Fantasy Football Daily - Auction Draft Strategy w/ Drew Davenport | Two-Point Stance Podcast

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Auction drafts are the most fun and challenging way to build your fantasy football roster. We've enlisted the help of the best fantasy football auction drafter in the industry, Drew Davenport of FootballGuys, to help with our strategy. Drake, Dolan, and Drew break down the auction or salary cap draft as it's known, from draft prep to nominations down to managing your tiers and cap. You won't want to miss the in-depth analysis of fantasy football draft strategy and tiered rankings. The Two-Point Stance podcast auction draft episode is a must-listen for fantasy football players in 2023. Follow the show on Twitter (never calling it X). https://twitter.com/FantasyPTS https://twitter.com/DrakeFantasy https://twitter.com/FG_Dolan https://twitter.com/DrewDavenportFF Read Joe's auction draft plan: https://www.fantasypoints.com/nfl/articles/2023/auctionsalary-cap-fantasy-draft-plan#/ Read Drew's work at FootballGuys: https://www.footballguys.com/article/2023-chasing-the-perfect-salary-cap-draft FantasyPoints.com is your home for the best in fantasy football, DFS, sports betting, and data analysis. Get signed up today and download your cheat sheets to dominate your fantasy football drafts. Play best ball fantasy at UnderdogFantasy.com and use our code "FANTASYPTS" to get up to $100 in first-time deposit bonuses. Are you tired of wondering if you should place a prop bet on that guy coming off of a high ankle sprain? Are you tired of asking if you should buy low or sell high in dynasty because a guy had an ACL tear? Stop and grab a copy of The Injury [Pro]ne Draft Guide and Playbook by Dr. Edwin Porras. Stop worrying about how injuries impact your DFS lineups, prop bets, and survivor pools. Purchase The Injury [Pro]ne Draft Guide and Playbook today.Use promo code InjuryProne25 for 25% off. https://injuryproneguide.myshopify.com/ Subscribe to the Fantasy Points YouTube page at Youtube.com/fantasypoints #FantasyFootball #NFL # --- 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 one and all to the two-point stance, powered by FantasyPoint.com. What's up, everybody? I'm your boy, Brian Drake, at Drake Fantasy on Twitter, hanging and banging and banging. to the managing editor of FantasyPoints.com. Mr. Joe Dolan. Joe, what's up, brother?

How you been? Ready for a big auction draft tonight, I hear. Yeah, so fancy seeing you guys here. Yeah, because this is my first big redraft outside of the flex leagues, which, by the way, if you, this is on YouTube, first you see my girl butterscotch and crimpet over here, my girls on that couch. And then back there, I don't even know where to put them because I have so many Flex League belts. Three in the last four years, they're over my shoulder.

So hi, you two people. I'm humble brag. I'm humble bragging right now. Now, but this is my first, like, uh, home, you know, with my buddies draft tonight. It's the, the Friends of Points auction. Um, and I'm thrilled about it. So, well, good timing, I guess, because now I get to pick Drew Davenport's brain

before I go into this draft. I'm going to, I'm going to be like Jim Carrey and Batman forever where he sucks all the brain power from, from everybody in Gothen become super, uh, super intelligent. Uh, that's what, that's what this is going to be like. Hi, Drew. Hey, buddy. That's quite a compliment. I don't even know what to do with that.

Yeah. If you guys don't know the great Drew Davenport, you can find him on Twitter at Drew Davenport, F.F. And Drew is not only an auction expert, host of the auction brief podcast, which you can find anywhere you get your pods, and he just dropped his big auction manifesto. He is also the two-time auction champion of the Kings

classic from the Blanded Division, dominated that huge industry draft, and he's a practicing criminal defense attorney. So you also find Drew putting out these great law blogs and threads on Twitter. So if you want auction talk, you want fantasy news, you want some law insight about your favorite players that are getting arrested on the reg. You can follow Drew at Drew Devonport FF. So welcome to the show, my friend. And Joe, what's going on? You got to you got your hand. I do. Is that a Manchester Orchestra album over your shoulder, Drew?

Heck yeah, it is, baby. You're a fan? I saw them last month. I just saw them this past weekend. So Jimmy, we were friendly with the drummer from Jimmy Eatworld, so we got to go backstage, and it was fun, but like a Manchester orchestra put on a really good show.

It absolutely poured in Asheville, North Carolina. but I'm sure you enjoyed the concert. Did they open or did they close? So Manchester was a headliner, and I was pretty happy about that because that's who I was there to see. I like Jimmy Eat World. They're fine, but they're not my band. Manchester's my guys, and they killed it.

And the way he ended the show, I posted it on Twitter because the way he ended the show was incredible. It was a really good concert, yeah. Anyway, I saw that because it's back over there. I have a record back there too, but it's not Manchester. Anyway, this is a, we're off to a great start here. Belts behind us. I've got the winged eagle WW championship over my shoulder because Graham Barfield stole my belt.

Thanks a lot, Pat Fronten Roof. So we'd all be sitting here with belts today, but I had to buy mine, unfortunately. But we're here to talk auction strategy. There is no more fun way to draft a fantasy football team than with an auction. We know in snake drafts, redrafts, redrafts. as you call it. You know, you have whatever pick. I got the one five. You're kind of pigeonholed into who you can get. Not in an auction draft. Okay. Auction draft, you can literally go out and within reason your budget allows, get anybody you want. So we're going to kind of bop around here,

talk about auctions, talk about auction strategy, if you've got one coming up over the next few days. So Drew, first and foremost, how did you get into this auction game? How did this kind of become your niche and why would you tell someone to say, auction is the way to go for your fantasy draft? I got two words for you, David Boston. I actually started in the fantasy football world with an auction, which is really weird. I understand that, but I was in those dumb online ones.

