Fantasy Football Today - Auction Tips & Strategy + Mailbag Q&A! (08/29 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 29, 2026

Help us raise money for St. Jude Children's Hospital here: https://tinyurl.com/FFTDonate2026Adam, Jamey and Dan answer your biggest Fantasy Football questions before delivering the auction draft strategy you need to dominate your league! After Dan arrives fashionably late, the guys discuss underrated offenses (7:44), why Brock Bowers is ranked ahead of Trey McBride (15:31), tight end sleepers (24:36), and the best Christian McCaffrey handcuff (28:27). Then it’s time for Fantasy Cops (31:58) as the crew settles your league disputes and debates. Finally, get the best auction draft tips and strategies (42:46) to help you build a winning roster and crush your Fantasy Football draft!Fantasy 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.

Wait, wait, don't talk. Don't talk. Hold on. Dan. We're on the air. We're waiting for you. BTV went late. Can I get a street and yard link? It's not in my email. That can't be true. Tell him it's from Sam, not Thomas.

It's from Sam. We're on the air right now. We're having this conversation there. I don't have, I don't get it. He's going to curse. Why are we doing this? He's definitely on the email with the streamer link. And now I can tell you,

Adam and Jamie are here. We were waiting for Dan. Beyond the Box Square went late. I'm sorry. I'm going to make fun of him now. Beyond the Boxer went late. Nobody sent me a Stream Yard link, of course. He didn't get a stream yard link.

Here he is. Stream Yard is the program. we used to record our podcast. You are right over there, buddy? No, beyond stress for other reasons, but okay. This is going to be a doozy. I'm going to make you feel better. In the last 30 minutes, I walked into a spider web and freaked out,

as I hate that, and I ate what I thought was a grape, but it was actually a tomato, and it was disgusting. Like, it was a fine tomato, but when you think you're eating a grape and you eat, and it's a tomato, because it was like one of those purply tomatoes, like looked like a grape. Oh, it was a fine tomato. It was horrible. I don't know that I've ever seen a grape that look,

a tomato that looks like a grape. That's a first for me. Well, there are grape tomatoes. Yeah, but this was like, it looked like a long grape. I was like,

this is an oddly shaped grape. And then I ate it. It was definitely not a grape. Anyway, welcome to the show, Dan. I just had to do like 25 minutes worth of stuff in 10 minutes and I went over by seven minutes. So I'm not doing great.

But with that said, I'm happy to talk mailbag today. I'm happy to talk auction strategy as well. So excited for the show. All right. Dan, just wait, I got about 10 articles to send you to it. Oh, that's awesome. That's all.

I love when the articles drop like yesterday, like 7 p.m. I get notifications for four articles that come in. It's like, all right, well, do I have a chance to spend my night how I plan to or no? Yeah, well, Dan is a- No, why am I complaining? We have the greatest job in the world. So I take all that back. Let me resettle, recalibrate.

Shush, shush, important stuff here. Coming up, we have auction talk. We're going to do that in the second half of the episode. We'll get mailbag first, auction talk, second half of the episode. We're going to tell you how to win your auction league. But even more important, I keep forgetting about this. We have our Leftovers League. It's our other podcast league.

We're drafting September 2nd at 8 p.m. Eastern. If you want to be in the league, we have some spots available. Please email Fantasy Football at CBSI.com. Put Leftovers League in the subject line. September 2nd, 8 p.m. If you can't make it, don't submit. fantasy football at CBSI.com. That's our email address for everything,

but put Leftovers League in the subject line. Heath and I share a team, and then we compete against nine other people. We have like five spots left, I think. Anyway, it's 10 teams. I believe it's half PPR and it's Superflex. All right. Did you steal that from me

or did I steal it from you? The Leftover Leaks. The Calling at the Leftover Leaks. It was sort of thrust upon me by someone at work. I didn't want to call it the Leftovers League. That's what I call all the leagues that I do for the people

that you never lit in. I know, I know. This used to be the for the people league, but whatever. Oh, that's what you used to.

So you did steal it from me. That's right. No, I did steal it from you. Someone higher up made me call at the leftovers league. Oh, that's so terrible.

That's copyright infringement. You owe me money. All right. Let's get into the show. I'll do my leftover leagues, too. Don't worry. For everybody that Adam shuns.

I didn't give some notes on the earlier Friday show, but Adam Schaeftor expressed optimism that Alec Pierce would be ready for week one. the Raiders haven't named their starting quarterback yet, although by the time you hear this, maybe they will have Travion Henderson expected for week one.

The Rams acquired 2-2 Atwell from the Dolphins for running back Jarquess Hunter. Sean McFace said that was about having wide receiver depth, not about a possible Pooka-Kua suspension. That was the strangest trade I think I've ever seen. I was on the set for CBS Spotlight, whatever we call it, on HQ. And I'm sitting there with Dave and I go, this is a joke, right? It's like a fake shaftor account. Well, it's Dean Conner's season.

You know who that is, Adam? No, I don't know who that is. A little UDFA running back for the Rams. That looks pretty good on preseason tape. That might be the reason they traded Jark was. I don't know. Okay. I was going to say the dolphins don't really need any more wide receivers.

They're good there, so they can get rid of two to that well. To be fair, I didn't really know who that was either, Connors, but Jacob put me on to him. Okay. I'm sure he'll be great. Can you name the top five receivers on the Dolphins Depart? without looking. Yes, but let me tell you, Wando Robinson's being evaluated for concussion.

Isaiah Pacheco seems like his MCL was fine, but he has a back injury, so that's disappointing. And Mike McDonald said that wide receiver Tori Horton's injury is not a long-term one. Dolphins, we've got Chris Bell back. We got to Mario Douglas. Wrong already. Dan, you're up. Not to Mario Douglas.

Nope. What on their unofficial depth chart you're talking about? Caleb Douglas. Five, top five receivers on the team. Doesn't have to be the order. Oh, no, come on. How is hell wrong? Bell Douglas, Malik, Washington.

First names. Jalen. Jalen Tolbert. Who's the fifth? Who is? Do they have anyone else on that? Another Jalen. Jalen?

Jalen. Hopefully soon to be Jalen. I don't know why I'm drawing. A former first round pick in the NFL draft. The Vikings celebrated it very profoundly. Oh, Jalen Naler, wow. Oh, he's on that team? Oh, my God, you're terrible.

No, Nailer Rager. Nailer is the Rader. Yeah, all right. Justin Jefferson. Yeah, pick before Justin Jefferson. Okay, draftathon questions, emails. Fantasy Football at CBSI.com. The Mario Douglas.

Our first question. Our first question was from an anonymous person who wanted to know how much he could donate to St. Jude. He didn't have a ton of money, so he just wanted to donate $20. So if you want to go, I know the draftathon show is over, but he wants to start this chain

of people donating $20 to change people's lives. Please be like this person. Go to tiny URL.com slash FFT donate 2026 and you can still make donations. Now, next question is from Tyler in New York City. A key way to ID potential breakouts is to find underrated offenses. Last year it was the Colts, at least prior to the Jones injury. Who are your top three offenses that you think are being underrated

and you might want to target players on in drafts? The Vikings are the first and foremost for me. Been on them all off season. There is obviously downside if Kyler is no longer seeing the field well and not playing at a high level, but they have a really easy schedule and they've been kind of slept on ADP-wise all offseason, with the exception of Jefferson. The Saints. No one seems to have any concerns about Tyler Shuck.

