Fantasy Football Daily - 2Barz - Interview with High Stakes winner Abib Agbetoba

Episode Date: June 23, 2021

Scott Barrett (@ScottBarrettDFB) and Graham Barfield (@GrahamBarfield) sit down and pick the brain of the back-to-back winner of FFPC’s Championship tournament, Abib Agebtoba (@skywalka2000). They talk through how Abib won, his process, the importance of roster construction, and what they’re seeing in drafts this summer. --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/fantasy-points-podcast/support Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One foot of money, two bars on the shies and gentlemen, it is the two bars podcast. We're back. Graham and myself, Scott Barrett. We really need to, we're going to start doing this every week. This is going to be in every week, maybe every other week, at least like three times per month, podcast moving forward until the start of the season. And so, you know, getting right back into this, we got a great guest on for you. this time. It is Abib Agbatoba, who is coming off of one of the most insane feats in fantasy football history.

And that is, he took down the FFPC Football Guys Players Championship last year, won $500,000. And then the year before that, he won it too. So back to back, which is just insane. Abib, how many how many teams did you have last year last year was a lot like 67 teams okay and and how many did you have the year before that the year before i think uh had 15 okay wow so so let's just say even you had 60 both years even though what you had was less than that if you had 60 both years the chances of and let's say you're perfectly average your talent level is perfectly average right in fantasy football the chances of you winning back to back is one in 100,000 unless my math is wrong I had it up before but uh or three in 100,000 it's like 0.000 0.003% um just crazy

crazy and so people talk about is fantasy football a luck game or you know how much it does skill factor in so clearly you know uh you know the odds were way against. you so you must be doing something right you must be you know smarter than your your average bear and and that's what this episode is going to do we're going to pick your brain we're going to try and educate our listeners um i'm trying to like steal from your genius and hopefully i can take something down i i i kind of stunk last year but the year before that i finished 15th in the main event on a single bullet um or maybe it was the football guys players champion i was one of the two But yeah, so I'm excited to learn for you.

You got a list of questions. Thanks for coming on, man. Yeah, thanks for having me. This is an absolute pleasure. Well, we won't pick your brain too much on your day job. But you were talking a little bit before the show. Why don't you tell the people before we kind of dive in what you do for a living too? Because not only are you a fantasy football genius, you're an actual, like, real life, like, genius too.

No, no, I definitely would not go that far. plenty of people who know me who would argue against that but yeah so i'm in an ear-nose-nose-and-throat physician and i you know sub-specialized just in a small field called rhinology it's sinus endoscopic sinus work and skull-based type procedures and surgeries so it's definitely something i have a strong passion for you know as much as i love phanist football. I probably love what I do even more. Don't tell my patience this, but it's almost like I'm playing a video game all day. I mean, it's just, you know, it's complex anatomy. It's, you know, the instrumentation, the procedures. It's something that, you know, I love getting up in the morning

going to work every day. So, you know, I'm definitely fortunate and blessed. You know, things are good right now. Yeah, man. You're doing real life Skyrim every day on people's head. So pretty It's pretty sweet. I want to say off the top two, if you want to follow Abe, hit him up, Skywalker 2000 on Twitter. Scott, let you roll, man. I know you sent me a bunch of questions you want to hit a beep up with, so let's go from there. Yeah, so let's just start this off nice and easy. And how did you get your start playing fantasy football?

You know, when did you get into it? When did you get really crazy, like 64 teams into it? Yeah. Yeah, so for me, it all started back in college. I have to get a shout out to one of the probably the world best league commissioner, Carl Reeves. He, you know, I went to UT undergrad, and I was never really big into watching football. I love the game, but I was never really big into watching it.

And one year, he was just like, hey, we got a spot open, which you love to join. And I said, sure, that first year, I got my ass kick. Literally hand it to me. And this is one of those leagues where it's not, you know, where there was just a lot of shit talking that was going on back and forth. And so it was, you know, I'm sorry, can I curse on this podcast? I cannot curse it. Absolutely. So, yeah, it was just, you know, it was frustrating beyond belief to lose.

And I'm just a very competitive person by nature. So I think I did what anyone else would do is then I just studied. So I started, you know, reading articles. I started watching game. you know, something happened. I just found out that I love watching football. And so it just naturally evolved into me becoming a fantasy, a better fantasy football player by watching the games, reading more articles, and then obviously just learning some of the ends and outs of playing a fantasy football. And this is a unique league. It's a super flex league. So it's very different,

half-point PPR. So there are not a lot of rankings that you can point to in terms of trying to figure out who to draft and when to draft. You really had to do your homework prior. So eventually I started, you know, doing pretty well in that league. I think I hold the all-time win record. You know, that's one thing that I will brag on. But it got to a point where I was just investing so much time and energy into researching and trying to win this one league. And, you know, the money was good. You know, it's a pretty significant buy-in. But it was really. the pride factor in taking home the trophy and of course the bragging rights but i figured if i'm going to be spending this much time on one league i should probably venture out and see if maybe i could get a better ROI uh for you know as much time and energy i'm putting into learning and studying up on fantasy football okay so so when did you get into the the football guys players champions like high stakes fantasy. Yeah. So I think my first time entering the contest, I want to say it was

2018, and I had a few teams, two or three teams. Those teams did very poorly. It's a, you know, it's definitely a newer format for those who aren't familiar. It's, you know, tight-in premium. You get to start two flexes, which can be a running back wide receiver and tight-in. And so there was just a lot of nuance. It was something that was very different. for me, very different than the leagues that I had been in prior. But it took, you know, it hurt. It was another gut punch. And so for me, again, kind of being a competitive person, you know, the following year, I'd kind of doubled down and figured, you know, okay, I learned quite a bit. I watched others, you know, who posted drafts on Twitter, tried to learn a little bit more about

the format. Felt pretty comfortable. And felt like I had to have. a good read on the 2019 season, and that's when, you know, I went ahead and sorry. Hey, sorry. Okay, give me one second, but he can hop on here too. So, yeah, so that year, so 2019, I felt a little bit more comfortable and decided to to sign up for a few more teams and hit on a few players. Lamar Jackson, thanks to you guys, was one of the guys that I was fairly high on and had on the majority of my teams. And ever since then, I guess I've just kind of been playing with house money to some degree. But yeah.

