Fantasy Football Daily - Dynasty AMA : What Do The Vikings Do With Darnold? Time To Get Out Of Saquon? Is There A Quarterback Dead Zone? | Dynasty Points

Episode Date: December 31, 2024

Dynasty Points brings you an AMA from our Discord questions AND some questions from Twitter about the QB dead zone, Sam Darnold, Saquon Barkley, and what it means to be out a year early. Tom's wrestling career and what we are looking forward to in week 18 now that the fantasy season is over for most. We had a lot of fun in 2024 and cannot wait for 2025 with all of you. Use promo code - YouTube25 for 25% of your subscription Subscribe to FantasyPoints for FREE - https://www.fantasypoints.com/plans#/ Listen to the podcast here - https://www.fantasypoints.com/media/podcasts Thinking About Thinking Substack - https://jakobsanderson.substack.com/p/lets-think-about-thinking Where to find us: http://twitter.com/DynastyPts http://twitter.com/ElNostraThomas http://twitter.com/JakobSanderson http://twitter.com/RyanJ_Heath http://twitter.com/LGilbertFF FantasyPoints Website - https://www.fantasypoints.com NEW! Data Suite - https://data.fantasypoints.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/FantasyPts Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FantasyPts Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/FantasyPts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Week 17 has come and gone, which means some of us are winners, some of us are losers, like Jacob and I, we are winners. And Ryan Heath found out what it's like to play us in the finals. He is the loser. So as we sit here today with the Fantasy Points Discord, having doubted us when I posted who is going to win the matchup, rings don't lie. It was Jacob and I. Let's keep that in mind as we get ready for Dynasty Points.

Look, another recorded video, not live. New Year's Eve is the night the Dynasty Points fell on. And look, we know everyone else has lives except for us nerds staring at playoff best ball drafts like Jacob is right now as we're recording. Instead, we decided what better way to spend a Dynasty Points episode than an, than an AMA. You guys have sent us in questions. We are going to answer them. Some about football, some not.

So let's jump right in. From Discord, Ryan McGowan 7. And I couldn't think of a better one to start off with than this one. What's the group's opinion on Sam Darnold's future? If I'm a Darnold owner and a McCarthy owner, do I hold Darnold in the hopes that he gets a tag or another short contract in an offense, that's perfect for him. Do I move him and risk that JJ comes back next year and takes over the starting job?

There's a bunch of different ways this can go. It feels like he's a good fit to replace Matthew Stafford at some point, since the offense is very similar. The Rams could get out of his contract over this year, obviously, another great offense. But anything less seems risky, which brings us to this clip from a show, in August where we had predictions as to what was going to send Jacob off the rails most.

Here's a clip from that episode. Ton is the most spiritually accurate because like the one thing in all of football that by far tilts me the most is people standing for these fraudulent scheme, Ponzi scheme-ass quarterbacks. So like any, like probably the most likely, easily the most tilted I've ever been about this subject was like when Purdy took over

and I was out there telling anybody to listen to be like, Purdy's going to be great guys. Like literally you can't fail on this thing. This is finally going to be the proof that Jimmy G sucked all along. Purdy's going to kill it. And that was fun for like two weeks. And then everybody was like, no, Purdy's actually really good. So like the only thing I could think that could tilt me more than that experience is if Sam Darnold after a career of being like the least efficient quarterback in every statistical category

goes out and has a top 12 EPA season, which I fully expected to do. And then instead of all the people being like, okay, yeah, maybe it is, maybe it is a fraud perpetuated on the public. If in week six, all of the purdy to a goth, Jimmy stands come out and are like, maybe Sam Darnold's been good all along, I'm going to lose my fucking mind. I'm going to jump into the ocean and like drown myself with an anchor. I will not be able to handle it. I'm in the ocean.

I'm podcasting from the ocean. The anchor is tied around me. You know, like more well-adjusted people would just be able to enjoy one of their most rostered dynasty quarterbacks having this ridiculous season. But I am not well-adjusted, so I just get angry online about it. It is easily the most infuriating part is like I am like, well, I guess not now, but I was a little bit of a Sam Darnold truther in the sense that I thought he was just like five to 10 percent less bad than everybody else did. And then also I just have this longstanding take of like basically quarterback play as irrelevant in the national football league. And so combining that, I was like, yeah, Arnold's probably going to probably going to do great. He is, I mean, surpassed even my wildest imagination.

which was a wilder imagination than I think 99% of people. I claimed he would be top 12 in EPA. He is number 10 in EPA, so he has even eclipsed that. As for the dynasty question, like we talked about Darnold extensively before. I think a lot of it is just up to him. Like I see a lot of people put all of this onto the Vikings. Obviously, it's mostly up to the Vikings. But what makes the most sense for the Vikings, I think, is incredibly obvious.

They franchise tag him. they let Darnham play in 2025. They let McCarthy have another year on the bench, and then they get to face the same situation again in 2026 with more information. If I was Sam Darnold, I would have a complete hissy fit if that was what the Vikings did. I would not report to camp. I would refuse to play. I would refuse under any circumstances to participate in the Minnesota Vikings organization

under the franchise tag unless I was tagged and traded elsewhere, because why would I ever risk what if he went to the open market would almost assuredly be a hundred plus million dollars guaranteed for a franchise tag season when I know if I get hurt or if I struggle or anything, you know, they have plenty of incentive to immediately put the 10th overall pick. So I'm not going quietly at the night with that plan. Maybe Sam Darnold is different than I am. I'm sure Sam Darnham believes in himself far more than I believe in myself. That's why he's a national football league quarterback and I'm podcasting from Misanah. So probably Sam Darnold would be like, yeah, I just had this awesome year.

I'll have another awesome year. I'll make even more money. Maybe he just loves Minnesota, best year of his career, keep the good vibes rolling, whatever. Who knows? I think if Sam Donald wants to be in Minnesota, he'll probably be a Minnesota. I think if Sam Darned wants to make as much money as humanly possible, I feel like Minnesota has other alternatives that are better than tagging him, holding him hostage, and making both of the quarterbacks on their roster very angry at them. I don't think that's a tenable situation. So we'll see. Dynasty-wise, I've always been pro Darnold this whole time. I remain that at least until he signs. Like, I think the worst, worst-case scenario for Darnold, I think this off-season is that he

signed somewhere like the Raiders or whatever. Like, and that's still most of the game. not that bad. He will still be a starting quarterback with at least two years, I think, of fully guaranteed money. I don't see how his dynasty value goes down. And there's always a chance that Minnesota does, you know, that they are like, here is a four-year contract, Sam Darnold, 200 mil, you are our quarterback now. We'll deal with J.G. McCarthy when we deal with J.G. McCarthy. And in that case, like, I think the train just keeps on rolling. So, yeah, I would not be trading Sam Darnold away for anything less than like over a first. Well, over. Right. I think right now, I think you're fine just holding him where he is.

I mean, the 2025 projected franchise tags, like $41.3 million, according to over the cap right now as I go and check it out. If I'm Sam Donald, I mean, if they franchise me,

I don't think I'm too mad at $41 guaranteed million. Like, it could be the difference between him signing, like, the three year for $120, or him getting a four to five for $2,000, if he goes in back to back in his name. I think he,

I think he's getting the Baker contract. I think he'd get the Baker deal. And I think that if he goes, I think he would get like four years, 240 million this office. I don't think. I don't think so. Lauren's love contract.

No, I think you get the Baker deal because that seems to be the like second chance reclamation project contract. Like Jones, Baker, like those are like the tweener extension. If he goes out there, if he signs that this is what I think is the best,

case scenario for him is he signs the franchise tag and he goes out there and puts up another 4,200 30 touchdown season. It goes, it wasn't a flute guys. Look what I did. Also, hashtag QB wins. We got 11 to 12 more. Now I think at

28 years old, he gets this four year 230 insane guaranteed from whoever didn't draft a quarterback this last year. So yeah, I think that's best case and in dynasty i mean i'm still buying as much j j mccarthy as i can i'll buy him as

he gets cheaper the longer sam darnald is around i'll buy him if sam darnald goes away and i'm gonna hold on to my sam don't know i can get out for a premium use them to go and get i don't know a wide receiver or something like that it's just really hard to walk away from justin jefferson and jordan Addison. Big agree on the McCarthy thing because the one thing that I see floated a lot that I've, like, I don't know what the Vikings are going to do, but the one thing I'm the most confident they're not going to do is keep Sam Darnold and trade J.J. McCarthy this offseason. That whole thing sounds like I see a ton of that. I see a ton of that and I just think that is so silly. Like if they if they are in love with Sam Darnold, which maybe maybe they are after this

playoff run. And I mean, gosh, for the sake of my playoff basketball teams, I hope they make the Super Bowl. But I just don't see how it makes sense to then just turn around and be like, because we like Sam Darnold, we're also going to sell low on the quarterback we just drafted 10th overall, who has three more years of cup. Like, Sam Darnold, if you franchise him and he gets mad, that matters because he would only be on a one year tag and he has some leverage. J.J. McCarthy, I love you, bro, but you have zero leverage. Like you, You are under contract for three more seasons. So, like, maybe they bring Donald back.

And McCarthy's like, this sucks. Let me out of here. And the Vikings say, okay, our backup quarterback's kind of upset. What's he going to do about it? If Sam Donald gets hurt, is JJ McCarthy not going to go in and play? Like, I think he's going to go in and play. Like, it's going to be okay. So I think they would just keep him, let him sit on the bench and deal with it.

Maybe Sam Donald will play so good that, like, in two years in the future, they're like, okay, now Darnold's our guy for the foreseeable future, and we're going to trade J.J. McCarthy at that point. But, like, I think J.J. McCarthy gets a chance to start in this league. I think it's very possible if that's 2025 to the Minnesota Vikings. If it's not, I think it's probably 2026 with the Minnesota Vikings, and at the very least, is going to get a chance to do it somewhere. And if and when he does do it with the Vikings, I mean, I'm going to want in on that.

So as this price continues to decline in Darnold Mania, I'm big, big, big into buy, buy, buy, buy, and just ride it out and see what happens. Right, right. Yeah, I'm just going to quickly chime in. I'm with you guys in terms of dynasty. Zero reason to sell him right now. Pretty much nothing bad can happen to his value. I will say probably the best case scenario for his value is the Vikings do go win a Super Bowl this year.