This is back in the late 90s where you had like a salary cap, but every week the players values changed. And so you could get a better or worse team based on how they did that week. And my buddy says, no, come play in my league. I had no idea that there was like a league where you drafted players where you just picked players. Because I just got into this auction league.

I'm like, okay, this is what we do. Well, my very first year, I drafted David Boston for like $8. And that was the year he had like 1,500 yards and eight touchdowns. And I was hooked. And that leads into why I believe it's the best way to draft. I really, one of the things I always say is, you know that feeling you get. when you're on the clock at your draft, a normal snake draft,

and you're thinking to yourself, okay, who do I want? You know, you got that little surge of adrenaline. You get excited to put a player on your team. That's how you feel the entire time you're doing an auction. And I tell people that all the time. I'm like, you're engaged and involved with everything going on all the time. It's easily the most fun way to draft. And people always complain, well, it takes too long.

And I'm like, it's draft day, baby. come on like this is supposed to be fun why wouldn't you want it to take a little bit longer so that's my best argument for why you should do it and obviously you know the idea that you can get any player you want is exciting to you can't go into a snake draft and get austin eckler and justin jefferson but you can do that in an auction and it's just so much fun to figure out the bills and figure out how you're going to spend your money i've read both of your guys kind of a draft manifestos to put it easily. You know, Joe's over at fantasy points.com.

Drew, you've got stuff at football guys. You've got stuff at 4 for 4. I highly recommend everybody. Go out, read these articles. They will get you set up for your auction draft in an even more in-depth way than this podcast will. When you're preparing for a podcast, guys, how do you, or not a podcast, geez Louise, when you're preparing for an auction draft, I'm the guy that should talk about preparing for a podcast. When you're doing an auction, what do you bring?

How do you prepare? Is it as easy as, oh, I'm going to show up with my cheat sheet and here we go, you know, because there's really no ADP. So I'm walking into my first ever auction draft this weekend. How do I prepare for this? Joe, let's start with you quickly. Yeah. So I think maybe this is going to come off as really bad advice because I do this for a living.

but what I do to prepare is I try to clear my mind, you know. When I go into a snake draft, as Drew alluded to, I kind of know if I have the 12th pick, all right, this is a spot where I might go receive a receiver and then come back and get myself running back in another receiver, something like that. To prepare for an auction draft, I grab a beer, I open my computer, and then I clear in my mind because how the draft starts is going to dictate how I'm going to plan for that draft because I am never somebody who's going to sit there and say, well, I'm definitely not going to be drafting Christian McAfrey because he's going to be too expensive. Because let's just say

everybody in the league starts to think that way. Everybody in the league is very clearly placing a higher value on the top wide receivers or vice versa. Then I'm going to start deliq into those waters for those elite players. So it is entirely dependent on how the rest of the room is reacting at the beginning of the draft. And that's how I am going to prepare for my draft. I have a general idea of how I want to build my team. And this year, auction in the years recent, I have benefited from a zero RB or a modified

zero RB approach. So maybe that's what I'm going to presume I'm going to do at the beginning of my draft, but it's going to be dictated by what the early values. Because in an auction draft, inevitably, somebody might be cheeky and throw Skymore out there in the first round of nominations, which is stupid. And I'm sure Drew will allude to that, why that's not really an ideal strategy. But inevitably, in the first few nominations, an elite player, a McCaffrey, Justin Jefferson, and Jamar Chase is going to be nominated.

And that's when I start to see, okay, is this room being shy? Is this room being aggressive? and then that's where my strategy comes from. It is an on-the-fly strategy. Hey, Drew, you've got to benefited from that at the King's Classic this year. With your, you snagged Cooper Cup at a price where I remember you walked over to me during the draft and you go, holy Christ, look at the price I just got Cooper Cup for. D.K. Metcalf is going for more money the next time.

At the beginning of those drafts, people are feeling each other out. They don't know how high, how low to go. I love pouncing in the draft in those first few, nominations. Yeah. So I will say this. If you guys are, you know, fans of the show friends, I just have to make this comment here because there was an episode where Chandler was playing a fake card game with Joey and he was trying to give him money. And he says, you got, you got the sitting down bonus and he gave him extra money. I've been calling it to sit and down bonus because I feel like that's what's happening. You're getting extra money for free at the

beginning of the draft. You want to be on alert for people just being tight and being a little nervous. And like, hey, they know that this is a long draft and they've got all their money and they're like, ah, the world is my oyster. And they're hesitant to go out and drop 45 bucks on their first player. But if it's Justin Jefferson, you need to be bidding when it's $45. So you have to pay attention at the beginning. Joe makes an excellent point. You just have to really watch what's happening. at the beginning of the draft. Everything flows from the beginning and how things start. So I always say this. I know that this isn't a strategy for everybody. But when I'm preparing, I really like to have exact dollar amounts I want to spend on each position. Now, I know that doesn't work for everybody.

