Fantasy Football Daily - 2022 Fantasy Football Lessons Learned with "The Guru" John Hansen | Two-Point Stance Podcast

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

For over 20 years "The Guru" John Hansen (@Fantasy_Guru) has broken down what he got right and what he missed over the course of the fantasy football season in his popular year-end article.  We'll go position-by-position discussing his lessons learned from the 2022 NFL season.  Every football season is unpredictable and we at Fantasy Points strive to improve daily.  You can't grow unless you learn from your mistakes.  Join us as we talk with one of the true legends in the fantasy football universe and prepare for the upcoming fantasy 2023 draft season.   Read John's 'Lessons Learned' article for FREE:  https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2023/john-hansens-2022-lessons-learned#/  Time stamps: Intro: 0:00. QBs: 4:49. RBs: 17:43. WRs: 31:35. TE: 42:05  We ran a Super Bowl contest for three subscriptions to FantasyPoints.com and revealed who won the prizes - listen to find out who won. Follow the show on social media:  Twitter: https://twitter.com/FantasyPts  https://twitter.com/FG_Dolan  https://twitter.com/DrakeFantasy  IG: @FantasyPTS   Drafting never stops at Underdog Fantasy.  Right now you can start drafting 2023 fantasy football best ball teams.  Use the link below and start your road to fantasy glory today. https://play.underdogfantasy.com/p-fantasy-points Must be 18+ and present in a state where Underdog Fantasy operates. Terms apply. Concerned with your play? Call 1-800-522-4700 or visit www.ncpgambling.org   #FantasyFootball #NFL #FantasyPoints #ScoreMore --- 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 to the Fantasy Points podcast, brought to you by FantasyPoint.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. All across the fantasy universe, welcome everyone to the two-point stance, powered by FantasyPoint.com. I'm your host, Brian Drake. You can find me on Twitter at Drake Fantasy. joined alongside the managing editor of fantasy points. Mr. Joe Dolan.

He's found on Twitter at FG underscore Dolan. And Joe, we're putting a bow on the 2022 fantasy season today, but they're very special guest. Someone you know well, Mr. John Hanson. So, Joe, how's it going on your end? And are you ready to learn some lessons from this wild ride we call the NFL season? You know, it's kind of ironic that the article that wraps up the 2022 season kicks off the 2023 season for us at fantasy points.

John's big lessons learned, which he, I'm guessing John starts throwing this together. We'll have him tell us that, that starts throwing it together right at the end of the year. And it really kicks off our content for 2023, get it up right after the Super Bowl. It's behind us, guys, draft season, free agency is right ahead of us, best ball season's right ahead of us. What better way to look at 2023 than what we did right?

and what we did wrong last year. So let's bring in the guru himself, John Hanson. You follow him on Twitter. I mean, I don't have to tell you guys. That seems like everybody in the world follows him at Fantasy underscore Guru. Of course, you see him on DirecTV's Fantasy Zone channel. And one of my favorite places to find him hosting the now three hour long. Sirius XM Fantasy Football Morning Show on SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio.

Mr. John Hansen, welcome to the two-point stance, sir. You got it, man. Love the Drake. Love Joe Dolan. Love FantasyPoints.com. Love that you're now kind of in the mix. We sucked you in here. So let's go.

Now, unfortunately, it was such a wild and crazy year. I got nothing. I know. I'm kidding. But I did change the article around a little bit. You know, what I normally do is the season ends. And I'm starting to account for the lessons learned, you know, all year.

Just kind of marinade in it throughout the playoffs. And normally I'm late to get it. done my goal, which is like Monday morning for the Super Bowl. I'll try again next year, I guess. It's 27 years in a row. I didn't get it done. It's very difficult to end it. You know, like I go through and I do like various sweeps. You know, sometimes one time I'll go through my draft plan article. I what did I get right? Where was I wrong? maybe two days later, I'll study the final standings and see if anything pops out there.

Then I'll go back and I'll look at like good vibes, bad vibes article, like what miscalculations mistakes that I make. This was a weird year in that I don't have many like truly profound lessons. So I did it a little bit differently this year where I kind of made it. I used to be a little bit more like these are the lessons.

and I kind of made a little bit more about like these are my lessons because I'm kind of like narrowing things down as I get a little older and like it it really just for me comes down to like whatever process I go with did that work or not did I get it right or wrong at the end of the day that's all I really care about. So it's it's kind of an exploration, the article of, you know, stuff I got right, stuff I was thinking that worked out and, you know, any lessons learned from that. And most importantly, what did I get wrong and what can I do to adjust? there were a couple instances where, you know, I'd probably do what I did again, unfortunately. I think that was a function of this year, which was they're all weird, but this year was just a different weird. I can't even still articulate it.

So you've been doing this for over 20 years and you're one of those guys in the fantasy industry, kind of what you call in the preseason really sets the market, I think, for a lot of people. And we'll get into group think a little later in the show, something you mentioned in the article. But what I love about this article, John, is you've been doing it. And it's, you don't always just toot your own horn and say, here's what I got right. It's here's what I got wrong.

And a lot of folks in this industry don't want to do that. But at fantasy points, guys, we know that you're not going to get better as a fantasy player or really anything you do in life. If you don't go back and look and say, what's the process here? What am I missing? What can I get better at every single day? That's how you're going to cash checks and hoist trophies. That's what we want here on the two points stance. So more and most importantly, it's free.

Go to fantasy points.com right now. The article is live. It's free. Anybody can read it. I want you to read it today. I want you to read it the day before you do your 20, 23 drafts in the summer because you can really get a lot from that. Let's kick things off here, John.

You started at the quarterback position in the article, and you were really high on one guy, and that was Joe Burrow. You planted your flag on him, and boy, did it turn out really well for you. It finished the year as QB4, over 21 points a game. you got to feel great about that call. And maybe we could talk about some of the guys, you know, you're pushing to the side because to me, quarterback now, it's like there's like five guys that I want to target. And that's about it.