I don't think he's getting like the Jordan Love like franchise QB contract, but that's going to be above. like the Baker Mayfield type of deal. Baker Mayfield didn't go win a Super Bowl, right? I think at that point, the Vikings, yes, you could franchise tag him. Why would you do that to your team that in this scenario just won the Super Bowl? Or let's say they get very deep into the playoffs, whatever.

Yeah, I don't think they're going to franchise him. I guess hilariously, the former Vikings quarterback, Kurt Cousins, went through this for years and years before signing the long-term deal of the Vikings. With the Vikings. Yeah, exactly. So funny how things kind of repeat here.

But yeah, I don't know if it's most likely, but yeah, best case scenario for Darnold is they go deep. It's a long-term two-plus three-plus year deal. And he just is this fantasy quarterback, yeah. But yeah, no, I'm with you. It will be very entertaining to me if he goes elsewhere. because, yeah, that will be pretty much the most obvious, like, just sell spot ever in Dynasty. If it's anywhere short of, like, the Rams, it will be instant immediate sell.

And yeah, I'm just a little surprised, like, how short term we are in our thinking on quarterback evaluation. It was like week six or seven when we were saying Sam Donald sucks because he threw, like, two or three picks in one game. I don't know if it was an international game or something that sticks in my head. But not even like a few months ago. We were still in like, oh, my God, Darnold is a total fraud, even after he had played well for like the first four or five weeks. But I don't know. It'll be interesting.

But I, yeah, short term, holden, long term, still pretty pessimistic. Yeah, it was the giants. Or it was the jets and I think the lions, because he went Jets by lions and people were like over. Yeah. Well, the game against the Jags

was like the one game this year that he just looked like a complete pumpkin. But like, yeah, three pick games. Most games, most quarterbacks have horrible games, even the ones that are awesome,

right? And like, I don't think Sam Darnold is awesome. I think he's, he's, you know, certainly better than I thought he was, probably not as good as a lot of people think he is now.

But the one thing I would ask, Ryan, so like, what if he does? Like, I know that maybe none of us think this is the most likely option. What if he does sign a massive deal with the Vikings? Do you think, like, would you sell in that case? Like, do you think that he is going to regress at all in this current situation? Or is it for you, like, for as long as he's wearing purple and people are making skull noises, he's a QB1. And then if and when that's no longer the case, then it's Halloween at the Dardle House.

I mean, right now he's the QB 23 on Keep Trade Cut, which doesn't seem like that offensive to me. If you told me he's going to be the Vikings quarterback for the next three or four years, I would draft him at QB 23. If it gets up into like, honestly, is it that different than like the Brock Purdy valuation? Well, I think he's better than the long-term player. Yeah. You would. So I think I'm fine. if he resigns, I don't know that I would be selling unless stuff gets really

I think he's value. But yeah. He's less likely to be locked into his current situation than these other guys because of the JJ McCarthy of it all. But like I don't view him like the reason it's weird because I've talked about like some kind of I guess anti-Darnold takes the sense of what I think the Vikings should do. But on the other side, I'm also like very, very heavy on the Vikings for playoff basketball because I'm like, I don't think he's actually that different than Jared Goff and Jalen Hertz.

And I like their roster more than these other NFC teams. Like, to me, he's the same world. Now, Hertz obviously is a fantasy quarterback, completely different story. But like, in terms of evaluating these guys, like, I don't think he's that different. If he was a Viking in the same secure way that two is a dolphin and Goff is a lion and Purdy, he's a 49er. I don't think he's that different than any of these guys. But he's a little more fantasy friendly. He actually runs more, more than these guys do.

And it coaches into Boomer. That's the one thing. Kevin O'Connell is the one, like, coach in this tree who doesn't really believe in running the ball. So, like, it's like, right? Like watching that game yesterday, it's like two completely different worlds where they have a lot of similar concepts. But like O'Connell's the one who is rushing to the, rushing the line of scrimmage on every second down, snapping the ball with 25 seconds left so they can't substitute, pass in the ball and early down. repeatedly and you know it's lafleur who we're down 17 nothing we're establishing

emmanuel wilson so like it's he's in a fantastic situation there i agree i think like until he eclipses the purdy to a whatever if he's going to be a viking i'm i'm all in up and through those guys now i do feel like i just have to say there things can things can decline like this isn't saying like purdy is just locked into this production no matter what like he could just completely implode. That's not outside of the range of outcomes for sure. But keep in mind, like,

everyone in the dynasty community kind of shit on Kirk Cousins forever, and all he's done is hovered around a back-end QB-1 forever. And even though he looked awful with the Falcons more often than not, that dude still managed to provide these QB-1-ish type

games. So you're talking about someone you got, even in the beginning of the season startups in like week four and five, He's going at the 9-9, the 9-5 into the 10th round sometimes. You're just getting free, at least upper-tier QB2 production. You do not have to. For people like me who live and thrive off of the late QB quarterbacks that get contracts, like the bakers, the loves, et cetera, I'm not, I can't give him up.

Like, that's the other half of that. I need this on my teams. I need this in my life. life. Quick break. When we come back, we're going to dive into another question from the Fancy Points Discord. Oh, that was the lengthy enough answer for that one. Probably the longest answer we're going to give just because there's so much that goes into that one. So we appreciate that question. Quick break, come back and another question. Okay, from Discord, we got Vunderbeard. Thoughts on the Tampa Bay wide receiver situation next year with the late season emergence of McMillan

and Godwin returning from injury. I have an interesting scenario I want to kick this off with. I don't think Godwin is back, but I don't think the Bucks stand pat at wide receiver. There's another wide receiver who's currently going to be a free agent who is probably unhappy in his situation that I think plays that Godwin role perfectly, and his name is Keenan Allen.

And I think that if the Bucks can give him a two to three-year content, contract and they bring in a Keenan Allen to fill that role. I'm loving life personally. But that's also a long shot, money, et cetera. Higher chance that Godwin just signs this like one year, see if it works out kind of deal with them and they use McMillan. But let's get the read of the room. What do we think with the Bucks wide receivers is McMillan a real thing?

Because at the beginning of the year, Ryan, our charters, did not like him. They said he was just terrible. His route running, his decision making, awful. And aside from him getting just absolutely cucked

by a DB in the end zone, not that that affected my home league matchup at all where that interception of a would have been touched on in the end zone would have put me in the finals and mopped the floor

with Jacob Sanderson in the home league, I don't take that personally or anything. But aside from that one play, McMillan has been on fire really in the back half of the of the year. Yeah, he's definitely improved. I do think something important to notice that he's not at all kind of in the Chris Godwin role as we were kind of speculating earlier in the year.

He's still playing outside. He's not really the one getting all the design target stuff. That's actually been the running backs mostly since Godwin went out. It's been Bucky Irving and Rashad White who have seen kind of the spike in all of these screen targets. So that might be something to think about in terms of this backfield next year. It was the second most valuable backfield in fantasy football. I mean, both guys had more than usable weeks.

Bucky Irving, obviously fantasy superstar at the end of the season. But yeah, I would say if Godwin's back, I think McMillan just kind of continues playing on the outside. I don't think he's all that amazing for fantasy. It is probably a guy that can catch touchdowns occasionally, probably not commanding. more targets than Mike Evans or a healthy Chris Godwin on the field. That's just very tough target competition. But yeah, I mean, he's improved. They don't like have to go out and resign Godwin now, I think, based on kind of what their

offense has shown without him. Dynasty-wise, you really want Godwin on the Buccaneers. His, so much of his fantasy production has been on those design targets. It's the Cooper Cup role that Liam Cohn was talking. talking about all the way back in May that this was their plan for Godwin. It obviously came to fruition over the first six or seven weeks of the season. Godwin was the wide receiver two. I tweeted it out today and I don't remember the exact number out the top of my head.

But Godwin would have gone from the wide receiver two to the wide receiver 10 if you just remove screens from his production, which is pretty big, I would say. and I don't know that anywhere else he signs, even if you say, okay, he's not going to get all these design looks. Plus, I would say there's not many better situations just for a normal wide receiver than the Buccaneers. Yeah, the expectation for his fantasy production has to be a lot lower anywhere else. So, yeah, you're hoping he resigns. I think it's probably most likely he resigns. originally his prognosis for the ankle injury was supposed to be a 10 to 12 week recovery

and he was saying like I'm going to try to come back for the playoffs. I don't know how real that ever was, but I don't know. Maybe we get like a positive update on Chris Godwin's health in the next few weeks, even if it's just like, oh, if we were still in, I could have played or something to that effect. But if that happens, I think that bumps his value that increases his likelihood of resigning. So stuff to look out for, I guess. I'm not an injury expert. I know neither of you guys are either, but like how I know it's like somewhat similar. Is it in the same family as like the Tony Pollard, Mark Andrews, Tank Dell like significant ankle injuries? I'm like so spooked by that

family of injuries having now seen not just tank dell be bad this year and tony pollard be bad last year but then to see how good tony pollard and darnel mooney also were this year was like oh man like that's like almost the most that's that's almost the most jarring aspect of it is it's it's kind of clear as day now that like the mooney and pollard down years in 2023 were so clearly injury related after just seeing them become their old selves again the very next year. That would be the biggest fear for me. Even Andrews at the beginning of the year, the dude was dead. And now he's just back to being him, even though it looked like, you know,

he got hit by a bus at about the 20-yard line on that insanely long run. He stopped in his own tracks. But yeah, I think you're right on that. I'm out. Like for the Chris Godwin side, I'm super out. to answer the question of what to do with the wide receiver core, I think a veteran comes in, which is why I said Keenan Allen.

I don't think they're chancing it with Chris Godwin in the window that they have. So they have a clear window. Their window is open right now. Go and get a veteran. This wide receiver class isn't super deep. Whoever they bring in to play in that role so long as the OC stays in Tampa.

I'm just buying the other elephant in the room. That is. But we can touch on that in a minute. But if he is there, and that Keenan Allen type veteran does show up. I'm just buying that veteran at whatever his cost is. This is another year where I'm going to

be in on Mike Evans. And then I'm not buying McMillan if his ADP rises like significantly, but I'll be happy with the shares that I do have. But as always, I would move McMillan

if somebody was dangling a golden carrot, if you would. I would definitely jump on that. So pause. Yeah, McMillan is fine. I think he's interesting. I like him as a prospect a lot. Like he was one of the few late wide receivers I was drafting. But I don't know. It's tough. The end of year

touchdown spree in an offense where kind of everybody eats. Like all of this just makes me, I would want, if I was Tampa Bay, I'm doing the dirt cutter move part two where I'm firing Todd Bowles and I'm promoting Liam to head coach. I don't, I wouldn't want to lose this guy. Like I don't think Todd

Bulls, frankly, is part of the success for this team. He calls the defense. The defense sucks. He has nothing to do with the offense except for taking them off the field on fourth and one. Like, I don't know, I don't know what it is that Todd Bulls does here. Liam Cohn seems awesome. I would want to retain his services.