So you said you only played two or three teams in 2018. What was like your biggest takeaway from your 2018, you know, kind of your first foray into high stakes going into 2019? Like what was it like your top two lessons learned? Was it like a roster construction thing or was it like, you know, the way you were building your teams in certain rounds? what was it? Yeah, all of those, really. And roster construction is something that I think if, you know, I had to kind of boil down, you know, what I feel like I do well.

For me, that that's at the top of the list. You know, I tend to draft in tiers, so I'm not necessarily always targeting one player here or there. You know, there's a handful of players every year that you want on all your teams, as many teams because you think they can have that, you know, special year. but for the most part, yeah, it really comes down to roster construction. Again, going back to it, really understanding the league settings, and that goes for any league that you're in, is very important.

But I think jumping into the high stakes realm, what I learned was that I just had to, you know, I needed a better depth of knowledge. You know, the format, 20-round draft, you really have to know, and be familiar with all the players that are available to you. I tell people all the time, you know, when these drafts get posted or if you share your draft with someone, you know, people are always looking at those first few rounds, maybe the mid-round, but really to me, it's the mid-to-later rounds where you really can set yourself apart. There's only so much that can change in those first few rounds, but those mid-to-late

rounds are really where I kind of focus in and I home in and, you know, just like anyone else, I'm trying to improve every year. And so years before where I was drafting, you know, two defenses or kicker, you know, fairly early, you know, tried to, you know, try to sharpen, you know, try to be a little bit better and improve, you know, in areas that anything that can basically give me a better advantage, you know, and give me a leg up over the field. I think I do a pretty good job as far as evaluating talent or, situations. And I think we all do, or else we wouldn't be playing this game.

You know, we all like our drafts because those are the guys that we chose. But, but I think it comes down to really focusing in on that team construction, that team build, and not letting those last few rounds just be, oh, let me pick, you know, whoever is at the top of the, you know, the ADP list. Yeah, so there's a lot of good stuff there that want to pick your brain on. I want to come back on one thing. But the first one is you said something real key, think, you know, the first couple rounds, I usually think of them, like, we're all kind of following ADP in rounds one through four for the most part. I mean, you can kind of step out of the box a little bit in those spots, but I'm with you. I think it's really like the mid to late

rounds, especially in these big tournaments. So like, you know, you said you draft based on tiers and I kind of do the same thing as well. Like, what is, like, how do you construct your tiers in the mid to late rounds? How would that like defer from just, you know, an average fantasy player? Yeah. So, and this is where I guess we've got to tie in roster construction as well. So it's important to know, you know, to know where you have certain players ranked in your mind, but it also be aware of what the ADP is. So there are certain players that I may have, you know, a fifth round grade on, but I know based on ADP, I can get them in the seventh. So when I'm constructing a roster, especially in a tight-in premium, if I feel like I can,

you know, jump a little bit ahead or if I feel like I need a tight-in, you know, you know, you know, if I feel like I need a tight in, say I want to take Noah Fant in the sixth or seventh round, but there's a wide, but I know I need another flex position of, and there's a wide receiver that I feel like I can get the round later. That's a situation where understanding that I have X amount of players in these tiers and there are X amount of these players available, I can be more comfortable taking this tight in knowing that I can get one of those players in the following round. So that's kind of a convoluted way of saying it. It's, I guess, tough for me to articulate and put in the words, But for me, tears is everything.

The other thing that it does is it allows you to draft comfortably. It allows you to draft without, you know, feeling like you're stressed for time or without feeling like you have to reach on certain players. You know, when I'm drafting, I've gotten to the point now where I literally don't have a sheet of paper. I don't have any, you know, apps to assist me in drafting. I just have a good understanding of what's available, what the boards look like, what the, you know, what the current ADP, you know, standings or current ADPs are. And for me, it just, it helps me out quite a bit in getting through a draft and being able to think a round or two ahead. Yeah.

So drafting with tiers is just something, you know, I've always intuitively done as well, especially as it relates to individual positions. something I used to do and maybe didn't do a lot of last year in the FFPC was I would just have, you know, circled players where, okay, I know I'm drafting from the 12 spot. So I just kind of try and map out each round. And so like two years ago, it was Lamar Jackson circled. I have to draft him here. You know, another player, let's say, okay, sixth round. He has a seventh round 80P, but I need to get him sixth round.

He's just two. he's a three round value by my ranking. So do you have that too? And then as it relates to that, how do you having 64 teams, how do you look at exposure to individual players? Do you not want to have, you know, over X percentage of a certain guy or if it's like Elijah Moore in round 17, give me 100% of that every single time? Yeah. You know, it's funny. This is a tough question because by nature, I'm.

I'm not someone, you know, I'm a bit risk-averse. So if you look at the majority of my draft boards, you're not going to see anything that's crazy. You're not going to see me taking cowpits in the, you know, second round or first round. You're not going to see any major reaches, especially in those early rounds. That being said, when it comes to your question of exposure, especially when I'm doing, you know, mass or a large amount of drafts, I have no issues with being extremely overweight on a certain player with the understanding that I, A, I could just be completely wrong about said player, or B, that player could be injured. And so it's one of those things that I think is really, it's got to be, you know, it's a personal

choice and personal decision, and it's something that you got to be comfortable with. You've got to understand that, okay, if I'm 100% on ex-player and he just has a dud in those championships weeks or he gets injured, then my teams may be screwed. Now, the good thing is that the majority of people that you're drafting with have skill. I never feel like I'm just drafting with, you know, maybe there's an occasional player here or there, but for the most part, I think these, you know, in the high-stake leagues, most of these guys have an idea of what they're doing. So that saves you from yourself a bit to where it's hard to really have 100% ownership or even maybe 70% ownership, definitely in some of those later rounds.

