Fantasy Football Today - 2024 Lessons Learned! Be Aggressive With Rookie WRs? (01/29 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: January 29, 2025

We've got six key lessons that we learned in 2024, and we'll try to carry these into 2025. Dan talks about how the NFL has changed (6:00) and how this change could affect Fantasy strategies with runni...ng backs. Then we get into a big debate about rookie wide receivers (16:30) and if we're overreacting to the 2024 class ... Adam's lessons are about player evaluation (29:10) and preseason injuries (31:40). We may not know how good a player truly is, and a change of scenery can be a blessing. Meanwhile, Jamey (35:15) talks about old RBs and mobile quarterbacks. What happened to Kyler Murray this season? ... News and notes (43:05), and we hear from the Fantasy Cops (50:25)! Let's come up with some good league punishments ... Your emails at fantasyfootball@cbsi.com Fantasy Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcasts Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Shop our store: shop.cbssports.com/fantasy  SUBSCRIBE to FFT Express on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-express/id1528634304 Follow FFT Express on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qyGWfETSBFaciPrtvoWCC?si=6529cbee20634da8 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 FOLLOW FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 SUBSCRIBE to FFT DFS on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dfs/id1579415837 FOLLOW FFT DFS on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5zU7pBvGK3KPhfb69Q1hNr?si=1c5030a3b1a64be2 Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr Follow the brand new FFT TikTok account: https://www.tiktok.com/@fftoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." Visit the betting arena on CBSSports.com for all the latest sportsbook reviews and sportsbook promos. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:35 It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Off to the races, and he stays on his feet. This is gonna go the distance. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie and Heath. It's a Dan Schneier day. Finally, we're bringing them back. Welcome everybody. This is Fantasy Football Today presented by BED MGM,
Starting point is 00:00:56 the sports book born in Vegas. And we are talking about the lessons we have learned. Two lessons from each of us from the 2024 season. And Dan, I'm gonna ask you, I disagree with one of your lessons. Which one do you think it is? I think it's the second lesson. About the rookie wide receivers?
Starting point is 00:01:12 Yes. That is correct. That is correct. It was a controversial one and I plan to make my case when the time presents itself. I think we just had the best rookie wide receiver. And I knew you'd say that. Class in at least 10 years. And honestly, it was arguably better than even the 2014 rookie wide receiver class in at least 10 years.
Starting point is 00:01:25 And honestly, it was arguably better than even the 2014 rookie class. We had three guys finish in the top 13 in PPR. We only had two in the 2014 rookie class, Beckham and Evans. How many in the top 24 from that class though? I'll tell you, I will tell you in a moment. Was Brandon Cooks in top 24? No, he wasn't.
Starting point is 00:01:44 I don't think he got. I will tell you in a moment. Was Brandon Cooks in top 24? No, he wasn't. I don't think he got. Evangeline was. Evans, Landry, Beckham. It was Evan, it was Beckham. I'll double check on Landry and Cooks, but I see Beckham. Sammy was good as first year, wasn't he too? Beckham at wide receiver seven,
Starting point is 00:01:58 Evans 13, Calvin Benjamin 15, Jordan Matthews 24, Sammy Watkins 26. It wasn't as good Sammy. I'll double check. Sammy was the Marv Harrison of that class from a fantasy standpoint. Yeah, a little bit, but I think he actually- He had four top 24, right?
Starting point is 00:02:15 No, top 20. Well, if you want to expand it to top 26, it's five, but yeah, top 24, it's four. So four starting wide receivers in the two receiver league. Yeah. And this class was three? Yes. Yes. Because, uh, well, no, because Harrison was 25th this year. Oh, that's not top 24, is it? Not top 24.
Starting point is 00:02:38 No, actually, I'm sorry. He was 25th in non-PPR. He was 30th in full PPR. So yeah, this class had three in the top 13. The other class had three in the top 15 and five in the top 24. The other class was better, but in terms of, I would say three, three elites in this one and two in... You can't Azerstat this to make it fit your narrative. Why? You had two... This is like when the Azerstat gets butchered though. The top two were... He's chopping it too thick.
Starting point is 00:03:03 He's cutting it too thick. Actually, forget it. You're probably right because he's diluted. Here's the thing. You've Azerst added this one to death. Here's the thing. Evans was wide receiver 13 in that class and McConkey was wide receiver 13 in this class. And Evans actually, that's overall not per game. Evans actually averaged 1.4 more PPR fantasy points per game than McConkey. So he was better than McConkey. This wasn was better than McConkie. This wasn't a great year for wide receivers, I think, at least at the top.
Starting point is 00:03:28 All right, anyway, that's gonna be one of the lessons is gonna be about rookie wide receivers. And we'll get into the others. Well, how about right now? All right, Dan, go for it. Give me your first, your first 2024 lesson learned. Before we do that, since we have a little bit of time today
Starting point is 00:03:41 on a kind of wonky show, it's a small thing. I was thinking about, it's a small a small thing. I was thinking about it. It's a small quick thing. I was thinking about you the other day. I was having an unprompted discussion with a friend about action heroes and Tom Cruise came up and I found the most damning evidence. I actually forgot to present this to Thomas beforehand. That's a mistake on my part.
Starting point is 00:04:01 He might have been able to play it over. There might have been copyright issues anyway. So it might not been a moot point, but there is the most damning evidence of all time online that this is your worst take. There was a video of Tom Cruise doing, you know how he does his own stunts, doing one of his own stunts. And in the video, he injures his ankle and it basically like bends backwards. It's a horrible looking injury. He finishes the scene. He finishes the scene on a gimpy ankle in one of the most damning pieces of evidence
Starting point is 00:04:29 that you could ever present to anyone who says, Tom Cruise is not an action hero. Would you believe I was actually talking about that exact scene yesterday with a bunch of buddies? That's amazing. I swear to God. And I saw a great clip of actually Matt Damon on an old Conan O'Brien show talking about a conversation
Starting point is 00:04:48 he had with Tom Cruise where he did a scene, a stunt, his own stunt where he was running down the side of a building. That's the one. With a, you know, a harness, whatever. And he said he went to the safety guy and said, here's the scene I want to do. I've been wanting to do this for 15 years. And the safety guy goes, you can't do that, you're crazy. And Matt Damon goes, so the next thing Tom Cruise says was, I got a new safety guy.
Starting point is 00:05:12 Yeah. Yep. And that's, according to Adam, he's not an action hero. Okay. I didn't say he wasn't a stunt man. I've just said, you know, it's his movies. He don't walk his take back. It's terrible.
Starting point is 00:05:24 Let's get it. Let's get into some lessons learned. Okay, go ahead. So I'll start. You don't want this take back. It's terrible. Let's get it. Let's get into some lessons learned. Okay. Go ahead. So I'll start at the top with my first lesson learned. And my first lesson learned as we move forward to 2025 is we are sorry. The NFL has changed and my running back strategy needs to change with it. So what do I mean there?