I would not want to let him get hired by another team. Because, like, Mike Evans is a stud. He was doing Mike Evans things. Chris Godwin is a very good player, or at least was previous injury, but we have seen Chris Goblin perform wildly differently, depending on how he is used. And so it's a credit to Liam Cohen that he was used this season in the way that best accentuates what he does best. And then, I mean, this guy has gotten like very good production out of, I think pretty bad players. Like, like, Rashad White's been an effective player for this team.

I don't think he's very good. When they lost everybody, they had a competent offense that was running primarily through Kate Auden. Like, that's like, Kate Auden is not good. And they were just, they were like, that's fine. We can roll with Kate on. And then obviously, Baker Mayfield is what he is, which is like proven over his career. It's like clearly an environment dependent quarterback.

Like he, he has had years where he's looked very, very good. He's had years where he's looked CFL quality. So like having all of these players come together in the same year and having really good years with Liam Cohen, when basically outside of Mike Evans, they're all players that have fluctuated wildly. I would be nervous about a lot of the bucks,

maybe even my favorite little guy, Bucky Irving, in a post Liam Cohen-Buck's offense. I think he's adding a lot here. I just wanted to jump in earlier from the question on the injury. So Godwin's, it was reported as in everything I see is that it was an ankle dislocation, which would track with what I saw on my TV screen, which would be a little bit school. It was no longer properly located.

Yeah, it was pointing the incorrect direction. but all Mark Andrews tank Dell Pollard all of them were fibulas fractured or broken fibulas That's why I said a word Nuckinism is it worse I have no idea I'm not a doctor but I do not the same thing Not just the dislocation but I'm pretty sure there's like

Severe ligament damage I believe Edwin Porras was mentioning that I remember that when it happened that thing's not just that thing was backwards I was obviously Ravens fan I watched that very game it was the other way I'm out like there's just no I don't want him as a throw in in trades

talked about that on the dynasty market report I want to add him in as a throw in to someone who thinks he's hopeful I'm out I think it's very likely he's like 31 by the time

he's back and I'm out but to wrap up like what we're doing with this bucks receiving core I think that's it I just think it's another year of Mike Evans

you're hoping the OC stays in town you're hoping Baker stays on this insane path as the top 12 fantasy quarterback. And you're hoping, you know, that McMillan can, can catch, you're right. I didn't realize how much of his production is like touchdowns at the back end of the year here. Yeah, I'll just take, if somebody wants to come knocking on my door, I think I'm just selling outright.

But yeah, I think that's it. I think that's what we're doing. Moving on to the next one, again from the Discord. We're doing all the Discord ones first because shout out to you guys, subscribing all that all year. You guys get first up. We've got Buckeye, Derek. What do you do with Breeshole and Pacheco moving into next year?

I think this is a fair question. Pacheco's role is just kind of toast right now. And we don't know how much of that is due to the injury that he had and then working him back in. But Kareem Hunt just seems to continue to be good. I think maybe the injury is just nuked the Pacheco RB1 route. Because once again, the chiefs are realizing, oh, yeah, we don't need one guy. we can just pick up some free agent quite literally just off the street and now he's our RB1 and we win games. So I'm not,

I don't want a Pacheco on my roster. I think he's going to go in the dead zone area as people expect to bounce back because he's under contract for a year, et cetera. I'm out. I'll be selling if I can sell him at what is I think his ADP is going to shake out in, which is the sixth round. I'll be out at that price. I'm done, especially with a draft class

full of stud potential running backs, I'm out. I want no Pacheco. I feel like everyone in this room is going to agree with me on that one. So I'm more interested on the Brees Hall, unless somebody here has something different on Pacheco. Well,

we'll see what the market does with Pacheco. He's one of like 10 different like Plinko running backs where it's like you just put them all at the top of the board and then they all fall through and then like, we're going to get different results. And it just comes down to like, do they stay healthy? Does their team draft somebody?

Does their team, like, I don't know. You'd have to be an Oracle. Like, you need to be Paul Trades to, like, tell me exactly what's going to happen with Isaiah Pacheco's run out. To me, it's like, you just, to me, like, if you just have, you just shouldn't have that much conviction, really, about, like, any of these running backs in this group, because so much of it is just going to be who benefits from health and circumstances.

So it's probably best to spread your bets. And then if you want to have conviction, have that conviction in, like, week two or week three next year when we've actually. actually seen some stuff. And you can place your chips on a little bit more with better information. Paul, I mean, I don't know. It's not. Rostering like really expensive running backs is usually not very fun.

We'll see what the Jets do next year. They're in a pretty shitty situation. They're not going to have, I guess, a good enough pick to draft one of the top two quarterbacks. Don't want to imagine Aaron Rogers is going to be back. I don't know. What's their play? Like, there's a play.

They have to play at Kirk Cousins. That's like terrible. for the Jets, probably pretty great for Prez Hall. If the play is like Cam Ward or something like on a trade-up, that's probably not ideal. I don't know. We also don't know what the staff is going to be. I would say I'm substantially less worried about Brayland Allen's talent at this point

a year than I was in like week three. So I still think Hall's pretty good. I don't know. I don't know how people are going to react to him. Like he probably was overrated based on what he produced. I suspect people are probably more down on him just from reading the vibes than I think actually matches like what he did on the field versus what happened around him on the field. But I don't know. I get if no one wants to invest in any chats after this.

Ryan, go because I got something else. Okay, yeah, I didn't want to stop you, stop your momentum there. But yeah, Pacheco, it's a little, it's crazy to me that they keep rolling out. Like we're doing a 50-50 committee with Kareem Hunt. Like I've been tilting my face off. writing the Everything report the last few weeks. Because Scott and I had this take of like, yeah, Pacheco is going to come back and like be the fantasy playoff hero.

Like he's been on your IR all season. Like he was such a bell cow in the first two weeks. This is going to be awesome. And like every week it was just Andy Reid saying, yeah, I mean, they really help each other. Like it's great that they're both, that they both are on the field. Like we, who knows what each of their role is going to be from week to week.

It could be, it could be either of them on third. and long. It could be either of him in short yardage. We don't know. Andy Reed was just quietly troll-jobbing me the entire last month of the season on this. So that, yeah, that's not great. Do I think it's going to be Karim Hunt specifically next year? I hope to God not. But yeah, most likely based on this experience, I think they do sign somebody or draft somebody in like the fourth round or whatever. Most likely, if they don't, then we roll back the clock and I give my same Isaiah Pacheco take as last preseason. But yeah, that's kind of where we're at there.

I mean, all I think the more pressing thing is they've probably realized, so I just wanted to say on Pacheco before you go into Hall, like maybe this isn't a long-term solution, but I think it's the more, the more pressing short-term issue is that they finally started to get other past catchers back, which means that they can basically just use Xavier Worthy as the running back. Like their running game is just throwing tip passes and screens and quickouts to worthy and then their passing game what used to be their passing game is is the other three guys

and then they just don't actually run the ball anymore which is how the chiefs have always function best which is when they basically just use short passing instead of rushing because they haven't run the ball really well at all and it hasn't really mattered like I I think in the playoffs they're just going to be like a plus 15 PROE team with a bunch of screens to worthy and a bunch of six-yard passes to Kelsey and like there's not like maybe they'll run the ball 12 times and and they each get six carries and maybe they fluke into a touchdown. But to me, that would be the best chief's recipe is just,

just have like these basically what our run plays for Xavier worthy. You mean like put the ball in the hands of arguably one of the best quarterbacks the NFL has ever seen in the playoffs? Insane idea. Just truly insane. Insane ideas on the Dynasty Points podcast here. But yeah, no, I agree,

of course. It was really like second half of last season. They kind of started hammering with Pacheco a little bit more. And yeah, going into this year, it was like, oh, this is pretty enticing to think about if this happens over a full season and they win 12 games or whatever. But yeah, it just doesn't seem to be, doesn't seem super likely going forward now. Yeah, with Hall, I just wanted to echo the point about Braylin Allen not being what we thought in maybe week two. So I still think Hall is a good football player. he was weirdly way less explosive

and that's according to all of the film charters who watch him every week and tell me and know what they're talking about and all of the numbers like he was not topping the league in explosive run rate or anywhere close to it this year and you can yeah you can see that just watching the games

has he been heard all season like half the freaking NFL maybe but yeah it's hard to say I'm a little yeah I guess I'm less I think he put on weight is what it looks like to me Yeah, yeah, I guess I'm less optimistic on him as a player and as a talent than I was at the beginning of this year. So regardless of all the situational stuff that has to work itself out, then yeah, I don't, I wouldn't want to be holding him at like a top five, top six running back dynasty valuation. That's that's kind of what I wanted to talk about with him. I can already see the dynasty Twitter dynasty startup conversation.

going to be with him. Oh, yeah, I'm not selling Breece Hall for anything less than his ADP, but I'm also not buying him at any price near his ADP. But I definitely want to get out of Breece Hall because he looks like it's on a downturn and he's on the Jets. But also, I'm not selling him for pennies on the dollar. I want his elite price. But also, I buy him off of you, but I'm not giving you his ADP price. Like, this is just going to be the conversation about Bruce Hall all year. if you got them, you're either going to have to take probably what you think is 90 to 85% until we have some like information. Maybe the Jets do what the Jets do and they just draft another running back for no fucking reason

because that's just what they do. I don't know. But I'm definitely disappointed right now as a Breece Hall manager. Like I won't lie to you. I legitimately debated him or Josh Downs. But then you also see that he has the opportunity to like get there. So like I said. like Jacob said, if their path is Kurt Cousins or even another Aaron Rogers year, it's like, okay,

he checks it down to the running back, like it's whatever. But like you said, it's kind of a mess. It's all turmoil. Obviously, you'll buy if there is any sort of legitimate dip because running backs are running backs in fantasy. They matter. But like, man, is he going to give you much more than what like James Connor will or like Alvin Camaro will at like completely different prices. I don't, I don't know.

