Fantasy Football Today - 2026 Fantasy Football Mailbag Q&A | Your Draft & Training Camp Questions Answered! (08/22 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 22, 2026

Help us raise money for St. Jude Children's Hospital here: https://tinyurl.com/FFTDonate2026Adam, Jamey and Dan dive into the fantasy football mailbag for a special fully in-person edition, starting with a recap of the Adam vs. Dan tennis match (2:00) before answering your biggest draft questions. Get fantasy football draft strategy for 3-WR (12:14), 0.5 PPR (23:28), auction (31:01), 16-team (39:25), and TE premium leagues (41:13). The guys also get into some fantasy cops (46:34), complete with a special live theme song from Dan and Adam. They wrap up with a full tennis match debrief (57:38), including the pregame dinner, Dan’s indigestion, and the controversial weather-shortened finish.Have a question? Email us at [e-mail] Football Today is available for free on the Audacy app as well as Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever else you listen to podcastsWatch FFT on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 

This is fantasy football today from CBS Sports. What a play! Can you believe this? It's a no idea. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. Up to the races and he stays on his feet. It's just going to go the distance. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, and Heath.

It's Bellback. I'm live in person here. Adam Azer, Jamie Eisenberg, and Dan Schneier. Very excited for this. Now, if you're listening to the podcast right now, an audio, got a live mic on today. Don't have the pod mic. So audio, not what it usually sounds like.

I apologize for that. But the trade-off is the three of us gets to be in the same room together and have a lot of fun. Good afternoon, gentlemen. How are you feeling? Don't throw up on me. Don't throw up on me. If you throw up on me,

I'm certainly feeling a lot better than the Weston Marriott Hotel bathroom is feeling after last night's disaster. But I do. want to say this, Adam, you are a great sport. I listen to some of the post games, and I do want to apologize for not being the most gracious at the end of the match. I think I'm just generally speaking an insane competitor, and I was really disappointed myself personally with how I played last night. I didn't think I, and my brother obviously gave me a pep talk. I don't know if you knew this after the first set. I called me up. And he's saying

you're just not moving your feet and you're not hitting out with your backhand. You're just slicing and I was very lazy. Now, do I think, Jamie, there was some, is there some part of me that thinks Adam purposely took me to that. We won't name the restaurant again, now that disparage them on another show restaurant to kind of bloat me and put me in this position where I have bad indigestion and really I'm not moving my feet and I'm playing bad tennis.

I don't know. That's something I'll have to think about for the rest of my life, but the reality is you played great and you earned the points you got. No, but you earn the games you got is more more so what I meant. It wasn't, I didn't want to say I was just playing bad. I just was disappointed in my level play. All good. We'll do it. I think you would have won.

I don't think that I don't think that I don't say I think I think he would have won the second set and would have won the tiebride. No, I don't think so. All right, listen, let's get into some fantasy football here. I know what you're trying to do, Jamie. The matches behind us, but I will say I'm very motivated to get better. I just, I'm going to win next year. You'll be healthier next year.

Yeah, it will be. I was completely unaffected by that yesterday. email address is fantasy football at cbsi.com that's the letter i we have only one uh draftathon question in terms of donation but we do have a lot of emails before we get to that one player you're really into right now jamie into like half to draft yeah like what's the what's the definition just kind of feeling it right now i'm moving them up your rankings drafting them a lot whatever it is i'm looking right now uh because i'm gonna tell you you've inspired me to be really into dj more We were just talking about that before the show.

Jamie and I are higher than consensus on DJ Moore. I think that's one player for me, Jamie, one player that I'm going to put in here, don't think he's gotten any buzz this off season. And Jacob and I just did a show on Beyond the Boxcore. Shout out Beyond the Box score. Who could be this year's JSN. Jacob had a whole list of guys, and I gave the Danometer ranking on all demo and nine point. The Danometer?

Oh, it's a Danometer. If it was going to be on the box score, I get a little one through 10 ranking on if I think Jacob's accurate. And there's always decimals. If you don't use decimals, you're not ranking things right. But the player he forgot that I really think fits a possible JSN, and no one cares about Nico Collins. And I said this before the injury to Jaden Higgins,

but I still think it's true even after the injury, maybe even more so. If you look at the per-rout data for Nico Collins, the fact that he wins so consistently as that isolated X receiver, which a lot of guys can't do at the NFL level. And just, I think people are too down on C.J. Stroud right now, based on what they saw at the end of the season. I think he throws a good football and can hit those routes that Nico wins on,

which is basically the entire route tree. So I think Nico is the guy I'm pretty high on right now, and I moved them all the way up to wide receiver seven in my rank. He's looking at it right now. Yeah, it's weird. It's like when you go all in on someone like I kind of did last year with Nico Collins, and then he burned you with 120 targets and 15 games, only on pace for 136 targets last year.

He's going to have to do more than that if he's going to be the JSN. But the reason I really liked him was there have been these stretches where he's been healthy and he's been, you know, 19-ish points per get, like absolute superstar. And I thought he was really capable of doing that. I'm trying to find the exact. And that's the crux of my argument, too. So like 2024 is why I liked him so much in 2025.

He had two games where he played 18% or fewer of the snaps. Right. The Azer stats come in. You take those games out. What's his pace? It's 104 catches, 1,513 yards, nine touchdowns, 1506 targets. That's 18.156 targets. That's 18.2 points per game.

I mean, that's like better than what I expect from CELAND this year. Right. So I've seen these stretches for Nico Collins where he's been that good. Something was just off last year. Well, he had the concussion, and I think that really did impact in that midseason. That early injury he had, like that Monday Night game against Tampa or whatever it was. I really did think he never looked the same. And another one.

So maybe it was just the injury. I don't know. But, I mean, you can azer stat anything. I already heard last night you were trying to azer stat the second set of that match in a victory. Yeah. So I guess DJ Moore, I'm piggybacking off of you. I don't know if there's anyone else. I'm just trying to think of something different because, you know,

you say Devante, you've heard me say Ken Walker. You've heard me say DJ Moore. Somebody recently, we just talked about this off of the year as well. Stefan Diggs. I just drafted as Stefan Diggs. I'm getting nervous about Terry McCorn. We talked about this on the CBS Sports Network show. You brought this up about the tackle situation being what it is for the commanders.

That could lend itself to getting the ball out a little bit quicker for Jay and Daniels, and that's where Stefan Diggs is going to live. He's gotten off to a great start. Not that I would take Stefan Diggs over McLaren, but it just makes me a little bit more concerned about McCorrin getting the passes downfield that he needs. I still think he leads them in targets and touchdowns, but I wonder if the catches somewhat are close between Diggs and McCorn.

By the way, two shows today with you two gentlemen, both times I got stuck with the last pick middle seat. I don't know. I mean, it's a seniority thing. I understand. Jamie pulled that rank on me. I respect it as well. Let me ask you a question.

Because we just did our CBS Sports Network show in the same exact seats in the same exact room. I was oddly nervous. I'm less nervous for this. It's the mailbag, probably. I'm completely fine. I think it's a laptop for me. I need this laptop in front of me. I didn't know what's doing my hands.