Well, I mean, there's concerns. Otherwise, he's great in him higher. And I think looking at this offense in a more favorable, I think really the only two players that are getting drafted as starting fantasy options are Alavi and Travis H. And they have a pretty impressive resume, each of them. So, you know, I, the loss of Tyson doesn't make things better for Shuck and the Saints. That being said, I've said this a few times. Kellyn Moore's history as a play caller, his quarterbacks have all scored when they've been the starter for the majority of the season.

All average, excuse me, 21 points per game or more. And that's basically what Shuck was when he was the starter the second half of the season. Yeah. So the Saints, I would say, honestly, I would say the Colts again. people, you know, probably down on them a little bit. And I'm concerned about them, but they could be very good. And I would say the Packers passing game with a possibility of a Josh Jacob suspension, with just, I just feel like they're not going to run the ball quite as much as usual.

And I want to tell you, since 2022, when both Christian Watson and Jaden Reed entered the league, here are the top five wide receivers and fantasy points per target. Jaden Reed is number one. Jalen Naylor is number two. He's not on the Dolphins. So Christian Watson is number three, Jameson Williams is four, and Kishon Booty is five. You have a very efficient offense,

and I would say the passing game for the Packers to me is perhaps an underrated one, because they are very efficient, but they just don't throw that much. I think they'll throw them more this year. Tampa Bay, I think they bounce back. I think what we're looking for is clearly for what the teams that fit the bill last year,

Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Chicago, is quarterback play that fans are questioning, not believing in great offensive line play and great offensive scheming is really the combo there. So I mentioned the Vikings there. They fit that bill perfectly, I think, from the scheme, offensive line, questionable quarterback play. Jamie mentioned Tampa.

They're expected. I'm trying to find out, like, I'm trying to figure out a nuts saints are a good one. I mean, I wouldn't put them. No, I don't think the Giants qualify because of the coaching standpoint. There's really, I mean, if you're looking down the board, offensive line and scheme being a plus, the Steelers maybe, if McCarthy can get back his,

magic from a schematic standpoint. We saw it with Schottenheimer. I would say that the main culprits are the ones Jamie and I brought up earlier, though. Okay. And I do think the Giants qualify from a personnel standpoint. They could take a big jump. We're worried about the coach. But it's Matt Nagy.

Yeah. All right. Thank you for the question, Tyler. Much appreciated. Next up, Gamer Eric, who is in the channel. Gamer Eric and I had an email exchange yesterday where he, he misquoted Rocky 4. And I didn't want to embarrass him. But I'm going to embarrass him.

He misquoted Rocky 4. He's a big movie guy, so that's surprising. Yeah, he was pretty embarrassing. He's in the chat right now, and I think he has never done an auction. Let's see. He said, hard to believe I've been playing for 25 years and still no auction. And he said that as commissioner, one of the managers suggested this week, we should do an auction. We've had a hard enough time getting people to stay two to three hours for an in-person snake draft.

What are some tips to overcome this? So, yeah, like, how do you, we're going to talk more about auctions later. This is the only auction part in the first half of the show. But how do you get people to stay and have fun for two to three hours? Because it is a long event, Dan. Are you talking about for an in-person live auction or an in-person done on the website auction? There are very two different things. I think he's talking about, I don't know.

I think he's talking about in-person. He said in-person, snake drag. I would say the first thing you should do is make sure it's still on the online app. You all guys all get together, but do it online because online will move it a lot. and keep it going faster, especially it's your first auction. It's pretty risky to do it offline. So keep it online. And look, the way it goes, it's pretty at this point, like from an online auction standpoint,

it goes the time it's supposed to go. Will it go longer than a snake? Yes. But it's only, I bet, like, I mean, just judging on our auction that we do every year, Jamie, that Dave organizes, what do we lose? An extra 30 to 45 minutes, maybe an hour at most, not really. That's a lower rostered player league. But, you know, you're going to just add 30 to 60 minutes.

As far as keeping people engaged, it's up to you. Like, is your league into fantasy football? And are they nerds about fantasy football? Because if not, they shouldn't do an auction. If they are, then they're going to be engaged the entire time. The auction is the most engaging way to play fantasy football by far. You need to be aware of every single bid. You need to have in your mind a value on every single player.

There's no zoning out like you can do in a snake. That's not true. You can zone out. If you spend money early, you could zone out, I guess, technically. But you should always be looking to hunt for value in auction. That's the whole point of an auction. Yeah, but if there's a player that you just don't want, want or can't use.

Like if you have, you zone out, but his bid is over within seconds or minutes. Yeah, yeah. I think the, the best way to make it more entertaining

is to do it in person because then you're, you're engaging with everybody and you're seeing how people are acting and reacting to bids. And clearly if you do it as a draft party, you know, you're getting to spend time with your friends,

which is, you know, the best part of this. And if, if you, like, I don't disagree with Dan about, you know,

maybe doing it online, but still, like, if you can find a way to get somebody to be an auctioneer, like that's just the job. jokes are endless. We did that last year and that it worked out really well.

Yeah, it's actually, it's kind of a must. You don't want someone in the league being the auctioneer. That's tough. It's too difficult. I should come up for your auction this year and we'll play some tennis, Adam. September, we're, we're, we're, it's going to be next week. We're trying to figure out the- You have a spot for me in the league?

Maybe. Oh, that would ruin Adam's advantage. No, I mean, you got to take down the auction expert, you know? All right. I guess I just, one more suggestion, if you are intimidated by the, the time is I think we've done this in baseball before you could take like the top you have to figure it out like you're in a 12 team league you do eight rounds with that's 96 players you could take the 96 top players however you determine it by 80p or whatever and do auction for them and then do the

rest snake draft yeah afterwards you also if you want to get done quickly just spend all your money you don't care about your dollar bits you could go studs and duds right yeah zone out or whatever yeah zone out all right here's an email at fantasy football at cbsi.com I'm from Nick. Nick says, hey, Otto, Reggie, Maurice, and Sam from an underrated TV show. Otto, Reggie, Maurice, and Sam. Sam from an underrated TV show. I'm supposed to be the guy who knows TV. Rocket Power? I have no idea. Oh, Rocket Power. Were you too old for Rocket Power? That was right in my age range, Adam. Yeah, well, Schaefer is like all about rocket power. I could see. Yeah, I was about to hop on and say Rocket Power, but you beat me to it. Shafers such, if I could just look at Thomas Schaefer, I would, and someone said, Thomas Schaefer's a Rocketbauer fan. I'd be like that checks out 100%.

He looks like the people in the show to some extent. And he probably still calls people Shoebys. You know what a Shubi is? No, but this is great. I love it. Yeah, I know what a Shoebys. Thomas does, obviously. Adam must be a Shubi then. Adam is, Adam 100% would be a Shubi.

Yeah, he would be. He's like, that's a Glock Shubi. All right. The question is, why do you have Brock Bowers ahead of Trey McBride? I think Bowers is in a spot where he could lead the NFL in targets. I think he could have an opportunity to be among the reception leaders. You're talking about a guy that had an elite profile as a rookie battle through a PCL injury last year. I think if he had sat out and maybe came back at the end of the season instead of trying to play through it,

we would have gotten the best of Bowers. But you saw that one game against Jacksonville. I love Trey McBride. I just think we're going to have a better run game in Arizona than we had last year. You're going to get more opportunities. remember a lot of what McBride did at the end of the season was without Marvin Harrison. So you got Harrison and what should be a better version of Michael Wilson there. So given the receiving core for the Raiders, they both have questionable quarterbacks in my mind.

I think there's more upside for Brock Bowers. Slightly, but more. Okay. Yeah, I mean, Bowers is like, you know, he's just sitting there on like the tight end beach. And then McBride comes in. He's a total shooby. McBride wouldn't be a shooby, but you, you would. Yeah, I would.