I think starting off, you know, having done a number of football guys, drafts, Devante Booker is, I think, Devante Booker and Samadje P. Ryan are my highest-owned players. But everyone else is extremely low because it's so, it's tough. It's tough to get everyone, you know. And then I do have players, like you said, like you mentioned, Lamar Jackson, players this year that I circle and I want to try to get on as many teams as possible because you're right. When you feel like a player can really outperform his ADP by three or four rounds, that's huge. To me, that's league winning upside. So I try to identify those players and try to target

them because if I'm overweight, that's really what's going to allow me to to lap the field or to get a leg up over the field when it comes to the overall champion. Thinking back on last year, I think my highest own guys were Hollywood Brown, which didn't work out. Deontay Johnson, which almost worked out. And Antonio Brown. But I had them like definitely probably like 60% exposure to every single one of those guys. I don't remember the running backs too well or the tight ends.

Who was your like maybe three highest on players last year? And do you have, can you like ballpark a percentage? Yeah, percentage is going to be tough. But Deontay was definitely one of them. he was definitely someone I was quite high on and just the Houston Texans in general. And I don't feel like I'm a homer. Don't feel like I'm a home. But I felt like Watson was being not necessarily disrespected,

but he was at the bottom of that QB tier. And I felt like going into last year that he was an excellent quarterback. And I think we saw it based on his play last year, he played, I mean, he played elite, especially with what he was different. I mean, he was. The Texans would have been a two-win team if they didn't have Watson last year. Oh, absolutely. He carried him, especially in the back half.

Absolutely. So I was very high on Watson, but Fuller was someone that, I mean, I was just grabbing in as many drafts as possible. And especially when we started drafting early on, he was going in like the eighth, ninth round at times. So that was an easy grab. And then my quarterback last year, because we, of course, we were trying to find the next Lamar. You know, it's always trying to find the next person, even though that person may not exist. It was Josh Allen. Yes. That I was, that I had targeted quite often. Him and actually Tannahill were probably my two highest-owned QBs. And then when it came to the tight-in position,

it was a little bit late, but as soon as waivers opened before the season even started, we tried to, me and my buddy, Deo, we tried to get as many shares of Logan Thomas as we could. So is that your partner, Dale? Yeah, Deo, Dr. Dale Adisei. I got to be careful and make you up with the doctor in front of it. But yeah, he's who I do to my pod with. So is he your partner for these 64 teams? No, no. We disagree way too much to. He's my partner in a sense in terms of the, you know, he keeps me honest. So if there's a player that I'm super high. Exactly, bounce ideas off of it. And he'll push me, he'll push me to the limit. asked the relevant questions and I'll find out, you know, is this something that's real?

And then if we both land on a certain player, then we know that it's maybe a player that we need to be a little bit higher on in trying to get the overweight over the field. Real quick. I had a follow up real quick on, you know, you said Samajey Piron and Devonce Booker, you're two highest drafted players so far this year. One thing I've been trying to think about, you know, playing like, you know, the underdog, you know, massive best ball tournament. That's, you know, only $25 entry, but you can draft like a hundred hundred thousand.

150 teams. One thing I've been trying to think about, you know, is like in the final couple rounds, not necessarily just following chalk ADP and just like going off the board a little bit. I wouldn't say the Samajé, P. Ronda, DeVonte, Booker are two off the board, but like in a 20 round draft, those guys are typically not going. So like, do you have a similar approach in these larger field tournaments where you're trying to get not necessarily guys that are like off the board, but like lower owned relative to normal drafts? Yeah, you know, I don't think it's a, I don't look at it from a standpoint of I'm trying to, you know, go after guys that are going to have low ownership. For me, those guys have almost just as much value as some of the higher priced handcuffs that go 10 rounds earlier, you know, we can, we can't guess and predict injury. So if we have a good sense of who the primary handcuff is going to be, you know, why are we valuing certain handcuffs differently?

And I understand, you know, Tony Pollard may have some standalone value and he's in an offense, you know, where if he does get that, you know, take over due to a Zeke injury that, you know, obviously he would probably have a higher upside than a Devante Booker or some Ajie Pryon. He's just more talented. But again, we can't predict injuries. So for me, those guys, you know, the cost value for that is, I think, and the potential ROI on that just made a lot of sense. I mean, Devante Bucker and Samadji Pryan, early on in the draft season, again, like you said, weren't even being drafted. And so those were free handcuffs that I could get.

And then I can focus on other positions while people were spending, you know, eighth round draft capital on getting someone like Tony Pollard, who would be typical to us. you know, throw into a starting lineup. No, I love the logic on that because handcuffs are nine times out of ten traps, especially like the Pollards and the Alex Madisons, like those guys, yeah, man, those guys are total traps. So I love the logic behind that. And that's exactly what I did last year with Mike Davis. He was literally someone, yeah, once I was, once I was comfortable knowing that he was indeed the primary handcuff, because it was, it was a tough situation to decipher early on. But once I had felt like I had a good beat on that, I mean, I just, I just lock button

Mike Davis at the end of draft because it was just free. And sometimes you get lucky and it hit and sometimes that's what it takes. Have you looked into like, you know, how well your teams do based on when you draft? Like, do you think you do better early in the year or later? If I had to pick the best two pockets to draft, I would say early and I would say late. Yeah. Early on before ADP sets in, you know, if. Is that early on before? the drafts? Oh, sorry, right after the draft. So I started this year, I started drafting probably a little bit early than I normally

do right after the NFL, actual NFL draft. So to me, that's the early pocket. And then the late pocket is that Labor Day weekend where I think, you know, people are just itching the draft. People are, you know, you know, they come across the football guy and say, oh, that looks interesting. So, you know, you have some new blood, fresh blood. And, you know, basically you have me from 2018, someone who,

maybe a very good fancy player, but just not very familiar with this format. And, you know, you could potentially take advantage in some of those drafts or have some value fall to you. Yeah, that's kind of what I hear from all of the experts, the pros. Like Aaron H is the best ball goat. We'll say you're the football guys players championship goat. He says, the best time to draft is like August when all the fish come out to play to play. That's when he has the best ROI. These guys haven't been paying attention all year. He's been following everything religiously. And then way early on where he knows the rookies better than everyone else.