There's all sorts of things going on. I just want to bring you out with Stefan Diggs, no one really thinks of Stefan Diggs, like Keenan Allen. They're very different much of their career. Yeah. But what I've noticed is that a lot of the guys, sorry for the repeating all this stuff for the last however many weeks. A lot of the guy aged well-wide receiver,

Julian Edelman, Keenan Allen, Larry Fitzgerald, heavy slot guys. And that is what Stefan Diggs is now. 52% slot rate. In his prime, he was like 25% slot rate. He is a short area slot receiver now. And I think, yeah, I think he's really good. I like that call a lot.

All right, guys. Let's get to some emails. Fantasy Football at CBSI.com. Thank you for liking that call. Which is basically change his call. for the course. Okay. From John, 20-year listener.

I love listening while I'm driving. And you know, I think I responded to him. I was like, has it really been 20 years? I thought this podcast was 19 years old. But Chad KBT thinks it's 20 years old. I need to go. I need to do a history. We started before you in like 2007, which makes sense.

2007, because I started in 2009. 20 seasons. I started in 2009. 07. Give me a little quick history. of FFT then. 07 was who was the crew on FF? Just me and Dave. And you were host? And what was it called, Dan? You know what it was called? No. Fantasy football playbook. Ooh. I didn't remember that. I don't like that to some extent. And you know what the baseball one was called?

What? Fantasy, fantasy hit and run or fantasy baseball hit and run. Okay. That one I don't like as much. So yeah, who was hosting, Jamie? I think actually Dave was. Oh, wow. Okay. Then we realized Dave talked so much that I had to take it over. Wow, Dave's taking strays. He's not even here. Unbelievable. the question from our 20-year he says, I listen while driving my kids to all their baseball and soccer practices, and that, John, is why

I don't like profanity on our show. If the Cowboys' defense becomes average to above average, are you concerned with CD Lamb, George Pickens, and Dak Prescott? And wouldn't Giovante Williams be in line for a huge season if they run more, blah, blah, blah. We talked about this earlier on the network show, I think you had

some really good stats to back up why that should not be a concern. And I think, ultimately speaking, I tend to lean just from football knowledge standpoint toward your side because the reality is when you have a processor like Dak Press got a quarterback and he'll never get the credit he deserves from NFL fans for how good he is at playing the quarterback position.

You distribute the ball so well and you see the field so well as a quarterback that your best bet as a coordinator and an offensive play caller is to call pass and I'll say this. Jacob Gibbs turned me on to this this offseason. Brian Chondheimer, I was not a fan of him when he was with the Jets. I was not a fan of him who was in the Rams. He was kind of a, you know, the punchline of a lot

of jokes. He's really retooled everything he's done as a play caller since getting to Dallas, high in pre-knit motion, high and a lot of play action rate, things that are really cheap codes at the NFL level for producing yards and having efficient offense. And I think he has this offense humming as one of the best in the NFL, no matter how this defense plays. You worried about it, the defense? No, impact the offense. No, I'm not. I think just based on the fact that you can still be a great offense with a better defense. Yeah. You know, when you look at what just the the cowboys are with the bang are, you know, these are two teams I think you're going to see improved defensive performances.

They don't have to rely on their defense. You know, this is kind of not to get to on the, you know, football fantasy versus reality, rally versus fantasy. I think like Sean Payton at times, like, wants to cover up Bonix. I know they threw the ball out, but it's safe throws. Right. And then you bring in Jaylen Watt like, okay, now it's your, I want to trust him a little bit more. So they'll still have a great defense, but also like last couple years, like,

we don't have to do that because the defense is so great. Right. I think like Drake May is another one. Like you're going to start to see him open things up more. You're bringing in AJ Brown. The Cowboys are already there. The Bengals are already there. You know, it's like, why change who you are because, oh, we're going to stop people more?

The Rams aren't going to scoring because they got Miles Gary and potentially Aaron Donald. Like, they're still going to bludgeon you to death because they can. And I think the Cowboys well. And that's the best example, by the way, the Rams last year had a top defense and still Stafford through all those touchdown pass and they scored all those touchdowns. I think it gets overrated a lot. They didn't really, though. Like they had the 10th best defense. But the Broncos.

were what the most past tests in the Bronx. The guys are not getting better. Exactly. Exactly. Right. They're not going to have an elite defense. It might be better. And there have been times in the past where they have had pretty close to an elite defense. They still throw on the ball up. All right. Next email is from, thank you, John,

by the way. Next email is from Jim in Cleveland. You just did the draft strategy pods, which were very helpful. Thank you. I hope those are helpful. I think it was good just for me to talk it out. I'm curious how to start a three wide receiver league or how a start three-wide receiver league would affect your strategy and rankings, especially at the top. Jim, I'll let Jamie answer that real quick.

But just so you know, most of our drafts are three-receiver leagues. But, yeah, what's the answer here? I think it's just, as we've discussed with the strategy pieces, where you're picking will sort of determine how you start. Because if I'm at the back end of the first round, I'm probably leaning running back or probably two running backs, as opposed to if I'm in the middle, I'm looking wide receiver because that group of four, Guys, I think those, any of them slip, it's easy to take them. You know, so we start to see ADP, for example, change. Where Taylor and McCaffrey, McAfee Taylor, moving ahead of St. Brown and JSN.

But I'm not going to reach for a receiver early just because it's a three receiver league. So you've got to be comfortable enough to know that could Zay Flowers or Devante Smith or T's be your number of receiver if you start running back, running back tight end, you know, and don't take a receiver early. I'm comfortable with that. I'm not worried about it, but I know a lot of people don't love doing that. For me, the biggest differences in you, I think either Heath or you mentioned called it the blob, the blob of wide receivers. For me, it's in this format, I'm not taking quarterback ever early. And I'm not taking, I'm probably not taking tight end ever early.

What I'm doing is, I like what Jamie said. I still want my run, the running backs in the first two rounds, there's really value plays across the board. There's 11 or 12 running backs that are amazing this year. But then in those middle rounds, instead of taking a quarterback or a tight end in that spot, I'm just loading up on that glut of receivers, the, the McLorins, the Wilson, the Mconkeys, the James and Williams, the Romo Dunes, like Christian Watson, I'm getting as many as I can there,

to not only fill out the three receivers and the flex before I get quarterback in tight end, but I may, at that point, by going running back, running back to start, I may want a bench receiver before I even want a quarterback or a tight end. Yeah, no, I was going to say the same thing about the quarterback and tight end thing. Like, if it's a two, now listen, there's, there's no difference in draft strategy for me if we're talking three receivers, one flex versus two receivers, two flexes. Right. But if it's two receivers, one flex,

I'm always more likely to take a top three tight end. In this case, the top three tight end. I'll just notice, I have actually no idea how long we've been on the air. So that's okay. I don't know when to go to break. So I'm going to try to figure that out. But let's go to our next email here. It is from Alex.