I googled. The other question was, I'll give this one to Dan. Why are we not higher on Chris Olave? After Shuck took over, he was six and points per game. Why is he ranked 11th, especially with Jordan Tyson's injury? I think not only six and points per game, I think he was like a wide receiver three overall or something. After Shuck took over, I saw that stat yesterday from Dave Kluge.

I guess the reason to not be more excited about him is his injury history with the concussions. The fact that he's hurt right now, we have very little information. based off of that. And thirdly, the fact that... Well, always not hurt. He's not hurt. Oh, he's fine completely? He came down in practice and they just said he got to the wind knocked out of him.

Okay, good, because I hadn't heard any updates on that. That's good. And then for me, the main one, which has nothing to do with injuries, which is like, if you look at it like this, I mean, there's just no way that the schedule they had at the end of the season, this is a big thing for Shuck, too. It just cannot possibly repeat itself. It was a dead Panthers defense, a dead Jets defense, a dead Falcons defense. and then one other, like it was literally like the five of the worst defenses in the NFL they're matching up against.

So if you care about that and you think that factors in because you're worried about, you know, we're saying he was wide receiver six, but it's over a very small sample size. Sample size included four games against the worst defense in the NFL. Then that is something you should factor into why you wouldn't want to draft a Meyer. Yeah, great point. There's also a lot of great players around. I was about to say, I mean, there's so many guys, what are you going to do? You'll put ahead of CD Lamb and George Pickens.

He was better than, who was better than Lamb last year? All right, let's take a break. Thank you very much for the email Nick. Oh, wait, wait, let Eric guess. What's the ad? What is it? The ad. That's our new game.

What's the ad? Pretty soon we're going to have live reads from Dan on here, too. We did last week. Oh, we did. That's right. Yeah, no, this is this. My Z biotics finally made the show. This feels like a woo.

Let's go. Let's see. All right. We'll be right back after this. I'm going to talk to you right now about Omaha Steaks. And this is a perfect time for me to do it because just last night, I cooked four Omaha Steaks for my family, and they were awesome, and we completely devour them. And tonight, Omaha Steaks burgers and hot dogs for the family.

They also have seafood and side dishes. They have so many things at Omaha Steaks. If you want affordable, easy to make, delicious food, Omaha Steaks is honestly a no-brainer. This is like having a trusted butcher and gourmet shop in your kitchen. And let me tell you about the burgers. deal here. Try a burger perfection flight for just $7,99. This is what you're getting. 20 premium steak burgers crafted from five distinct cuts of steak, each with its own unique flavor profile and texture. Again, incredible value. So try the burger perfection flight from

omaha steaks.com today. That's 20 premium steak burgers for just $79.99 plus get $35 off with the promo code FFT. That's Omaha Steaks.com promo code FFT for $35 off at checkout. Terms apply. See site for details. And we are back. Okay, this one is from, I have no name here. Jamie, this is a quick one here. Hey, Buzz, Woody, and Rex. Oh, please tell me you know that, Dan. The minions. Obviously, toy story. Yeah, toy story. Minions. I'm kidding. Okay. One of the few movies I've ever seen. What do you think of pairing the Carolina backfield. I've been seeing Brooks and Hubbard going rounds eight and nine and ended up with both of them in a couple of mocks. Yeah, you know, that's the spot to, you know, take a chance on

two players from the same backfield that we just don't have any idea of how it's all going to look. I think you could make it, it's a little bit earlier, but the Steelers backfield, you can do it with the commander's backfield. You can do it with, I think there's any others. You could do it with the Vikings. Oh, the Vikings, yeah, that's a good one. You can look at all those, those, you know, you know, duos and just see how it shakes out early in the season. And I think in the case of the Panthers, like both can end up being flex options for you, you know, with Brooks, most likely the first and second down guy, and then however working in and rushing downs and also being the passing down guy.

But I think like the commanders, you know, if their offensive line holds up and what Rashad White does in the passing game, you know, same thing with the Vikings guys and what they all be able to do, I think, in tandem. It's very easy to take chances on those backfield, especially if you take two running backs early and then you're looking for your third, if that's your third and your fourth, It's not a bad way to go. Tim in Radford, Virginia is really upset because he's got an outstanding commissioner in every way, except his commissioner still uses non-decimal scoring.

Ugh. Yeah, and that produces more ties. Ties are settled by bench points, which seem absurd. What? Yeah, ties settled by bench points. That's worse. I actually don't hate that. No, that's horrible.

Why should players not worthy of starting status ever determine an outcome? Am I crazy to be so against non-decimal scoring? Is there a bench? benefit I'm missing. And I don't know if you've seen this, but in our email system now, we sometimes we get AI generated responses that we can use. So AI would have said to Tim, you're definitely not crazy. Non-decimal scoring is brutal and definitely outdated. There's really no benefit to it. Decimal scoring is the only way to go to avoid those unnecessary ties. I'm with you on this one.

Yeah, there is no benefit to non-decimal scoring. So just it's a simple cut and dry case here. And the bench scoring thing, I mean, that's... To some degree, I'd argue that this commissioner is not that great because he's doing this. Here's an email from... What are the three qualities you look for to good commissioner? That's like... Basically the opposite of Adam Azer in the Big Burger League. Is that what we're looking at?

You just reminded me of the scene from the movie Road Trip. Or how about collecting dues and paying out on time? Is that a key one? Jamie's paid payout some 2023 something. I do you think I brought it up. The audacity. I finally got paid on the Superflex league I won. The audacity is like, do you want me to just roll it over?

Roll it over. I mean, come on. I want to feel like I want something. You want to put your entry fee in for this year. I thought he said roll it over. No. I had this discussion with Jack in the office. We both were just stunned by that whole question, but it's okay.

We love it. while you quoted me incorrectly. I thought I heard Roll It Over. That's what he said, so I blame Jack. Okay, so this email is from Anonymous. And he says, Hello, Bearded Adam and Burping Dan. I feel like we are severely underestimating

the value of Mark Andrews this year. Declan Doyle was a tight ends coach before being an OC. He has a history at Iowa with Kittle and Hawkinson. He most recently worked with Ben Johnson, who produced great seasons with Leporta and Loveland. Yeah, are we underestimating Mark Andrews.

And he's related to Mike Dicca. Underrating him, it's hard to say. Like, you know, when you start to compare him to the tight ends that are going directly in front of him, which I think in ADP, he's still tight end 13 or 14. So he's in that range with Dalton Kincaid. I would take him ahead of Kincaid. But are you taking him ahead of Travis Kelsey? Are you taking him ahead of George Kittle?

Are you taking him ahead of Isaiah likely? Are you taking him ahead of Dallas Goddard? I would say he's behind all those guys because he just came. off one of his worst seasons, maybe his worst season ever since his rookie campaign. So really it comes down to, and just to tie in our job toathon, we had that wonderful moment where Scott Fish pulled into random people. I know some people like Dan thinks it was planted, but two random people at Universal Studios and one of them asked about Jacoby Lane.

And can you score five touchdowns? I don't know what the over-under is. You were insane for even thinking that Jacoby Lane is scoring five touchdowns. you don't think Jacoby Lane can score five touchdowns? I think he could. I think if I were going to bet the over-under on four and a half touchdowns, I'm 100% taking the under on a rookie wide receiver for the Baltimore Ravens scoring five touchdowns. But that's like his profile, though.

But what I'm getting at is like that's the type of player that could ruin Mark Andrews, because you need Andrews to kind of go back to it was a two years ago. You need him to be like Dallas Goddard. He's not going to still be a elite catch target yard guy. He's going to be a touchdown guy. and you need eight plus touchdowns, I think, for him to crack the top 12th. So when I did a draft last week where Wift on T, I was picking on an end at 12 spot, Wift on Tide End.