Main event doesn't draft before the NFL draft, I don't think. But for basketball, that can be huge, you know, pinpointing at Elijah Moore when he was free. And to, you know, tie this back to what you're saying about exposure before is like he'll be very even the field round one, round two in ADP. And then, you know, he'll take some bolder stands, but doesn't want to be above, you know, 22% or below, you know, 5% on any one player. But then, like, round 15, 16 and beyond,

like, he'll just be 100% on a guy if he really believes in him. But you were saying something before about, you know, the specific league settings. And I think the main event, football guys, players, championship, that's my favorite league setting. It's tight end premium, two running back, two wide receiver, two flex, kicker in a defense. I mean, it can't be perfect, but really love that,

really love the tight end premium. So how would you go about exploiting that? How do you go about exploiting that? You said Somagie Piron, you said Devante Booker. I know a common strategy is really hammering handcuffed running backs in the later rounds because, you know, in order to take first place out of all of these, these teams, these, you know, 15,000 teams, whatever it is, you need upside. And a great way to get upside is, okay, CMC goes down. You get Mike Davis, low end RB1. So how are you targeting, let's say,

tight ends, or are you, how do you feel about handcuffs, et cetera? So how did these specific league settings change your approach? So, yeah, tight and premium, you know, initially, you know, I think when you first join a league like this, when you first draft a league like this, and you look at the setting, you see, oh, you know, tight-in gets 1.5 points, immediately you start overvaluing tight-ins. And maybe you should, but I try to avoid that.

Outside of Travis Kelsey, I try to really not spend a top-end pick on a tight-in if I don't have to. I try to just basically play the draft until I have value that falls to me. So that's one position that I, you know, I kind of use the term I want to win at. And basically, you know, ideally I get someone who maybe has a sixth round ADP in the seventh round. My whole approach to football guys is to make sure that I have a starting roster that I feel comfortable with.

And I think one of, you know, I'll call it a mistake. And, you know, obviously any team can win any given week. But one of the mistakes I feel like I see are that teams draft and they're drafting for so much upside. and they draft a lot of questionable players with questionable roles. Ideally, what I have are four running backs that I can start week in and week out. Because you need to start two running backs in my two flex positions, I would love to be running backs. Why is that? Because if I'm starting them, I feel like they have high floor as well as high upside.

The wide receiver position to me with the exception of a handful of players is just so much volatility. So when we're thinking about these high-stake tournaments where the last three weeks of the season, excluding week 18, are what we call the money weeks where your points are added up over a three-week period. I want players producing, obviously, at their highest peak. But wide receivers tend to have a big week, and then the following week, you may get a single point output, but even in a PPR league. So for me, I'm really targeting running backs as much as I can, but I also want to make sure that I have a starting lineup, again,

that I feel comfortable with starting week one. So if I can wait on tight end and try and target a late round tight in or at least someone in round seven or eight, that's ideally the way that I would start. But then if Darren Waller falls to me, if he falls a little bit past ADP, then it'll be a player. then that'll be a time where I will take a tight-in in those earlier rounds.

Yeah, I don't want to put words in your mouth. You know, Kelsey is going top five in FFBC leagues. Watters typically like the first-round pick, Kittled top 15, top 20. To me, it sounds like you're kind of not necessarily targeting any of the big three. And, you know, you made a comment about pits earlier that you're not reaching for him. And pretty much everybody's reaching for Kyle Pitts at this point. So if you're not drafting one of the big three, you're not targeting pits or over drafting pits, like who are your top guys for, you know, at tight end in these FFPC

leaks you're targeting? This, my ownership is pretty much spread across the board. I have a few Kyle Pitts when he's fallen to the late third round because I feel like it's a situation where, again, I, you got to understand the wide range of possibility and you got to understand that you could just be wrong on a certain player. And not that I don't think Carl Pitts can be great. I just love guys that are going in a second round that I feel a lot more comfortable in terms of their production. But as far as, you know, guys that I think I probably maybe a little bit overweight on, I have a lot of Eric Ebron.

It's not a sexy name, but he goes in the 16th round, and I don't know if it's them drafting a rookie tight end. But for me, you know, just kind of having a stable guy there until I can find, you know, the next Logan Thomas, Aaron Wall, etc. or, you know, he's someone that I grab, and he's usually a backup, but that's definitely someone that I have. I'm really falling in love with Gerald Everett. He's someone that I'm trying to target. I'm in love with the Seattle Seahawks offense this year, just in general. I love who they brought in for their OC.

I'm definitely buying into the narrative of, okay, you know, Russ, you know, spoke with Pete Carroll and talked about wanting to have more ownership of the offense or at least being more balanced. because I think there's a certain narrative. Sorry to kind of go off topic here. But I think there's a certain narrative that happened with Seattle, and I think we kind of missed it. You know, they let Russ cook early on, but their defense was very, very bad. So they were cooking too much, you know. And because their defense was bad, they started to lose certain games. Or their defense just couldn't, their defense couldn't keep up with their offense, I think.

And I think what Pete Carroll saw was that, okay, we need to slow things down, slow the game down. But eventually their defense became much better. and obviously they were a playoff team. So I think this year they go in knowing that the defense is solid or at least better than it was last year. But I think they really listen to Rust as you have to these days with these Star QBs. And all these quarterbacks basically looked around the league and saw what Tom Brady was afforded and what he was given with Tampa Bay and a lot of, you know, as far as a lot of say with what that offense was about. So for me, the Seahawks in general, but yeah, Gerald Everett is definitely one of my top guys.

