Fantasy Football Daily - 2021 Hall of Fantasy League Draft Review

Episode Date: August 20, 2021

Joe Dolan (@FG_Dolan) and Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) recap their 2021 Hall of Fantasy League Draft. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's time for the Fantasy Points Podcast, brought to you by FantasyPoints.com. Top-level fantasy football and NFL betting analysis from every perspective and angle, from numbers to the film room, with a single goal to help you score more fantasy points. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Fantasy Points podcast here. I think we're going to release this on Friday, August 20th, so everybody has a wonderful weekend. Hope this leads you into a great weekend. and maybe a draft weekend for you. I'm Joe Dolan, and I'm with Graham Barfield here,

and today's going to be a little bit of an interesting podcast, like a little different than what we're used to doing, because, well, Graham and I were in a Superflex draft last weekend, and I thought we could talk some Superflex draft strategy, Graham, but also it's to, in case you guys don't know, it's to introduce you to the Hall of Fantasy League, which is quite literally a professional fantasy football league that Graham and I were invited to join as general managers of a team.

And essentially what the plan is for the Hall of Fantasy League is to build fan bases for these fantasy teams, like you would root for an NFL franchise or as they compared it when they were bringing us on board to e-sports. You know, teams get you get invested in e-sports. Why can't you be a fan of a fantasy team? And if it sounds a little different to you, well, it is different. And you can check out how it works at the h-o-f-l.com. I'll put that in the show notes just to leave everything kind of on there for you. You can stake part of the team.

If we succeed, you succeed financially. So it's really an interesting concept, Graham. And, you know, we kind of took it and ran with it. And Graham, we put our team together this past weekend. We are the Atlanta Hot Wings. Our merchandise is actually really freaking cool. Like it's got it's a it's a like a big like it's going to sound corny when I say it. But he's a big beefy chicken in the shape of an A.

Like but with like flames for hair. Yeah. But it is and it's really cool looking. It's pretty sweet because like the hat I have, it looks like there's like hot sauce dripping off like the chicken's fingers. Like you just finished off some wings, which I guess would be some sort of cannibalism. I don't know. We won't talk about that. Yeah.

No, you know, there's 10 teams in this league and a lot of great managers. I mean, you know, guys that you've either heard on this podcast, Scott Barrett and I had Sigmund Blum on. He is a part of the Texas yallers over there. Adam Kaplan's a part of the league. Chris Harris. It's a really who's, you know, who's, Jeff, Jeff Mans is the Vegas Pocket Kings, which is a phenomenal team name.

That's an incredible team name. Yeah, I think that's my, I think, besides the Hot Wings, I think that's my second favorite team name. But yeah, you know, we were just super excited, super humble to compete. And, you know, we drew that 10th pick. And we were first, like, you know, talking through strategy at first. We were kind of like, yeah, I don't know how this is going to go. Maybe we can get Lamar.

Maybe we can get Kyler. And that kind of ended up not being the case. I mean, there's just like a massive running quarterback to the first round. And I think it really benefited kind of the way we thought the draft would go out. Yeah. So, yeah, let's talk about the format first. It's 10 team. super flex half ppr nothing crazy gram like nothing like nothing like you know which by the way i mean

which by the way if you're going to play in a 10 team league like spice it up like play super flex have multiple flex spots not only is a super flex we have two uh two extra flex spots too so start three receivers and two extra flexes so that's a that's a nice wrinkle for yeah so big time big time starting lineups. But, you know, in a 10-team league, you know, look, I think Scott Barrett's laid out how big an advantage, like the first and to a lesser extent, the second pick is in a standard draft. I like that. We drew the 10th pick and the Super Flex, Graham. Like, when we were getting the draft picks initially, I was like, the operators of the league did kind of a live stream, and we drew the 10th pick, and I was like, oh, crap. And I totally forgot for a moment that it was super flex.

And what happened was it came to us. The draft was able to come to us. So we have the 10th pick. Now, you and I were definitely talking at the beginning. We said, what should we do? And I said, you know, that could be a Lamar situation. That could be a spot where Lamar Jackson falls to us. And we actually had a back and forth, you and I, Graham, about what if, what if Dak Prescott's there?

And I think we kind of ruled out drafting Jack Prescott there, even before the draft. Turns out we wouldn't have even even had the opportunity to draft Dak Prescott. Yeah, we even come close. But we were discussing, we didn't think, like, we were comfortable with the quarterback position insofar as we wouldn't have even drafted Dak Prescott at that turn. But let's look at how the first round went. Christian McCaffrey first pick, not a shocker. You could have gone with Mahomes, but 10 team, I think Jeff Manns, who had the first pick, is going to end up being pretty happy with how his team turned out. Mahomes goes second.

That didn't surprise me. Kaplan takes Dalvin Cook at number three for the Philly team. Okay. This is where, Graham, I knew our strategy was going to get blown up. Yep. Because Kyler Murray went fourth overall to Scott Engels and the New York Bodeca Cats. And I think at this point, I texted you, there's no way Lamar false does. Like, we had to adjust on the fly.