Starting point is 00:05:39 You look at the last season and the last couple seasons and the game has certainly changed from an aesthetic standpoint for fans, but also just when you look at the numbers and when you look at the actual thing and when you turn this thing into an X's and O's game, defenses are playing a lot differently. There are few and foreign between Wink Martindales, who's not even currently in the NFL right now, but Wink Martindale style coordinators. You can throw Steve Spagnolo in there if you will, that are playing man coverage, pressed man, a lot of guys around the line of scrimmage,
Starting point is 00:06:09 one safety high. And this is becoming a thing of the past because defensive coordinators have come from similar trees and within that tree, it's a Fangio tree is very popular in the NFL. And what that usually means is we're playing two eye safeties or playing cover three or cover six, and we're keeping everything underneath eyes on the quarterback, eyes on the underneath rally play team defense. So what does that mean? It means the NFL has changed with it for a while. We saw quarterbacks trying to figure out what to do with that.
Starting point is 00:06:35 We saw a lot of passing and that has kind of come down over time. Last season I thought was a big crescendo of all that where teams started to lean more on the running back, sometimes a solo running back in a lot of these situations. Earlier in the season, Joe Mixon, when that offense was a little bit better. I think as that continues and there's no sign that that will change and we will get more of those man heavy, single high safety look defenses, we're going to see teams more cognizant of running the football, establishing their run and
Starting point is 00:07:05 establishing their team based on their blocking scheme and their run game, potentially more of the receiving pass game. We haven't really seen that from running backs, but I think for me, what it tells me is if the NFL and the teams are starting to emphasize running back and the run game as a bigger part of their offense, I need to emphasize running back as a bigger part of my fantasy strategy. And so this coming season, it's going to be looked different for me when I go to to drafts. I've been very anti-drafting running back for a while. I made it clear on the show. But as things change, you have to change with them. So that's
Starting point is 00:07:33 lesson number one for me. But do you think that, and I don't disagree with you, but do you think that based on how teams are going to adjust to that. And this is not a, I think, superstar running back class coming into the league, but it's a pretty good one. Oh yeah. Especially with a few of the guys at the top that we're gonna see, you know, maybe, I'll try and, you know, not go overboard with maybe,
Starting point is 00:07:59 maybe three starting running backs out of this class, maybe two. I think that's fair. You know, that end up on teams that they could be the starter or let's say like a Bucky Irving situation by week four, five, six, whatever the case may be that they end up emerging as starters. Same thing Tyrone Tracy.
Starting point is 00:08:11 That we're gonna get a little bit more depth at the position and to your point, what we did see I think a little bit more this year was more of a featured back and less of tandems. We did see a lot more teams, you know, going toward not 1980s, 1990s of everybody's got a, you know, a guy that's getting 250 plus carries, but we've seen, you know, a little bit of a shift to you know, more of a focal point toward one guy, that it opens up the position a little bit more
Starting point is 00:08:43 and that we get an opportunity to still draft the same way, if that's your philosophy. Because as we saw this year, as we see every year, I know Adam, you probably make the case that last year was better than this year in terms of Hero RB or just waiting on guys and getting guys off the wayward wire. There are always going to be guys who emerge. And you can still lock up your stud receivers. And for me, I'm not going to probably deviate from here, Arby. To me, that's the strategy that works the best
Starting point is 00:09:12 for how I like to draft. So get that one anchor running back, and then throw some darts. I did it in our Dynasty draft yesterday. I've been doing it in our early mocks so far. So I almost like the fact that teams are doing this this way because you can still get your your stud receivers and then build out
Starting point is 00:09:30 your running back depth and maybe a little bit more robust way than we've seen in the past. Well, some stats to back up the trends that that Dan's talking about, you look at pass attempts per game and the where it ranks, pro football reference ranks like every season basically since the 1930s. So the highest, the most pass attempts per game were happening about eight years ago. 2016, 2015, 35.7 pass attempts per game per team. 2013, 2020, they're next on the list.
Starting point is 00:10:07 2019, 2014, 2024 is 24th on the list of most pass attempts per game. 2023 was 15th. We had one fewer pass attempt per game per team in 2014 than 2015. So that's a difference between 15th and 24th in the ranking. It's a lot of numbers I just threw at you.
Starting point is 00:10:24 But we're throwing less. In terms of passing yards per game, 2024 ranked 17th, 217.6 passing yards per game. In 2015, that was the peak of this, 2015 and 16, it was over 240 passing yards per game, 244 passing yards per game. We're down to 218 per game this past year. The year before, 219 per game.
Starting point is 00:10:46 So yeah, passing is down, which also could make you say, should I put more emphasis on elite quarterbacks? You could think of it that way as well. I'd also like to point out that ADOT just doesn't matter anymore. Here are the bottom three teams in ADOT this year. Dolphins, Lions, Chiefs. Here are the top three teams. Colts, Packers, Ravens. You get the Bengals are 23rd. The Bucks 25th in ADOT.
Starting point is 00:11:14 So that doesn't seem to matter at all. But yeah, no, it's a good point, Dan. All right. I liked that first lesson. Don't love the second lesson. Do not love the second lesson. Go for it. Actually, before we do that, if you haven't signed up for BetMGM, let me tell you about BetMGM real quick here. You've been hearing about it, but there's still time to sign up and use our bonus code, fantasy,
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Starting point is 00:11:55 Just make sure that you use the bonus code fantasy when you sign up. All right, lesson number two. You're on mute, sir. You're on mute. Before, sorry, there's some work being done on my house. I want to make sure I mute when not talking, but forget the lesson number two. Uh, I want to address something Jamie said, actually, that was interesting. So I think to be clear, when I say that that's one of the lessons I learned and I'm trying to carry forward, it doesn't just mean for like locating my early
Starting point is 00:12:22 backs, my work courses in rounds one and two and three. Because I think Jamie makes a great point about that. We may have some more uncertainty there. We may have some more time shares. What I'm looking at really, when I say that is down the line. I'm talking about like, or decisions I would never make in the past. Like will my flex be a running back? That used to be a decision that I would always say receiver, especially in any version of
Starting point is 00:12:42 PPR. Non PPR would be maybe a debate. Now I'm looking at it like, let me just get the best player in those spots. And that oftentimes now, and we know this because we were setting our lineups every week, we were going through this this past season, it was a running back in a lot of those situations. And we were throwing that in, we're slotting them in, maybe you threw in the receiver, but a lot of times that receiver didn't do anything. Because the fact of the matter is, teams are not going to, I don't think at least adjust what they're doing defensively. I think the changes could come on offense, not defensively
Starting point is 00:13:09 because it's, have you guys ever played the game stratomatic or heard of it? Either of you. The baseball thing? Football. Oh no. It's a footballer. I would love to play with either of you. It would be so much fun. To me, it's the greatest game ever created. It's a board game that really mimics football. And in that game, you can set your defense a certain way. You move 11 pieces around the board to set your defense a certain way to invite the run. And oftentimes when you do that and the opponent knows you're going to do that, he calls run,
Starting point is 00:13:36 he calls it perfectly. He still only gets two or three or four yards. And that's essentially what these NFL defense are doing. They're daring them to run and they're relying on their D line to make the plays. And oftentimes they do. So I don't see that really changing. And within that, the talented players that Jamie was referencing, there's going to be about 20 running backs in this class that people think are NFL grade ready to beat impact players in the NFL. They may not be the B. John Robinsons, but they may be the Bucky Irvings and the Tyrone Tracy's. Those guys make plays and you give them
Starting point is 00:14:02 the ball to make plays. So I think NFL teams are going to continue doing that. So I think what a really, what we really could see is more flex is becoming running backs and more depth that you want like those middle round picks to be running back picks over the wide receivers. That's, that's where I might be making the biggest change in my strategy. I think what's somewhat fascinating about this is that, and I'll get to it with, you know, one of my lessons, but, um, the, the, the players that we may end up reaching for at that position, that could be problematic. And that's the older running backs.