And he says, hey, clubber, Drago, Tommy Gunn, and Thunderlips. I think I've been on this show long enough to know that these are rocking movie characters, despite not having ever seen Rocky, so I'm going to go with that. They are the people that Rocky fought. And congratulations, my 8-year-old son has now seen more Rocky movies than you. Wow. How would you rank them? 1, 2, 4, 3.

No, no, no, no, no. The opponent. Drago. Clubber. Clubber. Thunder lips, tummy, Tommy, Tommy. I'm just trying to randomly guess that and almost got it right. How would you rank them?

That's just... You got to go Drago 1, clubber 2. I think you have the right arm. Yeah, but now what if I threw Apollo on there? Who's one? If you throw Apollo in there? Yeah, Drago or Apollo. I would go Drago, Apollo,

Bubber. Who's Apollo? Oh, good God. Oh, good God. He's like, why doesn't he count? Why was he in the United? He's Creed's dad, Apollo Creed. Okay.

You know what's funny? I saw the movie Crete with Michael B. Jordan. Yeah, I haven't seen Rocky, but I saw it. It was great. It was great. It was great. It was great. I know.

I don't watch Rock. We'll go to break after this commercial here, guys. Let's, after this email. Okay. We'll go to break after this email. Okay. So, Rocky, this is a great email. I've heard the phrase running back dead zone used by other sites, but not you guys.

I'm wondering if this is a concept you subscribe to. My understanding is, you know what? His understanding is not exactly right. Okay. Didn't it originate on our show from Ben? I think Ben Gretch. I actually heard Ben Gredge talk about this lately. So Gretch originated, Gretch wrote the story, but Chris Towers, who he gives credit to, and I've shot out Chris Towers, actually was the editor of football at the time, fantasy at the time, and he was the one who termed the R.B. Dead Zone. So it was Gretch's content, but Towers had came up with the tagline.

Oh, okay, awesome. But yeah, no, it is. I mean, we do, we do reference it quite a bit. We just don't probably use the phrase the way it should be defined. I like how you guys use it as the trapbacks. I think that I like that even better. But it's not the same because a trapback, yes, they often. fall into the R.B. Dead. Oh, but it could be any of it. It's a point in the draft where the running backs has historically just not been very good. Right. I don't really care about that anymore because, like, I was

just looking, like, I did the exercise this morning or Friday morning before we did our Superflex podcast of looking at who the league winners, like the league winning teams or runner-ups were drafting when they drafted their quarterbacks. But one thing I noticed was like, man, these teams, they won

the league. They had a lot of crappy picks. So I don't know that it's just a running back deadson? Like, go look at rounds four through six or seven at any position. And there's busts all over the place. I don't know that running back is more likely to do it. But what's your understanding of what? I think it's, you know, you can start to define what a trap, what a running back in the zone looks, you know, so you can see it potentially. What you, what you don't want is you don't want somebody who's going to fall into two of the three categories of not being involved in the passing game or being involved with the goal line.

Yes. So if you're just kind of pigeonholed to being a first and second down guy, only. Like you could see that path for Bucky Irving, for example. You could see maybe David Montgomery not working on passing downs. You could see Judkins and Scataboo not working on passing downs. So it's avoiding something where they're going to lose

points going into it. So there's a chance Montgomery may, you alluded to this on the show about his past catching numbers aren't reflective necessarily of who he is. Right. Yeah. And people may look at that and say, oh, I don't want to

touch him because we get to that four, five, six, seven range in the draft, and it's, ugh, it could be bad. You know, so it's usually, we've kind of shifted a lot because it used to be the running backs got all pushed up into that four through range where it was like 35 running backs coming off the board.

Now it's kind of like that's where the meat of the receivers go, and then we get to those other running backs, which tend to fall in tech. You know, so Jacarie Kroski-Marer, J.K. Dobbins, you know, guys that are going to be in significant committees and lose a big part of what the role could be. I think that's, I don't want to. go too long. I know for us and that's the crux of the debate because I think there was a dead zone. And this is why I love fantasy football. It just evolves every year. And I know you know this,

Jamie. There was a dead zone because people weren't drafting receivers in them. Now people have changed and flipped the script and they're overdrafting receivers in that range. And now this dead zone is not what it used to be. It used to be guys like Mike Davis and Miles Gaskin. Around four and five, you're taking a Mike or Miles Gassman anymore. Those are the Dukori-Kroski merit. Right. But that's down in round eight. Yes. And I think the other part of it is that, as we're seeing this year more than ever, quarterbacks are falling more. So, you know, you're taking those receivers that were in that four through six range,

and now they're going in rounds three through five. And it's sort of, again, the goalposts have shifted. Yep. And I think there are just aren't that many running backs that get all that many touches anymore. So naturally, like more of them are going to kind of like be in committees. Sure. So it's just, it's hard to avoid it. But look, if you want to take a super safe pick in round five, take a quarterback.

So I know, like, just from still reading Ben and following Ben, like the players he would more gravitate toward. He would rather take the hero R.B approach of taking somebody early and then just take a lot of shots on Blake Corrin and Kyle Monong guy and Marshaun Lloyd and Jonah Cole. Like, he would just love drafting those type of guys and then load up with receivers in the rounds like two, three, through eight. You know, and that's just the way he always drafts. Yes. We'll get a break in here when we come back. Tim J Mac

you're up we got fantasy cops later on oh nice finally yeah but I don't have the music true so I'm sing it I'm saying it I'm fancy football today

we are back with Tim so he also listened to our pick by pick series podcast but he's in a 14 team league half PPR he has the third overall pick this league goes very heavy running back early should I still take Jemar Chase

with the third pick, or he's actually thinking about Dan, maybe going with James Cook because he knows his league. I don't think I can do that. 0.5 PPR. I think it's got to be chase for me. I understand what he's saying. He knows his league. It's going to go running back heavy. The way I would lean into that personally is I would take the value then at Y receiver in round two. If somebody slips like a C.D. Lant, it sounds like he's saying like maybe like a lamb or something could slip

where he's taking it around two. You just take value. I don't think, look, if you miss on running back, even if it's a 14 team, league. You could end up going the strategy that James just talked about that players like Ben like to go to, and you could draft the quorum that just load up there, all those guys. And you're going to hit and find at least one of those guys due to injuries. And you can probably use the wire, not the wire, but like you need to hit on both, I guess. But listen, here's my thing to see. I talk about us a lot. We'll wrap this up quick. But like, you don't need to win. Will we? We might. We don't need to win every single position. Like you can have the best wide receivers and flex and you can afford to have a bad running back to. I think the thing that we're seeing is, everybody's chasing running backs. Yes. You can win by being different, setting yourself. So I don't think it's going to be lamb, per se, but that's A.J. Brown, potentially, we've seen

Drake London fall to that spot. It could be Rashi Rice. It could be Malik Naber, whatever, you know, receiver or group of receivers you like. And then when the draft fits where those teams that went running back heavy early are starting to take receivers, then you just start throwing a lot of capital at the running back position. So it's not just quorum. Again, it's some of those trapbacks. but one or two of those guys are going to hit or give you pockets of the season where they hit

where you're okay and then you pivot to the next guy because you have these guys on your bench that either help you because of an injury or they get more momentum to start playing more. There's just lots of different ways to win. It's not always everybody in my league takes running backs. I have to take running back. Imagine passing on Jamar Chase and he does what he says he's going to do and he scores 23 touchdowns. Right. Like if he like that's a guy I want to bet on.

