just amplifies the early running back kind of foundation to your team because you're not getting value at running back in those middle rounds at all.

Yeah, and the wide receivers there are so good. And projecting forward to 2020, we don't know how it ends up, but you're just saying those names, that's a shocking disparity between, boy, is Todd Gurley going to pan out for my team, or is Kenny Galladay just going to be okay? Do you want question marks that you're worried about? Yes. Or exciting wide receivers that you want on your team? Because that's who you're picking between in rounds three through six. And the title of your tip is. Middle me this. All right. Number eight.

Speaking of great titles. Yeah, Mike, you're a number eight. This tip is all about a mentality of changing the way you think about the fantasy football season. I call this tip, don't blow chunks, which is, look, that's a good tip for life in general. It's not often fun to blow chunks. Right. And what I mean by this is look at the fantasy football season.

In chunks. It's 13 weeks before you get into the fantasy football playoffs. That can be daunting. That can be when you start 0 in 3 or 0 and 4, you go, oh, crap. You know, now I have to make up all this space.

but break down the season into smaller chunks. Like, you have the draft chunk. And I'm calling that like weeks one through four. You know, yeah, you're trying to win that. That's how you set the foundation for your team, Jason said it. You don't win it your draft. You win your draft chunk. Yeah, you're going with chunks here instead of like sections is really gross to me out a little bit. Your draft chunk. Have you ever grossed yourself out while you're talking about blowing chunks?

Because I'm borderline there at this very moment. Like, don't blow chunks. Which I don't, I'm trying my best here. All right. And it's just, you can look at the season like two halves. Break it down into quarters. It really helps you put your best foot forward, not get, what, overly confident. You're four and no. Great. You know who can go 0 and 4 in the next chunk? You blew it. You blew that chunk. Well, I always say it.

And I sound stupid saying it, but what happens can happen in reverse that line during the season where, look, if you start off the season 0 and 3, 0 and 4, look, you've got another chunk. Yes. Where you can turn it around and you have to focus on that little window. Yeah, one step at a time, one chunk at a time, and don't blow it. Don't blow it. Sorry, everybody. Number seven. Number seven, I'm going to go with more than meets the eye.

That was a transformation? That was me trying not to blow chunks. Oh, okay. Okay. It sounds very similar. More than meets the eye. We talk a lot about fantasy owners falling into the trap of, you know, you're in your draft and you're trying to fill your active roster because it's sitting there on the platform on the right side and you don't draft the bench spot because you want to, we talked about it on the tight end show. You want to put the tight end and the quarterback end. It's a mistake you can make, not drafting depth. Another concept that I think fantasy owners fall into is.

Just trying to fill your roster with prototypical players. And what I mean is you always have that mindset of the fact that you want the starter in the back field instead of the passing down running back. Or maybe you always want the wide receiver one. That has been a weakness of mine historically. I don't see upside sometimes with the wide receiver two in an offense or a passing down back. When you talk about maybe you ended up going.

really early in your draft wide receivers, and Austin Eckler was sitting there last year. And I wasn't willing to pull the trigger because he wasn't the starter or the prototypical running back. And that can be a big mistake in today's NFL. I mean, you have top 24 seasons last year from non-prottypical running backs like Austin Eckler, Philip Lindsay, James White, Rahim Mostert in a committee. Those were not situations that were clear as day or even as clear as something like,

Peyton Barber's the starter. I mean, that's how you had to say it, too. You have to slow down a little bit. Peyton Barber. And it can be a blind spot, and it is for me, especially with that wide receiver two spot. Jason brought some interesting research my way. It actually came from Clutch Fantasy on Twitter talking about this very fact with wide receiver twos and offenses that can provide a lot of upside outside of the wide receiver one.

an average of four sets of team-wide receivers will finish in the top 24 every year. Obviously, you can get value out of a fantasy-wide receiver even when they don't finish in the top 24. But every single year, you see offenses that have multiple wide receivers, not just the number one. And when you think about this year, who is it? It's the Calvin Ridley breakout, right? Atlanta could be the Rams again with Copp and Woods. Dallas.

Dallas, absolutely. Whoa. I love Michael Keaton. That was very insane. Last year it was Dallas. It was Tampa. It was the Rams. The year before, five different teams did it. Atlanta did it. Big Ben in Pittsburgh. Jared Goff again, James Winston and Tampa. Kirk Cousins, when Thielen and Diggs were together. Some of those murky situations caused a lot of hesitation. And fantasy owners, like myself,

sometimes live in that idyllic world where I want my roster to look like every player can be the number one overall player at the position. And I think you have to adapt over time. We see the importance of depth and you have to see beyond the prototypical wide receiver one running back that gets 25 carries a game. So that's my tip. Number six. I call this one.