He was the best available option. I'm hoping he's going to score eight touchdowns. I'm hoping he's going to be the second guy in terms of targets for this team, but that could be all over the place because Baitman's had a strong camp. And again, Lane's going to be a factor here. So I know you're rooting for everybody, but say, Flachers. I'm rooting with Mark Andrews. he leaves the team in targets.

So I think he's just a good fallback option. I don't think he's somebody that you should go and say, I have to target Mark Andrews. Well, the Ravens don't target Mark Andrews. He's played 17 games, two straight seasons, and he has 69 targets in 2024 and 70 targets in 2025. But I will say this, too anonymous, he just needs to get that target per route, run rate up,

and he needs to run more routes. But if he gets 90 targets, I think he's going to be really good. If he gets 70 targets, that's extremely difficult. And it's two straight years of full seasons with 70. targets. Yeah. That's tough. Now, here's one from Tom in Minnesota, and he says, is David Njoku being completely

overlooked as a potential tight end sleeper? He's not even ranked on CBS. He's tight end 30th on, Titan 30 on fantasy pros. And, yeah, all indications are Gadsden is not being seen as a starter. But Charlie Kohler is. Yeah. Yeah, but do you think Nogoku? Okay, you're not feeling it with the joku.

No, I mean, three tight ends, he'll probably rotate in with Gadsden and Colour. are, Kohler, getting the most, and then they'll run some 11 personnel stuff too, because they have three good receivers. So, no. I think Kohler's the guy if you're looking for, like, a really deep sleeper, dart throw type of guy. Like, it just sucks for Gadsden, you know,

because he showed some promise last year. It sucks for Nojoku, who has had a, you know, good fantasy profile for us for the last five or six years. And both these guys, I don't think you're going to get the opportunities that they're, they're used to getting and that we would like to see them get. So, no.

Sean Hellyer is in a slow draft and he has Christian McCaffrey. He wants to know if he should get Christian McCaffrey's handcuff and who that is. Based on last night, it looks like it's Kalin Black because he came in first. But Jordan James, who's missed time with injury and is now back after missing most of the training camp, was right after him and he looked good too. I watched their tape because Jacob did a cup. I thought they both looked good. So I think it's anyone's guess.

I think they went into this thing wanting it to be Jordan James. My lean is now it's Kalyn Black because Black has looked so good in the preseason and training camp and has proved to them, I can handle some of the receiving responsibilities. But we know for one thing, like, at least from reading between the lines, Shannon has mentioned that he doesn't want it to be like the situation it's been in the past where it's like, I bring on the RB2 and he's so one-dimensional and they know we're running the ball. He wants someone who can catch and be a runner. And to me, based on their college profile, that's easily James.

But if they feel comfortable given what Black has shown, camp in the preseason that he can be a receiving option. It's going to be black, I think. I would guess that if McCaffrey gets hurt as both of them, plus you're going to get, I think this is one of those, they got so much flack for their draft night of stribling and black.

I know. They're going to try to prove us wrong. And they just would be the type of team that we're going to use Kalon Black, maybe in a tandem with McCaffrey, not to the level that is going to hurt McCaffrey that way. But like, we're going to put Black on the field. he's the first guy, because they know James will handle the job if Black struggles in terms of being the second guy, right?

Like they have, I think, enough faith in James that they can go to him. It's almost like, you know, when you draft to play a quarterback, we got to play the veteran guy first because it's easier to go to the younger guy next. So draft capital, you know, age favors James. He's actually younger than Kalen Black. He's 22. Black is 25. Draft Capital, though, Black was a third round pick. James is fifth round pick. So I would lean toward Kalin Black as well.

I have a slightly different take him than Dan on what we saw last night in the preseason game. Yes, Jordan James came in right after Kalon Black, but Kalon Black played each of the first two series and played, I think, every single snap. He did. And then his night was just over. And Kalon Black came in with the backup. And Jordan James came in with the backups. But then the second play of the game, I don't know if Kalon Black ran the route incorrectly, but he and Mack Jones weren't even close on like a really short pass. and then he got later in the game,

he got completely blown up in pass protection. So I didn't think it was that great of an outing for him. Not to say James would have done much better. I like James is a lot more explosive, I think, than Black. But, you know, I just, he is clear, Claylon Black last night was clearly ahead of Jordan James. Was that because James is ramping up because of the injury that could be? And I just remember two years ago when McCaffrey played four games,

I think we felt like it was going to be a split there as well. I remember, you know, I don't, I don't remember exactly what we said, but I remember that being said on the show. And it wasn't. It was Jordan Mason as a workhorse who had almost no involvement in the passing game, but he was getting, he's probably getting like, he was on page for over 300 carries. So. That was also, though, Garendo's rookie season. And then he took over after Mason got hurt. Yeah. But it's Kailon Black's rookie season. But yeah. All right. Anyway. And Garendo, for what it's worth, could still be a factor too. He's on the Pupplist with a chest injury. Right. If he's healthy at any point, then it could be two or three guys. All right. Well, that's all the emails I have, except for, of course, the fantasy cops. Here we go. Wait, stop it now, stop it. Yeah.

Now both of you do your impressions. Do do, do, do, do, do that, do, do that, do. Yeah. I feel like I'm still closer. That's how bad my hearing. Jamie, come on. Who's closer? Huh?

Who's closer? Oh, what's you? By mom. Thank you. Wow. I mean, I am tone deaf and now I know I thought,

I always thought I lived my life thinking I was tone deaf. Now I know for sure that I am. Yeah. You see. I think it's Dan. What? Wow. Let's go, Thomas.

Oh my gosh. Adam is way better. Adam wins. No chance. No chance. Oh, wow. Sam. You're not, Dan,

Dan, you are not the only tone deaf person on the podcast. Congratulations. You and Jeffer have a lot in common. Thomas and Dan were bonding there for a little bit. You guys are the biggest shoebies I've ever met. All right, here we go. This is from Sean.

16 team keeper league, four divisions. The top two teams from each division make the playoffs, regardless of record. And we can keep three different player positions, and team owners can also trade future year draft picks for players and the trade deadlines week eight. So I started out two and five. My season looked bleak. So I traded a few of my top players to the top two teams in my division.

And I got both of their first round picks and a third round pick. My thoughts were fire sale for my team this year, meaning 2025, and extra picks for 26. And that would not only help me, but hurt my division opponents because they don't have their first round picks. But here's the problem. The league commissioner announces to the league after the week eight trade deadline that next year,

2026, we're going to shuffle the teams and create new divisions. There was no vote for this. I immediately contacted him and said that I, and I assume others, have made trades in their division this year with the purpose of having an advantage next year. And I went on and explained in detail why I made decisions and why I felt deciding

to shuffle the divisions now was a bad idea and not really fair, especially mid-season and after the trade deadline. He didn't care. He said he made the decision and it was final. He said, if I don't like it, I don't have to play next year. I then try to explain how I was more or less forfeiting in 2025 a $250 league fee. And that was all for the purpose of setting up for next year.

So then he booted me from the league immediately and kept my league fee. Well. He refused to respond or take any of my calls. Was the commissioner out of line even before he kicked me out? Was I right? Am I thought that he should have had a league vote before the season starts and make the change after the season would love your thoughts. First of all, I want to start by saying I'm angry at Frank in the chat now.