Goddard is someone I don't have a lot of, but he's someone that if he falls, I'm definitely targeting. I'm assuming Ertz is gone, and he's someone who I think could definitely at least give you, you know, potentially top four, top five value depending on if he stays healthy. someone who I'm shockingly, you know, had zero shares of is T.J. Hawkinson. And I understand the love and I understand that he could, you know, but he's someone that I think I'm okay missing out on. I just don't know. I can't buy into the idea of him, you know, in the late third round and passing over guys like

Alan Robinson, C.D. Lamb, even Amari Cooper type. Yeah, so it sounds like you're really sticking to a kind of a late-ish round strategy this year with your tight ends. Yeah, no, I love what you said about the Seahawks because, you know, I've been heavily on Metcalf and Lockett and Wilson in, you know, some of my drafts. I mean, first eight or nine weeks of last year, Seattle was the most pass-heavy team. They were tied with, you know, like the chiefs and the bucks in terms of pass rate and neutral situations, you know, in the games within eight points. And then, you know, like you mentioned, their defense really took off in the back half of last year. And, you know, now you bring in Shade Waldron and, you know, he comes from the Rams. Rams are typically, you know, more pass heavy, you know, they lean more pass heavy in general.

So I'm with you. I think Seattle, all Seattle guys are kind of under like have an untapped upside, especially Lockett, man. Like Lockett's different. Absolutely. It's different. Keep a pack you can get. Yeah. I mean, it's just Lockett, you know, I was talking to Scott about this yesterday. And, you know, we're talking about like week winning players, you know, Tyler Lockett

definitely had quite a few duds last year. But when we're playing in these basketball leagues, we're looking for a week-winning scores and lock in, Matt Caff and Wilson, they all three have it. Scott, didn't you have a follow-up on the roster construction, I think, didn't you?

Maybe. I still have a few more questions. One of which you said you're pretty risk-averse. And just, you know, the odds of finishing like first out of however many thousand teams, I feel like, you know, you need to lean into risk or swing for the fences on picks, but obviously, you know, your success is ridiculous. So you want to just talk a little bit about what you're looking for there and why maybe a margin of safety is beneficial to your teams?

Yeah, you know, I guess it's the term upside that I think gets overused or is poorly defined in many situations. Because I honestly, I could just go through the entire draft, go down into the 19th and 20th round and players that are deemed safe with, you know, low upside. We can go through their game logs and find a week where they produce upside, you know. You can take someone like a cold Beasley. I'm sure, you know, I don't know it off the top of my head, but I'm sure there's some 20 point weeks in there. So for me, you know, I guess my main, my main, themes to drafting. And what I'm, you know, my main approach is to draft players with high floor, high upside at value. And it sounds simple and it sounds like, okay, yeah, that's obvious,

but that's literally what I shoot for. So I never feel a need to just reach on a player unless, again, that's that one player that I've identified that I feel like should be going three or four rounds earlier. That's a player that I'll reach a round ahead just to ensure that I get that player on my team. But, you know, a guy like Robert Woods, you know, I have a ton of Robert Woods. He's one of my higher-owned players outside of, you know, the Samadjapiririan and Devante Bookers. But I have a ton of Robert Woods. And early on, I was getting him in the fifth round. It was just one of the easiest decisions to make. But that's a guy that, you know, people may like, but I don't think anyone ever, you know, brings his name up when they talk about upside plays.

So you're never going to look at my draft if I post them on Twitter and say, that's a sexy draft. I don't think anyone has ever commented and said, wow, you killed that draft. You know, they're almost shocked at, you know, like how mundane and boring my board looks. But I don't know, that's just, I guess just my approach. I feel like, you know, certain guys I can be out on and I'm fine with taking a value. where it falls. But there are plenty of guys that I will not draft or at least within, you know, two to three rounds of their ADP. But yeah, for the most part, I want the high floor with the high upside. And I want to try to get those players of value because it's really what you're trying to do.

You know, how many players can you get at value in a 20 team or a 20 round draft? And then I think whoever has the most value ultimately sort of kind of rises to the top as a result of that. No, I think that makes a ton of sense. You know, you're looking for players, obviously, to beat ADP, but, you know, you're not going to go out of your way to force anything. You know, one of the things I think people are making way too big of a mistake on in some of these, you know, tournaments is they just are forcing stacks. You know, I'll see like Kyler Murray go off the board, like in the third or fourth round just so you can get a nuke, you know, like a Murray nuke stack. what's your stance on stacking and you know what you know do you know i know i know what you'll say in terms of value but like do you go not necessarily go out of your way and say hey i have to

have a wilson metcalf stack here but you know what's your like in general your theory on stacking in tournaments i've never entered a draft saying i got to get x stack yeah you know and even while drafting uh the last thing that i'm thinking about is okay i need to stack x player Now, yes, if I have DeAndre Hopkins and Kyla Murray sitting there in a six, and it's him or Lamar or Dak, then yeah, I'm going to take Kyler in that situation. But I don't know. Maybe, you know, I'm not a mathematician. You know, when it comes to math and statistics, you know, I'm definitely lacking in that area. But it just made, to me, I just want the quarterback that scores the highest points.

You know, I don't care that, you know, he's necessarily throwing it at that wide receiver. You know, you may have a week where, yeah, that stack looked great, but then I'm sure. It may be a situation where it was the wide receiver four and the quarterback three of that week. Well, I'd rather just have the quarterback one and the wide receiver one of that week. So, I mean, I understand the logic behind it, and I think it plays more of a role in bestball. But in season long, you know, like you said, obviously I'm definitely not going out of my way forward. If I can get it at value, I think it's great. You know, we're seeing, I mean, so many, I mean, this is the year of the quarterback, you know, take your pick.