I think it works for beginning auction drafters better. I don't need that necessarily anymore, but I like it because it's a little guide rail. That doesn't mean go in there and say, I only can spend this them out. You still got to be flexible. But it helps you to not overspend. And so when the draft starts and you've got those numbers in front of you, you can see, are people going crazy? If they are, you can sit back and relax. You know that the draft's going to come to you later. But if people are tight and a little nervous right at the beginning of the draft, you got to get in there right away because oftentimes that's when the best deals happen. So I believe that preparation ahead of time involves having your tear sheets so that you know when the tears are drying up and you can get in there before

they dry up. And also, you know, Joe said something too that I really like, he says, I like to clear my mind. I say this all the time. People bring too much crap into the draft room. Auction draft is about flexibility and thinking on the fly. And if you have all these sheets in front of you, like pages and pages and you're flipping and you're trying to decide you are not going to be successful. Do your prep ahead of time, have your tier sheet in front of you, have your, what you want to spend, and that's it. Don't bring average auction values into the draft with you. It's only going to make you nervous because you're going to be like, oh, well, McCaffrey's supposed to go for this, and he's not there yet. I'm going to bid. Well, if you've already spent 100 bucks,

you shouldn't be doing that. And vice versa, if he's too high, you're going to say, I can't do that, but if you don't have a player, you need to bid. So average auction values are good for prep, not good in the draft room. Yeah, I actually come up with our average auction values cheat sheet at fantasy points, and I don't use it. Like, I mean, we need to have it because people want it, but I don't use it. And it gives me a good idea of what I think players should be going for, but inevitably money is going to be spent,

and that's going to artificially knock down some players. But also, this is one of the reasons, if I had to do something to prepare, it would be to come up with a list of tiers. And tiers are very important in any draft situation, but they're especially important in an auction situation. And I raised this point in my auction draft plan. And here's why tiers are important.

If you're given the binary choice of drafting CD Lamb or George Pickens, you're drafting CD Lamb over George Pickens 10 times out of 10. Like that's not an argument. But what if you're given the binary choice of George Pickens or Elijah Moore? How many times are you confidently drafting pickens over more? Even if you have Pickens higher than more on your rankings, are you confident in that? Is it 7 to 3?

Is it 6 to 4? Is it 5 to 5 if you have that choice 10 times? And why tiers are important is this? because inevitably, this will happen in your auction draft. This is going to happen in my auction draft tonight. There is going to be a worse player who goes for $5, $10 more than a better player because everybody in the room is going to be like, ooh, that's the last top 12 running back.

And even though Tony Pollard went for 37 bucks, somebody's going to bid up, I don't know, remandre Stevenson to 43 because he's, the last in a tier. So tiers are so important because I want to draft my players from the middle of a tier. Maybe I want to know where the guys at the top of the tier are going. Okay. Now, Sequin Barclay went for $47.

All right. So now I know where the value is on kind of those high end, not McCaffrey tier, but like that next tier of running backs. All right. I want one of those players. So I want to draft my guy when there's. three of them still on the board, as opposed to going and having to go after the last one in that tier. So that's why tiers are important. If there is one step that I was going to take to bring

something tangible to my draft, it would be a tiered sheet. I absolutely love it. When I was thinking of this show, I've done drafts in the past. I've used the fantasy point auction cheat sheet, to be honest. And what I do is I kind of, I sit there. I look a player comes up. And I am one of those guys, though, that will look over. I love the tears. Tears, tears, tears. That's the name of your paragraph in the draft plant. And that's what I was thinking in my head before I even got to the article.

I always do look over it because I want that ballpark figure of, okay, Josh Jacobs is coming up. We got them for 30 to 35. If you guys want, go over to fantasy points.com. The tier sheet is there. The 2023 auction sheet sheet. You're going to get all of the positions broken down individually. there's tears, there's a price value, buy weeks, all the great stuff. Joe did a fantastic job on there.

So I just want to give a quick plug to that. Now, Drew, you're a guy who I've seen draft in an auction several times, and you're always making little notes and you're writing down pricing and all this. Can you kind of explain your process of money that you've got earmarked per position and how you want to go about filling out your roster with that allotted cash? Yeah, and that goes back to what I said at the beginning that I understand this isn't for everybody. But I really push to my followers that the way to get better until you're comfortable doing this without it is to have exact numbers for each position on your sheet. So, okay, I have to draft a kicker in a D.

I'm going to write $1 next to those. And then I'm going to go through and I'm going to have exact numbers. So when you see me making notes, that's what I'm doing. I've already got the numbers in front of me. And I've got a couple different options on which way I'm going to go. And as soon as I figure out the beginning of the draft, which way I'm going to go, then I'm taking notes on the page about what I paid and what I can expect to pay for the other spots. So for example, if I say that I want to spend $28 on my wide receiver 2, and I just locked up

Kenan Allen for 26, I'm going to put a little plus 2 on my sheet, and I'm going to write Keenan in there, and I'm going to say, okay, where is this $2 going to go? And I'm going to make a little notes about where I think I want to spend the extra money, where it's going to be most useful for how my draft is unfolding. Because you can't do that ahead of time. You don't know. So when you get in there and you see, okay, well, wide receivers are way. too expensive, but there's really some value on these second-tier running backs.