Everybody else, you can have them. Yeah. Well, one of the things I do also is I look back at last year's lessons and did it hold up because, you know, I have been doing this for a long time. And we do want to get better and learn from our mistakes. But, you know, that goal post is constantly moving. You know, a mistake I made in 2014, I'm probably not making right now. So it is something like, it's like the tax code.

You know, you have to constantly update, you know, little alterations, a little tweaks. And one of the big lessons learned last year that I wrote about, and there's a link to last year's article in this year's article, was, you know, this old cheat code thing isn't all it's cracked up to be at times when these dudes are relying on their legs. taking a lot of shots. And I pointed to, hey, Lamar Jackson and Kyla Murray are the two biggest culprits. And look what happened. It happened again. So that was another lesson that I threw out there for this year. Like, hey, I'll sign off on the cheat code.

Okay. But I'm not signing off at 58 overall necessarily when, you know, quarterback is really deep. And then the other part of that was even with Jalen Hertz. And I used him as an example, I think. And look what happened. He got hurt again. And it's a fluky coincidence. He's durable as hell.

But he did get hurt two years in a row here when it mattered. So, you know, I looked at it a little bit from an old school perspective. And I'm like, we know that passing is, you know, if you're a good quarterback, I was used Matt Ryan as an example. Like Matt Ryan was unbelievably durable. We knew what he was going to do. We knew he was going to throw it a lot. So every year I'm like, up, nailed it. I was off by like four points.

You know, it's easy. easier, I think, to handicap a guy that you feel confident, like, this dude's going to win from the pocket a lot more often than not, and, you know, throw 30, 35 touchdowns and also run for about 295 yards, two to three touchdowns. Like, keep it in your back pocket. And I used Mahomes as a great example. Obviously, Josh Allen's the king. But I use Mahomes as a great example. And then I just simply pointed to Burrow. Like, that's the guy. of course, this is last year. That worked out.

It didn't work out necessarily for Justin Herbert, but we also want to make sure we are confident that the guy's going to run because Herbert didn't run this past year, and that was part of his problem. I don't know if, you know, the rib cartilage injury was, you know, how much that stopped him or prevented him from running, but he ran a lot more the year before. But, yeah, the big takeaway here for me,

not the big one, but, you know, one of the bigger ones here at quarterback is, again, I want my guy to be reliable, went from the pocket, but let's not be totally reliant on touchdowns. Because if you are, then you've got to be like Matt Stafford or Brady. You got to throw like 40. But we could do 35 with three rushing and 300 yards rushing as well. John, this stat absolutely blew my mind. I have to reconfirm with you that I didn't mess this up when I edited this.

You put in the article, and you mentioned why this year was, was every, You always say the year to year is weird. Every year is weird at this point. But here is why this one was uniquely weird. And I think this is what you were getting at a couple of minutes ago when you mentioned that. In the article, the 1.38 passing touchdowns per game this year was 35th most in history per team. That is insane to me. It really is. That's true. Yeah, I mean, I looked that up. I didn't like make it up. I spent about, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes looking into data and stats on the how far scoring was down. I saw a bunch of different things. This one really painted it amazingly well, though, for me. So I'm like, oh, that's the most startling one of them, you know, the receiving touchdowns.

Because obviously that's correlated to the passing. Can't have one without the other. Yeah. I mean, there have been some fluke. years, even way back where, you know, we got maybe a lot of touchdowns. Very rare. But there were 17 times it happened with more touchdowns before 1970, which is very weird. That's insane to me.

And now somebody I saw mentioning you on Twitter in response to this article. And I think he goes by Fantasy Giant on Twitter. And I think he kind of got at the crux of the situation. He's mentioning guys like Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Andy Dalton, Malik Willis, Josh Dobbs, PJ Walker, Davis Mills, Trisk, all these guys made multiple starts this year. So my question to you is, with your quarterback approach in 2023, which you're already formulating, how much are you taking away from this? Given the current climate in the NFL, oh, it's a passing league, and the fact that the numbers were so down this year. Yeah.

Are you viewing it from that perspective where there was just an inordinate amount of quarterback injuries and an inordinate amount of incompetent quarterbacks playing a lot this year? Not just spot, but playing a lot this year. Not to mention the defensive adjustments that really did baffle a lot of teams, you know, that started last year. It kind of helped Patty Mahomes work through some stuff last year that I feel like really helped them this year. by the way, it seemed like the league was ahead of, you know, two deep safeties and all that, what they were going to do this year. They were doing that to the chiefs last year. And Mahomes adjusted last year.

Then they were like, ah, screw it. We'll get rid of Tyreek Hill. We don't need this. We don't need the deep ball, basically. But to answer the question, you know, I mean, let's look at the leaders from this year and look at how easy was it to draft a serious needle mover. Now, we can look at the final stats and say, oh, it was simple. Gino Smith, Justin Fields, Daniel Jones, Jared Guff. They all finish his top 12 guys.

Were we really relying on these guys every week? Maybe Gino, but even he fell down the stretch. So the true needle movers were once again, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen Hertz, who is, you know, getting by right now with the cheat code for sure. we had Trevor Lawrence, but he had a five-week rough patch. I mean, we're almost done in terms of the true weekly, reliable guys. Herbert wasn't really that. Close.

Golf certainly wasn't that. I mean, Daniel Jones, maybe because he was running. Kirkie was solid as usual, but you never totally trust him. He can lay an egg. Rogers got worse. Lamar and Kyler obviously available. ability problems. I was out on Russ Wilson anyway. I kept saying

he was a declining player last year. And that's it. So, I mean, DAC wasn't all that great. So I've actually, Joe, paid a little bit more attention to quarterback. So yeah, the scoring is down. So, but that doesn't necessarily mean I'm like going to pull back on

drafting receivers early or quarterbacks because we'll get in the running backs in a moment, but they were a freaking nightmare too. So I am kind of leaning a little bit more toward receiver, which did last year this past year by the way but joe i've always um not always but recently i've actually written in the draft plan no i don't want to be the first one to take a quarterback but i'd like to take the fifth yeah guy off the board that's why burrow was so appealing to me because he was the seventh

guy you could get him i got him every every league every single league i just just give me burrow you know six seventh round you know that worked out there aren't that many guys like that i think Herbert might be a little bit of a bounce back guy. And you know, I like the early guy I like as a like a real steal would be Deshaun Watson. Like, you know, there's a guy who can throw 30 from the pocket. He's done it. And he'll even give us more upside.