But, like, you know, you were high on marquey's. last year. I was high on Marquis Brown last year. I'm doubling down. So it's easy to get Lamar this year. And, you know, I see Marquis Brown in a nice round and that's just an easy, you know, decision for me. It doesn't work out. It doesn't work out. It's not, I'm not spending a lot of money on it. So there are some cheaper stacks where I pay a little bit closer attention to. We talked about the Seahawks. I love getting Wilson and Everett. I don't know why. But that just to me, you know, that's something where any, you know, over two weeks span, we could easily see Everett scored two to three touchdown that could really propel you in one of these large-ville formats.

Love that. Yeah, I like Everett a lot. Every offseason, I do a post-draft presser review series where, you know, the GM and the head coach talks about the players be drafted and why. And the Dwayne Espridge conference was like really disappointing for, you know, I guess between Eskridge dynasty owners. But they ended it by saying like, oh, but we love Gerald Everett. Like he's the number three receiver on our team.

That's really important. We need that because, you know, you're always going to leave, you know, one of Metcalf lock it open. You can't cover both. And then having the third guy, that's just so key as well. So I think that's a great value pick and especially in the tight end premium format. And I love that. you know, this is kind of like a tangent, but not that I hate it, but you get these sort of kind of, you know, one sentence quotes that get tweeted, retweeted and just, you know,

thrown out over Twitter and people, you know, and we just run with it. I really want, I want everything. I want the entire, you know, I want the entire, I want the entire conversation. I actually want to hear it too. I want to hear the excitement in the voice. I want to see the facial expression. You can get so much from that. So what you're doing with that, I think is just amazing. And it's, you know, it's something that it's hard to kind of put, you know, it's hard to put a value on it, but I think it's extremely valuable. That's just a microcosm of, you know, what social media is now. You know, it's like, give me that one sentence, that two sentence that's going to get, you know, generate as many retweets and likes as possible without any context. And that's the way, yeah, that's the way fantasy.

he's going to. You made a comment, this is the year of the quarterback. And this year, I think we're seeing quarterbacks go off the board at, you know, ADPs that we haven't seen since like 2013, 2014. You know, I know it's a little bit different in FFPC. You know, it's a little bit more muted because you have the tight ends boost up the board for obvious reasons. But what's your, you know, what's your take on the Lamar, Dak, Kyler, kind of tier that's, you know, in the mid-round's right now. Are you in on that or do you think it's appropriately valued where are you at on it? Oh, yeah. It's definitely appropriately valued. Now, I wouldn't say that I'm necessarily targeting them, but it is so hard not to not to go ahead and click that draft button in the

sixth round when you see a Lamar or Kyler Murray. I think fifth round is a little bit too early for me, but that's knowing that I've been in plenty of drafts where they fall to the six. You know, my tier, what I've learned through drafting, and drafting will keep you honest, because I can say that my tier is Mahomes to DAC, but really, DAC seems to be in a separate tier just below that. And it's crazy because I understand that he was just on an historic pace last year, I think the top all QBs of all time in scoring. But, you know, I think when I just sort of add everything up with the defense,

potentially getting better, I understand he's healthy coming off the injury. but there's something there where, you know, I think maybe it's a little bit harder to, to repeat. But I love the upside of Lamar and the bounceback. I like the idea that he still has room to grow from a passing volume standpoint. I love the idea of Kyler. He still has room to grow just as a quarterback in general. And I'm in love with who they, you know, with Moore, Rondell Moore, as far as them being, really being able to open up that offense. I think that's just, I mean, to me, I think that's one of the under,

you know, one of the most overlooked aspects of the draft that Rondale Moore picked. Whether it's this year or the years to come, I think he's going to make a significant impact for that team. But so, yeah, ideally I'm getting Lamar Murray. And then I'm okay with, you know, if I see DAC in the seventh, you know, I'll say, you know, let me take that value again because we've seen him produce overall number one numbers. But there are so many guys that I'm okay with late and I'm okay playing that game of you know waiting knowing that I can get you know tana hill and cup or a wilson and then I usually will couple one of those guys with like a tray lance you know getting the concom quarterback oh yeah yeah yeah all of what you said is just music amyos because

lamar is my most drafted a quarterback this year uh Scott and I were both all over him in his you know 2019 season and like the 10th round I mean I was just like a freaking golden ticket and last year he's way overdrafted and I have like zero um and now Dude, Trey Lance. We got to talk about Trey Lance. I mean, I have a ton of Lance in like the 13th, 14th round. I've been on record saying I think he's going to start week one. Why would you give up all that capital for him not to? He's got all the pieces in place. I think if there is a Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, Josh Allen type league winner this year, it's going to be Trey Lance. I'm 100% in agreement. I mean, what don't you love about this situation? he's freakishly athletic. He's in the Kyle Shanahan system. And then I do look at strength of schedule, okay? More of a standpoint, okay, if you're at the very, very bottom,

then at the best you're going to be average. And I'm okay with my team or my set player playing against an average defense. So when I look at his schedule, especially weeks 15, 16, and 17, you know, it just has a potential to really be a league winner, a tournament winner. so I want him on as many teams as possible. And even if he's not starting week one, he's one of those few players, even at the quarterback position,

that I will hold on to. One thing that I've kept with me since I've started, since that 2018, I've changed a lot of things, and I used to always get a lot of flack for drafting multiple quarterbacks. But that's something that I've always kept with me. You know, there are situations where, okay,

if I get Lamar, Kyler, in an FFPC format, if I just see a lot of skill position players that I'd rather have than, you know, I'll roll solo. But if I'm drafting Russell Wilson or, you know, anyone who falls, you know, below that Dact here, I'm always drafting another QB with them. They score the most points. So why not play the game of, you know, we do it with our running backs. We do it with our wide receivers when it comes to start sit. You don't have to start Russell Wilson when he plays the Rams defense, you know.