They're even going to slide that extra money to my RB2 spot. So that's what I'm doing. I'm really just making sure that I'm sliding the money to the right spots based on how the draft is developing early on and how I started my draft. I always see the same thing in drafts. Basically, there's three drafters in an auction room. There's the guy who starts and they go stars and scrubs, which is I'm going to spend a hunt a dough on let's say Christian McCaffrey and Jamar Chase and then they get Mark Andrews

and then they have no money left for anybody else. Then you've got the guys who are scared to buy anybody. So they end up with all this money left at the end of the draft. And then you've got sort of, this is where I think I fall into. And Joe alluded to it in his plan as the to the upper middle class. I would say you're sort of the hot soccer mom shopping at Coles or Target in the suburbs, right, where you're frugal, but you're still looking for, you know, you still want some high-end stuff. You want people to think you got a little class when really you don't. And that's kind of where I fall. What do you guys see with the, and then there's the people I have no idea what they're doing. They're just along for the ride. So what do you guys feel about

the options here? Your stars and scrubs or your middle of the road or you're just Mr. value, Joe. I don't know if what Drew's preference is here. Stars and scrubs is not for me. It's really hyper fragile. I do and I hate when I spend all my money early and I'm just waiting around and then I'm scratching my nuts, you know, waiting for the $1 values to fall. First and foremost, it's a hyper fragile way to draft. Not saying you can't win that way. You know, like it like for instance, the problem is though, you have to have it, it's a luck strategy, quite frankly, because people are going to get hurt every year and guys are going to have a down year. If you select the right players in a Stars and Scrub approach,

you're going to blow everybody away. But if you select the wrong players, and this is self-evident, you're going to get your ass kicked. You know, last year, last year, a team that had, you know, Austin Eccler and Mahomes and Kelsey and Justin Jefferson on it, it didn't matter who else you had. You're winning your league or you're at least competing for your championship. But if your team last year had, let's say, let's just say, Mark Andrews was your tight end. And you had, you know, Michael Thomas a couple years ago. That team is initially dead on its, on its, dead where it lies. So I am definitely somebody, look, the one thing that I can't stress enough, though, is you can't just sit in your draft room and say, oh, I'm just going to get all values. Because,

there will be players. Believe me, there will be players where you're going to go in your draft. Ah, crap. That guy went for 14 bucks. When I got a player who's the same guy for 25, hope is not a strategy in an auction. If you wait around and you're just like, oh, I'm just going to get all the values. Not only are you going to have money left over at the end of your draft. First and foremost, Drew, I don't know about you. I've never been in an auction draft where somebody who has the most money left over at the end of it gets a prize. I've never been in that. And you don't get to use that money elsewhere. So that's that guy, that value guy, you're going to be sick to your stomach. If you have $13 left over at the end of your draft, looking at the players

who went for $13. Like, you're going to be sick to your stomach, I guarantee you. So you can't just be the guy who just waits around for values. You want to be selective. You want to be aggressive, but you don't want to just be like, oh, man, everybody's spending is going nuts because eventually you run out of good players. So I am. definitely the upper middle class drafter. I call the person who has the most money, the hammer. It's just a term

I've come up with. By the middle of my draft, I kind of want to fluctuate between having the hammer or being close to it, and then I'm willing to drop to the bottom of my league in available money for the right player. And then I wait a couple rounds. And then

maybe I get another player and I'm back up towards the top. I kind of want to be the first. I never want to be the person who always has the most money left. at points I want to have the most money, but I want to use that money. And that's really the best way to draft, in my opinion. Yeah, I think that you said quite a few things that I love there. First of all, absolutely, Stars and Scrubs is just, it's fragile. The only caveat I would issue there is if you're in a small league, like an eight or ten team league,

it's a more viable strategy. And you need to differentiate in your starting lineup. So I'm going to shove a lot of my money to the starting lineup. So I'm going to be a little bit more top-heavy and smaller leagues. But one thing that I would point out to is I'm completely on board with Joe, you know, and talking about the upper middle class, that's exactly how I draft. But I will say this. You don't, you would never leave a snake draft and say, hey, I got four fourth rounders,

but I didn't have a first and second rounder. So there is a tightrope that you have to walk. between spending, you have to have a first and a second rounder, or at least a couple second rounders. So you've got to get a couple guys. But where people go nuts is they're so excited that they can buy four of those guys, and then that's all they can buy. You've got to get one or two of those guys,

and then you relax, and you wait for the draft to come back to you to get those third and fourth round talents. And I think what I love about auctions is that you can really, after you get those one or two, you can really smash the third and fourth round values. And what I loved about your comment about value is this. I say this all the time. You have to get used to the idea that you're going to pass up some values.

You just do. You don't have infinite roster spots. And you're going to love a lot of these guys. And you're going to love some of the values. You just got to get over it. Just shrug and move on and say, hey, well played to this other guy. He got a deal. But I can't afford it.

I don't have the roster spots. Just get used to it. And just pass them by, move on. If it works for your build, don't worry about what they're doing. And the last thing I'll say is when all this is happening in a draft, it may be sometimes hard because you get this idea like, oh, I just made a mistake. Sometimes it's a hindsight mistake. Like you don't know that that's going to be a value until later.

So you're beating yourself up for spending $24 on a guy that you had valued for 26 because some other guy came in at 17. Well, you didn't know that 17 was going to happen when you spent the 24. Don't beat yourself up for hindsight mistakes that aren't really mistakes. Drew, you made an unbelievable point. And one of the things that I think we probably should have put at the top of this show is in an auction draft, a salary cap draft, whatever you want to call it, there are two types of capital. And they're both finite.

The money you can spend and the roster spots that you can fill. And that's why I want to go back to. a point that I made earlier. Let's just say everybody, who's a hot sleeper, Skymore? Okay, he's a hot sleeper. Oh, you bring them up in your first round of nominations. And you're like, all right, I got Skymore for 14 bucks. You know, he's that sleeper that I love.