Is to end the commissioner league? Yes, I would never do anything like this in my life. And I've been commissioner of multiple leagues, including my home league, which is going into year 20. Will I kick someone out for inactivity or poor play and making horrible trades? Maybe. But not in this regard. I won't just kick someone out because he doesn't agree with a ruling I made.

And this is a terrible decision by the commissioner. You can't just rule on something without polling the league. And usually when you're going to make. a big change like this, it has to be in effect the year after. That's usually how good commissioners do it. So, yeah, obviously this is terrible. I also don't really understand this, Adam and Jamie, like, is this a friend league? Or is this just like, it is just like, is a friend league? Or is this just, unless it's not a friend league. And it's just like, this is like, oh, I met some guys online. I'm taking his 250 and I'm laughing to the bank. I don't know. He's a jerk. You shouldn't have been

kicked out. I mean, that's illegal. So, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I think, yeah, I'm confused, though. Didn't he say he made the decision after the week eight trade deadline? The commissioner, yeah, like, so this guy makes a trade, basically tanking this year, getting two first round picks next year, weakening his future opponents in the same division. So I got all that. And then after the trade deadline, the commissioner says, oh, we're reshuffling the divisions. You're not going to be in the same divisions.

Crazy. Yeah, you can't do it. Right. But he's doing that for 2020. I just, because you guys are saying he has to do it after the season. So he wasn't doing it after week eight for the rest of the. 2025 season. He was doing it for 2026. Yeah, but if people are trading, I'm not saying he's right. I'm just trying to get the timeline. No, you're right. It didn't mean that it was after the trade

deadline or before the next season started. He needed to do it farther enough in advance where no draft pick, you know, we're, well, I don't think that unless he was purposely trying to ruin this particular manager's situation. I don't know if that was the case. Like, we don't know. Like, it could be like, hey, I'm tired of the same divisions for the last 10 years. I think we should shake it up a little bit, should put it to a vote, obviously. Can't just make that decision arbitrarily. But I don't know if, like, if this, the person emailed us is just saying, oh, he's doing it to screw me over because I took draft picks away from other players in my division.

Like, that would be very crappy if that was the decision. Yeah. I'm going to have to get rid of some fantasy cops to make time for some auction talk. So let's go. Oh, never get rid of the fantasy. Don't get rid of cops. We'll do less options. No, no, no.

I'm not going to. Oh, damn it. I forgot to play. Jamie, it's Friday afternoon right now. You know what tonight is? There's no way Dan knows what that's from. No idea. All right.

What is that from? A movie called the greatest opening scenes in movie history. Yeah, the last Boy Scout. The last what? Boy Scout. Dan, you will love it. There's never been a football scene where there's 45 defenders on the field. It's so crazy movie.

All right. The question here. is from KC. In a redraft league, we get to keep one keeper in the round they were drafted in the prior year. Our commissioner just announced that he's making a trade

with another team. He's keeping Jemir Gibbs in round one, but he drafted James Cook in the third round, and now he's trading James Cook in exchange for Fab and a late round pick swap. But he isn't keeping James Cook, so technically he isn't on the team. What do you guys think?

Should you only be able to trade the person you're keeping? You should only be able to trade the person you're keeping. This is a cut and dry one. Okay, but then you don't have any keepers? No, you're trading your keeper for somebody else. But he was trading for Fab and a late round pick. I mean, unless that's something that's established, like you can do obviously some different, you know,

amendments to your keeper rules where you're going to keep two players until X date and then it's down to one player if you want to make trades to do that. But I think if you're just in a one keeper league, it's got to be, I'm keeping Gibbs. And I want to, I'm keeping Gibbs for a first round pick, but I want to get James Cook for a third round pick. So I'm going to trade Gibbs to get the first round pick back. And I'm going to get James Cook.

So let's say like you have Gibbs and your pick 10, right? So I don't know. It doesn't make sense. But you want to get my point. Like you want to get a better picking round one. Yeah. All right. That's it for the fantasy cops.

We'll try to do more next show. But we've got to save some time for auction. I'm going to take a break and come back and tell you how to win. Wait, wait, wait. Let's see. What's the ad? What's the ad? What is it?

What's the ad? I can't keep doing this. Come on. Whoop. All right. We'll be right back. How to win your auction drafts, your auction leagues. Auctions are the most fair way to draft.

Everyone's got an opportunity to get every player in the player pool. Real quick, why don't we talk more about auctions? I think it's very difficult. I think every auction is so unpredictable and has a life of its own. You're doing a snake draft. You're going to have a pretty good idea of who's going to be available to you at different points in the draft. Auction is tough. They just are their own living, breathing thing, it seems. And yeah, it's hard to do a lot of content around it, but they are super fun. We got this comment earlier in

the show that says, Dan gets no credit on this show for anything. I think that was after his pretty horrible fantasy cop's rendition, but he should get a lot of credit for his auction advice. So what are some tips you want to give right out of the gate, Dan, for winning your auction? We do this show every year, literally around this exact time on the mailbag. So I don't want to repeat any of the tips yet. I want to start with something new I haven't talked about on the show, which I think gives you a really good opportunity to build out everything. So first thing you can do, and this is for people who are playing and repeat auction leagues.

I think that'll be the majority of the people listening and wanting advice. Look at last year's auction results. Go player by player and fill out by your rankings. And I'm sure you have rankings, or I hope by this point you have rankings, if not create rankings. fill out what, let's say, the QB1 went for last year, what the QB2 went for last year, QB3 and down, what the RB1, RB2, RB3, fill them out the pricing from last year, and then build out your entire draft board and your auction strategy based on that. This is the best way that I've learned how to play auctions.

So I'll know if I like a lot of the receivers in that Waddle range, that Waddle-A-Buka range, well, they went for 13, 14 last year, and I could build them out, start placing them wide receiver 2, wide receiver 1, and then you get a feel for how you want to build your auction out. And in a sense, you can have multiple builds. So I'll do that for one build. Then I'll do another build. This is the build if I buy Bowers. This is the build if I buy whatever it may be, buy Gibbs or whoever it may be. And you come up with eight or nine different strategies on a separate sheet in Google sheets, all based on your projected salaries for the wide receiver two. And use ADP. Do not use your rankings to rank it down. Use the most updated

ADP. This will give you a great sense and feel for how to build your roster out, what you can do. and it'll stop you from doing things like overexposing yourself early in an auction and then panicking and having to kind of like reel off a strategy mid-draft because what that could lead to at times is you ending up with money at the end of your auction, which is the worst possible scenario, or you just having no way to recover at the end of your auction. If you build it out in a certain way and you create eight to nine or ten multiple builds, it will give you all sorts of contingency plans to create a great draft and not be left over with money at the end.

Okay, that's really good advice. Do you really do all that? I do all that by hand. I'm sure there's an AI way to do this, which sucks, but I kind of enjoy it, though. It's kind of fun to look back at last year's results and be like, like, this guy went for this, and then find your values that you like, right? Yeah, and I would just say, if this sounds intimidating to you, you don't have to do it. Dan loves it, right?

And I think a lot of people do it. I remember when we were kids, you know, I would handwrite all of my rankings, you know, and cross it out as I cross every. about off the list as we were doing drafts. And I enjoyed that. I don't do it anymore because it'll be pointless. But you don't have to do all that work. I really don't do any preparation going into my auction.

And, you know, if I, I'm playing in a somewhat casual league, my auction league, I would do more prep if I were playing against Dan and Jamie and all that. But you don't have to do everything Dan said. But that is really cool advice, really great advice. I think just one thing maybe to modify it to make it simpler that for people that aren't as into it as Dan is, like you can just, the second part of it, I think once you go through the cost of the players from last year,

you just kind of tie that into tiers. I would get rid of the ADP part of that. I would just tie it into whatever tiers like you look at. So if you tier players yourself, if you use a tier system that other people use, that's, I think, just an easier way to sort of marry the two things. So like if you want to see what the players went for last year, and then you just start to tier those guys.