I don't know. I mean, nine of the top 10 running backs this year and points per game were on, I forget if it was top. It can't have been top 10 offenses. It must have at least been top half offenses when I saw the stat this morning. And, you know, especially when you look weighted to the end of the year, right? Like, it's, I'm pretty sure that if the Jets were nine and six, you know, nine and seven, if they were where the Broncos and the Bengals, the Dolphins, the Colts where they all were the last few weeks,

that Hall would have been playing more snaps than he was playing, right, and wouldn't have been losing as much work to Braylon Allen's and Isaiah Davis is. And it's like, that's the risk, unfortunately, like, I don't know what happened last year, but like last year, Hall having this ridiculous explosion in the fantasy playoffs where he was just getting force-fed work for no particular reason with Trevor Simeon is the exception, is the exception not the rule. Like, showed out to Brice Hall for that. that won me a lot of money so thank you but like that's very rare for a team to just be like we're going to give 40 touches to a running back on a team that's like four and 12 in the fantasy championship more more often than not it seems that those running backs are getting load

managed they're getting shutdown on iR they're they're getting whatever or the team just like we saw with the jet i mean rysaw got plenty of work yesterday in the first half they couldn't see in any drives they were down 40 to nothing and they put in the backup support quarter so like some of it's on haul, some of it's just the Jets. And it's like, I totally get if you don't want a cornerstone. And, you know, we can't predict. Maybe the Jets will be good next year. But if they don't project it to be good next year,

it's hard to put a cornerstone of your team in that spot. What time? You're cracking up. The Jets were down. Did you hear Aaron Rogers said he was a self-fenture? Well, maybe we've tried to get. I'm sure people will make just as big of a deal about that as they did with Anthony Richardson. I'm sure that'll be at Macon.

Pat McAfee, of course, who's very anti-tapping out, I'm sure that his co-host, Iowaaska buddy, tapping out of a game fully, not just for one play. I'm sure Pat McAfee will boycott the Aaron Rogers appearances on principle now after his tap out. I'm sure that your locker room can't possibly miss it. You just don't understand. You just don't understand an NFL locker room unless you're Pat McAfee. I would never allow that type of attitude on my program. Get the fuck out, Pat McAfee, you fucking dork. I just thought it was funny where he's like, yeah, it's 33-0.

I guess we should get Tyrod in there, get him some reps, which hilarious. And then immediate touchdown to Garrett Wilson. And then as I'm texting, James is seething on the bench. They're like, they show the photo and he's just like. And then as as Jacob and I are texting back and forth because I'm tilted that Conklin is getting receptions, I'm like, watch. He's going to end this game with like 20. and a couple seconds later

I just sent a long text of Jacob and it goes, lol, touchdown. He got like 21 tight end premium points like on the last two drives. Yeah. It escalated so quickly for the cock daddy.

They got two touchdowns as soon as Aaron Rogers came off the field. Hirod. And he was so miserable. He immediately lit it up and specifically he lit it up with everyone that wasn't Devonte Adams, which was the funniest part.

It was like, Tyrod comes and he's like, I've brought a touchdown to Will. also then and throw a touchdown to the conch shell like we're rolling especially like the most cuckery that erin rogers had uh this last game was he threw the pick and he late hit the dude out of bounds like clearly late hit him laid it on him knew no one was going to mess with them the camera pan and he's smiling and smirking brother you're down like four scores already right you just laid a dirty cheap shot

and you're smirking and like smiling get cucked like absolutely unreal behavior from a from a grown man uh and then also shout out our tie god taylor who should probably should have been starting since like week 10 and garret wilson would have been the prince that was promised apparently my lord quick break when we come back we're getting to some twitter questions that were sent to us sit tight can't wait fuck aaron rogers at dej we speak business. We speak startup funding and comprehensive game plans.

We've mastered made to measure growth and expansion advice and we can talk your ear off about transferring your business when the time comes. Because at Desjardin business, we speak the same language you do.

Business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count on us and contact Desjardin today. We'd love to talk. Business. I think it's just a good, like,

important to add that in there. Yeah, I just want to say, fuck Aaron Rogers. I didn't say anything in that last. I'll get it on. Make sure my, yeah, I've been messaging that string of words to a lot of people over the last 40 hours. So just make sure, get my opinion out there on the podcast too. Garrett Wilson ended up cashing me in a finals because I needed that garbage time touchdown.

I ended up winning that, that finals game by like four points when it was all said and done. after the Falcon's insane game. That was crucial to me finally, finally winning the foot plan invitational. I know. After I'm in Tom, the first league other than our own league, the Tom and I joined together,

I've made the finals every year of its iteration and lost in the finals every year of its iteration. And this was my fifth consecutive year in the finals. And finally I was able to come through against Tom, thanks to Tyrod. Hey, look, 30 from goals. off 30 from Kittle and I've got myself another championship.

That's true. It's not it's not, you're not out of it totally. If I would have played Donald and his 31 points, you would actually be sweating tonight. Like, let's have been I'd be toast if you'd play Donald. I'm, I'm forever grateful that you didn't. But I hope that Tom does not win

because if Tom doesn't win, that means I got Don Tavian Wicks a ring in the starting lineup this week. That's right. You did play something Ryan couldn't do against us. We've got I should have played Tyron instead of Aaron Rogers against you. He scored like 10 more fantasy points. I should have played a Murad Dula instead of Octavian Wix and I wouldn't be sledding.

Yeah, for sure. So we got Bruce G. or at B. Gross Nickel. It's a phenomenal name. He says, hey guys, I know at Fantasy Guru, that's John Hansen, loves to say he'd rather be out a year too early rather than a year too late. With John, it's more like two years too early. Man is a bigger ageist than Ryan, which I didn't think was possible. With that in mind, when should you move guys like Barclay for a pick overhaul or younger talent?

I'm going to kick this off. I'm not saying a fucking negative thing about Barclay ever again. I did it all off season. I look like an asshole. For as long as he's in this Jalen Hertz led offense, great. Keep him and win. I think I'm done with this like get out on super good running backs early. Like I'm just going to have Camara forever and just try to win for as long as I have like Henry, Camara, Barclay, Connor.

Like, I'm just sticking with them because they're difference. They're difference makers in the situations that they're in. So I don't know. Like I was a year too early on Barclay last year. and now I look like an asshole. So I'm just not doing that again. I think now if you want to sell them for a hole, I think Keep Trade Cut has him as a Dynasty RB3 right now.

Like this might be maybe your last chance to get out at that price before like, I don't know, maybe rookies show up or show out. But I don't know, man. I think it's okay to just have like 21 points locked on your roster. I don't know. I don't have a super good answer other than like I was an asshole already once. I'm not doing it again. I can never answer these questions because it's these specific types of players are the ones that have the largest spread in value between your different leagues.

So like figure out what Barclay is worth to you. I think I have them at like I'll probably have them either at the one base first or maybe the 1.25. Going into the off season, I guarantee you that you probably if you play in some certain home leagues with some of your buddies that maybe mostly play redraft, you will get above that price. I would probably take it in most of those leagues. You can also definitely join a dynasty startup with a bunch of nerds on Twitter and get him in like the fifth round because they're drafting, you know, Jordan Addison a full round ahead of him. So like I assure you that there are,

I assure you that your appetite for Barclay can contain multitudes. I generally every year I would say, yeah, in redraft. So I draft a lot of old running backs not very often. that works out some years better than other years. In Dynasty, I'm usually pretty even with the field on most of these guys because I have a lot of them in leagues when I play with certain folks, mostly from Twitter, and I have not very much of them when I play in some leagues with other people.

So I think it's less about buy or sell and more just about setting a price and understanding your league dynamic. I think there's clear, and this is one thing, we're going to do this things that we learned, what we got wrong, et cetera, episode. Coming up here when we come back from the new year, might take like a week or two break. We haven't kind of figured out what our break is going to be yet this year. We usually take a couple of weeks to just decompress, think about this last year,

and then come back, just ready to go with prospects and draft info or whatever. I think there's obvious be out early type players, Travis E.T.N. There's a reason that I was just hell or high water telling everyone to avoid this dude because of the mirage that was. What Sequin Barclay's doing isn't a mirage. If anything, if I'm him, I'm like beating the shit out of Nick Siriani for giving Kenny Pickett a tush push

instead of just giving me the ball on the one yard line and letting me score. Like if I'm him, think about if half of those tush pushes just gets to bar, and now we're talking about Barclay being even better somehow than he was. I sat there all offseason going he's not going to get the same past game work he hasn't guess what doesn't matter

it just doesn't matter it doesn't matter he's in the perfect scenario in the perfect spot with the perfect quarterback the perfect team with the perfect offensive line I just think that if you're not getting a king's ransom just stick with him

I wouldn't even take if you Jacob came to me and approached me with a base 1 or a base 0.251 potentially end our friendship, right? Like I would just feel like you're, you're like, I don't know, big broing me. And I don't think I could, I don't think I could mentally take that.