There are going to be five Skymores later in the draft. We're going to go for $3. So you don't want to be the type of guy who's using a roster spot and more capital to draft the hot sleeper early in your draft. just because he's the guy you really want, because inevitably you're going to say, oh, I don't like Elijah Moore as much as I like Skymore, but Elijah Moore goes eight rounds of nominations later

and for 11 fewer dollars because you couldn't, because you were so excited to bid on Skymore. So I want to ask you, how do you approach? Because in auction drafts, mid-round guys are going to be coming up for nomination in the first two rounds. It always happens. How do you approach those kind of like,

like hot mid-round sleepers in your auction draft. Well, I will say that the chief thing I caution people about is, if you reach too deep into your tier sheets early, then a guy who might be $3 to $5 is going to be $8 to $10. And so reaching too deep doesn't work. Now, you could go all the way to the other end of the spectrum, and if you nominate Puka and Akua, you're probably going to get him for a buck. But I'm talking about like you're saying the perfect kind of guys like the Skymore, the Elijah Moore.

Those guys are going to be more expensive because people are excited and they're like, hey, I got 200 bucks. It doesn't matter if I spend 11 bucks on Elijah Moore. You should not be spending 11 bucks on Elijah Moore, or at least I don't think so. Even if that's how you have them valued. Exactly, exactly. And that's like reaching in the sixth when you can get more in the eighth. So it's just it's one of those don't reach.

too far down into the tier sheets, you get too cute, the early parts of the auction, you know, are just going to see price inflation the farther down you reach. Yeah. Drake, one other thing I want to point out about the early rounds of the auction before we move on. One thing I said in my auction draft plan, Drew, is now let's presume this is a one quarterback league. Superflex is completely different and we can't cover everything. I will, I will, and you will to inevitably get value at the quarterback position.

It's just a matter of where is that value coming from? Because I want to see what the Mahomes and the Hertz and the Allen are going for. And if in a 12-team league the room is being shy on the quarter, it can be a sharp room that's still shy on the quarterbacks. and people are unwilling to say, you know, Jalen Hertz, who I have is probably his value is as a $25 player. I will never pay that, even if that's how I have him valued. But if the room says on Jalen Hertz, you know, I'm not going to go above $11 or $12 for him. I'll be in on that.

And I'll get my elite quarterback at a deflated value. But if the elite quarterbacks are going where I have them valued $20, $25. there is still, we talked about the roster construction and the fact that you have finite roster spots. In an auction draft, you will get value at quarterback position, whether it's high end or low end, because even if it's a room that is spending up at quarterback, 25 for Mahomes, 23 for Allen, 26 for Hertz, or it's a room that's going $10 for Hertz, $11 for Allen. Kurt Cousins, Dak Prescott, Aaron Rogers, all of those guys in, Both of those rooms will be $1 quarterbacks.

So I'm going to look early in the draft. I might nominate Jalen Hertz tonight and say, all right, let's see, are the fish biting on Jalen Hertz? And if they are, then I know I'm going to be drafting Aaron Rogers, Kurt Cousins, Dak Prescott, Daniel Jones, one and $2 quarterbacks. And if they're not biting on Jalen Hertz, then I'm going to get my positional advantage by paying a few extra bucks because it's going to be for way less than I have that player value that.

And we just keep going back and forth here, Joe. I know Brian's got more questions for us, but that brings up a really important point. When you're starting out in the draft, I think that one of the underrated things to do and something that people just don't think about enough is that when you see things developing a certain way, you should be thinking about your nomination

and how you're going to continue to nudge things that way or pull things back. like if your plan is that you want one of those quarterbacks and they're going really expensive, you should move away from that when it comes to you. But if there's some value happening here, you should be nominating that quarterback to try to lock it up. So pay attention to your nominations. They set up how your draft's going to go. Don't waste those nominations.

Make sure that you are pushing the draft as much as you can. And there are only so many things we can control at an auction. So why would we give that away? So early on, focus on your nominations, pushing your draft the way you want the draft to go as much as possible. The bottom line is that the NFL has a 98% injury rate and injuries aren't disappearing anytime soon. So are you tired of tagging Edwin Porris and other injury analyst in tweets wondering when your top players will be back from injuries? You're tired of wondering if you should place a prop bet on a guy coming off a high ankle sprain? I get tired of asking if you should buy low or sell high in Dynasty because a guy had an ACLs there?

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The injury prone draft guide and playbook is that resource. Use promo code injury prone 25 for 25% off. This is our guy, Dr. Edwin Porris, that's injury prone. 25 for 25% off. The link is in the show notes. You're going to want to get over there and check that out. My God. That was, I pride myself on being, they call one take Drake,

but that one kicked me in the balls like a hard auction after one too many Miller Highlights, but I digress. So fellas, I love where we were going here. We're talking about nominations. And there is a whole theory in itself. on nominations, where it's early in the draft. I'm one of those guys who likes nominating players that I don't necessarily want to draft on my team, but I know they're going to draw money from somebody else.

You know, somebody that year for me is like Kenneth Walker. I'm not big on Ken Walker this year. I just think there's too many issues with him and maybe with that offense competing for touches. But I know there's other guys, especially when we get to that second, third running back tier. Ken Walker is going to command some good money. So, Drew, let me start with you. How do you nominate folks?