So knowing that, okay, that Waddle group that Dan referenced, like there's six players in that tier that I like. So I know I'm going to try and get, one of those guys. And that's kind of a neat, I think just an easier way to sort of make it happen for you. And one thing I see in the chat, yeah, sorry, go ahead. No, no, no. If you want to keep going, go for it. I was going to say one thing I see in the chat, which I think some people do like to do, and that's why there are such things as bidding wars and auctions. Someone said there have to be players you're willing to go higher on. I actually find that

my best teams and all of my championship teams are the teams where I draft players in my auction that I didn't go in wanting. It's that I drafted them that I looked at my tiers. I have my tiered rankings and this guy's for some reason going for $12 and a range of $18 guys. I didn't like him, but I went for him because of the value. And then if you continuously do that throughout an auction, you end up having a better chance to win in my opinion by taking, letting the board fall to you. That's the beauty of the auction to me.

It's that you can let the board fall to you. Yeah, I always like to try and get one player in a top two or three tier and then live in sort of like a middle tier for all these guys. So it's almost like you're getting one sort of superstar or one borderline superstar at a running back, a wide receiver spot. I think the onesie positions are easy to target in auctions unless you're going for the top two or three guys. So like if you love Leporta, Warren, Kraft, likely, you know, just as it goes down, like you'll be able to get those guys a lot cheaper than you think. If you love DAC and Lawrence and Caleb and all those quarterbacks, you'll get them much cheaper than you think. you let other people spend for Josh Allen and Brock Bowers and McBride,

unless you just really want those guys, because if those guys are nominated early, people get a little too overexcited, and they tend to spend more than they need to on those onesie spots. Yeah, I mean, that's definitely something I do. I'm actually trying to pull up my draft results from my auction last year. I can show you the team I put together. And the team, it wasn't great, I think, on draft night,

but it doesn't end on draft night. So I try, I like to get, ooh, JSN for 11. that was a great pick. Nice, good job. I tried $100 or $200? $100. Nico for 21. I'll show you, I'll share the screen.

No pet. What's that? No pet. It is true, though. For me, like after I have that all valued out, like I don't use anything in my draft but my rankings. I just, I've always been a use my own rankings kind of guy. I mean, I do this.

I trust myself. So I think there are people who go a step further. If you want to take this even further, my friends have like Excel slash Google Sheets where it like adjust based on the auction live and tells you where the values are going to be. You can take it a step further for sure. All right. So I will share first I'll share my three tips for winning your auction. Okay. And then I'll share the team I did last year, which I don't really think I followed my rules because it just probably didn't get out that way. Well, because you have to adjust. You can't just like,

oh. You do have to adjust. So let's sew my three tips for winning your auction. I try to get at least two great players. Now, easier said than done in a, in a shallower league. I play in a 12 team auction, two running backs, two running backs, two receivers, two flex, one quarterback, one tight end. It's fairly normal size league. I try to get at least two great players. For me, that would be like two of the top 27, eight-ish, something like that. No, probably more like 25, 26th, but whatever it is for you, I like, I want to get, there's no way I'm walking out without one, unless it's just crazy prices, but I'd like to. So if you got, if you got, if you got, Omari Hampton and AJ Brown, you'd be happy. I'd be very happy.

Gotcha. Very happy. It doesn't have to be Jamir Gibbs and whatever, but I'd be very happy with that. I've always find the value. Anyway, before you, before you go on, how much of your budget do you a lot for those two players? So if it's, it changes if it's Gibbs, Beijon. Let's go, let's go anywhere from player 10 overall through 28 overall, whatever your number is. 20, maybe 25, 26. Tell me what you think. I think 50%? 45 to 55% somewhere like that, depending on how things are going?

When you said that my number was 40%. 40? Okay, first of all, like if I get two great players, I'm probably a one or two dollar quarterback guy. And I might be a one or two dollar tight end guy. Yeah. And this is all of a $100 budget.

And if you do that, then you can really spend up on two or more players. But I think the value in these drafts is usually the guys that are like a little boring, like a DJ Moore or a David Montgomery, they could go for $4 late in your draft. No one's excited to nominate them, so they get nominated late,

and not a lot of people have money at that point. I love to save money. I love to have money at the end, in a shallower league especially. You still have good players who are going to be nominated at the end. So I don't want to run out of money. I like to be a bully at the end

and take all the guys I want. I'm going to show you who I did that with last year. it was um sorry i'm gonna get rid of this it was of course isaiah pacheco i was so excited about it i had twelve dollars left i remember as my last player he's like a three or four dollar player five dollar play whatever i spent 12 on him just to get him um but yeah like that's i love to have money at the end because in that league tony pollard for nine that's probably a reach that's probably late draft too not yeah go ahead i mean not to be like a debby downer at him but to me i would consider that a poorly managed auction by you. I was just saying same thing. Well, okay, I understand it wasn't ideal,

but I had Trevor Lawrence for one and Tyler Warren for two. Right, but if you took that $13 that you spent on Christian Kirk and Isaiah Pacheco and instead got two really good $7 players, $6 players. Look, man, there's always going to be in auctions. There's always going to be in retrospect that could have spent differently. This wasn't the best auction I did, but I got JSN for 11. I got Hampton for 15, and, you know, those were good values. And Trevor Lawrence for one and Tyler Warren for two were great values. And you don't have to- Hey, moment it takes off the screen.

This is not a great. Well, it's not a great auction. I mean, some of the players you have here. Hey, look, it happens, man. I mean, we were excited about RJ Harvey last year, right? We were- Yes. And then the thing is, like, you go back-

and-Josey, I just see Caleb Johnson and Joe Mixing, and it makes me squeamish. I know, right? But you don't ever know, like, when I picked them. Sometimes you have a lot of money left at the end of the draft and you just spend it because you have the money. But, all right, that's, how I approach it. I like to get two great players. I usually don't spend up on quarterback

and tight end in an auction. And I like to have money left over at the end so I can get the values for those mid-round guys that are like, you know, somewhere between 40 and 60 in the rankings and just kind of slip through the cracks. So that's, that's the end of my auction spiel. To kind of piggyback off that, I think if you're of that mindset, like you want to get those mid-tier players later, you should be nominating the high-end guys that you don't like almost every time, let other people fight for those players. So it could be, hey, I'm not spending on Jemir Gibbs. I want two people to go spend 50% of their budget on one guy, and then I'm going to hope

to do the same thing on Bejan Robinson, and I just know that I'm not going to get one of those guys. You could easily be one of the other players. You know, Dan used the phrase, which a lot of people will know, studs and duds. You want to go get one of those high-end players, then by all means, go be that manager. There's nothing wrong with it. But if you know you want to live in the mid-tier and get a lot of those players and just have a balanced roster with a couple of guys like Adam.

said, let people fight for those high-end players. And then early, nominate the buzzworthy guys if you're not in on them. So like, for example, you'd want to say, hey, Marshaun Lloyd, hey, Mike Washington Jr. Hey, DeJohn Stripling. Those guys in most auctions, if you're just looking, or most drafts would be dollar and $2 players. You may get somebody spending five or six dollars on those players or whatever your budget may be $150, $200. I'm going on $100 budget. Let those people spend money that should not be spent. And then you're getting somebody, hopefully, of a similar caliber that you like. For example, if I like Jalen Coker

and I want somebody else to go get DeJohn's dribbling because everybody's talking about him or Casey Concepcion or one of those players, hey, bid up that, let that player go out early, spend the money early because everybody sits down at their auction, chomping at the bit, they're ready to go, ready to spend money. Be patient. Be patient.