Yep. You know, so I'm not passing on Jamar Chase. If it was, hey, I'm debating James Cook versus St. Brown or JSN, that's a much easier conversation now. There are three guys locked in that should not be touched. Whatever, already like them, is Gibbs, it's Bejohn, and smart chase. All right, this is from J-MAC. He says, dear Trent, Sean, Brad and Josh.

Trent, Trent Green, Brad Johnson. I think these are quarterbacks. I think that's Trent Dillfer. Sean King. Sean King. Great call. right? Oh, Josh, he should have been good. No, that's Josh. Freeman. Freeman. There you go. Should have been good. He says, my BIL is joining our 15-year-long league. What do you think that? Brother-in-law.

Is that easy? Is it a lot? It's easy as a cut. He's got a $100 buy-in. The issue is he's never playing. Don't you have like seven brother-in-laws? Do I have? Yeah. I have a five or six. Yeah. My brother-in-law, my B-I-L is joining our league. He has no, he's never, he's never, never played fantasy football, doesn't want to embarrass himself. Okay. I'm at a loss to give him beginner advice or a resource to use as a primer. Do we want to give him first-time fantasy football advice? Well, he doesn't want to do it because he wants to win or he doesn't want to do it?

No, he doesn't really know what to do or say or where to direct him. Hi, welcome. But are we a little bit too advanced for a beginner? That's what he said. I don't think so, actually. I know someone, like a friend of mine who had never played before, and she actually listens to the Express episodes. Might be where it's at.

helpful. So let's start with the... My approach is much different, let's say, than Jacob's approach, right? Jacob's very stat-heavy, he's great. I think anybody that's playing on an advanced level loves Jacob. I'm just using an example.

I know what the audience of what most people play fantasy footballers, and they just want to be told, who do I draft, who do I start, and who do I sit. I think our show does a really good job of balancing that, you know, especially the gas we bring on. So welcome.

Yeah. But I would say, like, don't be intimidated because you're going to get, wherever you end up drafting, whatever site you use, it may make it so easy, right? You got rankings from everybody. You know, you can just go based on the rankings. I think the best articles to read. Look at this comment.

The best articles to read, read a Tiers article. Read a Tiers article. Right? That'll help you because it'll give you a good player analysis and where to draft those guys. read our pick-by-pick series. That'll give you an opportunity, depending on where you get to understand. And then, you know, sleepers, breakouts, bus.

Obviously, this will be on the box square if you want to get more advanced as you, you know, dive down that rabbit hole where those guys are awesome. You know, so, but. And I'll give you just like five, I think we can just give five tips to start. Don't draft a kicker in defense until the final few rounds. Like, these are things you might need to know. Don't draft a kicker defense until the final few rounds. Don't draft quarterback till late.

It's maybe not the best track. It's not a guarantee you have to do it. You don't have to drop the quarterback early. It's going to give you an advantage if you just use that strategy. It's tried and true. It really is over the course of time in fans football. So one, two, don't be afraid to fill out your flex before all your other starting positions. Don't feel like you have to go tight end.

What else? That's three. We really like the top 12 running backs. If you can get two of them with your first two picks, that's great. Try to get one of them if you can with your first two picks. But not like if you have like the, okay. Yeah, that's it. Don't take a kicker defense early.

If you like podcast, listen to a podcast. Let's see what we got here. What's our next one? Sorry, I'm not in my normal setup today. Yeah, he's a little off. From Jared. Rank, I'm not going to have you rank everyone, but the question is, can you rank your top 12 and half PPR? So I guess I would just ask you, based on your top 12, what would change in half PPR?

Nothing for the top three. I think for me still, it would be Pook at four. I have Amal and Ross St. Brown at 5, J.S.N. at 6. Taylor at 7. Chase Brown's at 8. That's where I might go cook over Chase Brown. I don't know how you feel about that. In half-P-R.

No, but I would put cook at 9. Okay. Where I have Gentie. Do a Gentie. CMC. And then... 12. Right now you have a lamb? Lamb.

Okay. All right, so barely anything changes. Most of our advice, it's PR, but we feel like it mostly translates to half-PPR. I think you could make a case for Derek Henry 12 or so. A stronger case in half than full, yeah. I mean, in non-BBR, you definitely could. All right, this is from Matt in a town on the Jersey Shore. Oh, Matt in the town on the Jersey Shore.

Could it be Avalon? Could it be Madisclan? Could it be Belmar? You pick. I'll go Belmar, my favorite place on the Jersey Shore. Hey, Jimmy, Bunk, Omar, and Lester. Come on, why your characters? Get it out of here, get it out of here.

And watch the show, Adam. Give me a break. It's disgusting. You haven't watched the show yet. He wants to know if he's overthinking keeping Jemir Gibbs 12th overall. Maybe not. Let's see. So 12th team, 3 flex, pretty deep.

Okay. He can go Gibbs 12th overall, Rishie Rice 60th, Bejal Tootin, 132nd. I am going with Gibbs still at 12th overall. Tudin is the only other one. Rice is decent value. They're all good values. I think you just go Gibbs.

I'm not giving Jimer Gibbs than anybody else. I have the opportunity to keep them. And it's only 12th overall. all. So I mean, this is from Marshall. Hey, Sterling, James, Ethan, and Jack. This one, I've gotten a lot today,

more than usual. Someone else is like this one. Sirling, James, Ethan, and Jack. I don't know. No idea. Oh, they're secret agents. Of what? James Bond.

James Bond. Okay. Ethan is born identity? No. Oh, he's, oh, Mission Impossible? Yeah. You know, the action movie that you'll think. There's no Jason here.

Jason. That would be Jason. Is that his worst take ever, Adam? Is that Tom? Is that his worst take ever? Well, I wonder because, like, there's, like there's that video on YouTube of like Tom Cruise doing all his own stunts and then he says he's not an act like so that is worst day because it's like proven how bad it was it's funny yeah

I actually meant it a compliment like he's more than an action star whereas Schwarzenegger Stallone these guys are mostly just trying to easier stat your way out of this I mean listen what you don't get is Arnold became a comedian did a lot of comedy reacher is that an action oh yeah Jack Reacher also isn't that uh isn't Keanu Reeves jack in speed? He is, but he's not a secret agent. That's true. He's a place. I don't know who Sterling is. All right. With your auger, and I don't have the chat, usually the chat would be chiming in. With your auction strategy pod coming up, I wanted to introduce for discussion purposes

the one-to-skip-a-few auction strategy for this year. It is my strong opinion that Bijon and Gibbs are in a tier well beyond all the others this year. So my standard 12-team league just held our auction, two running backs, two receivers, one flex. I spent 70% of of my budget on Bejohn and Gibbs at the open of the draft. And here's how the rest of my roster shook out. Joe Burrow, Gibbs, Bejohn, Parker, Washington, and Quinn Johnson, Colston

Loveland, and the Seahawks, D.S.E. And a bunch of $1 players. So Burrow, Gibbs, Bejohn, Parker, Washington, Quinn Johnson, Colston, Loveland, Seahawks, D.S.D. I mean, the only thing that is questionable out is receiver, right? Because quarterback's awesome. Right. And it should be awesome. I like the, yeah.