Turns out, Josh Allen went with the fifth pick and then Lamar went sixth. So we weren't even closed. DAC went seventh, which surprised me. Alvin Camara to Jeff Ratcliffe's team, the Chicago Hogmollies. He went eighth. And then Russell Wilson, which really surprised us, went ninth. So we were thinking, all right, you know, we were hoping three quarterbacks go in front of us and we get Lamar on the turn. Well, unfortunately, six quarterbacks go before us.

And then, Graham, to us, this was, this was, you know, these picks were made for us. Now, the only other guy here I considered, I think you and I considered was maybe Travis Kelsey. But we passed on Kelsey at the 10-11 turn. We're very glad we did because, and that will get to that. But, Graham, we just took the best two players at the 10-11 turn. Yeah, we were texting all morning about, you know, what with just different scenarios and stuff like that. And I was like, okay, if all the quarterbacks are gone, like, what does that mean? You know, if there's five quarterbacks in the first nine picks, somebody's got to fall.

I remember texting you. I was like, if that plays out, if we get five or six quarterbacks in the first nine picks, Derek Henry and Devante Adams are going to be the two that fall. And lo and behold, that's exactly what happened. So, I mean, honestly, I think for the way the way that the first round played out, I think we kind of just played it perfectly. We got, if you, you know, if you take away the super flex aspect, and Henry and Adams are locked in top six players overall,

and I think both of our boards. So yeah, I think in general, we, you know, like you mentioned, those two picks were kind of made for us. But at the same time, with everybody kind of chasing quarterbacks, it kind of gave us just like a naturally contrarian strategy just just off the top. And then third round, man, I still can't believe we got Darren Waller to come back at the 3-10. Incredible. And this is why I'm glad we passed on Kelsey. Now, I didn't expect to get Waller. So anyway, with Henry and Adams, let's just talk general strategy here.

Let's, Zieg Elliott and Tyree Kill were both on the board too. Give us those two players and we're still going to be saying the same thing here, right? Like, we just, we did not want to force the quarterback position. Lamar Jackson falling to four. Hell, I thought Graham, Dak Prescott might have almost been forcing it too much if he fell to us and he didn't. So Lamar Jackson going that early, solidified our strategy for us. By the time the second round was over, three teams had two. quarterbacks. Only

four teams didn't have one at all. That was Manns at one overall, Kaplan at three overall, Ratcliffe at eight overall, and us at 10 overall. So we're coming back around. Here's what's funny. Not a single quarterback goes in the third

round. Right. Because now, coming off the board in the first two rounds were Mahomes, Murray, Allen, Lamar, Prescott, Wilson, Brady, which was interesting. Brady goes off before Aaron Rogers. Brady, Aaron Rogers, Justin Herbert, went by the end of the second round. So we're coming back around. Mans opens his draft McCaffrey Echler-Hopkins, which is pretty damn good if you're not going to draft quarterback. And a lot of running backs come off the board

ahead of us. So we're in the third round. Hopkins is the first pick. Then it goes Aaron Jones, then it goes Calvin Ridley. And then coming back around us, Graham, six straight running backs go ahead of us. I know we talked about Antonio Gibson, you know, he's a guy we love as a breakout player. He goes to Jeff Ratcliffe, who's killing me beginning part of this draft at eight overall. And then I remember just mid-round, you're like, dude, if Waller's there, we've got to take Waller. Yeah, yeah. And that was, you know, that was my thinking is like, after watching the first, the first round and seeing, you know, those quarterbacks just fly off the board, I was like, man, that middle tier of Brady and Rogers, like those guys are going to go off quick. which opened up another guy falling in Darren Waller. I mean, if, you know, you rank these guys, you know, non-superflex.

I mean, Darren Waller's in the top 20 easily for me. And, you know, getting three positional advantages. I mean, it's half BPR. I mean, yeah, Derek Henry doesn't catch passes, but, I mean, he still has a top three ceiling in half BPR. Devons Adams, you don't, you know, we don't talk about that. And then Darren, you know, I mean, he's not Travis Kelsey, but he's 80s. to 85% of Kelsey.

And we got him at, you know, the last pick of the third round. Tate-end 1 is in his range of outcomes. Yes, absolutely. It is. It's like, now, Kelsey's a better bet. That's why Kelsey went a round and a half earlier. Right. But, you know, I'll take Darren and a round and a half discount while also taking

Devante Adams in the second round and, you know, not falling off to who would have been the best receiver available to us at this point, which would have been, you know, Justin Jefferson, not a bad pick, but I mean, if we started Henry Kelsey Jefferson, I don't think anybody would have argued with that, but I really like the way the team fell to us. So this is, we honestly went like the first three picks of our draft. We didn't have debate them at all. We didn't debate at all. Like, I mean, these are obvious picks. This is, this is where I think, if you like our team, you're going to like this pick. If you don't like our team, I love our team. But if you don't like it, you're going to be like, what are you doing? We,

took Jalen Hertz at 4-1. Now, let's go through our rationale. We knew we were going to be essentially two full rounds between picks for us because we're on that term. What did we say about Jalen Hertz? What does Jalen Hertz have in common with our first three picks, Graham? The QB1 is in his range of outcomes. It would have to play out like perfectly, but I mean, of course. Yeah, top three, top five is certainly there. I mean, I mean, man, Hertz is, you know, I think you've made this point, but like the Deshawn Watson, and I'm using air quotes, the Sean Watson rumors have kind of like soured everybody on Hertz. We're like, that was never even possible. You know what I mean?