People are looking at my team and saying it was terrible. There's no way I did well. I was one of the highest scores in the league. I lost in the semifinals. I led the league in scoring seven times that season. That's crazy, given how bad that roster looked. No one else did it more than twice. I would say...

This is your softball league, right? Yeah, by the end of the year, I had the best team without question. I just didn't win the championship. I was the second best team. So just so everybody understands, the thing about your softball team is if you finish in the top four

in the fantasy league, they keep you on the team the next year no, how bad you are as a player. No, the thing that you should understand is that your season's never, over after your draft, whether it's an auction or a draft or whatever. Rico Dowdle is huge for me in that league, for example. Okay, anyway, yeah, Jamie makes a great point about nominating.

Yeah, like, what do you do? Let's say your guy is Dijon Stripling. Like, you just have to have them. What's your approach with Deshaun Strip? Do you try to throw them out right away for $2 at $100? Of course not, yeah. You try to throw them out for $1 and see if you get it? No, you don't throw them out early.

The general rule with these auctions is do not nominate players you want to draft. There's just no value. Now, it's not always the case. There are sometimes you're right where you need to. There's never really a sneak through early in drafts when people have money, but there are times where you need to nominate a player you want toward the end of an auction. And what I mean by that is if your whole strategy was, I'm waiting for Kylo Merr, I'm just going to use an example, Kyle Murray at quarterback.

And this is more super flex. Again, in these one QB auctions, which I don't do any of, it's just like whatever at this stupid, it really turns the quarterback position into a joke, even though I kind of feel like snakes do at this point, too. But there are times at the end of a draft where it's like Murray or whatever, you're waiting on him. And you actually have to nominate those players early because if you're waiting and other people are waiting, you're now not bidding on all these other players who are being brought up before him because you're like, no, no, I'm going to get this. And then there's a bidding war with that. And you've just totally screwed yourself because other people are waiting on that last player.

So toward the end of the auction is when I start nominate. But as far as early in an auction, if you have a sleeper like stripling, do not nominate him. The key with auctions is never lock into certain players. Like, that's really what the auction is all about. If you want to build out a great team. If you want to just get your guys, that's another way to play auction. Just, I want these guys on my team. I'll bid whatever it takes.

And you could maybe win that way. If you're very good that you're predicting who's going to break out, you will win that way. But you're just certainly not getting value from that standpoint. I definitely would not do it early. I think if you're going to go with that mindset of, I got to get stribling. I got to get Washington. I got to get Lloyd. I got to get whoever, you know, so like, I know for you, I'm just using an example.

but I know for you, like Pacheco was somebody in the early part of this before he got injured. So you have to just assign a little bit of a dollar value to it. So let's say like Dave, for example, he loves General Coleman and he loves Concepcion and he loves Golden, right? Those are three of his favorite sleepers. If he knows, like, I want to get those guys, I'm probably looking at them in a $100 budget as $1 players. Maybe Concepcion is a $2 player or maybe golden. Like, I'll double that, but that's as high as I'll go. So if I'm late in the auction part of the process, I'll spend $2 on Coleman,

but okay, if I lose him, I lose him. I'll spend $4 on Concepcion, but I can't go in with the mindset, like Dan said, you can't just hyper focus on somebody, especially early. Like in your case, you had $12 left for Butecho, okay, you know you can spend the most because you're playing bully ball at that point. That's totally fine, right? I want that guy so badly I'm going to spend as much as I have to because everybody's now a dollar bids or $2 bids or whatever.

You know, you're bidding against yourself. But in the case of doing it early, you're going to find like, oh, that's the guy everybody wants. So now a $2 guy is probably a $6 guy. And while that doesn't really hurt your budget, it also throws things off a little bit. Yeah. Another point, though, is that Pacheco last year, look, obviously I liked him a lot and he was one of the worst draft picks I've ever made. But he was something like a sixth round pick, right?

Like, he was a quality player, like, deserved to be drafted. And he was available like three hours into the auction. Yeah. So just that's always, if you're not familiar with it, there are a number of players. But that will fall through the cracks in auction. That's, that's, that's, that's point. though. It's like if you nominated him early, he's probably going for $7 or $8, which is at that point, six-round pick that's around the value of it. You spent all your money at the end, right? That was your last.

Yeah, that was my last. I had $12 left and I just spent it all. So what, if you could recall, what were you bidding against? $4 for somebody, maybe $5 for somebody? Can't remember. But that range, right? $4.4. You mean for Pacheco? No, no, no. The other people in your league were down to like $4 or $5. Yeah, yeah. Right. So you could. you could have still got him for the same cost. Had you done that earlier, he might have been a player that slips through the cracks. Also, you might have had to spend $7 or $8 at that point, which would have just changed your whole philosophy. Yeah, right, right, exactly.

Okay, so no, fair enough. Now, tiers, I think, are super important in auctions. Jamie talked about that, but let's say, let's take the top 11 running backs. I'm going to kick Gentie out of that group and say there are those 11 running backs right now. And you, Jamie, you want to get one of them, right? let's say that's that's your goal um what it like do you not want to be the do you not want to be bidding when there's only one left you want to try to get in there before the tier ends yes so i would just go with the idea the mindset of and you talk yourself into this however you want

do you want to be in on i'll say the top four guys because i think those are going to be pretty locked in of Gibbs bison taylor mcalfrey so if you want to be in there's a definite sliding scale with those two, but those four. If you want to be in on those guys, then just make the commitment that you know you're going to have to spend probably close to half your budget for either of the top two and maybe 40% for the next two guys or 35, 30 to 35% for the next two guys. I would probably look at it because this is the way I would approach it. I want to be in on Chase Brown, Ken Walker, Hampton, Barkley, Henry.

Again, sliding scale, A-chan, sliding scale. And so once I see how the nominees are going, the nominations are going, I'll probably throw in Gibbs or throw in Bejan if it comes to me, let somebody else again spend money on that. And then after two or three of them are off the board, just knowing that they're in the same tier for me, then I'll start to jump in. I don't want to be in your scenario where I'm fighting for somebody

and spending more than I have to because now two of us are trying to get one of the last players in that tier. Jamie has a great strategy for DSTs and kickers. He nominates them early in the draft for $1, the ones he wants. If someone goes for $2 on those kickers or DSTs, He says you can have them. It's a win. This is an easy way to get the DST and the kicker you want

is just to nominate them for $1 and, you know, just get them. And if someone spends more than that, then that's on them. By the way, Clint Kubiak, somebody mentioned in the chat, I didn't even see it, but Clint Kubiak did talk about Ashton Genty today and said, kind of seems like he's going to play week one based on what he said. But we're going to, we're going to another week to assess how he's going to his first game, but we're counting on him, I think, is what he said. So there's a good chance that,

Gentie plays early in the season. Good chance Jeremiah Love plays early in the season. We just don't know how healthy they'll be. I think we already said it, but nominate players that you don't want that you think will go for a lot of money just to get some money off the board. I'm not a Josh Allen guy. I'll nominate Josh Allen and someone's going to go spend a bunch of money on them and that's going to help me down the line. Anything else, Dan? Yeah, I have a bunch of little tips we won't get to.

There's not enough time. I'll just give my main most important rule because I do think it's the most important because I would say 30 to 40 percent feel the opposite way on this. And it's a tried and true. Every 100 percent of people should be thinking this way. Do not ever price and force in auctions. It is a horrific strategy to bid an amount on a player that you are not comfortable winning on. And I understand the upside of it.