Do you look at it and say, I'm going to nominate just guys I don't want and I want people to spend money on? And I want to make sure I'm sucking the last guy out of this tier because I'm good at the moment at that tier and I want these guys to spend money. Or are you someone that says, you know what? I want this guy. I'm putting them out and I'm going to go get him. Well, I think you got to mix it up. I mean, I think the answer is you don't want to be predictable. So the first thing I'm going to say is, you know,

is I'm going to take my cue at the beginning of the auction from what's happening in the room. If people are going nuts and they're spending a ton of money on every player that gets nominated, then I just got to step back, throw some chum in the water, and let them go nuts. But more often than not, I hear the same thing that you're saying here, Brian, which is that you want to nominate some people that are going to pull some money from the room. The great moral trembling from football guys had a fantastic way of putting this. He said, if you feel like everyone in the room, or let's say just for example, there's four guys who are going to be interested in a certain running back who's going to go for 50 bucks.

If you nominate that running back, sure, you pulled 50 bucks from the room, and that player has 50 less dollars. But if you leave that player on the board, you're occupying four guys with $50. And that's renting $200 of space in those guys' minds, and they're not going to be as aggressive on other players. So I like to say that early on in the draft, I'm going to let the room dictate it. But more often than not, I think there's too much money in the room to be playing that game too early. So when it gets to you, if it's overly aggressive, then just call somebody out you don't want.

But otherwise, I want to be calling out people I do want early because I want to see if I'm going to get them. And if I don't, then I can adjust. But if I wait too long and then I call them out and then I don't get them, I may have missed on some other players. that could have filled the void from when I missed. So I think early on I really want to be nominating people I like because there's just too much money in the room to suck enough out to make a big difference right at the beginning. Now, in the middle stages of the draft, though,

I really believe that you're probably in the zone where you're going to be wasting money at times on other managers' rosters because you want the draft to come back to you. You've spent some money so you have to, you have to mix it up. I think it's really important because you see players in the room who nominate somebody and they always end up with that player. You don't want to be that guy.

I'm going to notice that. I'm going to pull an extra two, three, five bucks from you every time you nominate somebody because I know you're going to go buy them. So mix it up a little bit. Do one, do the other, read the room. Nominations are so big. I did an entire episode of this on my show because I think people underestimate how huge nominations are.

it's always important to keep an eye on not just who has the most money in the room, but who needs players in certain tiers. And so when I'm getting into nominations, let's just say I do get Justin Jefferson. Or maybe let's go even further down the board. Let's say, Drew, use the example of Keenan Allen. And I said, you know, I want, I want one of my these receivers who's going to go for 20 to 25 bucks that I have as like a third tier receiver. And if I have that player on my roster, I will not. I'm going to nominate players from that same tier because I'm already well fed, man. I'm a shark who just ate.

I'm going to throw chum into the water and see who else is going to compete for that, for that chum. Because I'm well fed already. And this is why I like getting players at the beginning or the middle of a nomination tier, because that way you can play the game and understand that I don't need this player. I'm going to nominate them. I'm not even going to, I'm going to nominate them for $1. and I am going to just let it chill because I know damn well that the other sharks are going to be swarming around that. And I might not even look at the rest of the nominations. So there's always,

there's always that give or take. And that's why getting guys early and in the middle of a tier of a tier that you've targeted is so important because it allows you to kind of relax while everybody else is competing in that room. So it's really, it is a give or take here early in the draft. I want to see what those elite. Elite players are elite for a reason. I might not have the plan that I'm getting one of Justin Jefferson or Jamar Chase. But if the room says, you know, this guy's going to go for cheaper than you think, then I will have Justin Jefferson or Jamar Chase. So elite players are elite for a reason. In the first, second round of nominations, it's inevitably going to be a player that you're going to, or at the very least, not just not,

maybe not want, but can envision on your roster. But definitely in those middle rounds, once Once the tiers start to thin out, that's when I'm nominating guys I don't want. Yeah. And we can easily spin off this too, Joe. You had a great point in your article about, you know, say somebody comes up and they're going for less than they should and you now get into a bidding war. You better be damn sure that you want to get that player. In your article, you reference, say you got Justin Herbert for 15 bucks. Okay.

And Lamar Jackson comes up next. And Lamar Jackson's not going for what he should. And you're like, damn it, I'm not going to let somebody get, Mar Jackson on the cheap, but all of a sudden, the price goes up and up and up, and now you're stuck. As you say in the article, the room goes silent. And now you're sitting here with, you know, holding the bag on two quarterbacks and now you're out of money. So I'd love to get your guys thoughts on this. If you're going to bid up somebody and get in a war, you kind of got to be ready to win. There's that delicate balance that I was going to ask Drew about. Because if you,

Drew just referenced, he knows he's going to suck that extra three to five dollars out of the guy who's always nominating the players he wants. But, Drew, there is that battle. Now, two quarterbacks is the most extreme example. Two quarterbacks in a one quarterback league, because in that league, you can only play one of those guys. There is going to be an instance, Drew, where maybe you get saddled with a player who you thought you were going to get the extra bid out of, out of the nominator. How do you approach that if it's a player that you really don't want. Is it, do you, if you're getting into that artificial bidding war trying to suck the money

out of that, that player, is it always on a player who, at the very least, if you got them, you were okay with landing him? Usually, yes. So when I say that I know that I can get that three to five bucks out of somebody, I want to be really sure. So one thing you'll learn about me, anytime you listen to me, I'm a net. You know, I'm not a guy who is very, I'm just very risk-averse. I'm not a guy who's going to be very dangerous with this kind of stuff.