You know, he could run for 450, 500 with five, six touchdowns. Yeah, I don't even know if he's going to be going that early this year because he sure didn't show well this year. No, no. Obviously he'd be 11 early on. See, I'm all over it. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, that's actually a little bit earlier than I thought he would be going at this spot.

But, but, yeah, I mean, it's going to be interesting. I think, you know, Mahomes, Hertz are going to be off the board super early. I think people are going to, Drake. I really do think a lot of folks are going to get more into drafting quarterbacks early after this disaster of a year. Maybe take one early and then take a guy who you might like into like a Jared Gough later. Maybe Sam Howell, you know, ends up being the starter in Washington. But it's going to be a fascinating year because I think a lot of people are going to fall back on to all those mid-round quarterbacks I drafted, all busted. I'm just going to get my safe guy.

It's going to be interesting to see what happens this year. To spin it forward, I just completed a 10-man draft for Sirius XM where it was a bunch of hosts from the channel. I selected 9th overall. And just to tell you where these quarterbacks are going, again, this is 10-team league. Josh Allen was the first quarterback off the board. he went with the final pick of the third round. Hertz, Mahomes, and Burrough came off the board in the next five picks. Yeah.

So, I mean, that's where people are going. They're saying, I want to get this elite player. And it's funny, after that, the next quarterback was Justin Fields in the, at the five, three of this 10 team draft. So just to, you know, give you guys a heads up of what's happening in that quarterback room. I think you're going to see a lot of folks in your drafts in 2023. They're going to say, screw it. I want to go get my guy. I want Josh Allen.

I want Hertz. And I just want to set it and forget it. That used to be. Well, was my guy the year before, I believe. You know, there were two years where he,

you know, I like to have like my one guy. And it was Josh Allen, but he got too pricey this year. And he was good. But once again, if the numbers are almost identical, but was it,

did he, I know the numbers were good, but there were definitely more trouble spots there. And by the way, that leads to another lesson. It's not really a lesson. It's more reaffirmed. But, I mean, how important were the offensive coordinators to quarterback play this year?

I mean, ridiculous. Josh Allen had the drop off with Brian Dayball. And then Daniel Jones literally became the poster child for, you know, this guy could be good in the right situation. If everything's good around him, you know, that's now Daniel Jones. Because a lot of people thought he was really bad and couldn't play. And that's that's not correct. He needs some massaging. You know, he's not going to make a really bad situation.

He'll probably make it worse, basically. But if he's got a good situation, I think he could win with him. Look at the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And get no offense to Byron Lefich, but if you guys may recall, I was completely out on Brady all year. I actually loved them the year before. I just thought the loss of Bruce, you know,

every day in that building was something. So there was that. Of course, the fiasco with Mac Jones. I mean, you've got to be kidding me. We saw it coming a mile away and it was even worse than we thought. And then, of course, Mike McDaniel, like, you know, if you subscribe to the website, you read my article, I'm like, yeah, this is going to work, you know. It just, it was obvious.

And it did. And then finally, Doug Peterson, I was, I kind of ragged on him a little bit. I'm like, ah, you know, it was boring. But you know what? boring is is okay sometimes that was that was an unbelievable i don't think they can he can top it like you know expectations are high now for dug everything went perfectly like i want to talk about literally hiring your guy and then having that guy go out and handpicked his receiving core basically in free agency and it all worked yeah you mentioned boring and that's going to lead us to the

running back position. And the cover boy for your article is Josh Jacobs over at FantasyPoints.com. I don't know who designed that graphic, but it looks damn good. So it seems that nobody wants to draft a running back anymore, John, right? The narrative is they all get hurt. You can find a diamond in the rough later, which is fine in theory. But at the end of the day, you got to draft someone and fell out your roster. And you're a guy who always wants young ascending talent, especially at the running back position. And, but we ran into these boring guys like Josh Jacobs and Miles. Sanders and David Montgomery, who were just looked past, but they really helped people win fantasy

titles. Josh Jacobs and Miles Sanders finished his top 10 PPR backs. Yep. Yeah. No, and look, I mean, that it goes in line with, you know, arguably the biggest lesson we learned in fantasy this past year. And, you know, there have been years and times over the years where the whole contract year theory thing was, ah, you know, they're professionals. Uh, But clearly, if there's any group of players age-wise in position that we're going to, you know, give credence to the old contract year theory, it's the 25-year-old, 26-year-old running back in the final year of his rookie deal, obviously. You know, and I wrote in the article, I'm kind of mad at myself because, you know, I've been out there saying, like, even in society since COVID, like, everyone's worse at their job. everywhere and you know a lot of quiet quitting going on i'm like yeah i see that in the nfl as well well the inverse of that i think is dudes like more motivated than ever just balling out

in their contract here we saw it with saquan barclay we saw it with the aforementioned jacobs miles sanders david montgomery i mean it was pretty ridiculous so um the other lesson kind of all tied together with this is you know and it goes maybe to the group think We are kind of all uniformly, like, writing people off too early. You know, like, you know, sure, Josh Jacobs, it was a new offense. There was that weird thing starting the Hall of Fame game. We didn't know if he's going to be the third downback and all that. But clearly, like, really, like, we should have paid a little bit more attention.

He should have been going around in the 40s instead of the mid-70s. So we are all kind of riding guys off a little bit too early. Let's take a look, John, by the way, at some of the, running backs who are going to be free agents after next year. Derek Henry, Austin Eckler, all right, I don't think we need to really go too far into those guys. But here's one that's going to be, Jonathan Taylor, all right, he's going in the top five. But here's one who's going to be really interesting, I think.