Starting point is 00:14:36 All right. Well, we, uh, we'll take a break here before we get to Dan's second lesson and then we'll tear it to shreds. We'll be right back on Fantasy Football today. Playoff Football is here with BetMGM, an official Sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the king of sportsbooks gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight real play this postseason. And as an official Sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready to cap off another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for? Get off the bench, into the huddle,
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Starting point is 00:16:43 Rookie wide receivers, what do you have to say about them? I'm happy that I got to say this right after the commercial was the masters. That music is so soothing. It just gets me right in the mood to give this lesson that's about to get torn to shreds by Adam. At least let me finish it. The lesson will be, and make my case,
Starting point is 00:16:58 or should I give you the lesson and then make the case, or should I just rip it apart, just hearing the actual lesson? You know, I'm ready to rip it apart. Yeah, go ahead. I rip it apart. The lesson, the second lesson for me is, it's not possible to be too aggressive
Starting point is 00:17:12 drafting rookie wide receivers this coming season. Yeah, I mean, I just disagree with that. I think you look at just going back to 2023 and we had four wide receivers drafted consecutively in the first round and only one of them was fantasy relevant. And it was Jordan Addison who finishes wide receiver 18 in non PPR number 23 and in full PPR. And he had a 10 or 11 touchdowns, I think that year. But the best wide receivers were Puka Nakua, who was amazing. And then Addison, then you had Jayden Reed,
Starting point is 00:17:41 you had Rishi Rice, who was only good for like the last five or six games. You had Zay Flowers, who was wide receiver third. Wait a second, Adam. Was Kukunakua a rookie wide receiver? Two years ago. Isn't that what we're talking about? Yeah, he was amazing. But he was the only one. I thought you weren't qualifying him.
Starting point is 00:17:57 All right. Yeah, Tank Del was great too. Now Tank Del was great too. But those first round receivers were a disappointment overall. Even Flowers, you Flowers, finishing his wide receiver 30 per game, he wasn't really that good for fantasy. I don't know. I just, look, we had three great rookie wide receivers this year. Before that, we had six wide receivers in the previous nine years combined, six rookies finish as top 13 wide receivers. So it's just this, I just don't wanna overreact to this season.
Starting point is 00:18:31 I do think you can be too overaggressive with rookie wide receivers. And I disagree with your stupid lesson. All right, I'll make my case now as the drilling begins in the background of the bathroom that's being worked on. So they're fixing the toilet, the famous toilet, famous toilet is finally getting redone.
Starting point is 00:18:48 Uh, it's going to be nice, but it's going to be, maybe I'll move the setup back up back to that, but, um, listen, Adam, even in the case you made about a class that was viewed, and I think it's fine to, to, to make, to make the qualification that yes, this 24 class that we just saw was not historically, but it was up there for one of the better wide receiver glasses. But the 23 class was up there for one of the worst at the top. And that's the class you're using. But even within that class and that case that you made, I remember back to August two years
Starting point is 00:19:17 ago, I don't know if you do, because it seems like you know, but we weren't taking Zay Flowers anywhere near, we were taking him like wide receiver 40 in those drafts. He was not, he didn't make a lot of noise in training camp he was injured so there was even value to be had on him just getting to wire zero 30 JSN was a bust from from where we were drafting him that's probably the biggest case you could make but even if you look at this past year Marvin Harrison was the bus based on ADP we pumped him up and he didn't he didn't uh deliver every but you had hits across the board, even Lad McConkey coming on late, right? Brian Thomas Jr., Malik Neighbors.
Starting point is 00:19:47 You're looking at players who just blew out their ADPs. That's just three guys though. That's not across the board. That's just three guys. They were great. Okay, it's a fantasy. The strategy here isn't, I'm gonna do, I'm gonna take six shots
Starting point is 00:20:00 and all six are gonna work. The strategy is if I take six shots, the three that work are going to be league winning values. No one drafted all three of those guys. And I would go back to 2022. I go back to 2022, Chris Olave was the best rookie wide receiver in 2022. He was wide receiver 27 per game.
Starting point is 00:20:19 Garrett Wilson, wide receiver 31 per game. Drake London, wide receiver 40. They weren't drafted high. It doesn't matter. Neither was Brian Thomas. You know, you take your shot. These guys didn't work. These guys didn't work.
Starting point is 00:20:29 Drake, why do you want to see for 30, for example, your borderline starter on a weekly basis or your starter in most leagues, most leagues play three receivers. Yeah. You're keeping them past that 80 piece. So it's a win still. OK, but it's not it's not a small win. It's a very small victory. It's not a huge win here.
Starting point is 00:20:44 It's not a loss. It's not a loss. It's not a loss. The point, the point of why I'm saying this, and I think this is the case every year, but obviously you should be more aggressive in the stronger rookie classes at wide receiver, but no matter what the ADP is always going to be lower than it should be because people haven't seen them play football. They're not common names and because their roles are uncertain, but as we're moving forward and we're seeing things change in the NFL, we're
Starting point is 00:21:06 also seeing the targets not go the way that we're expecting. We're seeing different target shares. We're expecting every single season. We're seeing players emerge based on injuries that that you could say that's happening, you know, throughout time, but it's still the case. And so no matter what you're going to, in my mind, at least you're going to be making a good bet. It doesn't mean it's going to work every time.
Starting point is 00:21:23 It just means that if these bets work for every six or something like that, you're going to be printing value over time. And I really do believe with most of these players, like Lad McConkie is the best example of this last year. He's going undrafted in a lot of leaves or end of the draft. He did had no role. He was injured in camp. People are like, oh, they're going to play a lot of 12 personnel. They're going to play 21 personnel. He's not even going to be on the field. And yet the people who bet on talent there as the rookie receiver who liked his tape were huge winners down the line. And he was kind of like a league winning pick for you in the playoffs. I think the thing that you got to look at it first off, this is a terrible.
Starting point is 00:21:58 Anti-take by you, Adam, like this is, this is exactly how you should be playing fantasy. I mean, look, obviously I draft rookie wide receivers. I don't want to make it out like I don't, but I think you run the risk of overdrafting them. If you, you know, but- That's not what Dan's saying though. I think that is kind of what Dan's saying. No, he's not saying overdraft them.
Starting point is 00:22:17 I think, I think- I mean, I feel like he said, you can't be too aggressive drafting rookie wide receivers. But that doesn't mean you're taking them in the first three or four rounds. Even if it means that you're trying to take shots on guys that have the opportunity to be successful. I would never, I would never dispute that. I would never dispute that.