So one of the things that I do when I create my own values is I put a column out there called a market price value. And that's a price at which I will not let somebody else in the room get the player below that price. So for example, I might put a price of like $19 on Patrick Mahomes or something like that, a market price. And I'm going to say, nobody in the rooms getting Patrick Mahomes for, 18 bucks. That ain't happening. I'm not letting that happen. So I'm going to say 19. Now, if I already have my guy, that changes things. So I don't want to get into a risky situation that's going to ruin my draft. And one of the things that I talked about with the Kings Classic was there was several very exuberant bidders in that room when it came to rookies. And I knew that I was leaving a little

meat on the bone because I could have bid these guys up a little bit. But it was too important for me to finish my draft the way I wanted it to try to get get in there and get stuck with Jackson Smith and Jigba for $17 when I didn't want to pay more than $9 for him. So that wasn't important enough to me. So I say there's two ways that you can bid people up. And I think that one of them is inherently super risky and the other one isn't as much. One of them is just baldly bidding someone up because you have a read on them and you think they really want the player.

That's super risky. I don't advise most people do that ever. but if you got a good read on somebody, that's cool. You know, you feel comfortable, but you've really got to feel comfortable. The other way, though, is the market price enforcing. I think that's got to be an essential part of your game. And I don't want it to be something that you build in this idea in your head that, okay, I have to bid this on every guy that doesn't get to this market price.

You can't ever do anything categorically in an auction, first of all. But second of all, I'm going to be comfortable only because I'm, only bidding as far as I feel comfortable. So that I know that's a weird way of saying it, but for instance, if Austin Echler is stalling out in the low 30s, it doesn't bother me to say 33 or 35 or 37 because that's that's price is too good for me to stop. So I generally have those values in my head and I feel pretty good getting them to a certain price. It's usually 60 to 70% of their average auction value. And so, yes, to answer your question in a really long-winded way,

I want to be okay with that guy coming on to my team for that price. And then because I'm so risk-averse, I'm just going to stop after that. If I already know that I've got my RB1 and Echler approaches 40 bucks, even though I don't think he should go for 38, I'm probably going to stop because I don't want to land Echler for 40 or 41 because it's going to ruin the rest of my draft. I hate that. And then the next four months, you think about why did I do that? So, yeah, I really want to be okay with that guy if I'm going to be making those moves.

Let me ask you guys about the onesie positions. We talked a little bit about quarterback at tight end. It's kind of a situation this year. You have Travis Kelsey or you don't. Okay. So someone's going to bid up and spend a lot of money on Travis Kelsey. I'm looking at our auction sheets over at Fantasy Points. Joe, you got Travis Kelsey at a $50 plus player in a tier all by himself.

So these onesie positions, how do you guys attack them in an auction setting? Joe, let's start with you. Yeah, I already mentioned how I do the quarterbacks. I'm getting value at quarterback. And whether that's with a quarterback who, an elite quarterback who should have gone for more or I'm getting a $1 quarterback. I almost view tight end as the same way, except inevitably in options that I've done the last couple of years, Kelsey just goes for more. than I'm willing to spend. But I also understand the appeal of an elite tight end because Mark Andrews was, I won

thousands of dollars with Mark Andrews two years ago. But last year, it was really Kelsey or bust. I am more likely than not going to be, I don't want to say dumpster diving, but I'm probably going to let Kelsey go. And then I'll see what is Mark Andrews going for? what is Darren Wall are going for? And if those guys are going for cheaper than I think they should, then I'll approach those like I do, the high-end quarterbacks.

That's how I'm looking at tight-end this year. What about you, Mr. Davenport? Yeah, if I'm going to spend money at wide receiver and running back, I'm always pulling money from quarterback and tight-end, just almost always. I'm never going to pull it from like my wide receiver three. I'm going to yank the money from quarterback in tight-end because I think it's the easiest, as Joe said it earlier. It's just the easiest to find the value.

It really is. but I will say this too, that when you get into a snake situation, most people advocate, and I'm one of them, that I'm not really chasing a lot of those mid-tier tight ends in the middle rounds because there's too many players I like right there. But an auction doesn't force you to make that choice because you can still get those mid-tier tight ends that you like, like a Dallas God or David Injoku or something,

because ultimately with the onesie positions, there's going to be some weird price glitch at some point. And I usually see it at tight end. The other night I was in an auction and I got Pat Friarmooth for $3. And I thought, what a weird thing. Son of a bitch at Pat Friermouth. Never mind. Yeah.

Brian's good friend. But, you know, that's weird. And then I got another night I was in a draft and I got in Joku for four. And I'm like, okay, well, I don't think these guys are world beaters. But for $3, heck, yeah, I'm going to do that. So there's always a weird price. glitch of a middle guy. I ended up getting, this is a $300 cap,

I ended up getting Goddard the other night for 11. And that's an insanely good price for a guy that has his profile. So I'm on the lookout for that kind of thing, but more often than not, I've jammed all my money at wide receiver and I'm pulling it from the tight end spot.

So I'm doing what Joe says. I'm dumpster diving. And I'm probably going to get, if the roster's allowed, I'm probably going to get three guys if I can, but definitely two and I'm just going to go for something like a, you know, a Gerald Everett Tyler Higbee combo or a, you know, Dalton Schultz, Hayden Hurst kind of thing. And just grab two of them and hope that one of them is your producer. A lot of great stuff here. Before we get out of here, anything else you guys feel

you want to impress upon our audience. They're going into an auction this weekend. What is something they have to know if they can learn anything from this podcast besides the fact that I can't read? So number one, do not spend more than dollar on kicker in defense. Do not do it. Do not do it. And I'm going to tell you why. Even if you really, really like the 49ers defense, somebody spending, you can nominate the 49er defense.