And it's a guy you mentioned quite a bit in the article, DeAndre Swift. I think people are going to be burned by him. I think you put in the article, he just doesn't feel like he's, a bell cow like they obviously use Jamal Williams a ton. I am very interested to see where DeAndre Swift lands at some point this offseason because it feels like that's maybe one of those picks where everybody goes, man, he'd burn me one too many times and he could be somebody who in an offense that we know is ascending and does have the continuity that you're looking for with Ben Johnson returning. I understand why people might be a little hesitant to draft DeAndre

swift exactly like same reason i was hesitant to draft miles sanders um different players but same reason i don't know i wonder i wonder if that's going to be one of the guys who fits the bill of of the of the architect you're targeting well for sure i mean given the fact that i mean the guy clearly there's something going on there that that's not good you know like how do you i've never seen it before where you practice all week and then you get like seven touches for like six weeks in a row so you know i don't think he likes to get hit very often. So that's a problem. And but, but in the final year of his rookie deal, maybe, uh, if they don't bring in

another back, I'll get to that in the moment. Um, I would have to agree. If, if I had anything positive to say about the Andre Swift after this year, it would be directly related to this phenomenon. But I was talking with that guy Brett Whitefield about Bejohn Robinson and he was like, oh, I'd love to see him as a lion. I'm like, oh, damn. just move right on from Swift. Make him a complimentary change-up guy because that could be devastated. Could you imagine Bejohn and Swift behind that line? Yeah, he's a great player.

And I think people are kind of catching on to your idea of you want that young, sexy talent, especially at the running back position. And this year we saw a lot of flashy guys come into the league, but a lot of them kind of flamed out, just more so due to injury, Brees Hall went down an injury. Damien Pierce with an injury. And your boy, Javante Williams, who I saw you doing drafts last year, you were taking at like two overall in some drafts. Oh, yeah, I'm crazy.

Yeah. I took E.TN in the Sears Host League like a week before the season. I took ETIN at like 20. Like who was doing that last year? This guy also got Ramondre in that league. Yeah, it was a, it was rough for that. But, you know, my thing at this point is. if people are listening to me and they trust my opinion and I say, look, I think Bruce Hall is a stud.

Get him every time in the fourth round, which the draft plan article pretty much said that over and over again. And he proves to be a stud like it's unfortunate. He got hurt, but I'm like, I got this one right. So I'm good. You know, same thing with Damien Pierce, even Rashad White, who, you know, I actually projected exactly correct. Like, I was like two points off his actual number. but what I didn't think was that Leonard would only miss one game, you know, basically. But, you know, I thought that was a good call.

But what are you going to do? So these last couple of years hasn't been great because these boring guys, you know, and who are the boring guys a year before last? I can't even remember. I blacked it out. Maybe Montgomery was one of them. He was. Oh, oh, James Connor.

Oh, John. Yeah. I don't think I drafted James Connor one. two years ago. And I didn't do it this year. I didn't do it this year. A four net was a guy I did dabble in two years ago and that turned out to be a league winning kind of pick. So yeah, I think we do need to do a better job of identifying just guys who everybody's out on like and especially guys who are going to be in good offenses because like in hindsight, Miles like Josh Jacobs, I'll miss on that 10 times out of 10. I will. Maybe I'll, I'll, I'll,

just something, but Miles Sanders really should have been one where we were saying to ourselves, man, this offense is going to be really good. And he's, and he just keeps falling. Like, I wonder if there's going to be anybody like that this year. Maybe it's a little too early to identify those guys. But, but Swift might be one of the guys that I've kind of identified that. Well, and, and what's funny is the worst part for me is I did have a guy like this. Nobody else liked them. And turns out I was looking good. there until I wasn't and that's Clyde Edwards Eilare and I covered that in the article and you know it's rare for me I guess to back a guy who looks like he might stink but in this one I just thought it was a calculated risk because I really really was feeling like with Tyreek gone and them spreading the ball around basically not not really having much other than Kelsey to truly hang her head on that the running backs would be more productive.

And I was not wrong because they scored 23% more higher touchdown rate, basically. They scored 23% more touchdowns. So, you know, early on, first four weeks, Edward DeLayer was RB4. Through like week seven, he was like RB10, and it was solid. You know, then, then they soured on him and he got hurt and all that. But look at Jerich McKinnon. You go, oh, Edwards Aller early on was touchdown dependent. Oh, yeah?

So was league winner, Jerek McKinnon. So, I mean, you know, I was basically envisioning what McKinnon did with Edwards Aller, hopefully all year. And it's a guy who was a former first round pick who, you know, didn't look that bad. But for whatever reason, it didn't work out. I thought it was a calculated risk. And it's right in line with everything we're talking about, like finding that guy that everyone's sleeping on, did not work. for me. One of the guys I'm going to throw out is my boring guy. By the way, is that he just sucks. Maybe it's maybe he's got some attitude.

Yeah. I mean, I think, I think, you know, even with running backs don't matter. They need to play with some effort and juice like we saw from Pacheco, you know. I mean, sure. I mean, no one ran harder than Pacheco this year. But, Miles Sanders has had some success in the league that, you know, Edwards Aller didn't have. Jacobs has had some success. So. Maybe we were just. Well, to your point about good offense, though, you know what I mean? Like if there's any offense that can, you know, shield us from a guy kind of stinking. I thought it was this one.

Yeah, but like I still think they want to play with some juice. But I think it does get back to, which is I think a universal lesson. And it's and I'll always fall into this. If I'm, if I'm drafting from round 10 on and Drake, I'll let you get to your guy until we move on before we move on to wide receivers. but draft running backs from good offenses, draft young running backs from good offenses. And sometimes things are working in your favor. I mean, it just, McKinnon was a league winner, you know.