It's like when, you know, the lines were sniffing around with Todd Gurley earlier this off season and then it nuked DeAndre Swift's ADP. And some of that should have already been baked into his ADP with Swift. But with Hertz, it's like, man, I mean, we got him, you know, I think we got him in the right, like, if you just rank these guys in terms of ADP, we got him in that right zone. But the fact that no quarterbacks went in the third round, and because the first, you know, two rounds were so quarterback heavy, just completely played to our hand. And I think, you know, when you follow, when you just like follow the room and just build your team the same way everybody else is building their team, like, you're probably not. not going to end up with any advantages at any other positions. And I think that's what I'm most proud of with this draft that you and I accomplished is like, you know, we didn't, we didn't just sit back and just be like, oh, my God, quarterbacks are flying off the board.

We're going to force it here. We just let the value kind of come to us at the back half of the draft. And I think Hertz, man, if Hertz is like what we think he can be, it's a league winning pick. Look, what are we trying to do? We're trying to win this league. We're trying to win the stakeholders. By the way, again, this is a team you can actually stake interest in. Essentially, you can bet on us. I don't know if they want to use that language, but, you know, I'm going to use it. This is my podcast. And you can stake this team. Just go to the H.OFL.com. Or if you have iOS, the Android app isn't available yet you can download the H.OFL app. Click on the Atlanta Hot Wings. We're in the top right hand corner. And you can, and you can stake our team. I know our guy Akeen has done it so far. He's been, he's been

DMing me about it. He's fired up with how the draft went. So I'm glad we could make him happy. But that's the rationale behind Jalen Hertz. And what has happened since then, since those BS Watson rumors? I mean, okay, we're recording this on Thursday before the Eagles play the Patriots on national TV. But Hertz has had a good camp. I thought he looked sharp in the first preseason game. The reports are the team is rallying around him.

Graham, all the news on Hertz has been positive with the exception of rumors that evidently weren't true. And his ADP still hasn't risen to where, like, earlier this offseason, I remember distinctly talking about Jalen Hertz's, you know, the mid-round Konami quarterback, it doesn't exist this year, with the exception of like Lance and Fields who aren't guaranteed to start week one. Because Jalen Hertz was like a seventh round pick for a while. And then it's just kind of steadily fallen.

I've seen him available in double-digit rounds. and that's exactly where I want to take him. If Jalen Hertz hits this year, I'm going to be a very rich man. But, I mean, it was just the right pick for us at that time. So coming back around, look, here's the quarterbacks who went off the board in the next two rounds were Stafford, Tannahill, and Burrow. Do I like those guys? For sure. But what don't those guys have?

They don't have QB1 in the range of outcomes. They just don't. Do I think it's likely? Hertz finishes QB1? No. But he was the highest scoring quarter. quarterback over his three full starts. Yeah, I remember mentioned to you that maybe we should sniff around on Tannahill,

but you made a good point. You know, we don't want to be like, you know, blocking ourselves with Henry because, you know, Henry and Tannhill are not like necessarily correlated in terms of their range of outcomes. I mean, they had a couple of big games together last year for sure when the Titans would just go off. But yeah, I like I liked you kind of talking me off Tannhill there and just going with Hertz because like with Hertz, man, like you don't really care if he completes 58% of his passes. You know what I mean? Like, we want him running the ball, you know, 10, 12, 15 times for

game. So I think, I think with the way our first three picks set up, I think the Hertz, the Hertz pick is really nice. But, uh, but, uh, yeah, I, you know, the next three quarterbacks coming off the board, like you mentioned, man, they don't, you know, appealing options for sure. Yeah, they're great. They're great, like, back in QB1s, but, you know, Hertz has that, like, fundamental, like, weak winning score, uh, in his, in his range of outcomes for sure. So our next two picks on the five, six turn, I mean, I just think we just gobbled up value at the wide receiver position. That's kind of the theme. That was the theme of our draft, man. Yeah. Like, Amari Cooper and Adam Thielen, um, it's, it's kind of amazing to me, quite frankly, Graham,

how much hate Thielen gets from, like, the Twitterati? Like, everybody considers them a boring pick, and I'm like, I see a sixth rounder who was like, who scored like 14 touchdowns last year. And there is a reason to believe touchdowns aren't fickle with Adam Thielen. He just gets ridiculous end zone target rates and a quarterback who trusts him. Whatever the case, Graham, a six-round pick on Adam Thielen, I'm fine with. Amari Cooper got an injury discount and he's already off the pup list, so I'm not worried about that pick at all. Oh, yeah, we timed the Cooper thing perfectly. Cooper has just been following and following him.