Somebody going to $2 or $3 for that. That's $2 or $3 they don't have later. And here is why I'm saying, do not spend more than $1 on it, not just because they're hard positions to project. But here is why. At the end of your draft, will be stunned by how much that extra dollar comes in handy. And here is a quality of life tip that first time auction drafters always mess up.

Let's just say you have one roster spot left and you have one sleeper, that guy that you have to have, and you have $4 left, okay? Make sure you are putting your maximum bid in with your final nomination if you really want that player because you can get to a point where somebody ties your maximum bid and you can't go above it because you because you got into a kind of a pseudo bidding war. If you're with your last roster spot and you have $4 left over, there is no need to nominate that player for $1. If you put $4 in as your nomination and somebody can top that, so be it. but you do not want to get into a situation where somebody then puts in a $4 bid for that player,

you can't go above it, and that guy gets the player for the $4 that you had. Because if you haven't done an auction yet in a roundabout way of saying, bidding comes in usually dollar increments early in the draft. It can be you can put in a manual bid for much bigger. But at the end of the draft, it's always going to be $1 increments because that's really all people have left. if you have $4 left over and one roster spot left over, and there is Kenny Gainwell's out there. Oh, it doesn't matter if you have Kenny Gainwell as a $1 player. You only have $4 left over.

And you don't get to keep that money after the draft. So put the $4 bid in there, get the player you want. If somebody can top it, so be it. But put your maximum bid in on your last roster spot because that is the only way to ensure that you don't get artificially bid out of a player you want. I love it. And the kicker and D thing drives me nuts, never spend more than a buck. And also save your kicker and D nominations for late because you're going to want to punt a couple times late and not call out the guy you really want. And you're going to be so happy to be able to call out your kicker and just move on.

But Drake, I'm going to cheat a little bit. I got two. Number one is you absolutely cannot take your game to the next level if you're not keeping track of caps in the room. You just got to know what everybody's doing. And online, it's a little bit easier because the site tells you, but you have to watch it. You have to watch it. There is going to be somebody in the room,

and I call it the rule of it just takes one, because it only has to be one other guy in the room that has money, and you're going to be fighting for that last player. You've got to know who that guy is, and maybe you can aim some nominations at him or try to drain his cap some way. But you've got to keep track. If you're not keeping track,

you're not going to be a next-level auction drafter. And the second thing I'll say is, I don't want people to get carried away with this idea, but I have never regretted spending a couple extra bucks on a top level player. I have regretted backing off and then not having enough players to get with the money that I saved later. So I'm not saying to sit there and, you know, and spend 12 bucks over what you were going to spend on a player. But I've never regretted going an extra two, three, four bids on an attribes on an attribes. on a truly elite player because there just aren't enough of them. So you'll never regret that.

You will regret having that money later and not having anybody to spend it on. I love it. Folks, if you need a defense to pick late, and this is actually an article, Joe, I swear, I'll get you this article one of these days. If you need a defense to pick, I got two for you. How about the Saints? Look at this opening schedule early on.

They're scheduled. Titans, Panthers, Packers, Bucks, and the Broncos You're the Raiders, commanders, dolphins, and the bears. A couple of the defenses, just to put in your back pocket, I need somebody for a dollar. Guys, this was super fun.

Drew, thank you so much. You might drinking buddy in Canton, Ohio. Glad we could get you on the two points stance. Follow Drew on Twitter at Drew Davenport, FFF. He's doing work on his Patreon channel at football guys, at 4 for 4. I mean, of course, the auction brief podcast,

power by Fighting Chance Fantasy.com. We've got to give love to that. What a great show, man. Thanks for coming. Anything else out there you need to get out into the ethos? I don't think, you know, I don't think there's much, but my most popular episode of this of every summer just dropped this morning. That's the auction manifesto. I go through everything you need to know before your auction draft in one 90-minute episode. So check that out. If you need me to come do any reads on that show, I am available. You have my number. Joe, good luck tonight in your home draft. I can't wait to see the squad. Texted to me as I'll be 38 white claws deep on the golf

course. Yeah, I'm 715 this evening Eastern time. So I'm already looking forward to it. I just sent out the reminder email to the for the league mates to get all the straggler, get all the straggler payments in. It's going to be a fun one, right? And you don't want to do a draft online with an autopick team. My God. That's number one. If you want to switch to an auction, guys. And, this is a quality of life tip before we go out here. If you want to switch to an auction, you have to be adamant that everyone's there. The auto draft team will suck,

but the problem is the software is going to artificially bid up guys. You're not going to be able to get values. It completely ruins the natural flow of the draft. No question about it. If you're enjoying the flow of everything we're doing here, make sure you subscribe to this Fantasy Points YouTube channel or go into your podcast feed. Make sure you leave us a five-star

review on Apple iTunes. Get over to FantasyPoints.com. Sign up today. Get your cheat sheets. Get everything you're going to need for your drafts these next two weeks. Trust me, I'm downloading these sheets. I'm using them in my drafts as well. For Joe Dolan, for our guest, the great Drew Davenport, I am Brian Drake.

We'll see you next time on the Two Points Dance. Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the Fantasy Points podcast. Remember to subscribe, wait, and review on your favorite platform. and come join the roster at FantasyPoint.com.