Gainwell didn't do what I thought he was going to do, but I think he showed the potential at the end of the year when they started to move him in the lineup that, all right, yeah, he could have done that stuff. So I'll always be focusing on running backs from good offenses, especially in those later rounds. Yeah, one guy, I don't know if people are going to be excited to draft him. Looking back at this draft, I did the other night, nobody was until the eighth round when I snagged him. And it was J.K. Dobbins. If he gets healthy in this offense,

we're going to be a new offensive coordinator now. I mean, he's a talented player. And again, people are going to go, ah, he's always hurt. He runs. He's got a little gimp in his, in his gate. J.K. Dobbins is a really good player. So we'll see what happens with the quarterback situation, all that down the road. But I got a feeling he's going to be falling like a rock. And just for context, guys, D'Andre Swift, the only running back drafted in the fourth round in that draft. He went at the 4-8, which by the way, J.K. Dobbins, unrestricted free agent one year and one month from now. There you go. I like it.

And folks, J.K. Dobbins is looking to get that bag next year. You can get yours for 2023 starting today. And you can do that by applying the lessons learned from John's article, nowhere better than underdog. Fantasy. At Underdog, you can draft best ball teams today. That's right, today for the 2023 season, they have contest live right now with over a million dollars in prizes available. Hell, they got all the sports covered at Underdog. You can enter NBA contests, NHL, PGA, whatever you're fancy, all with our promo code, fantasy points. Now it's Fantasy PTS. Head over to Underdog Fantasy. Use our code Fantasy PTS. Get your first time deposit,

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Underdog fantasy promo code fantasy PTS. All right, guys. Let's move on to the wide receiver position right now. I do have a story Valentine's real quick. Please, yes. It's not that story about them. the flowers, but one year, I thought, you know, I'm sick and tired of doing like candy and flowers. Let me, you know, be a little original creative and, you know, get something different.

And my wife's always, you know, I guess all wives are always looking for that massage. And, you know, we don't want to get too much, too deep into innuendo here. But I'm, you know, usually happy to oblige of certain activities follow. So I'm like, okay, let me. get me a professional massage table as a Valentine's gift. Dumb idea. Stupid. This is like 20 years ago. My wife gets

the gift. She's like, thanks, bro. Like, it was very awkward. She's like, what am I supposed to? I'm like, I don't know. You always ask me for massages. So neither is to say I tried it one or two times. And it's been rotting, decomposing, I guess, decaying in my garage

ever since. Don't ever buy a massage table in a a romantic setting because can we give it away as a prize from the podcast maybe on the website win guru's massage table it needs its own Twitter account really I mean the unused massage table let's go I saw my wife was going to give a gift to a friend at a baby shower it was a little baby onesie and it sat on it all mommy want it was a massage uh so very cute very cute they do they like massages you know what else was cute I thought was the magnificent seven now you coined this term for seven wide receivers that you wanted people to leave their drafts with,

you know, you get one or two of these guys. Yeah. You got to get one. And damn it, John, you're not the guru for no reason. These guys hit. I mean, if you look at the guys you're talking about here, it's studs. You crushed it. It's Justin Jefferson.

Cooper Cup. Okay, he got hurt, but he was still killing it. Chase, Diggs, Adam, Cedley Lamb. And, you know, Debo, maybe he kind of had the worst season of them all. but I mean brother you nailed it with the magnificent seven yeah that I I've used that before I I've used spectacular seven you know I don't know why people it just kind of jumps out at me like oh wow and look these are all big names obviously but the point was I don't know if they were honestly the consensus uh ADP wise um I'm not even sure of that that they were our top seven

uh they were my top seven so that's that's why I guess I did it so I I wasn't going off the ADP, but obviously it was close. But the point was I thought that they really truly stood out among the rest. Like, and that held up too. If you look, if you sort by points per game, you'll see six of the seven there in the top seven. And then Debo was out of there. But the other guys, you know, Mike Evans, but, you know, there was a drop off. So I thought it was important to point that out.

So I did. And also to give a little bit more love to the wide outs. Like I, again, I was more into taking a wide receiver last year than normal. I had Justin Jefferson at two overall. I was saying I'd take them at one because I actually was a little worried about Taylor. So, so I feel good about that because I feel like the two like things I was really pounding the table on this year,

they were pretty obvious, I guess, easy to say now. but I feel like they actually helped people. And that was get Justin Jefferson, if you're not sure about your running back in round one, even if it's a two, and hold off a little bit and just get Joe Burrow. Just do that, you know? I mean, I've heard from a ton of people are like, yeah,

it was a rocky year, but I had Burrow and I had Jefferson, done deal. John, let's talk about one of the elephants in the room, and I know I'm not going to surprise you here, because you brought it up in your article. You talked about your maybe over-reliance on drafting rookies in 2022, and specifically with regards to Sky Moore from the Chiefs. What did you take away from that situation? Are you pulling back on the rookies a little bit this year?

What did you learn from the Skymore situation, who, of course, ironically scored his first touchdown in the biggest game of his life? Well, you know, let me quote AJ Brown if I can here in relation to my Sky Moore, you know, love. This is to Juju. You was on your way out the league before Mahomes resurrected your career on a one-year deal, TikTok boy. So I did not think very highly a juju. He looked pretty, he looked better than I thought. but he also went um like eight of his final like 11 games he was under 40 yards you know like

were people starting juju in the playoffs he's dust he's dust uh did did anyone enjoy the mccull hardman experience was anyone doing cartwheels because they got mvS no no no really the answer so in that regard i stand by it but in retrospect it was a little was being a little too overly confident. None of their wide receivers really came from. None of them did. So I thought that Sky Moore would start slowly and just ascend and get better and better and better.

