10 Things to Remember from 2019 + Buy or Sell

I am going to next year during the high ankle sprain season for whoever gets it. Is that like flu season? Yeah. I'm going to be much more cautious.

of their performance in the month following them returning because both guys were subpart. They were okay. They didn't destroy you. They didn't come back and were terrible, but they weren't what you drafted. They weren't superstars. So I'm going to keep that in mind next year. But everybody, a tier below that, which James Connor, Adam Thiel and even DJ, they were a tier below. I am going to, you know, obviously if you don't have another starter, you can't. But I'm going to bench them. I'm going to wait and say, I want a week break. Because had you done this that...

that this last year, you would have scored more fantasy points. I know it's hard to do. That's why we make it a thing to remember. So that's number nine. I'm going to wait on injuries next year. There's just, there's no reason to say, let me have the injured guy. There's other uninjured guys. All right. Number eight. Free agency is fun, but be careful. Like, we all love free agency. You're,

We're going to have shows that focus on free agency because that is fun to do. I was already, I'm already there, Mike. I told, I was looking at my dynasty team and I thought about Robbie Anderson, maybe landing on the Philadelphia Eagles. And I said, that's a good place. That's a good home. I need him there. It's what could be. And like specifically I want to focus on the wide receivers of, and like that I'm with you. I'm a Robert, I'm a Robbie Anderson truther. I think that he can succeed. Now he's in a little bit of a different situation because.

He's trapped in the black hole. He's trapped by Adam Gays. And we've seen what happens when players leave or Adam Gaze leaves them. They've had a great history of success recently. But here are the big ticket wide receivers from last year. It's called the black hole bounce back. Yes. More like the brown hole bounce. Yeah. I thought about it and I passed. I'll take it on. Yeah, that's yours. Tyrell Williams. He was the one who got paid by the Raiders.

How'd that work out for fantasy? Golden Tate. Now he had his four-game suspension, but even still, the guys who actually had some success, surprisingly, were the guys who headed off to the Buffalo Bills in Cole Beasley and John Brown. But even then, it wasn't like this is a tremendous amount of success for players who got big paydays. I mean, John Brown was a three-year, $27 million deal. And these guys, it wasn't what you had hoped for. Meanwhile,

The running backs, if a running back got a substantial contract, they at least had a little stints, at least of value, but the value went down. Lev Bell, we know what happened to him. Mark Ingram was kind of the outlier who turned into a monster all year long. But the point is simply, it's not that it's impossible for it to work out for a free agent. It's just we get really, really excited and only see the positives of the team change.

and not factoring the human element. This guy is moving. He might be moving his entire family across the country. He's learning a new playbook. Learning a new playbook. He's learning a new, a whole entire new life. These are things that we don't think about at all. Imagine yourself moving from California. Okay, now you're up in the northeast. Do you even know how to live in snow? I mean, like, these...

You're like, well, that's off the field. But like these are all factors that we should be considering for these players. They're men. They're human beings. Got to get internet set up at your new house. Oh, that's the, you've got to cancel your old internet. Yeah. That can be a real problem. Find a new primary care physician. Oh, give up on that. I'm just doctorless. Yeah. I'm not even going to worry about that. No, it is part of the fun of the off season. Yes.

And we will do it. We will do it. Yes. But we've brought that up before. This is not a first time event. We've brought up the fact that it is very difficult historically to be a free agent wide receiver and land in a new location after you've had success more so and end up projecting that forward. And we even saw, you know, even in the middle of the year, Manuel Sanders made the move. It's a very difficult thing to get consistency out of a new location because you are kind of finding your way through. Yeah, absolutely.

Number seven. All right, this one's very interesting because it is something I want to remember, and it is something that I am learning has changed, I believe, over the past 10 years of fantasy football. There was a mindset that I had, and I'm titling this, talent can win out. Don't let defeat defeat you, okay? I'm going to tell you what I mean. But here's...

I always had a lot of success in fantasy leaning on what I perceived to be always the best offense, always the best team, draft players on winning teams, at least let that be the majority of your roster, more reliability, consistency. But I think what we saw this last year in a lot of cases was talent and opportunity does not require a team to have a winning record. There were a lot of players in every name I'm about to list.

Five wins or fewer for their team. Devante Parker, Joe Mixin, Austin Eccler, Terry McLaurin, Kenny Gulladay, Darius Slay, Christian McCaffrey, Kenyon Drake. If you discount them in the modern NFL, if you discount players and their situations because they're on losing teams, I think you end up doing it at your own peril anymore because you can't let the sludge that is that team's overall...

you know, success dissuade you from taking a chance on them. It was an easy thing to do with a lot of these rookie wide receivers that did have success because they were going to bad teams and bad situations. But in this modern NFL, in the prevent defense era, players on losing teams are thriving week in and week out, even with bad quarterbacks, right? You talk about Kenny Galladay being a fairly consistent player with going through multiple.

quarterbacks on a bad team. Even pathetic offenses, teams with no hope are putting forth players week in and week out that have provided some success and consistency. The success McLaurin had with a couple of different quarterbacks. Kenyon Drake, you know, the Cardinals were not a very good team. He comes in and instantly has success against formidable defenses. And the fact that you end up with a quarter or a quarter and a half of garbage time, look, we're going to come in and hit that garbage time.