I like the way he did that, right? Like where he was able to get advantage to still a quarterback and tight end. Also, it's standard, and it's 12 teams, but it's only start two receivers and running backs and a flex. So there's less starting position. I think this is the better league to try this in. I've only once seen this tried in my auction leagues. And I'll shout out Z for doing it.

And it did not work out well. He took the two most expensive running backs and one got injured. So it's really a boom or bust strategy, one injury and you're done. Yeah, it could be tough. Although you're going to struggle, but it's so easy in that to do what you wouldn't want to do except do it the right way is handcuff. But now I'm like not.

Oh, the Adam auction strategy. I think Brian Robinson Jr. is an obvious handcuff, but I don't know about Pacheco anymore. Yeah. I'm not saying. You kind of jinxed Pichaco for the season. You feel like you really did much. But yes, you can, but let's just say it's not the top two guys, right?

Let's just say you wanted to take Taylor. I think that goes, he's kind of his whole. point is the only reason is doing because he feels there's such a tear break between those. Oh, definitely. I mean, look, if those guys hit what they're capable of doing, even they just replicate what they did a year ago, there were 70% of your budget. Right. Yeah. And the other thing is like, again, your draft isn't done on draft day. You're going to pick up important. That's his whole point in the email. Yeah, he says he's a confident his ability to play waiver wire. If he's one of those guys who pleases the wire, I think it's a good strategy.

If one of Washington or Johnston hit, if not both, he's going to run away the league. Yeah. get one more break in here and we'll finish up we got about 20 30 minutes left in the show is we're good here and actually we still got to rehash the tennis a little bit well all right that's a little more and we need a fantasy cop so i want to try to replicate the music and do it myself uh you we have we have that coming up we'll be right back on ffti john from the queen's city i am queen's boulevard what's that from probably uh the wire no i am queen's boulevard i don't know what is it entourage did you did you watch on I couldn't stand it.

What? How old were you when it came out? I was in high school. It was perfect for my time. You were in high school? I think you were in high school. You were in high school. You were in high school.

You were college, I think. One of the coolest things ever happened for me with this job was I got asked to do the Jim Rome show. Okay. When Jim Rome was like at the peak of before he worked for CBS. So it still like, you know, everybody listened to on the radio. And it was Jerry Ferrar and Connolly were hosting the show.

So Jerry Ferrar was, like he is a big fancy guy big sports guys i'm sure you guys are you know new yorkers well where and um i'm sitting in our boss's office peter madden at the time um everybody was like leave him alone peter was a huge madden was a huge wrong guy leave him alone don't anybody bother him you go in my office do this do this spot and i'm like yeah hey guys you want to do league like every other question i'm like yeah you know if we do a league together so like month goes by or so and at this point i'm making calls like every team i used to call every team like try I do interviews. Oh, yeah. So I get a call from like a random California. And I'm like, oh,

I'm not to lunch somebody. I'm like, oh, it's probably, you know, team call me. Excuse me for a thing. I get up. It's Jerry Farrar. And he's like, hey, yeah, I got a draft coming up. You know, I really like the stuff you said. Can you give me like some tips? And then the whole, you know, year, I think maybe the year after, I was giving him like fantasy advice. Then that I got engaged. All there was a championship. I got engaged in December. He's like, he's like, hey, you got a second? I was like, oh, I just proposed to my girlfriend. So do you have a second? Awesome.

Yeah, what would Vince do? Whatever the guy's name was. So, oh, what the heck? My work league has always been a tall man, PPR league. Oh, yeah, thank you, thank you. No, the Queen City, that's what it was. I think that's Cincinnati, by the way. Okay.

Yeah, he wants to know how your draft strategy changes in a 16-teen team league. Does it push up tight end and quarterback? I mean, look, we talked about this a little bit on the CBS Sports Network, 12, team, 14, team league. it does give you a big advantage, but you're also losing pretty badly as some of the other spots. So you've got to have a very strong conviction, that conviction, that Browell is going to do this, McBride's going to do this, loved one's going to be in that range, because those are the three, right? I think, you know, especially now that Warren's hurt and Laporteur, sort, like those guys are starting to

become that middle that we get always in trouble with, especially you can see the path now. So I wouldn't reach for those guys, but I would consider taking the advantage that you might get with those three. But I'll throw this out, right? There's pretty much, it's rare that you're going to go to the waiver wire and find a tight end that's going to be awesome, right, because someone else got injured. Jake Tonjus, I think, one of the better examples. Mayor could be. But if you, if you, but running back is full of that. Maybe it's for two weeks at a time or something while I got hurt.

So I don't really know where I'm going with that. I don't know what the strategy around that is. But my point is, if you know, you're going to need to be on the waiver wire to win a 16 team league probably. Yeah, no matter what, yeah. You can do it at running back. I don't think you can really do it at tight end. So maybe the play is getting that elite. The only way to the tight end is the route you went injury, or it's the Dalton Schultz year, the Joanne Johnson year, you know,

the Hunter Henry, you know, guys that just get completely overlooked because whatever, we're all chasing the next big thing. But they don't end up being great. They end up being fine. Remember how good Kenneth Gainwell was when Jalen Warren was out? But if everybody's on your team is doing what they're supposed to do and you just waited on tight-end or you got these guys off waivers, you know, that's the- I certainly don't think it should push up quarterback, though. The quarterback's so deep. I agree.

I would not be doing that. Don't chase it. Yeah. Okay. This is from MJ. Hey, Billy James, D.R.C. and Jimmy. A little band from Chicago. Billy James, Darcy, and Jimmy is it the band Christi?

powers like what's that band name again uh wilko oh maybe this is a gas because i know they're from chicago uh this is wilco does i get that right smashing pumpkins oh i didn't know they were from chicago was that uh smashing i almost knew a smashing pumpkins gone i'm you with a smile there it is i wanted to do that voice that's really i just wanted to do the voice you got it every time i disarm my alarm and at my house like it says disarmed and i'm like disarm our fantasy league is tight-up premium this i put this in the no just for you, Jamie. Okay.

It's tight ends get 1.5 points per recet. Jamie's doing it after like, just finished. Running backs and receivers are one point. How would this change your overall draft strategy? So it's a one QB league? Yeah, Jamie's doing a super flex, but this is 1QB.

In 1QB, Brock Bowers and potentially trade McBride or first run picks. I think obviously tight ends are going to score more points. But when you play in a league like this where any position gets boosted, what you need to do is look at the tight end position and see who gets a lot of catches. Because there are some, like Dallas Goddard's probably not going to get a ton of

catches. But Kyle Pitts might. Whereas Kyle Pitts might not score a lot of touchdowns, you know. Right. He's probably going to be, if everybody plays 17 games, it would probably be top five in catches at the position. So make sure you look at projections for catches for tight ends and know who to bump up within the position.