It didn't happen. But in retrospect, again, I can understand it's a complicated offense. And Mahomes clearly did not get to that trust level with Scott Moore. They tried. And that speaks well for his opportunities going forward. did try. If you notice, his snaps were good. But Mahomes never really was looking for him. He was just throwing to Juju because it was like thrown to a couch. You know, Juju can win against zone coverage. Fine. But long term, I still, I still believe in Sky. But that was, that was a bit strong. I came

out a little bit strong. My point was, look, I'm going to take this guy in the ninth round every time. If it doesn't hit, I mean, is it going to kill me? The other guy stink, which they did, basically, but it didn't work out for Sky. So my question then becomes if you go, if you're going to, I know it's hard to do this if we're not looking at where these guys land in the draft in terms of draft capital, what the situation is, all that stuff. But do you expect when you're going through your draft plan, your 2023 draft plan this summer, are you going to anticipate having as many rookies on your team as you did this year on those? Yeah, yeah. Well, not as late round flyers, sure. time. And, you know, they kind of were that this year. But I mean, I did, I did, I kind of, you know, got a lot of good stuff right. I mean, I wasn't trailing Berks. I wasn't in on him, really. I wasn't much of a Drake London guy. He came out a little bit. But, you know, I, but the guys I loved did prove to be good at football. So that I feel okay about that. I know we want to get actual production. But, I mean, no one's saying, oh, you love that Jahan Dodson and he stinks or or that George Pickett.

maybe Wondale. I mean, he didn't do a ton. But clearly, I need to do something to get involved with the more boring picks because I don't know. I just love the sleeper phenomenon. I mean, it's this is what gets me up in the morning. Like, nobody needs me to tell them, you know, to take Dave Montgomery in the fifth route.

Like, you know, nobody needs me for that. You might mean me, though, to tell you to take Travis E.TN 20 picks ahead of them like I did. You know, so I do love the breakout guys. We do need to be a little bit more judicious. But, you know, by the way, another lesson, you know, seasons within a season. Christian Watson, I thought I scouted out perfectly. I'm like, this kid is an unbelievable prospect and talent. Forget year one.

it's not going to happen. You know, he's raw, limited route tree, hands are shaky, Rogers won't trust him. Everything was true for two months and then they desperately needed him and then the cream rose to the top. You know, so, you know, seeing a guy like Christian Watson ball out like that,

what was he? 11th round pick, 12th round pick. I'll still back those times. Yeah, and he ended up falling off, obviously, when he got hurt. So, yeah, it's constantly evolving landscape. But yeah, I mean, the thing about, you're right about the rookies, though,

It's like, man, if these guys are that talented and they're going in the 11th round, you take a shot on them and yeah, it looks worse when you push them. But like, if anybody like, hey, you're right, thank you for telling me to draft Josh Jacobs, you know, like, it was a great call, but yeah. I always go back to that year or two where I was, I had an actual man crush on Travis Kelsey. People were pissed one year. I'm like, I am so, so sorry for backing Travis Kelsey, potentially the goat back in 2015.

My bad. You know what I mean? Like, no one's going to remember that. I think it's all about landing spot this year. When you look at teams at the back half of that first round, like the giants, the chiefs, who need a wide receiver, the Dallas Cowboys. And you've got guys like, you know, Jackson Smith and Jigba and Jordan Addison and these kind of players with their pedigree that could fall to those electric offenses with potentially some

really good quarterback play. I think those guys are going to shoot right off the board. In that draft, I got Smith and Jigba in the ninth round of a buddy mine who's also in the industry sent me a text. He goes, I'm doing underdog drafts. This guy's going in the fifth. So I think it depends where you're drafting, you know, especially guys, if you're at underdog using our code fantasy points, you might be able to get a little advantage taking

some of these rookies early. Yeah, no doubt. People aren't on them. Absolutely. And especially even, you know, were you talking about pre before they're drafted, right? Right? Yeah. Like right now if you're drafted. Totally, totally. But also even after they're drafted, because, you know, there were two guys that I ranked, we did our, you know, I guess rookie rankings for like the long term. I had it James, Garrett Wilson, Chris Oliva. But I did and we did underrate Garrett Wilson and Chris Alave a little bit. I mean, keeping it real. We did. I didn't necessarily think that like Garrett Wilson would would ride. to the top of the depth chart as quickly as he did with Elijah Moore and Alave too. Like, you know, loved them as prospects.

I thought they were just kind of, okay, you know, they're fine. But I wasn't like pointing them out like, oh, get these guys. So that I greatly regret that. So again, these are guys I liked his prospects. So yeah, Joe, I am going to still do that because those two guys were unbelievable picks, Garrett Wilson, especially. Are you okay with taking Chase or Jefferson? or maybe cut depending on his health at one overall.

I think that's where as we're going to 2023. That's where this is going to be. That top three is going to be, you know, Chase McCaffrey Jefferson. 100%. Because, I mean, I don't want to take McCaffrey in the top three. It still scares me. So, you know, I'm not normally like this,

but I started this last year where I, you know, I had Jefferson a two. Yeah. Yeah. I really, now I also love Jonathan Taylor. So I probably take Taylor over any of them. but yeah, yeah, I think we had six guys at our top 12, which is a lot for me at receiver.

This year might even be, might even be seven. John, I don't even know where to go at the tight end position. I mean, there's Travis Kelsey who scored 316 points. He scored 101 points more than the next closest tight end, which was T.J. Hawkinson, who I think people are going to really love next year, you know, another season with Kirkie in Minnesota. what are we doing at this tight Em possession? What lessons did you learn from 2022?

I mean, it really wasn't much. I kind of went back, I guess, and kind of like went through the guys that I like. You know, like as an analyst, you can be, you can really make a good call and still just no one cares and be completely wrong. Because believe it or not, I had Cole Commit as my top breakout player at tight end.

it was we had him at tight end eight in the preseason in October like by Halloween that was laughable that was like dude retire that was the worst call of all time guess what he was tight end eight at the end of the season no one cared didn't work so I guess the biggest lesson for for a tight end and it applies to my guy darnel mooney as well you know just avoid an offense that you know, when you really look deep down, could be really bad. I mean, it could be remedial. I thought I was optimistic that Fields would take a step forward because all we heard in the offseason was they're going to, you know, cater to the offense to his strengths and get them

on the run. I'm like, cool. But then they didn't do that for a month. And he threw for like 76 yards in a month. So I guess that was a lesson learned too. like, you know, if the quarterback might still be, you know, in a remedial stage, beware, especially when it's a new offense. But then, you know, but then again, if you read the article, it's like ridiculous.