Starting point is 00:22:35 No, I'm not. I'm just saying rookie wide receivers are not the only players that have a chance of giving you late round value or mid round value. But the idea would be is like, okay, so just to throw out some examples from last year, Dan gave the positive ones, you know, the neighbors, Thomas, McConkey, Keon Coleman, for example, was drafted or, you know, late round range, you know, for mid to late round range did not pan out. I know for me last year, one of my last picks in a lot of my early drafts, you know for for mid to late round range uh did not pan out um i know for me last year one of my last picks in a lot of my early drafts you know so early august uh was jalen mcmillan and you know
Starting point is 00:23:12 carried him for a few weeks had to touch them i think he scored in week one if i'm not mistaken 29 yard touchdown catch that was only catch did nothing the rest of the way you know then godwin evans get hurt we all buy back in, he does nothing again, for three, four weeks, then has this monster finish, you know, so you have to obviously, sort of, catch it a little bit with when do you have these guys on your roster and, and when do you, you know, part ways. Okay. There's no way that Jaylen McMillan is an example of drafting successfully at wide receiver. Nobody. Correct. No, you're right. That's what I'm saying. It's like, you know, you have one of the more horrific examples of this. You drafted Justin Jefferson and dropped him because
Starting point is 00:23:51 he wasn't doing much early in the season. And then he goes on for this monster finish. That's the risk you run is you take some shots on these guys, you know, so I'll give you another horrible example. Jalen poke goes to New England and a lot of hype because drafted, I think ahead of Macaulay, right? Right around Macaulay and around too, has this great opportunity and does nothing. So how long do you carry these guys? Xavier LeGette, for example, great opportunity, right? Goes to Carolina.
Starting point is 00:24:19 They don't have a standout receiving core, does nothing. So you have to sort of understand what you're doing here when you're taking these shots. No one was cutting Harmon Harris into my league neighbors. What about Roma Dunza? He was a bust. What about David Worthy, who was a big help for you down the track?
Starting point is 00:24:35 Yeah, but he was a bust before that. Nobody was holding on to David Worthy. But it's the thing a lot of people held on to him because he had scores early in the season. He was a waiver wire pick up. He was on a few rosters all year. The thing again, it's what's your investment? How deep are your rosters? How long can you carry these guys? And you may end up making a bad decision because you may have to drop one of
Starting point is 00:24:55 these players and then they become what they could become. You know, Odell Beckham did not get off to a great start. He was hurt in the rookie season. He was like week four. He became a monster. You know, so it's just taking shots on opportunities and seeing if it pans out. And that's what it is. I think, you know, once you get past, let's say like round eight, so you're past all the obvious rookies, you know, you're past the neighbors, you're past the, uh, I'm trying to think the way it was. But that was it. That's kind of my point that I'm making, Jamie, like even this year, everyone knew this was a store class, Adam, everyone knew it. That's kind of my point that I'm making, Jamie. Like even this year, everyone knew this was a story class, Adam, everyone knew it.
Starting point is 00:25:27 It was talked about everyone who followed the draft. I drafted a lot of rookies. I don't know. This is the perfect example. Even in this year where everyone knew is an historic class that ADP was still so depressed. We were talking about with Heath, like, oh wow. Would you even take, Heath was one take neighbors
Starting point is 00:25:42 in the first six rounds, right? Like, and Brian Thomas Jr. Not drafted, Zavier Worth, and Brian Thomas Jr. not drafted. Brad McConkey, Xavier Worthy, these were all last round picks despite being first round picks or borderline first round picks in the NFL draft in historic class. Where can you get that kind of opportunity elsewhere in fantasy?
Starting point is 00:25:56 Where someone where a team is using a first round pick on Xavier Worthy or Brian Thomas Jr. And you can get him in basically the last round in your fantasy drafts, despite it being Ballyhooed as a historic class. That's gonna continue after every year. You're making my point for me because it was a historic class. That's what I'm saying.
Starting point is 00:26:13 No, my point is even in a historic class, the ADPs are depressed and it's an easy value gamble. Brian Thomas cost nothing. All right, but we're not gonna have a historic class again. Nothing for fantasy drafters. We're not gonna have a historic class again. That's what I'm saying. Like you're, you're basing your wide receiver rookie, your rookie wide receiver strategy based on this class. You keep calling it a historic class. So I'm saying don't overreach for why
Starting point is 00:26:37 for rookie wide receiver. Of course, I'm not going to disagree with taking a shot on a guy in the last round. That's what it always is. No, but it is. He was basically a last round pick. It's insincere to call Xavier worthy and Roma Dunze late last round picks. Look for 10 to 12 round picks, not last round. It was not a 10th to 12 round pick. Maybe he moved up to the eighth by the end of it.
Starting point is 00:27:00 But but lad McConkey was injured throughout camping. He was like a third 12th to 13th round pick. Yes, I know, he was. He was a great pick. Nigger Worthy wasn't being drafted high either. He didn't have a big camp and there was Hollywood Brown at the time and tons of competition. He was the top 100 pick.
Starting point is 00:27:13 I'm looking at our ADP right now. He was 97th overall. Roma Dunze was. When is this from, this ADP? I don't know, I'm looking at CBS ADP. It would be our last run ADP. Yeah, I'm not talking about last run because by then they get, you know, the last day of the season. Very specific. But this is-
Starting point is 00:27:30 Even that's final. I'll let you use that. Hold on. Stop, stop, stop. Brian Thomas Jr. was 117th. He wasn't your last pick. It was your 10th round pick. Who was it? Who did you say? Brian Thomas Jr. was 117th overall. Okay. Give me some guys around him. So, we're just talking about taking shots. Yeah. So, actually, this is perfect. Roma Dunz, Lad McConkey, Brian Thomas Jr. We're all within six picks of each other. Okay, but give me some of the veterans
Starting point is 00:27:50 that were in that same range. Jackson Smith and Jigba, Cortland Sutton, Marquise Brown, Jameson Williams, Khalil Shakir. Yeah, Daniel Irving sucks, these guys are all better. He usually cherry picks some good guys there. I'm not cherry picking anything. I read every single wide receiver. So they, this was a great, first of all, what a great stretch of wide receivers.
Starting point is 00:28:10 Yeah, it's a great late round wide receiver year. I'm saying like, look, obviously I don't disagree with the thought of like, you love a rookie wide receiver, take a shot on them. I'm just saying that this was a great year for these three rookie wide receivers. There were some busts there as well. The journey of Xavier Worthy was pretty bad. I mean, he was useless until week 11. And he probably would have continued to be useless if Rashir Rice hadn't gotten hurt, or at least it's possible. But that's the point. There's always opportunity that opens up that we don't expect. Right. But the two points I'm making here, one, there's opportunity every year that we don't expect. Two, people will always be more hesitant to take a player if they haven't seen him play.
Starting point is 00:28:44 And three, most importantly, most importantly, three, the investment is not high. Now, even in it again, even in a year that was valued as a historic year, these guys weren't drafted high. I think 17 for a first round big Brian Thomas Jr., who could emerge as the number one player and did emerge as the number one player in that offense. That's what I'm talking about there. All right. What other position could you do that at? Dan wins, Adam loses. Oh, give me a break. That's like, well, let's decide. I'm pretty confident. I think there's a lot of overlap in what we're saying and what we believe in. What I think, I just think you went too far with it. Calling Brian Thomas your last, your last pick. That is obviously not what happened. A lot of drafts. He was, I know in that says one 17th overall.
Starting point is 00:29:26 Yeah, I mean, it's just our ADP. That's just thousands of the end of the season. ADP when he finally got some hype, most people are not. I don't agree with that. But OK, you know what? I'm just going to go to my lessons really quick here and get them out of the way before we run out of time. Lesson number one, we may not know how to evaluate how good a player actually is.