He went, let's see, he went 510 to us, Lamb went 5'1 to Mands at the beginning of the fifth round, which is a fine pick. and then, you know, McLaren, Allen, Woods, Evans, and then Cooper. I mean, that's kind of been the sort of the range we've seen all, you know, all summer on him. But I do think, I do think that's going to end up being a pretty big discount, you know, so long he stays healthy because, man, I mean, the, you know, the games that DAC was healthy last year. I mean, Cooper was the wide receiver seven. I mean, there's so much upside with this pick. Their relationship is very symbiotic.

Like, if you look at Prescott's numbers without Cooper, they're mediocre. If you look at Cooper's numbers without Prescott, they're mediocre. Like, it's not a one or the other thing. I think it's the both of them. Like, I think, like, they kind of feed off of each other. So, yeah, I think Amari Cooper is still a very, I know people are excited about CD Lam. I'm excited too, but I still think Cooper is a really important player to what they do. Yeah, and the other thing with Cooper is like, okay, even if you're scared of his downside risk with the injury or, you know, the couple games of a year where he,

you know, just kind of goose eggs. Like, it doesn't really matter with this team build. We have Devante Adams. I mean, Devante Adams is the most consistent receiver in fantasy. So I'm completely, we'll be completely fine when Cooper posts his three catch for 35-yard games, you know, a couple times of year because Adams is just, you know, he's the gold standard. He's the Christian McCaffrey of receivers. So the next quarterback off the board here was Trey Lance.

And he goes, I love that pick for what it's worth. I love that pick. He was like 13th or 14th quarterback. off the board. That was actually, that was Jeff Reckless first quarterback, by the way, was, was Trey Lance. He played that perfectly. He played it perfectly. We'll get to that. We were actually wondering if Lance would make it back to us in the seventh round, but I think you and I both have been in too many of these drafts where like, with these industry people who are just gaga for Trey Lance, we knew it probably wasn't going to happen. I thought, quite frankly, I thought Chris Harris

made a little bit of a reach on Matt Ryan in that round. Then Baker Mayfield comes off the board So we're coming back around to our to our seventh and eighth round picks. And we were sitting here. I know we had our eye on Kirk Cousins because we just got feeling. We're like, all right, maybe we can do a little bit of a stack there with Cousins. Jeff Rackliff broke our hearts two picks before our selection. Quite frankly, I feel like this was like the first time in the draft. I felt like I got really goose.

Like where, you know, Rackliff took Mike Evans. at 5-8, but I knew we had a good option. I remember just saying I was praying that that Sig didn't take Mari Cooper. And I know Sig has a love for Kyle Pitts, so I think we kind of leaned into that as like he's going to take Pitts here. And fortunately that happened. But Kirk Cousin's going off the board who has more upside than you think, by the way.

He comes off the board at 7-8. And then we get to our pick, and we were just like, wait a minute, we were debating Justin Fields. I know we were debating Justin Fields. But I remember you saying just like, dude, there's a rookie quarterback out there who has upside who is going to start six all 17 games. It's Trevor Lawrence.

And like among the gaga and believe me, some of it is valid for Lance and Fields. Trevor Lawrence has kind of slipped through the cracks here. And I got to admit, I haven't drafted him a lot, but most of the drafts I've been doing thus far best ball, which are one quarterback. Right. And as our number two quarterback,

we already have Jalen Hertz. I guess you could have made the argument that we wanted Kirk Cousins so we could have some of that boring kind of floor. But screw it. At this point, I didn't see another floor quarterback on the board. Let's just go for the upside and we're going to take Trevor Lawrence. Yeah, I love the Lawrence pick. Actually, I think I like the Lawrence pick more than I like the Hertz pick.

For whatever reason, for whatever reason, man, Lawrence has just been slipping through the cracks. Like everybody, like you mentioned, is chasing lands. They love fields. I mean, I've seen fields go ahead of Lawrence now. And it's like, man, you know, Charlie Lawrence can run too. You know, it's not like he's going to have the true Konami code of fields or lands where he can, you know, put up, I don't know, 50, 60 yards per game. I mean, Lawrence's legs are going to be a big part of that Jags offense too in terms of, you know, there's zone read stuff. We know whatever Meyer can do with his own read. And Lawrence was a fantastic zone rea quarterback in the red zone for Clemson last year.

I think there's a legitimate chance. And he's a big body quarterback, too, obviously. I think there's a good chance. He's going to get some rushing opportunities. Yeah. And with Lawrence, like, I think we just, we played this, the room kind of perfectly. I mean, I don't know, man. I think we'll get to our third quarterback, and that's kind of what bookends all of this.

But with Lawrence, it's like, I think everybody's just kind of chasing the upside of Lance and fields. and I think they're kind of just discounting what Lawrence already has. And I was more than happy to take the discount here. Our fourth receiver is Chase Claypool. We had a huge scare in practice this week when he went down. Seems like he's escaped with just a minor low ankle sprain. Again, chasing upside with Chase Claypool.