On that note, real quick, the guys I would bump up are Fanon, maybe held down by touchdowns in a bad Cleveland offense, maybe a focal point targets-wise. Isaiah likely, who's been pretty much just peppered with targets so far and Giants can may not get enough touchdowns. Dalton Schultz now with the injuries in Houston. Those are three that just stand out right away as guys in this format are going to be better. It's the touchdowns.

And I think Loveland moves down in this format. Oh, I don't know. I'm not sure. I don't know what to expect. Yeah. Okay. I don't know what to expect, man, in terms of targets. All right, last email here, and then we'll do a draftathon question,

and then we'll fantasy cops it. Okay. This is a long one. And it is from Michael Hare. and he said, I think the subject line was the FFT Open or Draftathon inspired me. Okay. He said, my three-year-old daughter was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition called RET syndrome. It affects most aspects of her life.

And he sent the length, if people want to read about it. And he said, her diagnosis came shortly before football season as I was gearing up for drafts. And hearing you guys talk about the FFT Open and raising money for St. Jude, hit a little different than it had in the past. My wife and I decided very quickly to get involved in fundraising and spreading a awareness in any way we could. I felt like one of the few things we could do to help our daughter. I thought like it was one of things we could do to help our daughter. So I decided to try to put together my own small tournament with friends and family. I'm a bit of a fantasy degenerate,

so I have a good amount of friends who play and such. I filled out 10 team leagues, top two regular season finishers advanced to a playoff bracket that I hand wrote and updated to social media and the league chats. We raised just over 800 bucks in about three weeks of planning, open entry fee so people can contribute as much or as little as they love. like and keep it accessible to my fellow special needs families as this life is expensive. This year we have a sponsorship of prizes through one of the pharmaceutical companies that's heavily involved in RET syndrome. We're expanding to six leagues and hope to raise $1,500. So Michael, a great use of fantasy. Yeah, really awesome.

Send me his email. We'll put them in. Yeah. And I'm glad that we in any way inspire you what we do with Draftathon, but it really does show what you were able to do, you know, raise $800 and just three weeks with no planning. It shows how cool this community is and it shows how like people are willing to get involved. So I think you just continue to grow this and it's going to get bigger and bigger for you guys. It's also the human side of this for us because like we get emails like this from time to time. And I think it just puts things in perspective. Like we're trying to raise money for something that hits home to so many people. And you know, and I have children, you know, you will one day. Like it's one of those things where you feel blessed. Yeah. You know, when you hear these stories that your kids are okay.

And then you like, what can I do to help somebody that is struggling or needs it and why St. Jude is so important. You know, like Heath today, for example, he's in Memphis doing the draft with those guys and, yeah, just get chills. And one thing Michael mentioned in his email was that when you have a special kid or anything like this, it's expensive for families. And that's one thing I didn't know about St. Jude until we started doing was this was their whole mission is to not just treat the kid, the patient, but to, pay for everything for the families. That's great. To give them housing and pay for their transportation so that these families don't have to spend a dollar. So if you want, if you haven't donated yet and you'd like to, tiny URL.com slash FFT donate 2026. If you're listening to this on Saturday, you have until the end of the weekend to join an FFT Open League. We're going to close them after that.

As we're speaking right now, I think we have about 35 spots left, which is amazing. So thank you for the generosity. But you can just donate whatever you want to, if you're don't want to be in any of the leaks. All right, we got a, we have one draft-thathon question, and it is basically a fantasy cop's question. So... Is it time? What was that?

Not even close. That wasn't close? No, I was way closer. Thoughts? Who was closer? My ears are bleeding. My ears feel like your belly yesterday. No, nothing could be that bad.

This is from Jerry. Our league is the Spatula City Dynasty League. Spatula City! Amazing reference for a movie you'll never see. What? What was that? It's from a movie called UHF, which starred Weird Al Yankovich. We're in a very serious 12-team salary cap auction league.

Good. Auctioned players can be contracted for up to four years. Each team has $110,000 to draft 15 players. after the draft, the cap rises to $125,000. So it's an additional 15. It's not an additional 125. And rosters open six additional spots for in-season free agents. Auction acquired players have always been purposely hard to drop because we want

draft night spending decisions to matter. We currently allow two salary cap relieving drops per season. One injured auction player you can drop and one auction player who just sucks. you can drop. In-season free agents, the ones you do after the 15-player auction, can be added and drop freely. Last year, one manager got crushed by injuries. He used both drops, and then he got stuck with several injured auction players. He now wants unlimited auction player drops with full salary cap relief. The league voted strongly against it. My first instinct was to kick the nominating manager out of the league in honor of Heath, but apparently that wasn't considered serious. So here's

my compromise. After the two free drops are used, you can still drop additional auction players, but their salary stays on your cap as dead money for the rest of the season. You get the roster spot back, but not the salary relief. I think that's a great idea. Like the NFL? Yeah.

Do you think this is a fair solution, or what would you do? Would you allow more drops? Again, it's 15 players that they do the auction for. Only two are allowed to be dropped with salary cap relief. Dan, what do you think? I just, going to be honest, I don't like this format for a league. Fantasy is a game with a lot of injuries. You're really limiting the roster

flexibility. You're limiting the people's chances of competing in the league. If they get an unlucky year of injuries, I understand that it's cool. It's like the NFL where like, you know, if you have these injuries, you're kind of screwed. But I don't know if that fits our game. They're on 21 roster spots, though. And six of them, you can add, drop whoever they want. Okay, so first off. And how does the free agents working? You're bidding cat money to pick them up? I think it's probably like fab. But I don't think so because they, they're Does each free agent? It's a salary cap. Cost a certain cap, an equal cap.

That's my, but I think that's the point of his compromise is to say, like, we'll give you the roster spots, but now you have to spend even less on these free agents. So you're basically taking yourself out of getting any of the priority free agents. You're just getting like the crappy guys nobody wants that are still sitting around. First of all, you don't get to decide what they're legal. I know. I never said I did. You may not like you.

I'm just getting my opinion. You didn't answer the question. You went straight. Like, I appreciate it. I just don't like the restaurant. I think the fact that they all voted no to his proposal should not make you as the commissioner want to compromise to adhere to somebody's request.

So there should be probably another vote. Hey, this was denied. This is my proposal now to make everybody me happy. That's voted. Then yes. If it's voted no, then you just stay as is. They like their league, man.

Do they? It seems like this one. One guy doesn't like it at all because he went against the rules. No, he didn't go against the rules. He tried to change a rule which is perfectly acceptable. Yeah, he proposed a rule change. All right. Which is fine, but it got voted unanimously.

Stan, you think of this wall here. You know what? I'm just going to tear down the whole house. This is a great one. This is a cool background. I would never go on like this, actually. I hate to say, but I just don't know what it is. Just don't respect it, but it is what it is.