Starting point is 00:29:45 This is a really frustrating and really tough one, but you think about Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Gino Smith. I would even throw Russell Wilson in there. Not that he was so great or anything like that, but quarterbacks that have been left for dead that nobody thought could ever be good. And, you know, we just have to maybe open our minds a little bit and look at new situations. And I'll just say, I'll just give another player that I think could be the next in that. And I think it could be Aaron Rodgers. And I don't think he could necessarily be fantasy relevant or all that. I think he could be like, you know, a streamer or something.
Starting point is 00:30:16 But I think he could be good for a wide receiver. I still think that Rodgers, if he continues to play, could have a good season left in him. He's not gonna run at all, but he was hurt like for pretty much all of last year. And I think Nathaniel Hackett has basically no credentials. So, you know, good situation, good offensive coordinator, Rogers could still be a good quarterback that can help a fantasy wide receiver.
Starting point is 00:30:40 I think I felt like Saquon Barkley wasn't really so great anymore. I didn't know, I didn't know in his rookie season, Saquon Barkley had seven carries of 40 or more yards. The next five years combined he had six. And then this year he had the most big runs in NFL history. If you include, include the playoffs. I didn't know that Derek Henry could be this good. He had averaged 4.3, 4.4, 4.2 yards per carry in his last three seasons.
Starting point is 00:31:07 He averaged 5.9 this past year. I thought Joe Mixon, even though his metrics weren't that much better, thought he looked a lot better this year. So we've got to open our minds and maybe not act so certain about who's good and who's bad. And maybe, maybe Najee Harris, maybe if he ends up in a good situation, I don't think so. He has like no big play ability, but maybe he can be better than what we've seen.
Starting point is 00:31:28 So that's lesson number one. It's really, I don't know what to make of it other than need to be more open-minded, but it is hard to know. I would sit you situation matters as much as. Yeah, I was gonna say that that's the key lesson to take away from that. Like mixing is the best example. I was much higher than him. The consensus because I've looked at it like he's playing in a bangles run scheme that
Starting point is 00:31:44 does not fit his skillset at all and he gets to go to outside zone where he can do the plant. And you watch mix and play, he's at his best when he plants that foot and just drives vertically and he's made some of his biggest runs this year with the Texans doing so. And so it was a great fit.
Starting point is 00:31:57 So just look for maybe those blocking scheme fits or in your sense with the quarterback, just better fits for the quarterback from a system standpoint. And another Justin Marchegiani, Ph.D. And another lesson is that this one is tough but preseason injuries create miserable draft day dilemmas. I can think of I think more often than not you know we should take them seriously. I think about Travis Kelsey two years ago hurting his foot.
Starting point is 00:32:20 I think about Tyreek Hill. Tyreek Hill tore a ligament in his wrist in the preseason and we just made nothing of it. But on the other hand, Jameer Gibbs had two soft tissue injuries and he hurt his hamstring a couple of weeks before the season started, I think. And we downgraded him a little bit, a little bit. And he had finished his RB1, of course. And Pukinakua hurt his knee in the preseason. And that ended up being a big deal because he re-injured it in week one and he missed some time. Yeah, because Barkley didn't play in week 18 and Gibbs had like 40 points or 38 points or something crazy in week 18, not RB one per game. I think preseason injuries are pretty important and we need not to devalue them, but they do create these horrible draft
Starting point is 00:33:01 day dilemmas. You don't want to pass up on a guy like Jameer Gibbs because he's got this hamstring injury. So when it starts to fall to a point where it's like, okay, I can't let him fall anymore. That's that. Oh, McCaffrey is a great example. Good example. Yeah, absolutely. The opposite. Absolutely.
Starting point is 00:33:17 I still think from my experience playing fantasy, I'm curious where you guys stand on this. This is definitely just like anecdotal. I test, I test I guess I would still tend to stay away from the preseason injury guys. I I don't really like investing in them that I think it's too much risk. It just, I think what it comes down to is where do they fall? You know, so like Gibbs fell to round two, if I'm not mistaken, based on his ADP, like it was hard to pass up on that if he was still sitting there. McCaffrey fell to the middle of the first round, you know, it was like, okay, hopefully he's back.
Starting point is 00:33:48 You take a shot on that. And if you're a bad reporting on McCaffrey too, to be fair. It wasn't bad reporting. It was a bad quote from his coach. He said, if this playoff game he's playing tomorrow. You know, when Kyle Shanahan says that, like you shouldn't miss some,
Starting point is 00:34:02 some would believe that it's not gonna be eight weeks. It's gonna be maybe three or four. Yeah, all right. We can take a break here and save time for Jamie's, Jamie's lessons learned. So far your lessons learned are so much better than that. Thank you, I appreciate it. I put a lot more time into it.
Starting point is 00:34:18 And you know, Adam, it's, Adam needs a break, he needs a break. It's the off season. News and notes, we do have some news to get to including we actually I skipped over the Bobby sloak news, but that was pretty interesting. And I wanted to have time for some fantasy cops. So we'll see if we can make that happen. We'll be right back on fantasy football today. All right, welcome back, everybody. Jamie, two lessons learned. Go for it.
Starting point is 00:34:38 Well, I kind of alluded to this with, you know, when you brought up some of the running back conversation. I shouldn't be as rigid on older running backs based on what happened this past season. And I think I kind of touched on this a little bit. I hate using this phrase again, but I'll use it again. You know, moving the goalpost a little bit on maybe when the age should be considered for when these guys are going to break down. I mean, think about what just happened.
Starting point is 00:35:04 Derek Henry at 30 had one of his best seasons ever. Again, situation changed but he was great. Alvin Kamara, 29 years old, 19 PPR points per game. Joe Mixon, 28 years old, had a fantastic season as you guys just talked about. You know, was changing teams. James Connor did not get injured until the end of the season, had another fantastic season. Aaron Jones, you know, wasn, wasn't a superstar, but was still very serviceable, you know, um, despite the fact that it looked like he might be falling off a cliff. Uh, I'm trying to think of anybody else in the older- Barclay, people considered old for running backs.
Starting point is 00:35:36 That's a- that was a big part of it, Barclay. Somewhere, um- I know he's like- Yeah, Barclay27, I don't know if that really was- Who considered that the age cliff or- Uh, uh, yeah, he wasn't really in that range for me like I don't I don't view 27 is like the You know the the grim reaper time. Yeah, usually it's you know, 28 29 is when they start to at least for me
Starting point is 00:35:53 I start to get a little bit worried but These guys are great. They're absolutely great. You know now again now they're all gonna be here older We'll see how it you know how they're viewed and you know It'll come down to you know where I want to value these guys where ADP tells us these guys are going, if they're worth it or not. But in the case of, you know, the these older running backs, they were still amazing. And you know, I have to sort of read a change my approach a little bit, you know, not just to write them off completely.
Starting point is 00:36:22 All right. How about number two? Not all running quarterbacks are great. It's true. But this one is where, like more so to me than rookie wide receivers, you need to take shots on mobile quarterbacks because they have just so much upside. Correct. But that's the point is like not all of them are going to be great, you know, and so it's like we look at it and say we had this conversation Adam, I think it was on fantasy football to express. Heath and I discussed a little bit yesterday on the dynasty show.