I'd laugh at you quite honestly. But like someone comes to me with two first three. Like now we're talking because dude, I'm telling you, this man is about to be a late two startup pick in Superflex drafts into the third round. And I'm sorry, but running backs are just expensive.

guys that are elite are expensive. I'm not worried about getting out a year too early on a guy like Barclay. Now watch if he gets hurt next year, like Lake this year, but look at that guy. But no, I did this last year. I think there's obvious cases. This isn't one of them. I'm just not ready to,

I don't think this is the short answer. This isn't the year to be out a year early on Barclay. So I'll answer the question in like a few different ways. I guess the first and most obvious is like, do I think Barclay is going to score a lot of, of fantasy points next year. Yes, I think he's going to project as a top three running back pretty much everywhere. I think he's probably going to score as a top three running back again next year. That is the most likely outcome. In Dynasty, should you get out, is it a year too

early? Is it better to be a year too early? I would say, I don't think it's actually that great to be a year or two early out on running backs in Dynasty, at least in the type of leagues that Tom and Jacob and I play in. One of the most plus plus EV things you can do is preferably like before every season. Just send out like the second round picks for

all the old running backs. If you had done that with like James Connor and Josh Jacobs and Derek Henry and Alvin Camara and everybody, and not especially this year, but even the last few years, you can generally get very good production at very

relatively low dynasty. value cost from this archetype of older running back. If it's Saquan Berkeley and he's a top three guy, even better. If you're a rebuilding team and you're not competing next year, you should absolutely be saying what you can get for Berkeley. Yeah, you have no reason to take on any of the risk of does he get injured. Was it a mirage, which I don't think it was? But yeah, I don't think he needs to be like a priority sell for you if you have a decent

dynasty team that made it into the playoffs or into the second or third round of the playoffs this year. Yeah, I wouldn't be, I wouldn't be getting out from him just to get out from him just because he's a running back that's getting a little older. And I think that that's bad and I want to get out from him. Because, yeah, most of the time you're not going to get the value coming back to you in, in most leagues, I would say, that he's worth to you as a contender scoring points on your roster. Yeah, agreed. Like, if you backed into the playoffs with Bark, like, because of Barclay, like, if you got in at 6th,

we're like somehow the 11th max points forward, like, yeah, you want to move them, move them. I get it. But I'm not, I'm still not going to take, like, a minuscule return for him. Like, he went at RB7 at the end of the third round from May 1st through August 31st in 2024. I'm sorry, but he is going to go ahead of Bruce Hall, McCaffrey. like I don't think there's a rookie coming out except for Genty that should that's going to go ahead of him like we're talking about an early third round startup pick and I mean that's going to be what is that that's the difference like you play more leagues than me among the masses you are you you you walk with the people I do I'm a man of the people I walk with the I walk with the impotent nerds so like the leagues the leagues that are closer to what's actually reflected on Dynasty Data Lab I 100% agree with you when we're talking about. next July he's going to be a two three turn pick on dynasty data lab and you know I will not roster him in any of those leagues and I will I will accept the consequences not because I don't think

he's going to score a lot of points it's just it's not how I want to spend my two three turn pick but that being said I also think like the alternatives are different right so Barclay is going to be way more expensive in those leagues than in some of the leagues that I play in where I'm sure he's going to be like a late fourth pick in startups um as the rb four um but that also means that like in those leagues the reason why i don't even draft barclay in the fourth round in those leagues or won't draft barclay in the fourth round in those leagues is because like the the lesser barclays are like stone free right like the idea that like so like a mix in erin jones camara like those guys like cost nothing even jacobs is probably like what a round nine

pick for you guys? Yeah, exactly. So it's like I, that's why I don't really spend up for those guys sometimes in these leagues. But like, so I might actually, you know, weird way even be more willing, like, maybe not to go buy Barclay at that round two, three price. But like Tom said, like unless I'm actually offered, I have Barclay in one league that is very home league vibes.

And unless I'm offered the moon and the stars, he's not going because I'm, I can't backfill him for anything that's pleasant, right? It's not like I can just go and send my 209 for Alvin Camara in that league. You're going to have to pay with a first round pick for any top starting running back there. So I get how the inflation moves everybody up. And I do agree, like if you're going to have to pay an inflated cost regardless or forego and inflated return, Barclay is probably the most secure guy because he's in this environment where even if he starts to decline, I still think he's going to score a bunch of points based

on what Hertz is going to do. And he looked like he was legitimately the best running back in the NFL this year. Yeah. Yep. I don't disagree with any of those points. I think it's good. I think we hit that one pretty perfectly. If you have more questions about it,

you can holler at us. We appreciate the question. Let's get into the last two questions, and then we can get out of here. This one, I actually just really appreciate. This is all me. We'll finish with an actual fantasy one.

But somebody has finally asked a question that I have been waiting for for like five years. it says from at Andrew Gray 77 it says okay huge wrestling peep here so I gotta know the one dude you're doing the podcast with and then he actually uses my name so shout out what I wasn't sure if he was going to get there but at El Nosa Thomas has retired professional wrestler in his Twitter bio what company did he work for and what was his ring name and gimmick. Thanks. So I wrestled across Canada for almost 10 years.

I wrestled for a company mainly called Premier Championship Wrestling here in Winnipeg. I got a couple of insane opportunities, got to share locker rooms with guys like AJ Stiles and Carrino and Frankie Kazarian had some amazing opportunities with Kenny Omega of AEW got to wrestle him multiple times, including for his Omega Man documentary. Guys like Steve Carrino, who I loved growing up, Colt Cabana, who I was a big fan of. I could go on for a really long time over just the insane career that I was lucky enough to have as like sort of a too short, kind of out of shape. some would say not properly trained wrestler

who could cut a promo on a mic and be entertaining enough to have people still come to show so premier championship wrestling if you want you can reach out to me I can give you the website that I hope is still active I don't really think the company runs anymore but yeah I've wrestled for companies briefly like CWE and River

City wrestling here in Winnipeg Primo's Wrestling Canada in Winnipeg a whole bunch and then across the country. So yes, I was an indie wrestler. I have professional because we always said in the business, if you get to pay one bill with your wrestling check, I guess, your payout, you call that being a professional because not everyone gets a chance to do that. I did get to pay my rent with wrestling at least once.

ergo I claim to be a retired professional wrestler because like I said for one brief period of time I paid my rent with it just like if you know I was a barista or you know a month and I got to pay some bills I would say that I'm a retired professional barista same way it's a little bit of an inside work joke there but yeah that's a little bit about my wrestling career if you want more let me know I got a whole bunch of

a whole bunch of stuff. There's a couple podcasts where I talk a little bit more in depth about it as well. So I actually really appreciate that question. I get told you should talk about it more because it's kind of insane. Yeah, I get why some people would think that about that. Last question. This is my favorite type of fantasy question. This is like my specialty.

This is what I do. Every year I look at this situation and I think, how can I take advantage of this? um pharice had asked that's at a g n t l-o-l i know that's a gaming thing ferris no idea how to say that uh so shout out to you for being dope he says does the does the quarterback dead zone exist in dynasty and what are we doing about these round four through six guys goffs bakers two is etc a question that has driven jacob crazy for a long time now we get to talk of about it, is there a quarterback dead zone? I'm going to go last year because I think I'm going to have the most to say about it.

Every year, I think it's going to be different. I'm trying to think of what the startup picture is going to look like in 2025. I'm not sure that that's going to be a terrible range to pick quarterbacks. My guess is if I had to guess where I think I will be targeting quarterbacks in my startups this year, I think I will probably, if I get like a top three pick, I suspect I will pick one of Alan Jackson or Daniels. I suspect I will probably not be very heavy

on most of like the round two and three quarterbacks. I suspect I'll probably be more interested in the Darnold Gough Baker to a group than those guys at their respective costs. But we will see on what the, what that tier is in behind them, because I often tend to quite enjoy the round nine to ten quarterbacks. It's just very hard to know who those guys are going to be on December 30th, since a lot of those guys are inherently precarious.

And it also just depends on what the alternatives are. If I'm trying to zoom out, I think that the degree to which modern defenses have adjusted in recent years where you really, really have to intentionally, proactively, skillfully, scheme a passing game together that is effective. I think that there is, I think it creates less room in fantasy production between, what I would think of as the best pocket passers in the NFL and what I would think of as average pocket passers that have very good schemes. And then I would say it creates more room between those same kind of average pocket passers

in very good environments and other average or below average pocket passers in far worse environments. So I think the result of that is that, you know, there's probably, we probably shouldn't have a massive projection gap going into next year from the darnold Purdy to a goth conglomerant and whatever, like younger quarterbacks with better brand recognition going around two. So I don't know. I'm not sure that I would be fading those guys. Yeah, I have similar thoughts.

I think there's going to be kind of, yeah, that first, top tier that Jacob mentioned, those top three guys, is also going to be very locked in for me. I think maybe the biggest decision point is going to be, do you go the route of I'm drafting the, I don't know if I would put Drake May in this category because he runs too, but like the Drake Mays, the Bo Nix is that, yeah, kind of the younger guy with brain recognition. Does Jordan Love still count here, even though he has done barely anything over the last second half of the season?

Any of those guys versus the purdys and twas and them? I think I'm just taking whoever is cheaper. Yeah, like at times that it's been that conglomerate, at other times in the last few years, those guys have been more expensive than I've been comfortable with compared to the alternatives. Yeah, it's hard to say right now, especially with there not being like an overwhelmingly great rookie quarterback class this year too. I think last year we had kind of an effect of like the Caleb Williams and the Jane and Daniels mostly are like pushing other guys down a bit.

I don't think we get that this year. I don't see the community getting insanely excited about Shadur like on the Giants. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, that is probably, that is probably the case. Yeah. So, yeah, I think it'll be, it'll be pretty easy for me to take what I think is like fairly locked in production with the quarterback on a long-term deal in a situation we know is good with a play caller we know is good. preferably with a defense it's not insanely cracked that that is another kind of element we probably don't talk about enough when it comes to fantasy quarterback scoring is is their defense really good that's been Patrick Mahomes's problem for not so much the last half of this year but the year and a half before that that was really driving a lot of Mahomes being extremely mediocre in fantasy um so yeah it it's tough again yeah I guess it's tough to

say when I get to the end of this question to give a straight yes or no answer. But those are the things I'll be thinking about when it comes time for startups. There's absolutely a quarterback dead zone. Just the quarterback dead zone doesn't exist the same way the running back dead zone has been known to exist. Where we know with the RB dead zone, it was what, rounds five through seven, Jacob, as far as I can remember. Like, I know JJ Zacharyzen was very RB dead zone round five through seven from what I

remember it's kind of that way but it's kind of proven to be like round two round two to three seems to be the quarterback dead zone for me there was a time where when i was drafting a goff or it looks a little worse now with two and ld injuries he's had where i was made fun of by one jacob sanderson for drafting these guys in the fourth round and they've been nothing but stable you know mid qb twosy qb ones we've seen how valuable that can be last year there was a huge drop with quarterbacks. Like if you look at the third round, and again, I always reference May 1st through August 31st,

so post-NFL draft down to the beginning of August, which is to me where like the real kind of season gets going. So you look at what the quarterbacks were like. In round three, you've got like Daniels, who absolute smash is going to be a first round pick. Some people are going to take a 101. I know because I've seen it. I've seen it happen.

So he's going to get up there. I think you're going to see guys like Bo Nix get up there. He's going to be a fourth round startup pick, I believe, maybe even a fifth round. He could end up fighting his way into the third, really, where guys like Caleb are going to fall. AR is going to plummet. C.J. Stroud is going to be a mid-second round startup pick likely.