If you took out the month where they were trying to win from the pocket and fields look like one of the worst quarterbacks I've ever seen, you took out that month and just looked at Mooney from whatever it was, like week four to when he got hurt. wide receiver 22 as bad as it was so did I learn a lesson there or not I don't know I mean I guess the lesson is again did I expect Justin Fields to light it up like Pastor Mahomes no but I I don't want to use the R word to describe the offense remedial so that was one of them but you know it continues to frustrate us Hockinson I liked a lot Dawson Knox Friamuth and Dalton shultz they all had their moments Hawkinson was probably a league winning type. Dawson Knox had that personal tragedy. Fryer me suffered with not really a rookie quarterback, but a bad offense.

And then Schultz had that D problem. So, you know, keep on firing, though. But we did learn, though, that, again, to back it up, I did not have Kyle Pitts on my list. I was still skeptical that it was going to be a problem with the quarterback situation. So you can't throw yourself the bowl. and, you know, breakout receivers can't break out by themselves.

And then Mark Andrews, I thought, you know, we're probably going to be hard to replicate what he did last year coming off a career year. So that's a couple of smaller ones there. Before we let you go, folks, of course, if you're watching us on YouTube, make sure you subscribe to that Fantasy Points YouTube channel. We have so much great content going on here, not only the two points stance, but so many other great content creators at FantasyPoint.com. Go over there, check out that YouTube channel.

And again, go to fantasy points.com, read the free lessons learned article. It's going to make you a smarter, better player. So, John, you're on the Mount Rushmore of fantasy analysts, I would say. I don't know. I mean, I'm going to say that. I'm going to say that. The heads yet? That's, I do that in my spare time, but I'm not hosting podcasts.

Okay. Okay. You wrote in the article here about group think. He said, group think is real. And people who spend a lot of time on social media, they get sucked into these echo chambers, right? God knows if Twitter will be around 20 minutes from now, but it is. is and you know you get the message boards and whatnot and all of a sudden we get sucked into just because one guy says it everyone picks up on that same narrative and kind of runs with it as their own

and sometimes that's not a great thing and you reference in the article the the Seattle Seahawks with Metcalf and Lockett and everyone just goes they're going to be terrible. Yeah. We did. We did. No, I was guilty of it myself. And that was that was group think, but it was a little different than. the first group thing that you kind of alluded to, which I do feel like there is like a general narrative on on fantasy Twitter.

And anyone, you know, really trying to go rail up against that is, well, they're just trying to make waves for themselves. You know, I don't know. Maybe that's just me. I've always been someone to, no offense to anybody else, but I try to not look at anything because. there have been a couple of times where I've been swayed by another expert and it never works. So, I mean, I try not to participate in that. So I don't think I'm in group think, but sometimes my thinking is the same as the group think, which was Seattle and Gino and all that. But also Jacobs, Sanders.

That was that was group think, I think. I think a lot of us were out on Derek Henry. That was a little bit of group thinking. Wasn't a bad call, but certainly wasn't a good call. By the way, one of the lesson, and this is as basic as it gets, but did we notice, and granted, Gino played a lot better than we thought, but did anyone else notice this trend of the teams that play like a lot of 11 or 12 or 13 personnel that don't have a third wide receiver? You notice how steady the production is, those two starters? It's great, John. We, I, I call them on the fantasy feast with Ross, and I'll sure.

do it here. I call them narrow fantasy teams. Yeah. The Eagles were one. The Eagles were one. Look, you had two receivers finish in the top lot, eight at the position. Those two guys are going to be off the board in the top 40 picks this year. A.J. Brown's probably going to be a first round pick. I might be underrating where DeVante Smith's going to go. But I love your term because you take a term and you turn it on its head. You call them the super spreaders. These coaches who just like, now the Chiefs did it out of necessity this year, and they can do that because Mahomes is great. And Andy Reed, too.

You're Andy Reid, man. You just go, man. Yeah, you do what you want. You know, Sean Payton's going to do. I don't know how much success he's going to have with Ross, but he'll do it. But you know what? He's kind of earned the right to do that.

But are there any, are there any coaches out there this offseason where we can say, not only is that guy a super spreader, but his quarterback's not that great. The receiving core is not that great. That's a team to avoid. And I think you, you pointed out, I know Matt Ryan was way worse than we anticipated him being, but the Colts were that way under Frank, right.

Well, and Frank, you know, I don't know what is, what is he just trying to show off? Do you have to use four tight ends, Frank? I mean, can you have? And again, you know, people can might say, what the hell do you know? You're sitting here in your mom's basement, fine. But, you know, I said on the radio, like,

again, not to tune my own horn, but if I'm railing on you and you're a head coach, you're probably going to get fired. I mean, it happens a lot. And I've been railing on Frank for a couple of years. You know, I like the staple a little bit. The Patriots, too, were,

they were really bad with that. Now, I know they do the matchup stuff and all that, but, you know, can you have some continuity, like a staple? Nathaniel Hackett was a disgusted. super spreader in the backfill. He just had to do it. Just got to get Mike Boone in there. Just have to. And I truly believe that it may have, it may have precipitated or caused

Javanti's injury. You know, when you're out there and you're like, oh, man, I'm not getting my, my touches here. I got to maximize it. You know, you're not, I felt like they did everything they could to keep him out of rhythm. And all of a sudden, boom, ACL. And then Melvin develops a fumbling problem. I don't know. It could it be a coincidence? Sure. But the Super Spreader, he's also no longer employed.

So you can spread the ball around, sure, and be successful like Sean Peyton's been. But some of these guys, it does feel like they're trying to be a little too fancy. They're trying to be better than they are, maybe. Well, we like to spread it around a little bit here at FantasyPoint.com. We ran a prop contest for the Super Bowl where we were going to give away three. Maybe we shouldn't tell John this. We gave away three free subscriptions to FantasyPoint.com. Only three. You guys are cheap.