Starting point is 00:36:49 Uh, you know, so he actually asked me, it's funny, the same question you asked me, is there any concern about Jane Daniels going into year two, uh, based on the rookie season that CJ Straub just had. And you know, we had all these high expectations for him year over year. And so the answer I gave you, same thing I told Heath is like, you know, the running is going to save him, you know, from a fantasy perspective. If the passing struggles, you know, at least, you know, Jay and Daniels can rely on his legs and sort of still give you somewhat of a higher floor than what we saw with Stroud,
Starting point is 00:37:12 who was just completely miserable when everything sort of fell apart for him. In the case, let's say of Anthony Richardson. So you know, you have a guy that had, the reason I came up with this one was, you know, I went back and looked at bold predictions. And one of my bold predictions was we're going to have three quarterbacks run for 800 yards or more, which would have been a record. We had two. So the two of the three that I thought would do it, Lamar Jackson and Jay Daniels, they
Starting point is 00:37:34 did. The third one, Anthony Richardson, did not. And so we saw how this unfolded for him. He was good when he ran the ball. He was terrible when he threw the ball. And so you have to have somewhat of a passing presence, you know And so I don't think you should expect these guys to be three thousand and eight hundred, you know Like what Jay and Daniels did four thousand and nine hundred like Lamar Jackson did that's not sustainable
Starting point is 00:37:57 You know if you can get a three thousand seven hundred season out of your quarterback kind of what Daniel Jones did his best year In his career, you're gonna have a pretty good fantasy season. Touchdowns will matter clearly, but I think about Kyler Murray too, where the running wasn't necessarily the best for him in terms of where he was at for the season, and he had an up and down, a choppy year. It wasn't great. For me, going into the year was, okay, now he's got these weapons, plus what he'll do with his legs, two years from his ACL, he should get back to being a standout fantasy quarterback and again had good moments, but just not consistent. So
Starting point is 00:38:29 We'll see how this this quarterback class, you know Sanders is obviously somebody who can move cam warder can you know can run a little bit? Not to maybe the level of a Jane Daniels, but you know that these guys are gonna have Mobility and as we're seeing, you know being a mobile quarterback is huge You know for what NFL teams are looking for. Just being a pure pocket passer, unless you're Joe Burrow, I don't think is going to carry these guys anymore. They got to have the ability to make some plays with their legs to some extent, like
Starting point is 00:38:55 a Drake May, like a Bonyx. We'll see if Penix can be one of those guys too. But in any event, for me, it's just don't fall for the shiny rushing, you know, quarterback toy that I always get too excited about. And sometimes it burns us. Kyler's pretty interesting because 575 rushing yards, I think, from Kyler Murray. That's pretty good. 572.
Starting point is 00:39:21 He's only had one year with more than that. And that was a year where he ran 133 times. By comparison, he ran 78 times this year. But this is, this I think was a fairly normal, if not, well, let me just see yards per game. It's pretty normal, pretty normal year for Kyler Murray. Richardson, it's easy to see what went wrong for Richardson. He's just not a good quarterback yet and couldn't really make up for it with his rushing on a week to week basis. I don't know what happened with Kyler. He didn't throw that much touchdown rate was down. He feels like we're going to bounce back candidates tomorrow. Feels like a, he
Starting point is 00:39:55 feels like a pretty obvious bounce back candidate to me. And he wasn't that bad. It was a little under 20 points per game. But yeah, I mean, I wasn't the expectations were were much, I mean, at least for me, you know, I was expecting a breakout season for Kyler. It's funny how things work. He was one guy. I don't think I drafted a single share of Kyler Murray and I really regretted it because we kept talking about him. He's like one of our favorite kind of sleep, sleeper.
Starting point is 00:40:18 As someone who drafted way too many shares of Kyler Murray, you did not regret it. He was a no, I know it worked out. It worked out. It worked out, you know, but not on purpose. That was luck for me. But I think Kyler just look, if Harrison has a better year, then he'll have a better they'll lift each other up, I hope. And then like McBride scoring hardly any touchdowns. That was weird. I think from watching that system now two years in a row
Starting point is 00:40:44 there, I'm downgrading my thoughts and expectations of the ceiling of Kyler Murray. First of all, I think he's genuinely trying to become a better quarterback, which means going through more of your progressions and getting the ball out as a quarterback on time. He's not the greatest at that. In my opinion, doesn't use the middle of the field that well. He doesn't really time up and sync up with Harrison, but you know, hard for those guys to see in the middle of the field that well. He doesn't really time up and sync up with Harrison, but he had no art. Those guys in the middle of the field.
Starting point is 00:41:06 What'd you say? It's hard for the smaller back to see the middle of the field. You mean you think about Russell Wilson, you think about, uh, really the one guy that, that, that was successful at it by far the best was Drew Brees. Yeah. He's just an unrelenting. Nobody anticipated like Drew Brees. Like that's a hall fame level anticipation, but Kyler doesn't have that in my mind.
Starting point is 00:41:24 And I think just looking at that system, he's not really like you mentioned Adam, it wasn't okay. Kyler, you're running. I don't think it was at like one 30 versus one verse 78 attempts to me is a massive difference. Yeah. But that was that that one 30 year was an outlier. He, that's what people kind of were hope in some way, hoping for should not have been hoping for that because that just not hoping for it, but're here. I would have split the difference. Yeah, right. Like if you're buying him for a ceiling, you're not expecting 78 attempts. I think you're expecting a little bit more. I definitely agree with that because he had 93 and 1693 attempts in 16 games as a rookie, then 133 attempts in 16 games, then 88 attempts in 14 games,
Starting point is 00:42:05 and then 78 attempts in 17 games. You're probably right. We probably need to. I think that's gonna stay the same. I don't think that's changing. All right. All right, those are our lessons learned. Let's go to our news and notes.
Starting point is 00:42:17 The Steelers will likely sign either Russell Wilson or Justin Fields and then their owner, Art Rooney, said some interesting stuff about George Pickens. Basically said he's a very talented player, he said exactly this, very talented player who has room to grow. So, you know. And-
Starting point is 00:42:37 It wasn't really very interesting, but he did say it. What's that? I mean, you said, you framed that as he said some very interesting things about George Pickens. He's a talented player with room to grow. Basically, he didn't mean- Doesn't everyone know that? I mean, you said you framed that as he said some very interesting things about George Pickens. How did players learn to grow? Basically, he didn't mean he didn't know that he didn't mean grow as a as a player necessarily as a person. Yeah, we all know that's pretty interesting to have a press conference and just I think
Starting point is 00:42:56 he said something like every team has one or two players or you have to coach differently. Right. Yeah. To just say that out loud about George Pickens is, I think it's quite a call out. Well, I mean, look, he's coming up on a contract situation, so entering year four, it's time for him to play to the level of what he's capable of, which could be one of the best receivers
Starting point is 00:43:18 in that second tier. I don't think he's ever gonna be one of the elite, elite guys, but he could certainly be in that next tier of guys. He's got that upside and that potential. He's got to, you know, clearly get a little bit more mature and then establish his route tree and, and prove that he can do that. I'm sure he can, but he just hasn't shown it yet.