He won't see the first round, given this year no do I think he should he should guys like Dak are going to fall Lawrence is likely to fall again although he might get a Brian Thomas Jr. plus coaching change bump and then find his way back into the third

which I will not be drafting him at but you're going to get a lot of guys like Lawrence, Purdy, Dak, Goff, Tua potentially guys like Darnold pending contract that we talked about

at the beginning all going around the four or five and that's the quarter of dead zone and guess what in Superflex that's okay you do not have to at the baker as well let's not forget about Baker mayfield you do not have to ignore these guys simply because you want to just draft the receiver I think this is where my strategy for my late round quarterback hoaring is going to really centralize like I think if there's a quarterback I want to take in the second round it's going to be Justin Herbert I got him in the fourth round with Dynasty Buck.

We got him at the early fourth, which is just a complete misuse of dynasty management in the Fantasy Points Listener League startup we got. Shout out to him. Just because he runs a little bit more than some of these other guys, high touchdown efficiency is obviously the path for him. We've seen that. That's definitely been seen this year with how up and down it can be.

Heaven forbid if they do draft like a, I don't know, running back in round one, I'd be terrified with this coaching staff, but either way. But like, you don't have to draft Kyler or love in that second round. Because, like Ryan had mentioned, the value that you get in that four, five, and six,

we should be targeting. We should be targeting that production. It's not like the RB dead zone where we avoid it. You almost want to lean into the quarterback dead zone. And guess what? There's still going to be late round. quarterbacks that you can go and attack this year. There's always guys.

There's always guys you can get. Stafford if he doesn't retire is going to be another guy that I'm targeting. Rogers, Fields once again. Guess what? Old friend Derek Carr is $41 million contract ending in the next year. Get on my roster, buddy. Like there's always going to be these guys. Russell Wilson is another one that I kind of want to be on.

By the way, Sam Darnold was QB 37. in that time frame. Let's talk about cash money. There's always a guy. So yes, as much as I am the late round quarterback guy, always taking the gamble on guys like Gino Smith, et cetera,

I'm also the guy that's taking the risk on Will Levis in the ninth. And Matt Stafford in the ninth, Bo Nicks in the eighth is hilarious money when we get to look back at it. But I think there is a quarterback dead zone. I actually think we should lean more into it than not where in years past you would be made fun of for, oh my, you took golf in the fourth round.

You took, you took Tua in the fifth instead of a receiver. I think we should lean a little bit more into it than we have in years past. I want to just jump, start, you go first, Jacob. No, you go. You go. I want to jump back in on the comparison to the running back dead zone because the running back dead zone, I guess like classically four or five years

ago whenever J.J. Zacharison was first doing the research on it. It's not like this magical span of rounds where every running back is going to be bad or be a bad pick because that's where the bad running backs go. It's a consequence of market forces, right? For running backs in that case, it was the market generally overvalues last year's production. There's perceived scarcity with the running back position more so than there is now, I would say, in fantasy football. So it resulted in these running backs with questionable talent profiles, running backs that don't catch many passes who were on questionable teams getting pushed up into whatever round that was that year. It has always been a moving target just as the market has kind of adjusted to this and become smarter. Analogously with the quarterbacks, though, I think there is a market inefficiency when it comes to quarterbacks for fantasy at least.

it used to be that rushing was undervalued. I think we've done a decent job as a fantasy community coming to understand the value of a mobile quarterback, right? But I think now there is still like a brand inefficiency, I guess, when it comes to quarterbacks, where kind of all we hear, all we talk about constantly in the off season especially is ex-quarterback is a fraud. like Brock, Brock Party's production is completely fraudulent. We've been having that conversation for three years. Tua constantly throughout the offseason,

his production completely fraudulent. He's in this system. He's in the system. We'll probably do the same thing with Sam Darnold this year. That has, like, pushed down some of these guys in fantasy, where it's weird because we should be like, no, that's great for fantasy. Like, we want the fraud, the scam,

quarterbacks in fantasy football. That's the whole point. They're scamming fantasy production. They're scamming stats. Give me all of those. But yeah, there's this bias kind of where the CJ shrouds, the Jordan loves, get pushed up because they're perceived as better real-life quarterbacks as, yeah, or as real-life quarterbacks that are going to have more longevity, where number one, longevity for a quarterback in dynasty is very overrated on anyone that's under contract is probably going to last as long as your league is going to, most likely, or at least within a reasonable time horizon for you to be making decisions. They're going to last through it, probably, outside of the extremes of like the Matt

Stafford's and what have you. So, yeah, the inefficiencies are age and real-life superstar status. If a quarterback has both of those things working for him, he's probably being drafted to high in dynasty, and that is the quarterback dead zone. It's been like the second or third round the last two or so seasons, I would say. I don't know if it will be that way this season with how these ADPs shake out. But yeah, that's how I would approach. Is this a dead zone?

Not necessarily like, oh, am I? Are these quarterbacks kind of stinky? And do I not feel super jazz to draft them? Because, yeah, paradoxically, that creates like the opposite of the dead zone. I think that these Baker goth guys are fine. I think you can go even lower, though. Like, I think, like, part of the fun of the, of the, part of the appeal of the scam is, like, not just that you get to ride out fourth round picks kind of in perpetuity, which is fine. But, like, the big, the big win is, like, drafting Goff the first good year you have with the Lions, right?

Like, drafting Darnold this year, having Purdy from when he first took over. Like drafting Goff and Purdy and these guys in years since has been certainly not bad. It's like, I think kind of neutral where they've gone, which is fine. It's like my issue is like when you draft these guys in the fourth round, I think it's a pretty safe call. Like every year you're going to be able to point to guys that go in the fourth round that plummet. And these guys probably won't plummet. I do think you're missing out on the chance to draft the position player that ends up going in the first round of startups the next year. like these guys had not dissimilar ADPs to guys like Brock Bowers to guys like Brian Thomas to guys like Vlad McConkey who went later

which is why I I tend to struggle to get there when like you know you can get you can just take shots on the Sam Darnels of the world for like literally free and I don't know who those guys are going to be next year but that's that's where I'm a little less into these guys and if anything I like to go even a little bit later for my QBT and QB3. But the one thing I've applied to all of these guys, it's like when you get out of startup mode and you get into just the actual grind of the year playing dynasty, ideally you really do want three, four quarterbacks

to get through the season because you're not only going to have five weeks, but like you're probably going to have to deal with injuries at a certain point. And from a roster construction perspective, if you put tons and tons, I mean, it's almost similar to the real life constraints we're talking about where we're saying like, oh, should the Vikings pay $50 million to Sam Darnold?

Or do you take the savings with J.J. McCarthy? Like your draft picks, your startup picks, your base versus value, that's your salary cap, right? Obviously you want to build as valuable as a team as you can. But especially year one, your team is probably not going to be that much more valuable than other teams in your league. And when you do spend a first and the second round pick on quarterbacks, you do put yourself in a bit of a bind where if you're trying to compete your one, you store. a ton of value in these quarterbacks.

You probably can't be spending more value on a legitimate third quarterback. Otherwise, you're making life really difficult on yourself to compete. And you're going to have a bit of a roster that feels thin. You know, so like I'm in a 14-team league. No, I got exceedingly lucky, but you don't usually win that many fantasy championships without luck. I was in a 14-team league startup this year where people went nuts on the quarterback value. Like absolutely nuts on the quarterback value.

And I wound up my starting court. And I wound up with my quarterbacks going into the year being, what was it? It was Gardner Minshu, Gino Smith, and J.J. McCarthy. And then when J.J. McCarthy got hurt, I traded a second for Sam Darnold immediately. And, like, I ended up winning that league because I ended up getting lucky that Sam Darnold was this big of a hit. Gino was fine. Minchu didn't do anything. But it's like, I ended up having just this pretty absurd team built because I don't have.

everybody was going crazy on the quarterbacks. Yeah. And that's a lot of it where it's like, think about it. I think the big thing I would ask you to start up is think about if this, if you were no longer in a startup and you were in this league is two years down the road, would you create the position player that you are foregoing for that quarterback? Yes or no? If the answer is like not in a million years,

then just because it's a startup shouldn't drastically change the way that you evaluate these players. Well, because I would say it. definitely depends on that's where knowing your league is going to come into play because i know from personal experience we all do that sometimes when you're that guy without a quarterback and everyone in the world knows you're looking for one you have to give up the deed to your house you have to sign your car over uh to to get i don't know aid and o'connell like you you can just

be toast and sometimes those teams that have 10 wide receivers look really good until week eight of the season. And then you can definitely end up fucked. So I think to me, yes,

sometimes you do have to trade that position player to go and get that quarterback. I think sometimes you can't help it. I mean, hell, talk about luck, we got lucky.

You and I in that league that we've been joking about here with Ryan, but I mean, we had been, Huntley. We just won a championship with Tyler Huntley.

Luckily, Ryan also didn't make any moves. which thank God. But like, yeah. Yeah, we drafted four starters. And we had four starters in like week one. But yeah, I, I don't know. I disagree with that a little bit.

I think there's always other ways. I think it feels impossible in the context of the startup. But I think opportunities will often present themselves where you can bet on someone that someone seems totally non-viable like Darnold was in August. Or, you know, I ended up having, I mean, the funny part is I had James Winston on my bench and there came a point in the year where I had four-star. after looking like a zero and I ended up trading James Winston for more than I got.

I traded for Sam Darnold. I mean, this is how it works out in a very lucky case. But I also think it's not that bad of an outcome in a Dynasty League to be like, well, the dice didn't roll my way, but I know I have a lot of value on my team. I guess this isn't the year for me to compete. And then I'll just draft a quarterback, you know, first or second overall next year. And then the problem is solved. Like I think that's always a reasonable backstop.

I would rather do that personally than go all in on seven. too. But here's the thing, right? So it's like, I like to avoid drafting a quarterback in the first round if I can help it. Generally speaking, unless I'm like, oh no, Lamar Jackson at 1-5, boo-hoo, right? I always say I avoid the pylon guy. Obviously, Burrow this year has earned his QB6 spot. He's been great. Like, for the most part, I want to do the Jefferson, Lamb, Chase, St. Brown, soon-to-be neighbors and

Brian Thomas, et cetera. I always want to go that route if I can. In fact, I probably want to start with four straight receivers is like the most ideal thing. So if you're telling me that I can take those four straight upper tier wide receivers and then I'm like, I don't know, bro, fucking Baker's there in that fifth. Like that's an instant no brainer click to me.