First off, I'm blown away, Jonathan, the response. The entrance, we had tons and tons of you entered this contest. I say thank you. Joe says something else because he actually had to grade these by hand. But we appreciate everybody jumping on here. I know we're a new show on the YouTube channel and for the podcast. But we do have three new members into the Fantasy Points subscriber family in third place with 38. earning a standard subscription.

Tom Caputo, welcome to the family. In second place, 39 and a half points. Richie DeLuca. Now, Hey, I knew,

I knew, I knew Guru had to say that was about Richie. When you owned a pizzeria, Richie DeLuca was a guy who was delivering your cheese. Got a lot of South Jersey guys in here. And first place with a whopping 48 points, earning himself an all-access subscription. Rick Adelstein.

Congratulations, Rick. We'll be in contact with you guys soon. Stay tuned to this channel and this show for more fun contests and draft all off season. Well, our guest, John Hanson, follow him on Twitter at Fantasy underscore Guru. One of the, if not the best in the business, John, thanks so much for taking a few minutes to hang out with the two-point stance. Oh, yeah. Well, honor to be here. You guys already doing good work kicking off the 2023 season in fine fashion.

and Brian, I look forward to you being here more on the team this year. Can't wait. Can't wait. If you make it out to Canton again next year, I'll see you there for an adult beverage or seven. And you live in the tri-state area, right? I live in Syracuse, yes. Oh, okay. So you're, oh, okay.

So people think Syracuse is New York City. And we just kind of go, yeah, sure it is right now. It's, yeah, middle, go to where you don't want to be and take a left. That's where we are. Yeah, I'm thinking about doing a Niagara Falls trip with my kids. I've did it with my two other kids, but how far are you from there? That's Niagara Falls Buffalo. That's like two and a half hours soon.

John, have you ever been to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls? It's like a giant carnival. It's wild. Yeah. I went there after SARS in like 2001. I got like a five-star hotel for like $54. dollars because everyone no one was going I'm like yeah we'll go

me and my two oldest boys I guess we didn't take I don't know where my wife was for that but Anywho yeah it's a good trip I did the same thing I took my kids My wife and I wrote she booked a hotel she thought I was on the US side we drive up there We're going over the rainbow bridge she's like

Yeah this might be in Canada No passports for the kids no nothing We get to the border they're like So who are these kids you got documentation We're like I got pictures on my phone They're like pull over you idiot get over here and they're like grilling me about who the kids are why I'm coming into the country oh god damn they still let us end they're like where I'm like literally I'm going to

the marriott right there you can see it I just want to like you know have a beer in the lobby and let these kids run around the streets and drink some of bat blue or whatever you do in Canada but they let us in the gem the hidden gem there for people in that this region that uh I was went to my wife and I've been there twice for like a very long weekend in the summers Montreal so the closest city to Europe in North America and pretty good exchange rate right now with Canada. So there's a tip for you if you're looking for a good, you know, driving, you know, long weekend vacation. If you're in New York, Pennsylvania, all that area, like I'm like six, seven hours, a great, great city. So, Drake, I knew I was going to school for sports journalism before we sign off here.

I knew I was going to go to school for sports journalism. Well, obviously Syracuse was appealing to me at that point. Syracuse was coming off a basketball national championship. I had the Donovan McNabb factor as well. Yes, there was that. I'm feverously like refreshing Twitter now because Syracuse might beat a ranked team for the first time all year. Okay. So here's this, here's the story.

I don't know if you believe in signs from a higher power. The day my mom and I drove up to Syracuse for like my college visit was the statewide blackout in 2003. And I was like, probably not in the carts. Oh, boy. So I did not go to Syracuse because of that. I had just, again, the listeners are now bored to tears in this. But hey, this is what you get on the show. We didn't lead the show with this at least.

No, no, we didn't. So we pushed this to the end. That's good content. Yes. We got the winners in. Anyway, there we go. Fantasy advice. Stay for the travel tips.

So my dad takes me, I got into Syracuse. I went to a city high school, like whatever. I'm in a new house. I go to orientation. It's on the floor of the carrier dome. You're eating lunch, doing all this. They walk me into financial aid office. They go, Mr. Drake, this is what it's going to cost for your son to go to Syracuse University for four years.

My dad takes one look at it. Turned back and looks at me. He goes, don't sign that. He's like, I'm a truck mechanic. I'm not paying this. And I'm like, all right, well, that dream just died. So they did no scholarship money or anything. It was a thing where, you know, me being only 511, I didn't quite qualify for.

Oh, no, no, I mean, academic, you know, there's all kinds that's Yeah, what they told us. They're like, oh, we'll give you it because my best friend ended up taking the package. It's all loans. He got out of there. He's got like $175,000 in college loans. And this is in 2003 when we graduated.

Oh, yeah. My student loans have been long since paid off. Thank you, State University of New York. Oh, SUNY. You went to a SUNY. Sunni Oswego. Me and Al Roker and Steve Levy. Linda Cohn.

My son got into one of these Sunnis, the hard one too. There's a couple of them are really good. Like really good. Absolutely. Like, what's the one in New York, not Bingenton? It's in New York. Anyway, we really are boring people now. Now we're really off the trail here. But anyways. Yeah, anyways. Well, this is what you get here on the two-point stance, folks. So thank you everybody for coming and hanging in with us today. Again, go to that YouTube channel. Subscribe. If you're listening on iTunes, give us a nice review for the two-point stance and listen to all the great pods from Fantasy Points. There's some really good stuff. If you, guys are into the senior bowl. We had our guys down there in Mobile, including John, checking out the soon-to-be rookies into the league. So you're not going to want to miss that stuff. So for John Hanson and Mr. Joe Dolan, I'm Brian Drake, signing off for the two

points states. 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 FantasyPoints.com.