All right. Here we go. Next fantasy copy. This one I respect even less. This is starting to get better. Mine was better. Do do, do, do, do, do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do. It sounds like a video game.

That's how our music sounds. And this next fantasy cop. It's not even close. It's not even close. It's pretty good. This next one, I mean, I keep seeing this Jamie and this father really every time. I have some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie and Heath. How many mailbags do I have to do it before I get it?

And Beyond the box scores on Monday. They have to do before I get in the main show. Do I have to do before I get in this? Another year. Someone said Dave is doing the GameCube opening sound. That was the fantasy cop sound. No, I, okay. I honestly...

Adams wasn't good either, by the way. According to... No one thinks here's his guy. No one thinks that I nailed it, basically. Gamer Eric's always on your side. Gamer Eric also thinks that Dan hemmed his shirt sleeves to show off his biceps. No, this is another medium shirt, apparently. Oh, man, I love it.

Okay, where are we here? You want to read it? Sure. You can read it. Go ahead. I am in a long-time fantasy football league at work, close to 15 years. The commissioner has been the same since day one. He's a longtime friend and a coworker.

He has historically released a draft order anywhere from a few days to a week or two before the draft. A week ago, I asked him when he anticipated the draft order to be released this year, and he told me, and I quote, I'd be the last to know. And I guess that's you'd be the last to know. I thought he was joking. I only asked once. My buddy had independently asked him as well. We just found out today. And he sent the draft order to the entire league comprised of four 12-team leagues three days ago.

But purposely, through his own admission, left only me and my friend off the email as a joke. Please advise. So the guy asked, what are you going to send the draft order out? And he said, you'll be the last to know. And he literally meant that he made him the last to know. That's pretty messed up. That's a good joke. It's almost fun, right?

It's almost fun. It doesn't impact your strategies to have a few days, at least a few days to plan your strategy out. So I'm fine with it. That's not good. I mean, that is really is. Why are the hands moment it comes in? It's like a turn table?

That wasn't a turntable. Yeah, kind of like that. Not really. You know, it just felt natural. Just came to be. All right, last one, Fantas Phap's from Joe. Been watching you guys since 2012.

Still recall your funny stories regarding Cheapie's Pizza. Wow. And Adam's college stories with his SUV. So Adam has been here for a week, right? No, less than a week. No, this is day four. Day four and a half. I got a video from one of our coworkers walking through the office, panning down,

and there's Adam's wallet on the floor without Adam near it. Now, I don't know if the video was sent to me with like, hey, did you steal his wallet again? Like I used to back in the day. Those are fun time. You've really grown up a lot. I can't believe it. No, I mean, like if you had found my wallet 10 years ago, I'd still be heading. I mean, he's still watching you from 2012.

And if you had found his wallet 10 years ago, it'd be the same exact wall he has today. It hasn't bought it. It's a Costanza wallet in the fullest terms of the Costanza wallet. It can't fold. And it's totally worn down the leather. I think a lot of stuff out since we slipped out. Okay. I think you felt a little shame you had there.

What were you saying? Was that it? Is that I lost? Yeah. My wallet came back and got it. Thank you. Co-workers. So Joe Shin is from a city in California known as the Salad Bowl.

Ah, the Pacific Northwest. I don't know, Salad Bowl, California City. Me either. We have a fantasy that going on over a decade. For years, I've been trying to make a case to get rid of kickers, but no one ever agrees. There's always that those one or two guys that know the league members more than me, so when they disagree, the majority tends to listen to them. Classic.

Please help me settle this debate and help me convince my league why it's good to get rid of kickers. I make a case saying that they really provide a competitive edge. That's what I thought, but it says really. Every week they're usually a wild card that, oh, no, he does think that they provide a competitive edge, but they're a wild card that tilts a teeth. Oh, I see. I mean, look, there are people that obviously love the idea of, I know how to gauge which kicker is going to be well.

I know how to pick the right kicker. I'm going to take, aside from the two or three obvious ones, you know, Fair Baron and Aubrey and those guys, that I'm going to, okay, this kicker is indoors. or this coach has a tendency that he's not going to go on fourth down, and especially with what kickers are doing 60-yard plus kicks at this point, that when they're on their side of the field, on the other side of the field, they're going to have an opportunity to score.

So there are people that love it. There are obviously people that hate their randomness of it. Probably Jake Sealy is the most famous for it at this point, you know, ban kickers in his big movement that he started years ago. So if you don't like kickers, put it to a vote and get rid of kickers. You're not going to miss them. I'll tell you that. I mean, yeah, I'm very anti-kicker.

looking right now in this league, I guess this is all available. I'm just trying to see the scoring. It's so flat. I think the biggest reason to not use kickers is that the scoring, the exception one or two, randomly before the year. No one could tell me last year that Jason Myers was going to be the number one, to be honest. They would have taken Aubrey number one. He, Aubrey's scoring advantage was 187 points. It's not that much different than the kicker 15 who had 134 points. That's a huge difference. That's 50 points over 17 games. It's a huge difference. I mean, I think if you looked at quarterback, you could say the same thing.

You probably looked at running that. It's not as flat. I don't know that I agree with that. I haven't done the studies. I never do kicker research like preseason or anything. But I'm sure there's some strategy. I think that if you want to do kickers, I think it kind of makes sense to take away points for misses. If you're points for bonus, yes, you should take away points for misses.

Because sometimes we see leagues where, you know, it used to be, oh, 50-yard kicks. These are crazy. How are they going to, you know, we got to reward these. Now with 60-yard kicks, you know, you're seeing certain bonuses for it. So I agree with you. If you're going to give rewards, you also should take away some. I think personally, I think defense special teams is pretty random and stupid as well. My leagues are all no kickers, no defense special teams.

I don't really like that either. Yeah, I never miss it when we do a draft that doesn't have one of those positions. I just did my first draft with it. Yeah. With that shows out kicker and defense. Yeah. Right. That's two picks?

Yeah. But I said to him, it was like, this is an 18-round draft. and it was round 13. First two defenses won't before. The plus side of it is this. If you want it to be as competitive as possible, I like moving decisions. But a lot of people tell me,

like, I want to be watching Red Zone and my kickers on the screen. Yeah. So I totally get that. It's another player to root for. Yeah. Well, that's it for our show. No, no, no.

No, no. In regards to tennis. I mean, you were pretty animated last night afterwards. He was. I felt very disrespected. By what? By you twisting my words post game?

I wouldn't say, twisted your words. I would say you, I would say the vibe you gave me. You completely misquoted me. I would say the vibe you gave me was that you felt like you had worn down and you'd your strategy for and that you were going to win the rest of the games. When I was up two to one in the second set and in all reality, I dominated the three. He just broke you though. But I dominated the three points that led to that break and I missed easy gimmies. Yeah, and I did that like seven times. You didn't dominate those points. You just missed gimmies. No, I dominated points and I missed gimmies. I, I I said, you know.