Like I will just click Baker there. And then, yeah, I'm taking whatever rookie that stands out sophomore. then yeah, I'm going to go dumpster diving for a veteran or two and try to tie it together. I think for me, the way you're describing it, that's how I'm approaching it. If I'm taking one of these first quarterbacks, yeah, of course. I'm not going to take a quarterback in the fourth round. The chances of me doing that are slim to none. That's when I'm going to push it.

So to me it depends where you want to click your first quarterback. Because if you want to click your first quarterback super early and kind of hero this thing, then yeah, you should avoid this dead zone. but for someone like myself who sometimes I don't take my first quarterback to the seventh round, like I'm more likely to lean in to that dead zone of quarterback, which is why I say I think we should be leaning into it with my types of builds. Yeah, that's something that I would do. The way that you're saying it makes a ton of sense as well when you look at how you construct that roster

and then how you apply it to leagues as they currently exist. Because, yeah, like everyone knows, trying to acquire a quarterback in a league that exists. Ah, yeah. staple that sign to your forehead that says kick me because it's it it's gonna they're gonna in terms of the price I think there's a bunch of different ways to look at it getting back to the initial question is does it exist absolutely and what to do with these other guys be thankful that you got them for as cheap as you did yeah like like you said there's always going to be guys that that the like I think it's Justin Fields this year early in the year I think he's

definitely like the guy if you want to predict Yeah, he's going to be, I'll take him on every single startup I do. Depending where Pennix goes, I'm taking him everywhere. Russell Wilson, Carr, cousins, Rogers. Like, these are all just guys I'm drafting and will be drafting probably all year again. All year again, 100%. Also, shout out Michael Pennix Jr. I mean, look, when the internet gives you an opportunity,

and this is just a little bonus one before we get out of here, nine times out of 10, if you are like on the Dynasty Twitter spectrum, if you're just on there, when a player becomes a meme, nine times out of 10 go buy them when they're at their meme price. Because my God, like, Panix Jr. was a meme. Everyone hated him. He ended up with the 204. You're just printing money.

Like he had already gained value. Then he stands in the pocket on fourth down, makes it an incredible throw. that throw was so good that it's going to extend the Kyle Pitts experience an entire another year on that throw alone you'll learn not to throw to Kyle Pitts eventually but yeah other than that what an absolute dot after making some yeah some poor throws for sure it's a second start and he's lefty which just looks weird still to me um yeah i can i i can never think a lefty quarterback is good.

It's weird, I watch them and it doesn't look correct. They miss it like every bad throw that he had went to the right. And then as soon as they lined up Drake London on the left, he's just like dot, dot, I need to watch this tape in mirror mode so that I can like watch them objectively. Because when I watch it,

every time I watch him throw, even when it's like his best throw, I'm like that looks bad. Like that throwing motion has a long, he's left handed. I'm not like a- Didn't someone do that with Tua a couple years ago? And it did look better.

And immediately he looked better. Yeah. And it did way better. I'm not a quarterback guru, but he has like a long delivery, it feels like, but I think he's looked good. I don't know.

So guess what? Michael Panix Jr., not only did I draft you a ton at the 204 because you were free money. Same with Bo Nix in the second round because people lulled at him. He was another meme. Free.

You got free starting quarterback's Superflex, one that we know is good for fantasy and one that we're hoping will continue to get better to be good. I mean, welcome to my rosters in the sixth round, buddy. Like, welcome, welcome. Seventh round? Welcome. Please. And come on in.

Because you're, you're going to be my most drafted quarterback next year for sure. Yeah, fun little bit at the end. Anything else you guys want to add? I want to ask one more question before I announce the winner officially of the player picks game. We'll do that. I want to ask one more question.

Real quick. What do you want? Now that fantasy season is over for like league formats like I know Jacob you got 800 best ball teams are drafting and you've got 8 million contests and Millies and I get it but just from a football perspective

now that the weekly grind is kind of done what are you looking forward to watching just sitting there and just watching football this weekend because I know what mine is. This weekend? I cannot wait for the Vikings

Lions game. Yes. I mean, that's going to be one of the most entertaining games of the year. Like, those are, I love watching creative offenses. I'm very critical of coaches online all the time, largely because I think that they have like 32 of the best jobs in the world, and it bothers me when some of them seem to take their jobs very unsuriously. But those two organizations, to me, are the best coached organizations in the sport. Every week, they do things that give their team.

teams a better chance to win. They are bold. They are unafraid. I'm really excited for them to both get the spotlight, and I expect it to be just like an absolutely fantastic game. I hope that we see it again in the playoffs too, but I'm really, really, really pumped to watch. All of the stars in that game and the combination of Ryan Flores, Kevin, Ben Johnson, Dan Campbell, Aaron Klan,

all get to go and show their stuff. Yeah, I love that. Stole mine, that's what I was going to say. That's kind of the obvious good game of the weekend. So what I'm going to say instead is I'm just going to have like Joe Burrow rooting interest. I want to see the Bengals in the playoffs. It could happen. They have to beat the Steelers Saturday night.

Yeah, parts of the Wets related rooting interest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah. It would be very sad if they just lost the Steelers Saturday night and completely like took. the wind out of my sales on this one. That's not happening. I'm going to have like the biggest bet of my year on the Bengals money line. I don't care what the line is.

Yeah. No, that's, I thought that, I thought that last time too. But anyways, yeah, it's,

um, is it, is it just the Broncos that have to lose now because the cults lost or do the cults have to lose again? Cults are out, right? Jacob, Colts are toast.

That's why I'm, Colts are toast. It's, but the dolphins need to lose. Okay. Yes, the dolphins need to lose. So the Broncos,

If the Broncos win, it's the Broncos. If the Broncos lose, then the Dolphins just have to win, and they're in. If the Broncos and Dolphins lose and the Bengals win, then they're in. Yes. So, yeah, that's what I'm... If they all lose, then the Broncos are back to being in. Yeah. For my...

It'll be... They're both at 430, I guess, both the Broncos and the Dolphins. So, yeah, baited breath on that one. for myself it's pretty easy it's Baltimore trying to lock up this seed I can't decide whether or not I want them to win and because now I'm down the Twitter hole of like who do we play and what does it matter and where do we go and really at the end of the day I'm excited to just like Ryan said heading into this week I'm excited to have nothing on the line for this no fantasy championships

I don't play best ball. I'm not a draft king's guy. I never bet on the Ravens games for parleyes unless they're up by 21 points, and I always bet on the other team. But I have nothing on the line here, and I just get to watch my favorite team play football in a divisional game.

Please still start DTR, even though your entire fan base is booing you. Please do that so we can win this game with no like potential hiccups but I'm excited to see the difference in the deep this is the time of year I get to see all right their defense has been improving why like let me pay more attention to how the defense is playing let me let me see what the game

plan is going to be like let's let me not just worry about please just run for five more yards or let's get that Derek Henry 10 yard like I get to just watch my favorite team play football and enjoy the game where they potentially blow it because they're going to play down to their opponent like they always do. And an AFC North game, I'm excited to watch. Yeah, Kyle Hamilton's a baller. Kyle Van Nuys apparently like Prime Terrell Suggs.

I don't know. I'm just, I'm just excited to watch my favorite team, the one week of the year, really, where I don't super have to stress out about it for the most part and genuinely enjoy being a football fan. So this weekend, I'll be off Twitter. I will not be freaking out having a meltdown. I'm just going to watch the game and enjoy the spectacle that is the season Lamar Jackson is having, which is one we've never really seen before. So I'm excited for that.

Can I ask us all, I know we did them preseason. Now with all the season in the rear view, what's everybody's renewed Super Bowl predictions? Oh, yeah, yeah, we can do that. I'll even do you one better. I don't even remember what I said in the preseason. Yeah. I remember what I said. I won't be picking either of those teams.

I picked the Packers and the Texans, which I guess is technically alive, but I'm not going to be picking that now. Yeah, that's fair. I got to tell you if I never pick them. But defense is better. I'm going to pick Baltimore. I never pick them.

And you're going to be like, you're a home i never pick them but they've already got the one up on buffalo kansas city doesn't feel like it's the same i don't know maybe monkin sticks with the ground we've never said that before an NFL playoff before that kind of city doesn't be the same yeah uh but like it it does feel different right

it does a little bit so i'm finally going to put baltimore in there i never picked them this is when i usually pick the bills or you know just take the safe want to go Kansas City, but I don't know. I'm going to believe in my team this year that they're actually different. They've beat up on playoff teams, which is nice to see. So we're going to, they play up to competition and they play down to competition. Hopefully they continue to just play up to competition.

So I'm going to pick Baltimore. And on the other side, I would have taken the lines if they weren't starting. They're like, they have more players on IR than they have wins. just on the defensive side of the ball. How's that for a fucking piece of... I heard that on the Rich Eisen Show and I almost fell over. I'm picking Minnesota.

I'm picking Sam Darnold to go to the Super Bowl. I think Minnesota's playing better than Philly, in my opinion. Shouldn't they let you go first. I'm going Baltimore and Minnesota, where I will have Baltimore beating the Minnesota Vikings.

somehow shutting down I don't know I'm just going to do it I'm going to go Baltimore over Minnesota 2724 because Justin Tucker's back baby he hasn't missed an extra point or a field goal

they've all split the middle except for one that went six inches to the off foot side not that I've been looking at this stuff since the by week he's fucking back Justin Tucker that's my Super Bowl prediction who's next

I'll be quick I'm sticking with the Chiefs I'm never picking against the Chiefs like until proven otherwise sorry I did I did get a I did get plus 600 on the Chiefs

to win the Super Bowl like the day after Mahomes had his fake ankle injury or whatever that was oh nice I appreciate that there you go from Patrick Mahomes faking an injury but aside from that Yeah, I am with you on.

I think Vikings are most likely. Do I think, and I mean, I guess we're going to find this out this weekend. Do I think the Lions can get into a shootout with the Vikings and come out on the other side? Yes, weirdly. I think that's in play. So, yeah, I'll pick something fun for the NFC and I'll say the Lions instead of the Vikings. But, yeah, so Chiefs, Lions, Chiefs win, and we all hate ourselves. I mean, I don't, this is the funny thing.