So, by the way, Jeff Mann's first quarterback is Justin Fields. He took him in the ninth round. And I think his team turned out very well. with that being the factor. So now if you come back to us in the ninth round, we got Derek Henry, Devante Adams, Darren Waller, Jalen Hertz, Amori Cooper, Adam Thielen,

Trevor Lawrence, and Chase Claypool. Remember, this is Superflex, but there is one problem on this team, Graham. We have one running back through eight rounds. And let's just say this was by design. Now, we already discussed, like, whoa, what if Antonio Gibson made it back to us in the third round? We would have had a really tough decision to make.

I'm sure J.K. Dobbins, when we took Hertz, was probably at least a thought. But beyond that, I don't really remember there being a spot where, oh, I do know one. DeAndre Swift fell to the seventh round. Yeah. We were on that up, yep. Miles Sanders, Darrell Henderson and DeAndre Swift all fell to the seventh round. All of them would have been in play with our seventh round pick where we took Trevor Lawrence. But we weren't, one thing we were not going to do was force it.

And I don't think we really did. at any point, but we did need to get some running backs on this team. You do need to start two of them. So we went with a hero RB approach. We have Derek Henry. He's our hammer. If Derek Henry goes down, we're probably not winning this thing. So we already know, you know, we've got to cobble together that RB2.

We went with, I think, a floor pick, a boring floor pick and Damien Harris combining him at that turn with entanalyzing upside pick and Trace Irvin. Yeah, you know, when I think about this all the time, when you're picking at the back half, after the first round, you know, like that 9, 10, 11, 12 pick area, right? The guy who has, the guy who has the 101, they're getting Chris McCaffrey, they're getting Dalvin Cook. Those teams are just automatically like, man, you boost their win-ons by like 50%. So when you're picking in the back of the first round, you've got to do something different. You know what I mean?

Like you're automatically, you're automatically at a disadvantage just by the nature of where you're drafting. And just looking at this board, I mean, not only do we wait. on quarterback. You know, I think we were the last team to get our QB1. Actually, no, the Jeff Fratcliffe was. So we had the second last team. No, Mann's was. Oh, yeah, that's right. You're right. Man took Justin Fields in the ninth round. Yeah, that's right. Take some stones to wait that long in a super close. I love that. But yeah, so we're the third, the third last team to take our quarterback. We were by far, by far below market on running back. And some of that, some of that,

some of that, Joe, is just the way the draft went out. You know, you mentioned, you know, the third round was just running back heavy. We really only had Dobbins on our board. when we came back in the three-four turn. And then from there, you know, we weren't going to overreach and take Josh Jacobs. We weren't going to overreach and take, you know, Miles Sanders or anything like that. So we just kind of stuck to our board. And I think it played out perfectly because Harris, like, you know, if Cam Newton's not starting, you know, by the middle of the season, Damon Harris is going to have, hopefully have that goal line role on lock.

And then, you know, obviously this, you know, the upside with sermon is obvious. So, you know, I like this idea of like, you got to do something different in the back half of the first round and either punting that RB2 slot and just, you know, playing for receiver depth and winning those flex spots and just kind of foregoing, you know, that second running back slot. I think it makes a lot of sense when you're trying to, you know, kind of upend what is already like a stack deck, you know, a stack deck against you. Yeah. And by the way, Rackcliffe broke our hearts again here because, I mean, I mean, it just goes to show you how desperate sometimes you do get for that second running back when you go here our B because our hearts

were broken that he took Chase Edmonds. I like Edmonds as like a boring floor RB2 on these types of teams, man. I think he's got a little more upside too, especially if James Connor miss his time. Yeah. But yeah, Damien Harris, Trace Sermon, like the strategy was kind of the same. So coming back around, we're not going to, I don't know if we want to, we're not going to talk strategy for every pick, but I do want to hit on our next three. Coming back around, this is one where I remember remember we were praying. Yeah, I still can't believe he made it back. Devonte Smith felt to us.

I still can't believe he made it back. We have hurts. We have hurts, you know, like, just like praying for our fifth wide receiver. He falls to us. I mean, I was so, I remember we talked to Antonio Brown. He went 11-7 overall to Bob Harris and Fabs with the Ohio goats. So they, they took Antonio Brown there. He was in play for us.

Devante Smith falls to us. there was such a drastic tier drop off at wide receiver after that, in my opinion. And then we took a guy at running back who could be a league winner, something goes wrong in front of him, and AJ Dylan. Like, I mean, you know, these are the kind of running backs we were taking. A.J. Dillon, you know, just trying to get that upside. Coming back around, Graham, and this guy was like a linchpin of our strategy. We were just hoping beyond hope that he made it to us.

Ryan Fitzpatrick as our boring veteran quarterback with Hertz and Lawrence, I was thrilled with that pick. That was the one where I was like, we got him in the 13th round. He's got weapons. He's got, he's got the attitude. He's going to throw the ball a lot. I was just thrilled with that pick as a QB3. Oh, yeah.

And this is the thing. Like, this is where, you know, you're kind of like, gile as a drafter has to come in, right? Like you've got to understand the room. So we've been saying this whole pod, right? Like quarterbacks are flying off the board. So what does that mean? Especially in a 10-team league, it's going to mean that there's going to be like two or three guys that go in like, you know, the back end of the quarterback to high-end quarterback three range.