You don't have to make that start. If you have a better option, you can do that. So the quarterback position is always one that, you know, unless I have one of those top tier guys, I usually have two or three of. And Trey Lance, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm in love. Yeah, I really love that you brought up Trey Lance's strength of schedule because I do a strength of schedule series every year. And I think I do it better than just about anyone.

But I always like, I never reference it beyond the initial piece because, like, I feel like people judge me with strength and schedule stuff. You like hate it. They're like, oh, the correlations are low. So it's great to hear someone with your success bring it up. Just to reference my article at least, Trey Lance, the second most favorable strength of schedule of any quarterback,

second most favorable through the first five weeks of the season, and the best schedule in the fantasy postseason. So a huge edge for Trey Lance, who quarterback just like tricky for me because instinctually I want to go, late round and there's so much value. Love Trey Lance. Love Jalen Hertz. Also like a sneaky Taseum plus James Winston stuff. It's so cheap. Yeah. I love to. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. But like Kyler Murray, Lamar Jackson. So it's hard to pass on those guys too. Just just know with

quarterback you have a lot of options. Yeah. Yeah. And again, I think that's why I think this year is very unique because you could be in a situation where before it was only two or three of those guys. So you only had two or three teams in your league that you had to contend with. Now we may have six, seven, eight, nine of those guys. And if you don't have one of those elite quarterbacks, you may really be at a disadvantage. I had a, I felt like a lot of what I call stack teams. I mean, just, you know, up and down the roster elite teams. But that didn't end up making the tournament because I was struggling at quarterback. And one of the guys outside of Josh Allen that I was high on last year was Matt Ryan.

And he killed a number of my teams last year. So, yeah. So like you said, a lot of options. And don't be scared to draft more than one. Yeah, I've been talking to Mike Sanda. I'm not sure if you're familiar with him. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Mike Sanda is an NFFC pro and he does like 200, freaking $150 best ball draft champions. Yeah. He's a maniac. I'm highly impressed. I don't know how people do. Yeah, I don't know how he does it either, man. But yeah, we've been exchanging messages. And he's kind of, he said basically the same exact thing that you just said, that he

was super overconfident in his ability to identify those late round quarterbacks last year. And I think, I think that intuitively, that's why we've seen quarterbacks get boosted up in ADP this year, you know, like we just discussed with Lamar and Kyler and Dak. But I also think, you know, it's one of those things where like, Okay, quarterback is is replaceable, but like are the top 12 quarterbacks replaceable? Like they, they're generating so much in terms of floor and ceiling. They're just generating such higher output than like the QB 13, QB14 on a weekly basis. You know, and especially, you know, the NFFC is a six point.

The NFFC tournaments of six point per passing touchdown league. So it's even more, you know, apparent there. But yeah, it's just, it's interesting to hear you say that too, because I think, I think just like for me, For me, for me, too, and we've all kind of been ingrained with, you know, the weight round quarterback strategy for all these years. You know, I think, I think that's like the biggest adjustment that we need to be making this year is to, you know, to make sure we're properly valuing the quarterbacks. Because like you mentioned, I'm with you. I think Dak and Lamar and all that entire tier is appropriately valued. Yeah, you brought me, you brought up a good point as far as

overconfidence. And it applies to multiple positions because I think at the end of the year, when we're going into a new season. We tend to cherry pick or tend to look at overall stats. But if you go back, and again, you use this term self-audit and you look at, you know, how often did you correctly pick the right quarterback to start giving week? Same thing with wide receivers, you know. I think you have to really understand that, okay, yes,

they're in the stats, the end of your stats may look great, and you may think that, okay, yeah, I can just roll, and stream quarterback, and I can do it with Fitzpatrick and Cousins. But you really have to ask yourself, how often are you going to be right in those situations? So, yeah, for me, like, I think we're all in agreement. You definitely want to have some safety and security or at least have multiple options, ideally a high-end option. Yeah.

I wanted to ask you, who was on your team last year that won that took down the championship? Oh, yeah. I got to bring this up. So the quarterback was Josh Allen. Yeah. Our son, our son, Josh Allen, Scott. And after we just had that lengthy discussion about stacking and now I don't stack, of course, I had step on digs. In the six round, in the sixth round, in the sixth round, Alvin Kamar was, of course, on that team.

And that's one of those situations where that's where the luckbacker comes in. Because who knows where I took Alvin Kamar, but that's not a hard piece. pick to make at any point in the first round, really. So I was fortunate that he had his spike week on the week that I had him. And then I had Logan Thomas. I did have George Kittle. So again, you know, we talked about not drafting tight ends early, but that was a situation where George Kittle really didn't help me out the majority of

the season due to the injuries. But he was drafted on that team. And trying to pull it up here. sorry for the dead airways. Yeah, while you're pulling it up, what did you do with the money? How many lambos did you buy? Honestly, I didn't do much with it, man. You went out an all-caviard diet?

No, no, you know, you try to get back a little bit. I did help my mom out with the car. I just threw most of it in the stocks. I just said, like, I just pretend like I didn't even notice it. It's just saying, it's true, man. Knowing your luck and then he made another like three-minute. I'm going to say. It's funny because I did throw it into the stocks at the right time.

This has been everything, you know, goes up. You know, you could have put in a random three-letter ticker and it would have made money in the last, you know, 12 months. Yeah, no, that's definitely the right way to do it. Definitely the right way to do it. Oh, yeah. So James Connor was on that team. Calvin Ridley was on that team.

DJ Chark, Kyler Boyd, Deonté Johnson. He went in the eighth round in that draft. Tony Pollard. So that was at, I think in that draft, I got him in the 10th round. So didn't have to spend again. If I would have spent an eighth round pick on him, I would have missed out on a guy like Deonté Johnson. So it's nice to be able to get him later.