It's like, I honestly, I love great. I don't hate the Chiefs. Like, I, a lot of people hate the Chiefs. I'm not a part of Chiefs hater nation. Like, I think Patrick Mahomes is awesome. And I consider it a privilege to watch him every time that I can. It's so weird because the NFC as a whole is the far better conference this year. Like the like seven, eight, six best teams in the NFC,

if you put like Washington and Green Bay and the Rams up against like the Texans and Steelers like and Broncos right like I'm picking those NFC teams every time but then I look at the top three teams in the AFC and I'm picking them very comfortably over any of the NFC teams and the NFC it's like I can almost it's so easy to point at how any of these teams don't make it right like the Lions entire defense is injured the Eagles I don't really trust Jalen Hertz and I don't know how much of I trust like the Fangio defense entirely held up by two rookie corners to be as elite as they've been. The Vikings, I think are kind of the type of team. I usually would trust more in the regular season because I think they're so reliant on

coaching and scheme and minim and maximizing all of the edges that I think some of that goes away in the playoffs and others teams have more opportunities to diagnose what you're doing. And I mean, we just saw what the Packers did yesterday. So, like, I don't know who I picked. I'm going to go with the Vikings in the NFC. And Tom, I mean, I'm just going to pick the exact same teams as Tom, but I was going to do this before he said it. Lamar Jackson is my favorite player in the NFL.

I'm completely biased. I have picked the Ravens to win several games that they don't win, so probably don't take my advice on this. But I don't know, man. I think that they are uniquely constructed to beat Buffalo's defense. I think that Buffalo struggles in the middle of the field. They have watched their safeties and linebackers leave them over the previous two years. They've had to deal with cap issues.

That's where Baltimore just attacks you relentlessly with the running game with their tight ends. I think that they can beat Buffalo on the road. And then it's just Baltimore, Kansas City. Should have had them last year, Zay. Yeah. And it's like, I don't know. Does it make any fucking sense to pick against the Chiefs in Arrowhead and AFC championship? No.

Do I really want it to happen? yes like I not because I have a cheese hater just I want LeVar Jackson to do the darn thing and I think that's easily the best he's ever played adding Henry is a completely different dimension

I have no idea how you stop this offense I'm just going to pick them to win in a shootout in the game they stop themselves more often than anything else which is true also just want to note that we're all dogging Philly if Philly is in the Super Bowl like what is surprised yeah it's just our picks Philly fans don't tell me to kill myself again, all right? I apologize. I was just going to, I was just going to say, I was surprised.

I just pulled up the odds because I was curious that the Eagles are at plus 750, Vikings at plus 850. So I do feel like the Vikings are kind of the trendy pick right now around the industry, but yeah, they're only sixth in Super Bowl odds right now. Yeah, I mean, surprising to me. Yeah. I'm really surprised that it's, you know, that to me is the inefficiency is the difference between the Vikings and the Lions. It's like, I don't know, I guess that reflects how confident the market is that the lions are going to win next week. Because I'm pretty sure if the Vikings win that game, they would be favored over the Lions as the one seed compared to the Lions being the five seed. So I guess people think the Lions are going to win that game next week, which maybe.

It's also just like lions, right? Like, it's just like. Yeah, I just look at these teams and I'm like, these offenses are kind of the same. Like you have a quarterback that is good, but has limitations. You have an elite array. playmakers and elite offensive line. Like, I don't know. I think that they're kind of the same offense and it's like, the Vikings defense is

miles better than the Lions defense. That is, the Lions defense was good early in the season, but those dudes are on Indrid Reserve. The dudes that are playing are not very good. So, I don't know. We'll see. We'll see this weekend. But yeah, I'm rolling with the all purple Super Bowl right now. Yeah. And I'll also add that like,

I don't want to see Burrow in the playoffs. Like I get get the, keep the, because they're going to shit kick everybody. Like this team, you're not stopping them. It doesn't matter. Tom, this is such, this is so weird to me. I don't understand it's.

If you are, the one team that should be sweating the Bengals getting in are Bill's fans. That I understand. If I'm a Bill's fan, I want to see Bo Nicks. I don't want to see Joe Bro. If I am a Ravens fan or I am a Chiefs fan, like especially, the Ravens especially, if the Bengals get it as the seven and the Ravens are, they can only be three or the five. Like, that's great. What's the worst that could happen? The Bengals knock off the bills for you and then they knock off the chiefs for you and then you get to play

the AFC championship at home against the defense that Lamar Jackson has like a million touchdowns against this year. That's, sure. Like, wouldn't you rather host the Bengals in the the UFC championship and then avoid? If the Bengals get in and they get to the UFC championship, which I don't think will happen, I think that they will lose to the bills. But if they do, that would mean the Ravens Road is home to the Chargers, home to the winner of Steelers, Texans, or no, I guess in this scenario, the Steelers have to lose.

So it would be home to the Steelers, home to the winner of Chargers Texans, and home to the Bengals. The alternative road is home to the Chargers at Bills, at Chiefs. Which one of those roads is easier? I get it. I get it. I get it. I get it. This is why. First off, it's the AFC North. Okay, and the Ravens have won two miraculous games versus the Bengals that they should.

I would rather play at the Chiefs that host the Steelers because it's like, and also, look, look, look, look, this is the tormented life of a Ravens fan. Their AFC North games, this means they're a coin flip. That's just always how they're going to be, right? It's not a concept. At Chiefs. Look, listen, listen, listen, listen, significantly worse than a coin.

Let me finish. Just let me finish. Okay. So I fear Burrow and Chase because Chase versus Baltimore is 250 and 3. It's set in stone. There's nothing you can do about it. They have to score 45 points, which means they have to be perfect. All right.

I want Lamar to play the Chiefs because if Lamar gets to the Super Bowl and even wins it and doesn't play the Chiefs, I already know the fucking stuff that's going to be on Twitter and it's going to set me off. So I want him to do it against Kansas City. I want him to do it. They almost did it at the beginning of the year. If likely he was just wearing white cleats, that's probably a touchdown. They win that game.

Zay Flowers doesn't stick the ball out for no reason at the goal line in a four defenders and he fumbles on the one different story. Like a lot of things change, right? I want him to do it against Kansas City. Pry. He's earned it, whatever. Everyone should be worried about the way the Bengals are playing football right now

with Chase, Burrow, and T. I just, it does scare me. Absolutely. And beating a team three times in your same. Look at statistically. Barely beat the Broncos. Like, look, statistically. Burroughs.

That team is ass. Statistically speaking, beating a team three times from your own division in one season is like minimal in terms of percentage. So I don't know. That's just that is, that is, if you want to deep dive into the darkness of a Ravens fans mental, that is for me. And now you guys. and my and my therapist so yeah um tall would rather go at chiefs than play home to browns like he's to be to be to be fair i'll also say MVP that if the bengals get in it should be joey b like i know everyone says like it's alan the media's PR team it's like all about alan and the other side is

like violently lamar i've never obviously i'm pro even though obviously i'm pro lamar jackson and this he's like besting every year he's like besting every year he's ever had that he's one MVP. So I think, yeah, MVP, obviously. Burrow single-handedly dragging this team on his back into the playoffs.

He should at least, he's number three. It's not a running back. Burrow. Like, he deserves. I've never cared about anything less than the MVP this year. I don't either.

Clearly three quarterbacks playing at an MVP. There's honestly four. Jaden Daniels is playing an MVP level. Like, any one of these quarterbacks who gets the MVP will have been thoroughly deserved.

And then there will be other quarterbacks who played at an MVP level who didn't win it this year and that's unfortunate. I again, I simply propose all the MVP voters should withhold their vote. Baltimore and Buffalo are almost certainly going to play in the playoffs. Just award the MVP to the

winner. Sure. Even though Lamar Jackson beat him already but that's besides the point. Yeah, not only beat them but beat the shit out of them too. But hey, nonetheless, yeah, the arguments for MVP stuff is like so, oh, he's got Derek, all right, so what about Manning having Marvin Harrison Jr.?

or like Kurt Warner having Isaac Bruce, Marshall Falkin, Cory Hold. Just a Peyton merchant. Payton merchant, bro. What's that? Marvin the Payton. Yeah,

that's why Marvin Harrison, Marvin Harrison Jr. was over drafted because Marvin Harrison, Harrison Sr. wasn't even that good. Marvin Harrison Sr. was just a Peyton merchant, and we overestimated how good his genealogy was. So then we overdrafted his son,

and now he's not playing with Peyton Manning, so he's not actually that good. If Marvin Harrison's, senior was playing with Rex Grossman, then Malik neighbors would have been on the Cardinals. And Brian Thomas would have been on the Giants. And Marvin Harrison Jr. would be, I don't know, like Jalen Polt, probably. Right. You know the- Okay.

So it's obvious what needs to happen then. So the Cardinals tank in 2025. And then if Arch doesn't come out, they tank again in 2026. Correct. And yeah, we put the prophecy back together. out Marvin Harrison Jr. With Archbner. There we go.

Then it'll all work out. I wonder if there's a Reggie Wayne Jr. anywhere. I'm going to look up Reggie Wayne to get. And then we can finally start taking Marvin Harrison, Jr. over Ladd-McConkie after the year-fourth breakout from Martin Harrison, Jr., and revisit that same conversation four years down the road. There's nothing I love more than this program.

It makes me incredibly. happy every time we get to do it. I'll say that that's going to do it. That's the program. So thanks for all your questions. Thanks for sticking with us all year. Our first full year here with fantasy points. I can't wait for year two.

My first year here has been everything I have hoped for. This is going to be my first full off season with you guys, the listeners, and obviously with you, Ryan, here in the off season. So I keep saying it, but even more dynasty content, even more rookie content, we're going to be able to do more now than we've ever done before. I can't wait to do that. 2025 is going to be insane. 2024 was bad shit crazy. But I can't wait to continue growing with every listener and every one of you guys.

And yeah, I'm just excited for the year that is, I will say New Year's Eve, be safe. right let's celebrate our championships let's you know stay even keeled on the losses we can come back next year we can do it again yeah be safe take care of one another right check in on your loved ones

and yeah can't can't wait for for 2025 so shout out all you guys happy new year we'll see you in the new year for Jacob Sandison for Ryan Heath for Lucas Gilbert who is busy packing getting ready to move after buying a house congratulations to you Lucas Big year for Lucas married, buying a house.

2025. Can't wait to see what happens with Lucas as well. And from myself, obviously, happy New Year. Remember that clear eyes and full hearts can never lose. And your best days, well, they're always spent tilting like we did on finals weekend when Jacob and I beat Ryan. Good night, everybody.