They're going to just slip through. That is exactly what happened. And rounds 11 through 13, two quarterbacks went. One was big then. And he went to Jeff Manns at the 101 who was just punt in quarterback. and then we took FITS. So that whole three-round stretch, there was two quarterbacks taken. And everybody, you know, is just chasing their receiver depth.

Everybody's chasing their running-back depth. We didn't care. We already had our five receivers. We had five receivers at that point and three backs. It played out perfectly for us to, you know, to snag someone like Fits. I think it was Fits or Carr. I think those were the two guys we were talking about. Yeah.

We wanted to stack up. We wanted to maybe stack car with Waller, but I have fits way higher than Yeah, we would have been okay with Carr just because we had Waller, but those were the guys we wanted. I don't think we wanted anything to do with Wentz. Oh, no. Who actually went before Carr. And then we wrapped up our draft gram with Marvin Jones, mini stack with Trevor Lawrence. Gio Bernard, again, just trying to get these running backs who might have a role.

His value is dampened a little bit because it's half PPR. Devonte Parker, who, I mean, as a wide receiver seven, like, fairs not. Like, we almost took, I remember we almost took him where we took. Marvin Jones, which is two rounds earlier. Then we took Damien Williams. Again, he's a handcuff to Montgomery. We don't have Montgomery, but that's a guy who could end up in lineups in the event. Montgomery gets hurt.

And then I just think the player who people underrated the hell of because of the half-PPR format, James White was our 18th round pick. Like, I'll take James White in the 18th round if you lose points per reception. Well, maybe not in that format. But still, like, it's just like, I mean. mean, that's like an absurd value for a guy who's going to play this year, no Rex Burkhead. Graham, you came up with the stat. Like James White's production over the last number of years without Rex Burkehead in the lineup is like in top 15 Rby territory.

Yeah, there's some juice in White's profile that just like I think everybody's underrated. You know, this is full PPR, but in the games that Rex Burkhead is half PPR. Oh, the stat is the stat. Yeah, the stat I'm about to say is full. But in the games that James White, or excuse me, Rexberg had his missed, James White is average 15.2 fantasy points per game, which would be like low end RB2. So if you just kind of make that adjustment for half, like, man, I mean, on this team with Henry and we'll wait and see what Damon Harris role is. We'll wait and see what Trey Sermon's role is. I mean, there's probably a legitimate chance.

We're going to be starting James White early to start the year. And that's the thing about these superhero drafts, man, is like, okay. you know, even if, okay, let's say, let's say we did take Henry and that we took J.K. Dobbins over Dan Waller, Jalen Hertz, right? If Derek Henry gets hurt, we're probably screwed no matter what. It doesn't matter how good J.K. Dobbins is. We just lost our first round pick. Like, it is so hard to overcome that. It's a little easier, obviously, with the waiver wire and manage leagues. But, like, we're screwed no matter what. But the thing is, is, like, you can play against that. If Derek Henry stays healthy for all 16, 17 games like he has the last couple years, man, he's a top.

four, top five running back. We already have that advantage. You know, we're scoring five, six more fantasy points per game than, you know, at the RB1 slot over some teams. All we need is just to make up a slight difference at RB2, especially if you have great receivers. And that's exactly what we did. I love the Bernard pick. I liked the white pick. And I think both of those guys are probably going to, you know, be right in our plans for the first couple weeks of the season while we wait on Sermann and Harris and maybe stacking a couple more, a couple more waiver wire guys once the season starts. So one thing we didn't do on this team is draft a backup tight end.

I mean, now you can play a tight end in one of the flex spots. So, you know, having a second tight end behind Darren Waller isn't a negative. It's just, I remember we were talking about Jonu Smith. He was a great value in this draft. Yeah, it's 17th round. We wanted to draft him. It just, he went in the 17th round, though. But anyway, here's how our team stacks up by positions.

Remember, this is a super-flict. Flex League with, there's a Superflex and two other flexes. Jalen Hertz, Trevor Lawrence, and Ryan Fitzpatrick are our quarterbacks. Nobody is going to argue that we have the strongest quarterbacks in the league. Nobody. We're not going to argue we have the strongest quarterbacks in the league. But we think our strategy played out where we have, we're really strong elsewhere. At running back, we have Derek Henry, Damien Harris, Trey Sermon, A.J. Dillon, Giovanni

Bernard, Damien Williams, and James White. We have a great RB1. We're going to cobble together that RB2. We don't have a problem with that. This is where we're really strong. We're really strong at wide receiver. Devante Adams, Amari Cooper, Adam Thielen, Chase Claypool, Devonte Smith, Marvin Jones, and Devonte Parker.

There's a lot of Devontees on that team. But they're good Devonte. We got three Devontes. Holy shit. And spelled differently, by the way. Oh, yeah, you're right. Yeah. Three Devontes all spelled differently.

Darren Waller is our tight end. Like he's our only tight end. He's by his week eight. Graham will pick one up when we need one. I mean, yeah, yeah, exactly.