Starting point is 00:43:35 Um, they have so many questions offensively. They're backfield, both guys are free agents. Yup. Their quarterback situation is, is nonexistent right now. Their second receiver is noneexistent right now. Their second receiver is non-existent right now. You know, maybe Roman Wilson can become that guy, but so, so many question marks that, you know, could be a lot of fun if they, you know, end up finding the right answers to this team. But clearly the quarterback situation is a big one. And now you
Starting point is 00:43:58 have the, the other story of play with Russell Wilson is that he may go to the Raiders. Yeah. And by the way, uh, how, for, for Najee Harris, Jalen Warren, I think is a restricted free agent. I'm pretty sure they're both unrestricted, but check that. Okay. Uh, but for, for those guys, the difference between being in this running back class free agency and last year's running back class, this free agency class stinks. It's really bad, specifically at running back. Um, can I make one
Starting point is 00:44:26 quick take? If Russell Wilson goes to the Raiders, Freddie changed out their coaching staff. I think I'm going to have to not, not buy Brock Bowers in any league next year. I think I'm not going to be able to, I don't think he's going to be able to pay off his ADP at all. I don't think Russell Wilson is a good fit at all for Brock Bowers at all. He's restricted. You're right. We, uh, Warren's restricted. I don't think, uh, there's ever, Jimmy Graham had a good like touchdown year, maybe, maybe a couple with Wilson, but that's just touchdown. You never get a good tight end in the middle of the field.
Starting point is 00:45:02 Like I never had a Brock Bowers. I don't like the idea of changing that system out either for Bowers. That hurts me. Bowers was in a lot of ways a volume play that designed the whole offense around him. I guess the hope is they'll just do that again. But they signed Darrell Bevel or that's just a rumor. Not yet. Not yet. No.
Starting point is 00:45:18 Uh, Dow has hired Matt Eberfluss as their defensive coordinator, the former Bears coach. The Texans did fire Bobby Slowick. Do we like this? We slow it was a king of the hill last year. Yeah, I mean, I think we like this just based on the fact that they've regressed so much. But really, I mean, the fact of the matter is Bobby Sloak doesn't play offensive line for the
Starting point is 00:45:36 Texans. And he didn't, you know, he had no control over the injuries on the line. It just goes to show though, quick take outside of fantasy, Anyone who says Liam Cohen did the wrong thing, I'm against you. And I think he did the right thing. Because if you get a chance at a head coach job, you take it because yes, Bobby Slawek was the hottest candidate on the market. And now he's looking for a job. But also, I'm glad you brought Liam Cohen up because he only has one year as a coordinator. I guess he was the Rams coordinator, but only one year as a play. Oh, I guess he was a Rams coordinator,
Starting point is 00:46:05 but only one year as a play caller, I think, in the NFL, in the NFL. So I hope he's not the next Bobby Slauick. I don't think he will because just looking at what he did at Kentucky with Will Levis was phenomenal stuff. He was the only one to ever generate any kind of production out of Levis. I don't know for a fact.
Starting point is 00:46:22 I mean, I think I'm right about that, that only one year as a play caller in the NFL. In the NFL, you are right about that. He came from Kentucky. He was with the Rams, but he was like an assistant. He was an offensive coordinator for the Rams in 2022, but he didn't call plays. He didn't call the place. He was an assistant with the Rams before that in 2018 through 2020. And then he had two stints in Kentucky, 21 and 23. All right, Dalton Kincade. He's been dealing with two knee injuries this year, a torn PCL in one knee and fluid in the other knee. So these are things that there are probably so many players, we don't know the injuries that they've been dealing with, but keep it in mind, Dalton Kincade dealing with two injured knees.
Starting point is 00:47:00 I also saw a really interesting quote from Bill's guard Osiris Torrance is talking about the fourth down play and I saw someone on Twitter break down the fourth down play, not the fourth and one, the fourth and five, where there was pressure immediately on the cornerback blitz. Was it Jeff Schwartz? I think he was breaking it down. Probably he does those.
Starting point is 00:47:21 Yeah. And he was saying like, look at this formation that, that the look at this line, the way that the chiefs are aligned and how many guys they have guarding on the left side of the field and how many they have guarding on the right side of the field. It should be obvious that the pressure is coming from your right, their left, right? There was their left cornerback coming on the off the right side of the Bill's offensive line on the blitz and the chiefs were sliding their protection to the left. They got it wrong.
Starting point is 00:47:47 Well, here's what Osiris Torrance, the Bills, sorry, the Bills got it wrong. Here's what Osiris Torrance, their offensive lineman said. We called the protection to slide left. I guess from film, they will blitz from where they're not showing it from. So they showed it from the right.
Starting point is 00:48:02 So we were thinking they were doing it from the left, but they actually brought it from the right this time. It's just, you can say it's an error. I think they just called a better play than we had an offense, just how the game goes. Yeah. That's Steve's. That's our right guard, right? I don't know if he's our left guard. Oh, you guys are right guard, right? I don't think he blocked anybody in that play through. Well, that's the thing, Jamie, no one talks about that. Like the, the free blitz or what if you didn't run, if they didn't rush that free corner, like they already had pressure regardless, just with the interior guy that I didn't know what you're talking about. I forgot who it was for the chiefs. I don't think it was Chris Jones, but whoever
Starting point is 00:48:33 that was. Um, Zach Ertz is not retiring and he wants to return to the commanders. He's a free agent. Matt LaFleur says we're gonna end up drafting him as a fantasy starter next year. I can already see it. Matt LaFleur said he wants to feature the tight end more. A few weeks, not too long ago, I talked. Last week. Yeah, last week we talked about Tucker Craft, good sleeper. They're top 12 tenants. Yeah, there you go.
Starting point is 00:48:56 And the Raven signed offensive coordinator Todd Monk into a contract extension. And I think. Very good news. That's all the news and notes I got. Okay. So that gives us a little bit of time. Get your sirens ready. You apparently need to get your siren ready.
Starting point is 00:49:13 Get your handcuffs out, folks. By the way, great, great joke by Thomas in the chat. What was the joke? You mentioned Kinkade's knees were hurt, but he said his hands were healthy. Well, that's not nice. You know what? I don't stand for that on this show. That's not what we're about, Thomas.
Starting point is 00:49:32 It's unbelievable. I'm really surprised. I'm surprised. It's just, we're above that. All right, fantasy time. I love Thomas. Good job. We are not above that.
Starting point is 00:49:40 We're not above that. This is from Dave Ricard. We have a listener named Dave Ricard. That's awesome. Let's say there are a couple of us in a league who hate kickers and DSTs, but most of the league wants them to stay in. Then say I play the guy who's with me on this in the playoffs. We agree that neither of us will play kickers or DSTs for our game against each other just to show the rest of the league how much better it is. Is that collusion?
Starting point is 00:50:06 Uh, I mean by definition this might be collusion and this might be the first case of collusion that I support. I fully support this. Show them, teach them a lesson about how stupid, sorry I shouldn't be saying this, a lot of people that listen to us like to play defensive kickers, defensive kickers, enjoy. If you want to add some variance and randomness to fantasy, although they're ready is so much randomness and variance. If you some reason want to add more, enjoy it. I get it. You have one more player to root for,
Starting point is 00:50:32 but I am so in favor of this making a point, showing how random it is. And look, you don't play your defense. They don't play their defense. You don't play the kicker. They don't play your kicker. I don't see anything wrong with it. Yeah. Why is this considered collusion?