But, you know, if you ever see my board, you will see that, you know, I will try and get as many of the higher end, you know, the anywhere from the second to fifth, six-round wide receivers, you know, guys that I feel comfortable. starting, you know, week in and week out, and I can deal with the dud week and feel confident that they'll bounce back the following week. And then the rest of my draft is I'm just, you know, hammering running backs, occasional tight in here, and then I'm hammering running backs. Because it really is, you know, it's just, it's by chance that one of these guys may hit, you know, and so you hope that you have the right combination of players. And then again, I think we talked about

Logan Thomas. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, this year, running backs are obviously, you know, last year was a pretty bad year for running backs from a number of angles. But it's interesting, you know, last year was a really bad year for running backs. And this year it's almost like the market is like double down, triple down on the backs. Like, you know, we're seeing typically in 9, 10 running backs go off the board in the first round, another 5 or 6 in the second round. So how are you attacking the board this year knowing that, you know, running backs are going to come off the board early and it gets pretty, it gets pretty shaky, pretty quick in like the third, fourth round. It's kind of a big, long tier once you get past, say, the top 15, top 18. Yeah, I'm just attacking value with the mindset that wide receiver is very deep this year.

And there are a lot of guys that I feel comfortable with as my wide receiver won. And I think that some of the guys that are going in the second round are a bit overvalue. And maybe it's just me, you know, I had digs and I love digs because he obviously won me a championship last year. but I just can't pull, I can't get myself to draft them in the second round. You know, I want to find this year's digs. So for me, I'm trying, if I can ideally start off with three running backs, ideally I'm doing that. It may not, you know, be the, you know, quote unquote, highest upside play,

but it allows me to be able to construct my team however I want it. It allows me to be able to attack value throughout the draft. Whereas if I only take one running back, then I'm forced to, try and play catch up at this position and I'm forced to pass on value that may fall to me. And this year, I think the wide receiving group is just as deep it's ever been. So if you're ever going to have value that's going to fall to you and more times than it not, it's usually going to be at that wide receiver position. So there are plenty of guys that, you know, just it's the offseason.

So news comes out. So, you know, you can take your pick. Saquan, it's the, you know, it's him coming out the ACL. So if I'm, you know, drafting in the mid to late rounds, it, you know, it's lock button Saquan because I'm drafting with the idea that once we enter training camp, we're probably going to see Seekwan,

and that's when his ADP is going to shoot back up to top three. So right now, let me get as many of the seven to ten chairs as I can. Zeke is someone, you know, I don't call him a post-type sleeper, but he's a bounce-back player. So he's someone I immediately knew going in that, okay,

if he's in the later round, I'm going to try and get as much Zeke as possible. Kamara, oddly enough, has been that guy now that I've seen trying, you know, he is a wide range, his ADP, but he's one guy that you can see fall, and I understand, you know, the concern with him, but he's someone that I'm fine, you know, picking up value. I mean, you can just kind of a long list of guys. They all have their wars outside of CMC and maybe Dalvin. They all have something that you could point out that may potentially be a negative. So I'm just trying to attack ADP at that standpoint. So right now I'm

ideally drafting in the later rounds because I feel like that's when the running backs will fall to me. But I think really it's the third round for me where I'm again trying to attack that running back position. So I find myself feeling more and more comfortable drafting guys like Miles Sanders. I've always been comfortable drafting D'Andre Swiss. I'm 100% buying that dip. I'd never bought into the Todd Gurley signing. And after he didn't sign within a few days of visiting them, I felt like that was, you know, nothing was going to come from that. I think there would be, have plenty of run volume and will be passed will be thrown into the backs at a fairly high clip to where he'll easily be able to outproduce a third round value but but yeah I mean if I can start

off with three running backs that's that's my ideal start just because I love what it allows me to do from a roster construction standpoint. Love that and I love your Zique tick too because I bumped Zique up to four in my rankings you know got it you know I think I've got it a CMC cook Henry and then Zeeke and then Barclay. I'm with you on Zique, man, because like, you know, the last couple years, you know, we've been drafted in the, you know, top four pretty consistently. You know, now this year, you know, you get a little bit of a dip. But, you know, arguably the situation is better than it's ever been for him.

You know, with that coming back, their offensive lines getting healthy. So, yeah, definitely dig the, dig the Zik take for sure. This has been great, man. I think I could pick your brain for another couple hours, but we've already been about an hour. I just have one last question. I'm dying to know. How on earth did you manage 64 teams via start sitting waiver wires?

Because I could not manage six. I gave up by like three four and I was like I have articles to write and too much money. Dude, I honestly have no clue. I don't even want to tell you when I was doing my waivers and my ad drops. It was painful. You know, I think, you know, obviously last year was unique in its own right with the COVID and whatnot.

So I think I got a little bit, I went a little bit overboard with drafting just with, you know, some of the free time we had. But yeah, the start sits weren't so bad. The waivers were just a pain. And then they obviously changed the waiver rules, you know, midseason or so. And it was tough. So I think I don't necessarily think that I can get back up to 60 plus. I think I'll definitely be going in with less teams this year.

What are you shooting for? I actually, you know, I'll just keep drafting. I draft when I feel like I can take advantage of value or if I feel like there's a certain player that I need to, you know, that I want to acquire. So early on it was the SWIFP news. He was going, you know, in the early second and that news dropped him to the mid-thirds. So I said, let me try and get as many third round Swiss shares as I can. So, but that may just be an excuse and I may just be a.

draft addict. So, so, you know, that's a hard number to cap. I won't put a cap on that number. We'll see. That team that won last year was the very last team that drafted. So I don't want to put a cap on it. Wow. Okay. There you go. All right. Well, thank you so much for your time, man. This has been just, it's been a blast talk and you've learned a ton. I'm sure our listeners will get a kick out of it too. Yeah. Follow a beep at Skywalker. 2000. That's Waka with an A at the end, not ER for the Star Wars nerds out there.

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