I mean, and that's the thing, man, it's like, you know, we're going to be bludgeoning everybody with our receivers in Waller. Like,

if Jalen Hertz is the lead winner that we talked about, like we're going to be more than fine, you know, I just, I love how we kind of built this team, you know, from a value perspective, but we also built it from like a roster construction perspective,

kind of upside down. I mean, our first three picks were not quarterbacks and everybody else was chasing them. So I loved how we kind of, we kind of came into this with a little bit of a, you know, different strategy, but I think it played out perfectly. So if you all want to see the draft board, go to the hothl.com slash rosters. The full draft board is on there. I'm going to put these links in the show notes as well. If you want to stake the Atlanta Hot Wings and follow along, download the H.OFL app,

go to the H.OFL.com slash how it works. and that'll basically tell you how it works. What is this league? I know we got some people who have already bought some merch. We've got some guys who have staked us. We just want to thank y'all for, you know, playing fantasy in this very different way. We hope it works out for us. We like our team.

We like our strategy. But hopefully we also kind of talk through some Superflex strategy that might help you. Like, we just did not want to panic at the quarterback position. And it turns out the teams who didn't actually ended up being some of the roster. that I like the best. You know, like these, and by the way, these HeroRB rosters, they always seem to be like, oh, you know, the running backs aren't good enough. That's the point, though.

Yeah, you're playing against that. You're playing against the fragility of the position. That's the thing. And you're banking on Adams and Waller and Cooper and Thiel and just smashing everybody else at those spots over the running backs. I think everybody just gets, I think, I think in general, people, like, are way too scared of having a bad RV2 slot. Most of the time when you're forcing a bad RV2, you're sacrificing value elsewhere.

And that's one thing I'm, I think I'm most proud of with this draft that we did is we just didn't sacrifice that. You know, when I, I remember the last, not to say like I've drafted perfectly at the running back position, you know, since. No, but the last time I remember overpaying for an RB2 is so traumatic to me that I'm, I just don't want to make the same. mistake again. And I knew I was making a mistake as I was doing it, but I couldn't stop doing it. Like, and that was in 2014, Graham, you weren't in the league yet, but we have an auction league with just buddies. And some guys on staff, me, you and Brawley are in it. We got Cucanus in it. You know, just, just buddies. It's a, it's a, it's a medium, $50 entry. Like, just a fun draft. We always love that league. It's not so.

high stakes that like you get stressed out about it. But there's a decent chunk of change. You know, something, it can, it can buy you a nice dinner if you win the league. You know, I'm in so many leagues that if like I was in super high stakes leagues all the time, I'd be putting up my salary. Like, I'm not going to do that. But in that league in 2014, I don't even remember who my RB1 was, but it was a good one. And I remember looking at my team and I said, I needed art.

And I got in a bidding war for Zach Stacey. Oh, Lord. And that experience was so traumatic to me that I will never overpay for an RB2 again. Now, Graham, that doesn't mean I won't take a good RB2 or good RB3 if the circumstances present themselves. That doesn't mean I'm against having good running backs. It's just that mistake was so just absolutely draining for me that I knew right away as soon as I, As soon as that bid went through that I had made the mistake, my wide receiver suffered because of it, the rest of my team suffered because of it. And I was just not going to make that mistake. And I think when you're in a Superflex draft, you do have to sacrifice somewhere. Yep. And the fact that we took Darren Waller in the third round meant that sacrifice was going to have to come at either wide receiver or running back. We felt the sacrifice was better to make at running back for a key reason. You only start two in this league. You start three wide receivers. So all. already running back is a less important position than wide receiver.

And you can start up to five wide receivers. You can start four running backs. You can start up to five wide receivers. And I will utterly guarantee you, Graham, we're starting five wide receivers week one. Oh, absolutely. And, you know, that's one of the most important takeaways. And, you know, when you're strategizing for drafts is like, you've got to know the league, right? Like, you know, if you're in a standard league where it's like two running backs, two wide receivers,

is like, yeah, running backs are, you know, slightly more valuable. But the more flex spots that you have, the more valuable receivers are, in my opinion. It's not the running backs, man, because those mid-round running backs are mid-round running backs for a reason. They don't go in the first couple rounds because everybody feels great about them. They fall to the fifth, sixth, sixth, seventh round for a reason. So a lot of those times, man, you're just getting safer and more upside bets at receiver to begin with. And I think that played out perfectly. By the way, I guess you chased Zach Stacey from the.

from the league that year. The following year, he won at the Jets and he was done, right? Oh, God. I mean, like, I honestly, like, I can look back and say, like, at least that I remember the worst fantasy pick I have ever made. And it's a lesson learned, too. Yeah, lesson learned. I'll never, I become a guy, like, camp, we called it modified zero RB on the radio, Hero RB, I really like a lot better. But, but, but yeah, I will never overpay for that second. Again, doesn't mean I'm going to be like, I'm going to, it doesn't mean I'm going to be like, oh my God, like if David Montgomery felt us in the fifth round, we might have made that pick. You know, it doesn't mean we're going to overlook when one presents itself to us or if the right situation presents itself to us,

but this, this roster build. Hell, Graham, if Darren Waller went, went beforehand, we might have taken Najee Harris or Antonio Gibson in the second round, you know, in the third round, if Darren Waller pushed one of them down the board, but it's just the way this draft went. So, go to the HOFL.com. We're the Atlanta hot wings. Graham used to live in Atlanta. I'm about two hours outside of Atlanta, so they gave us Atlanta. There's no Denver team, at least not yet. Maybe there will be an expansion into Denver. And Kaplan had a stranglehold on Philadelphia. Yeah, there was no way. No chance for getting Philadelphia.