Starting point is 00:50:44 It's not like, you know- The teams are agreeing together. They're talking and they're agreeing to do something. But they're each giving themselves the potential of a negative. Right. Or no negative. I don't think it's collusion.
Starting point is 00:50:55 I guess, I mean, I guess I'd be fine with it. It's not impacting the league unless you're gonna say their point totals may sway playoff standings. Yeah. In which case they're hurting themselves. I don't know. I mean, I don't see how it's collusion. I don't think it's collusion.
Starting point is 00:51:09 It's I think it would bother me a little bit if I were the commissioner and two teams skirted the rules. But if it's not written in the rules, I guess it's OK. So the rule would have to say you have to play complete lineup. Yeah, exactly. But where is that ever written in any rules? I've never seen that. Well, like in our leagues on CBS, you have to say minimal lineup starters. Yes. So you can't not have, if this setting is designated, you can't
Starting point is 00:51:41 not pull defense or kicker out of your lineup. I also, I, I, it's hard. It's hard to do a DST. You can obviously take a kicker. That's not an active kicker and put them in your lineup and just take zeros, but you can't do it with the STS. You could start the Colts DST in week 17. That's basically the same. I think one of the things that Dan said, of course, I think was a really ridiculous thing to say, but he said that I missed it. I just want to insert. I'm taking advantage of the fact that I'm on mute because there's work being done in the back and I can't defend myself.
Starting point is 00:52:15 I just want to insert some randomness in you with kickers and DSTs. Let's not act like the other positions are so predictable. We get everything right. Come on, Adam. Look at it. You don't even, are you really trying to argue that Kicker is not more random than the other positions, please?
Starting point is 00:52:29 Please? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I haven't done the research, but. That's a bad take. No, no. This might be your worst fantasy take ever. You're saying Kicker doesn't have more variants than other positions.
Starting point is 00:52:38 I have no idea. I have no idea. You have no idea? Well, then just go look it up after the show and then you're gonna be surprised to see how wrong you are. How am I supposed to look that up? By looking at each year where we project the ADP for kickers and who actually finishes. Oh my God, the ADP for kickers. We don't project the ADP for kickers. Whatever, not ADP, whatever. Whether you're ranking kickers, they don't finish according to rank.
Starting point is 00:53:00 Yeah, neither do the neither do the running backs. Yeah, a lot of the guys at the top do. Jamar chase. Yeah, I'm sure a lot of kickers. Oh my god. No, OK. First of all, I wasn't smarter than me. I was data and data points to prove that I wasn't. I wasn't that person.
Starting point is 00:53:13 I wasn't thinking of it from a draft perspective. I was thinking from the whole point I was thinking of it from. Go on mute. I was. I've never noticed before. Dan's got kind of like dinosaur arms. That's a little short. Are they sure? Don't let them get in your head. Listen, I wasn't thinking of it from a graph perspective
Starting point is 00:53:33 I was thinking of picking up a streamer, you know and and like we stream tight ends Oh my gosh streaming streaming tight ends is no different than streaming kickers I know it's not about streaming Adam First of all, I probably argue back on that and. I know, but it's not about streaming, Adam. First of all, I probably argue back on that and push back a little, but it's not about, but you might be right on that. It's not about streaming. It's about the point where like, if you rank the kickers one through 12 preseason, it never finishes anywhere close to that.
Starting point is 00:53:55 All right. I don't think we don't put, we don't put one 50th of the amount of time researching how to rank kickers as we do the other positions. Hey, hey, whoa. Rank them. It's random, Adam. That's why, because you don't do it because it's random. That might be true. That's why we drafted by that. But I'm saying just picking my awards say differently. All right. I'm moving on here from scuba Steve. I am the champ. Why is it that Dan just brings out all these takes? I just he just brings something out at me.
Starting point is 00:54:31 So scuba Steve needs our help. I feel like I know this was in my notes. He says I never read it, but I never read it with Dan, at least. All right. So he needs a league punishment for the loser. He needs an epic punishment. He wants to bring pain to the loser on draft day. And make him want draft day to be over more than anything in the world.
Starting point is 00:54:54 So he's thinking about making the loser wear a wet itch sweater with giant Mickey cartoon hands sewn to it so he can't take them off when he's eating, when he's trying to make his draft picks, anything like that. You say you have something better? No, nevermind. I misheard this. I was thinking of draft punishment.
Starting point is 00:55:14 I didn't know draft day. It has to be draft day. How do we make draft day horrible for, and they have to draft in a public place, by the way. So. So you want this person to be in physical pain? Any kind of pain, I think is. Humiliation.
Starting point is 00:55:29 Well, like, humiliation is different, but like, this is like actual pain. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. I think at some point you just walk up behind him and you just slime him, like old Nickelodeon. Just slime, and he has to sit in like the wet slime for the whole draft.
Starting point is 00:55:42 That's a start. 25th anniversary of Slime Time Live, by the way, this week, last week. I saw your brother posted something on some social media about 25th anniversary of Slime Time Live. The most definitive proof we have that Adam is not his parents' favorite child. Well, it will be 2034 or something will be the 25th anniversary of me on fantasy football today. Okay. That's kind of think your parents are counting down that one like the slime.
Starting point is 00:56:12 What's what? 33 I think. Uh, yeah. Um, I don't know. I don't, I mean, I don't do anything like this, but having them wear horrible clothes in public is some stuff on them. It's kind of funny. I mean, if it's like physical pain, like you can, you can probably, if you're going somewhere,
Starting point is 00:56:30 like make him eat things that are just completely disgusting. True. True. Would you laugh at someone who wore roller blades into a restaurant? Would you laugh at them? Yeah, probably. I haven't seen someone wear roller blades. Look at that guy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:56:45 I haven't seen that knee pads like make it where we asked for the knee pads, elbow pads, a helmet. Yeah. I think that that's a very laughter thing. Like I think if you're like in a public place, like you should, if you're at a restaurant or something like make him stand on the table and like do like a monologue every, make them just like randomly blurred out who's, what was that? Who's Hoshamazali. Hoshamazali.
Starting point is 00:57:09 Hoshamazali. Just like, like come up with like some, some random monologues from you, like TV shows or movies that people know or maybe just. Yeah, I agree. Off the cuff, you know, and like they got to stand on the table and just like recite it. It's like, he's got it like. All right, everyone pick one monologue for it. And I have to go, but pick one monologue for this person.
Starting point is 00:57:33 How about like. Coffee's for losers from Glen Garret, Glen Garret and Ross. Oh, okay, that's pretty old school. It's a horrible movie by the way. Final monologue. One of the best speeches. You forget about me. What's that movie school. It's a horrible movie by the way. That final monologue. That's one of the best speeches.
Starting point is 00:57:45 You forget about me. What's that movie that everybody likes? Breakfast Club. Yeah. Whatever the final monologue is there. I think, uh, Dorothy Boyd, thank you. I think that the Jerry Maguire monologue. You got to stand on the table every round and do a monologue. All right. Thank you. I'm sorry. I have to run. Um, FFT express with Dan and Jamie is coming up. They're going to talk about the top 12 tight ends. We will talk to you tomorrow with bounce back players
Starting point is 00:58:08 for 2025. See you later. Paramount podcasts.

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