There was a lot of, really, the disrespect started when Jamie said after the first, like, like, Adam kind of outplayed you in that said. That was insane to hear. But that wasn't true. You thought you outplayed me in the first set? No, no, no, no, that's not what I said. I thought that's what I said. Toward the end of the first set.

You can't say anything. You have to write it down. I said toward the end of the first set. Toward the end of the first set when he got the two points. So I think if you were up for nothing or four one. No, it was three nine, three one, four one, four two. So four one, right? maybe three nothing.

You started he started to play better. He played better. I just didn't think at any point. But that's when you started breathing heavy and sweating. I still think I played better. Purping all over the place. He's talking about his indigestine. He's finally running him around the club.

I don't agree with this either from Frank of the chat. I shouldn't have been allowed to take the thumbs. And I knew this would come up on the show at some point. What's wrong with taking tongue? I don't think that's a supplement. My brother, I forgot my brother said a funny thing after you. You called it a PD, but he had a funny thing for the word P. and E that now I forget.

You know, I mean, it was fine. I didn't necessarily think my strategy would end up working. I was curious to say. I thought there was a chance that it would have paid off. You ran down two lobs that were incredible. I know. That were incredible. But I do think that if you kept that up because of how it was unfolding for you.

I wouldn't be able to run the app. So Taft, who's on our social team, right? Yeah, I want to hear what he said. He was, oh my God, that was impressed. Like, he was really impressed that. You were able to go get that. It was insane. And I'm just thinking, like, if you had continued.

you do that, you weren't, there was actually a third one that you didn't get. Yeah. And you were like, oh, great shot. He stopped running on that one. Yes. He just gave up on that. It was a very, it was probably. No, I misread the ball.

I thought that ball was going out. Plus, perfect shot by you. You also, you also, you also did benefit from the weather because you weren't. Without a doubt. Without a doubt, did I benefit from the weather?

Because you were a huff and puffing. Without a doubt, did I benefit. But Adam, I still think Adam may, there may have been some discussion pregame, and I'll never know if this is true or not between you, Adam and David. No. Let's get him. this fat pizza place.

No, no, I don't know. This was like thick. So it really was, I knew the only, because like obviously Dan's better than either, there's no disputing. I really felt like if he was guest in 93 degree weather. Right. And I was running him around the court that there's no, that there's, I wasn't going to straight set.

Here's what I thought. That I thought I could wear him down. Here's what I thought. I said it to Dave. You were going to lose the first set. Yeah. The fact that you got two games in the first set, I thought was pretty miraculous for you. And I, I, I had a chance.

I thought it was your best first set ever against me. But the thing that you had to do. was get him exhausted in the first day. Yeah, and I did it. And you didn't do it enough. Not quite. You didn't do it enough. Because it wasn't hot enough. It was actually like a kind of a nice night. And then it was humid. It was humid. Then you had the thumbs break.

Then you had us go on and play. And that gave him a chance to sit down and relax. Wasn't that the same time though? Yeah. When they were playing, yeah. But that was a long break when you had. There was a long break. And then I had two of my best games I thought to start the second set. I was finally hitting the ball out.

The shots you miss in the third game of the second set, the last game we played were easy shots. You had no business. I know, I know. And that to me was like, maybe his legs are going. No, that's not a legs thing.

That's me not playing. That's the same thing. You're not. I would miss those shots in the first. That I'm saying, but fresh in games won't do. I'm not making those shots anymore. But you were starting to get through your racket.

You got frustrated. No, that I was just mad at how bad I was playing. I'm so mad I threw my racket. It's frustration. The throw I don't mind as much as I did a last slam. You never slammed. You got to release it. If you're going to throw the racket, you got to release it.

I did it. I slammed into the ball slam rackets. Well, he always does. I usually don't. I never do it. I just so disappointed, like, some of the, some of these easy balls. I had the whole freaking cord open, and I, what, you can attest to this. The overheads were really tough.

They were tough because the lighting. The beginning of the match. Yes. We took a few before, and I couldn't see that. None of us could get it, yeah. And the balls weren't that bright to begin with. And the clay on the, like, it was like, it was like. It was wet clay.

I mean, the clay was soaking wet. When Taff, when we saw the, the match was like, tap, we're really playing on this. I'm like, is this good? He's like,

it's not good, but it's good enough. You can play. And you noticed that. I mean, Adam slipped on a point which I wanted you to do over. You wouldn't take it.

And I was worried that one of us was going to get injured in the back left. I know. That's a good one. And the ball was slowed down by the wet clay, which I actually think helps you. I think if we get to play this challenge

on hard courts one year, I'm going to be in a much better position. That's personally what I think about this. Maybe. What were you left? I didn't hear you laughing at all, But then I was watching it back a little bit. You guys, I feel like you were cracking up.

Dave's joke. Not just, I feel like you were a bunch of jokes. Oh, well, I mean, you know me when I get giddy. I laugh. Some of the stuff in the chat was hysterical. The chat's great. I'm trying to think. Dave's joke was great.

So for those you didn't hear it, Dan is just breathing so heavy. I'm like, man, he's just huffing and puffing. I don't know if this is going to last. And he goes, yeah, it's a good thing that three little pigs were around. Yeah. I had never in my life experienced anything like that last night from indigestion. Indigestion.

burping nonstop. It was like involuntary. And I know it was mic'd up, so I didn't want to do it. I heard it on the court. It was in cross-in-I-knowed, dude, it was, it was crazy. I don't know what it was about, and I won't reference the restaurant again. Adam's favorite childhood restaurant, one that Jamie I and myself and Dave, none of us enjoyed but Adam, and I know Adam thinks I enjoyed it.

It's fine. He had a salad. You can't mess up a salad. You need to know the truth. During the entire meal, Dan said, not the entire meal. I had one comment. The first slice of mushroom was okay. For Florida pizza?

Who do you believe? The entire meal, Dan was complimenting the restaurant. Dave gets in his head because Dave hates that place. And Dan completely changed his tune. Completely. Guys, let me ask you, ladies and gentlemen listening, and let me ask you a question. I never know how to do it because I don't want to say guys anymore. You can't say that.

But people listening to our show, human beings of the world, if do you judge, if a restaurant gives you horrific digestion, the worst you've ever had in your life by far, is that impacted in your evaluation? of a restaurant? It should be like the food isn't just about how it goes down. It's how it settles as well. You know the X variable? Remember we learned about this stuff? We were like in chemistry or whatever and experiments. You got two people here who had the same exact food. No, you did. Dave didn't even eat his food. It was so bad. Forget about me and you. Me and you. We both had garlic rolls, mushroom pizza, chicken parm pizza. I was fine. You were burping and farting the whole

night. Not farting. The X variable is something else that you ate. I threw up in my mouth twice during the match. We had to, like, small-down. We had big donations if you were to puke over the court. I didn't know where to go. And, like, Dave, there was a nice place.

I really didn't want to do that. I was that way to be terrible. All right, we got to go. Thanks so much for watching, listening. Have a great weekend. Last chance to get in the FFT open. Tiny URL.com slash FFT donate 2026. We'll talk to you Monday on Fantasy Football today.

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