No chance. We were getting anything from Philadelphia. What's up? Yeah. By the way, I had some nice celebratory hot wings after the draft, too. I was very proud of. Oh, very good. out of hankering afterwards. Yeah, I love me some. I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, one might call a wuss these days. days.

I used to love super spicy stuff. Um, and then, and then a gentleman called Gerd, uh, popped up for me. And, uh, it just get, I love buffalo flavor. Right. And I'll, I just can't go above medium, though. I can't do it. I, I, I, I can't do it. Spice. Spicy. Spicer, the better for me.

I, I haven't, I haven't, I haven't, I haven't, I haven't, I haven't, I haven't had this spice now yet. The last time I had something super spicy. I want some wings again. Was Brawley and I were going to a Super Bowl party in Philly. This was for the Ravens 49ers Super Bowl. The Blackout Bowl. Oh, yeah.

Yeah. And we went to the grocery store too late. Brawley was making Buffalo chicken dip. We went to the grocery store too late. and the only Franks left was the super hot. And Brolly's like, ah, you want to talk mistake, man.

Make it, because you can't, if you have buffalo chicken dip, you're eating a lot of buffalo chicken dip. Yeah, it's not something you just have a bite of, yeah. Yeah, but everybody else decided, oh my God, Brawley,

that's too hot, so me and Brawley took one for the team. Yeah, not. You're not something on the... Don't use the Franks super hot to make your buffalo chicken dip. Yeah, your toilet. Your toilets took one for the team afterwards, I'm sure. Oh, Atlanta. Well, Brawley was texting me the next day.

He's like, oh. That grunt. Yeah, well, that's a Brawley grunt. I was texting Brawley today because he does a league. I was setting up, and by the way, us in the fantasy industry, we still do it. We send out the doodle where everybody, Everybody's got to pick their time for, by the way, you have to fill it out, Graham, for the auction league. And, and, and, uh, Brawley has a one, of course, we're in the fantasy industry.

We're the guys who click yes for every available time slot. Brawley has one Friday night where it's open and I knew exactly what it was. He goes to a draft in his hometown every year where he doesn't even, he doesn't even participate in the draft. He just, like, lords over it as like the fantasy industry guy gets absolutely. plastered and make celebrity picks. And I said, so I said to him, Brawley, are you doing that draft or you get plastered and make celebrity picks?

And as I anticipated, he goes, yeah, it's that Friday night. I couldn't do the auction draft. I mean, I need to get in that league. Like, hell, I don't even need to get in the league. I just need to go. Yeah, just show up and drink beer. Hell yeah. And he lords over the draft.

So, uh, but yeah. Anyway, it's draft season, guys. This was our first really big one of the year, gram in terms of a league that we're going to play out and make roster decisions. I know you and I and Scott have a flex draft coming up next week. Oh yeah. We're all in that together. Has the draft order come out yet?

I need a look. Oh, you assholes. Yeah, you guys, I think, got the top two picks. Did we? Oh, baby. I got the ass fourth pick, which is slightly better than the fifth pick. I'll just put it that way. Yeah, you get a little more option now.

Damn. That'll be a lot of fun. You have the first pick. Scott has the second. Oh, shit. Even more I get to rub in his face now. Yeah, well, because he's been complaining that he hasn't drawn. That's perfect.

The first pick. So, yeah. Yeah, unbelievable. But yeah, anyway, maybe we'll talk about that on a future podcast. But we just wanted to introduce you guys to the Hall of Fantasy League based out of the Hall of Fame, based out of Canton, Ohio. Their goal is eventually to do these drafts. in Canton in the stadium.

But we did it remotely this time. It was a lot of fun and I think and I think and hope that they have something interesting on hands. Graham and I are just glad to be part of it. And we thought we handled it well. So remember to go to the hofl.com. So you can you can go there. You can download the app, the HOFL app on iOS. I believe Android is coming soon.

they have a Twitter account as well, Graham. The account is, I mean, you can tell I'm stuttering here because I'm bringing it up. It's the HOF League. So the Hall of Fantasy League. The HOF League is Twitter, so you can go there. And then you can also go and follow the team. Follow the Atlanta Hot Wings at Hot Wings ATL and get your updates there. There's a Discord for Stakers.

So if you stake the team, you can talk to us. We can make decisions together. I'm really excited for it, though. I'm really excited for this league. I'm excited to bring it to you on the podcast. You can follow him on Twitter at Graham Barfield. Follow me on Twitter at FG underscore Dolan. Remember to check out the show notes for links about the Hall of Fantasy League.

And we will talk to you guys next week. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, rate, and review on your favorite platform. and come join the roster at FantasyPoint.com.