Healthy, wealthy, and wise. Oh, my. Oh, my. 2020 has been a blast, everybody. Yeah. But this is the world we are living in. 2020 blows chunks. 2020 has blown chunks. Hopefully the future chunks are better. But COVID is part of 2020. It's part of all sports. Every major sport is dealing with this. They're all going on. And football's going to happen. It's going to start on time. It's going to end on time. I truly believe that.

But you as a fantasy owner might need to change some strategies this year because of COVID. I know me as a fantasy owner. I am. And I've got a couple of tips and a trick. Whoa. Yeah. So that way we can name the episode tips and trick. Tips and trick. Yes. So tip number one on your late round guys.

maybe take more known production over huge upside, which is the opposite of how I usually draft. When I'm at the end of my draft, I'm looking at guys like Henry Ruggs, J.K. Dobbins, Sammy Watkins or Mikol Harmon. I'm looking at these huge upside. If they hit, they could be awesome. Because after all, I've already got my starters. They're good. I need someone to break in to that lineup in order to succeed.

Well, if COVID happens to have a few outbreaks and you're going to have to play a little bit more depth as you move guys to your IR spot, instead of Henry Ruggs, maybe take a Sterling Shepard, someone you know that will produce it's going right around him. Instead of Dobbins, take Tevin Coleman, someone that if you need to put in, you know he's got production. Or instead of Miko Harmon or Sammy Watkins, take James and Crowder. All of these guys are going in the same range. And usually, I don't want those safe high floor.

boring low upside players. But this year, I am pivoting. So that's one tip. The startable guy, the guy that you can just put him right in your lineup. You're not like, he's not going to win you your league, but he could help you win a week and get in the playoffs, which will then, then you win the league. And you get all the glory. You don't give any of it to Jameson Crowder. You didn't do this. I did it. I did it without you, Crowder. But, uh, all right.

Here's another thing if you are more worried. And this, you know, everybody's got to check their own temperature here. But if an outbreak hits, it will probably be within a team, not from a team to a team. I mean, look at the Marlins, right? So maybe avoid overdrafting players from the same team. And I'm not saying you can't do a good quarterback wide receiver stack, but a lot of times you want, you know, three, four players from the same team. You've got the Cowboys or the Chiefs or whatever.

And I'm saying maybe diversify your assets a little bit more so you don't get hit and have a bunch of players all from the same team having to sit. Also, look, we've got the my guys coming this Thursday. I'll tell you, I thought long and hard about Jerry Judy or Jalen Rager in my third my guy spot. But because of this short and off season, I am a little bit more.

worried about rookies. So, you know, you might want to avoid them more than usual in your drafts unless it's a clear home run forced issue like Clyde Edwards Allaire. The last tip I would say is maybe... Is this the trick? No, this is the tip. Which one was the trick? I haven't got there yet. Oh! I'm going to give you the trick in just a second. The last tip, you know, as it relates to COVID would be look for teams with good continuity.

Because if you've got a new head coach, a new quarterback, new offensive linemen, and you've got this weird shortened offseason, I imagine those teams will struggle to start. So the bills, they're returning 95.4% of their offensive snaps, the Chiefs, the Saints, even teams like the Jags, Steelers, and Raiders, they have very high continuity. Whereas you got teams like the Panthers, the Jets, the Washington football team that have a lot of changing teams.

pieces there and here's the trick i gave you tips here's a trick that will help you more than you think i feel like he's got 10 tips and tricks inside of his serious did you know it's one at a time i look i i have been overflowing with joy waiting to help the foot clan and you will not take this from me um the last trick and now i don't even want to say it mike

is to watch Mike on Sunday Live because genuinely that's where the pivots, that's where the COVID news, that's where everything that's going to be. Oh, boy. I trick people. Are you intimidated by COVID Sunday Lives, Mike? I haven't thought about it until this point. I'm sorry. Thanks for bringing that up. We're here to help. We're here to help. Number five.

Number five, I call this one on the grid. And what I'm talking about here is a draft grid. We always recommend doing some mock drafts. Maybe, you know, Best Ball is kind of the new mock draft, but also you want to get in some just regular plain old mock drafts because you want to see where players are going, test out draft strategies. Do you like this team? Do you like this player there? But part of the live draft is playing the ADP game of knowing.

your opponents knowing what positions they have. And I want to highlight a feature that's on a lot of draft platforms that you may or may not have used. Maybe you didn't even know it exists. But you can open up a grid, a positional grid, and it just shows you which teams have drafted what positions. You're at pick four and you're coming back into the turn. Well, check out who's got a tied in. Who's got a quarterback? Do you...

Do you need to take your guy here? Or can you wait? And this is going to help inform you at a quick glance and make those decisions. And the reason I'm bringing this up, one is to inform people that exist. But you're going to need to practice with this. This is not.

You can't just jump into your first live draft. Use this when there's a two-minute timer online. You're going to get flustered. You're going to freak out. You need to practice. Build up the muscle memory using this tool. And if your draft platform does not offer it, this is something you can easily track by hand because it's just a quick graph. Just a little slash team two took a running back. Done.