Oh, the garbage man can drop. And Jason is going to go on rants about how he saw how a game was supposed to go. But then the last two drives of the game ruins his projection. But that's today's NFL. That's just going to happen. And if talent is there, it only takes one play. That's the thing we saw with Ghaladay consistently. Even on Thanksgiving Day, right? One play with David Blau.

The Bears basically shut Detroit down the entirety of the game. But it was one play to make a players week. Devante Parker did it over and over again with the volume. Even Joe Mixon went absolutely mad over the back half of the year. Yes, he did. On a team that had no offensive line, had no chance of victory. So it's something I want to be more mindful of because I think part of the way that the NFL favors offenses now changes maybe a little bit of that dependency on the winning.

team. Yeah, I think that that applies primarily to pass catchers, including running backs, right? Like Christian McCaffrey obviously was phenomenal. A lot of that was in the past catching area. If you look at, you know, the top 12 running backs this last year, the only two that were really on bad teams were incredible past catching running backs, or at least the volume was done. McCaffrey and Echler? McCaffrey and Echler, and I would throw...

even though he's not the most talented receiving back. Oh, Fornett. Leonard Fornett. Fournett was one of them. But then, like, Chubb was good on a six-win team, Joe Mixon over the back half. I think what my problem is buying in. My problem is saying, like, okay, yes, they can have a good game. They could have another good game. But you keep waiting for the shoe to drop on the bad team. And at least for some of these players, you didn't have that shoe drop. Yeah. But I think you were right. I mean, a lot of those names that I read off.

were the past catching options and the running backs that are out there on third down for two quarters of pre-vent makes, you know, a lot of sense. So we'll move on. Number six. All right. Here's the important title. Oh, yes. I've been waiting. Don't overreact to week one. Whitty. Now, I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Okay. I understand.

What I'm saying by what I mean is I mean that I don't want you or me to make too big of a deal over the first week of the season. Is that a better way to say that? Don't overreact to week one. And the reason why I am titling it so obviously is because this would have been such great advice to remember last year. Yeah, actually it was. And it was one of the things to remember last year.

It was the end as the beginning is the end. Yeah. That was the title. Oh, that was the problem. We had a title problem. The end is the beginning is the. What does that mean? I don't know. I did explain it. I didn't just say it. I don't listen. I'm off in La La Land here. Fair enough. I'm a, I'm a, I'm a look at the headlines type of guy. That's a good. That's a good bit.

So, yeah, look, it happened last year enough that you brought it up as something to remember, but we all fell victim this year to Sammy Watkins, to TJ. Not all of us. Well, no, but yes, even you were like, I guess I've got it with me. I was wrong. You're right, you're right. But you weren't wrong. And T.J. Hawkinson comes out and dominates in week one. You know, you had John Ross and Philip Dorset look like, oh.

The real deal on these speedsters is here. And, you know, on the flip side, you have guys like Mike Evans, who was the wide receiver 79 in week one, while Chris Godwin is, oh, no, Mike Evans is dead or the running back three on the year in Aaron Jones, who was the running back 52 week one. It's like, oh, see, this was the, and the issue becomes when what you hoped happened.

does happen. If you were anti Aaron Jones or you were pro Sammy Watkins or, you know, it confirms the bias already. Correct. And you overreact so much. And what's funny is if you look at the season, this happens every single week of the year. Every week, you know, it's like, oh, Will Fuller this week was the wide receiver one and was unbelievable. But you don't, you don't take it as truth.

when it's week eight because there's a larger set of data and you know it hasn't happened every week. But when week one hits, there's this, we've talked so long about football and now we get to see what the truth is. That's how we feel. And I want to make sure that coming into this next year, I don't recommend people going by and, you know, and it's one of those things. I think you hit on it. I think you hit on the actual psychological issue there.

The confirmation bias. Because you want to declare victory. Yes, week one victory laps are the best. Do you remember when we were extremely anti-Map Forte? I think it was a Jets year. Yes. And he came out for the first week or two of the season. And he lit it up. And like we lost, but we didn't lose, but we totally completely lost. Like over the course of the year.

Wasn't the same thing as what you got in those first two weeks, but it is very, very difficult not to kind of, you know, put the checkmark down that you did get it right or you did get it wrong. It's hard to breathe. Yeah. So next year for all of us, not just the three of us, but everyone playing, make sure you don't overreact to that week one. Don't sell the guys that sucked. Don't buy the guys that blew up.

breathe, give yourself a little bit of time. I heard the end as the beginning is the end. That's what I heard. I heard of you two songs. Exactly. All right. Number five. Funny that yours was a like a reminder refresher tip because mine is as well. And I just people need to hear this over and over and over. Early quarterbacks aren't safe. Just because they were great last year and it's a quarterback. Oh, they're going to be great again.

Early quarterbacks are not safe. Only one quarterback drafted in the top five finished in the top five. That was Deshawn Watson. He was drafted as the second quarterback, finished as the QB4. The top three quarterbacks off the board in the draft, they finished an average of four and a half spots below their draft spot. Only Russell, shockingly, of course, we've got to bring this out, but Russell Wilson.