I understand why people want to do it. They're like, I spend 48 on this running back. I want this guy to go to 45, 45, so my buy looks better or whatever it may be. This is how you can blow up an entire draft by doing this. had twice in my home league when we used to be a one QB league. The team that bid that won the number one quarterback throughout the second quarterback for a price and heard crickets. $20 starting bid going once, going twice, sold.

Now you're in a one QB league and you've spent all your money, a lot, good chunk of your money on a QB1 and QB2. Do not ever price and force. It's a terrible strategy. It is not good. The upside does not outweigh the downside and it's not even close. Okay. Okay.

Is it excellent? Anything else? Well, that's the main rule. A bunch of that you've hit on. I've said another thing to consider is, while you do want to always bid on players that you don't want to win, it's important also to keep in mind. Like if you just bid on your, let's say you won Jemir Gibbs, for example,

your next three, two or three nominations should be all of the next ranked running backs. You know no matter what within your budget, you're not going to be able to buy two back. So anytime you feel within your budget, you can't spend on a certain type of player, nominate that player, get other people to spend on that player. Yeah, that's what I was talking. I'm not pricing.

Like, if I don't want Josh Allen, I'm not nominating him for 20. I'm nominating him for one. And I'm just letting everyone go out and spend whatever they want to spend. Jamie, anything else you want to add? One more thing. Before that, let me ask you about Gibbs. Jamie may have frozen a little bit here. How much for Gibbs and Beage, there he is.

How much for those guys? Like, what percent of your league? What percent of your budget? Okay, let's say it's not a super flex league. It's like a regular 12-team league. Depends on your league. I have both guys because. our auction values are on the site.

You can see them. They're based on $100 budget. I have Gibbs at 30 or 31 and Bijan at 30 or 29. So basically 30%. I think I'd be more. I would know I'd be more aggressive than that, especially with Gibbs. Probably 35.

And I feel like someone in your league is probably going to be there. May not be you, but someone will be. Again, Dan said the phrase. So if you want to lock up the number one running back, the number one receiver, both on the same team, two top receivers, two top running backs. You can do that.

You just have to know, like, the rest of your roster could be crappy, or you just have to be extremely creative and hope you get some lottery ticket running back, some good late round receivers, you've got to probably be a $1 quarterback guy and maybe a $1 tight end guy, or minimal, depending on your budget. I just think you have to commit to that and understand that is your team.

Those two players are your team going into it, And then hopefully everything falls in place, waiver wire moves, maybe some trades. But for the rest of the auction, you know that you're getting players that have to have a lot of upside and getting them cheap. It's been a while since I've said this. We did a bold prediction show a few months ago. And my bold prediction was that Jemir Gibbs would have, I think it was like the second best season by any running back in the last 10 years behind only Christian McCaffrey. That one year we averaged over 28 points, played a full season. like Jemir Gibbs in the last two seasons,

he's played 17 games in which he's had 15 or more carries, and he's averaged about 25 fantasy points per game. And he's done that with David Montgomery. David Montgomery over the last three seasons has the second most goal line carries in the NFL. That guy is gone. He was their goal line back last year, all three years. It's amazing the fantasy point potential for Jemir Gibbs.

It's almost like you have to talk yourself out of it, Because it's like, how could someone be that good? But if he gets 95, like 80% of the fantasy points that the running backs in Detroit score, he's going to be worth probably 40% of your budget, if not more. I think that's fair. If those things happen, that's fair. But it's like, you can't really bank on that. This is a dream season.

It's just, that possibility is out there. He's so clearly the one-one to me, though, this year. We don't always have that feel. I think he's so clearly the one-one. I love when I pick second and somebody takes Vichon. I couldn't imagine being in a league like that. I haven't seen it, but I couldn't know. I'd be happy.

I was in an analyst draft that happened. I wasn't the two. I was the four. I was hoping he was slip. Wow. And that was the whole point of my Pacheco thing from a few months ago, which obviously doesn't apply anymore. But it's like, I'd be willing to be Korean month now.

Spend crazy. Yeah, that would not be good. I'd be willing to spend crazy money on Dremere Gibbs if I, like, really liked his handcuff and could get his handcuff for one or two. And then I just feel like, okay, if he got hurt and my whole team imploded, then I'd have someone there that I felt could do pretty well. But I don't feel that way anymore. I mean, you could do that pretty easily with your McCaffrey, love. I don't think so because I just not really a camera black guy.

But that's a dollar that's well spent. I agree. Are you spending it on black end? Are you spending it on James? Now you have three rosters. No, but you just have to be very hyper aware of. if McAfrey gets hurt and to whatever extent he gets hurt,

you're going to have black and then maybe you go get James as well just to see for the first couple weeks. It's not bad. Like, if we're talking a $100 budget and you get McCaffrey for about $25 and black for $1, that's not that bad because I think the only risk

we feel like with McCaffrey is injury. We know if he plays it's going to be really good. Yeah, I don't think he's going to completely stink. You know, Dave made the case. I think it was on CBS Sports Network yesterday. that if he, or maybe it was on our show, that if he just has like the passing down's work regress to a point that you're just relying mostly on his rushing.

I don't know if that's fair. If his targets go away and he's, you know, not as relying on his passing down's work, we could be looking at a 17, 18 point per game guy, which is still good, but more of a round two pick. I think the thing with McCaffrey, so I did this in a snake draft, and it's obviously playing itself out right now,

is I drafted with three of my first four picks, McCaffrey, Ken Walker, and Marshawn Lloyd. And it's a deep enough bench where I took all three handcuffs. So I took Marshawn Lloyd, I took Emmett Johnson, and I took Kalin Black. So you can cover yourself in an auction the same way. It's just know that instead of a dollar, you may have to pay to, you know,

by the time you're doing your auction next week, so maybe we have a little bit more clarity on who McCaffrey's backup is. I think in the case of Jonathan Taylor, for example, who's in that range of guys or Bejohn Robinson, for example, Brian Robinson and Seth McGowan, those are dollar bids that you should be able to go through. So you're covering yourself in the event.

They're not going to be the same player, but who else you're spending dollar bids on that could have top 20 upside? All right, folks. That's it for our auction show. Really good tips here. Obviously, we forgot the most important one, which is if you're doing a live in-person auction, you better nail the food.

you got to have some really good food. You got to have some appetizers. Because it's going to be a while. It's so fun. Would you go to like some pizza place or someplace? Yeah, I sure would. Dan would love it. And then he'd hate it at 24 hours, five hours.

It's not 24 hours. There's an immediate reaction. No, I said the second slice once cold was bad of the mushroom. And the entire time, the chicken parm slice was horrible from the start. Everyone agreed on that. Yeah, it was bad. In addition to it, digesting horrifically, just showing how bad the ingredients were. I have seen, by the way, and these.

least to, I think, three team names that are Dan's indigestion. Because of what I ate, because of pizza time. I don't have that normally. Again, we ate the same exact thing and basically the same quantity of the same exact thing, and I was fine. Not really the same quantity, first of all. I had an extra slice of mushroom that you didn't have. No, I had a full slice of the chicken parm.

You had like one bite instead of was so disgusting. You didn't take a second bite. Am I right about that? I was a full slice of a bad slice. I was hungry, man. And we were starving and you decided to take us to the work, a terrible pizza place. The next time we're all together, you guys are having an eating contest of some sort. The place has been around 40 years.

This guy has no shot against me in an eating contest. Are you kidding? Dude, I have like 60 pounds on you. If you want to do your eating contest from the toilet, you might be able to beat me. What does that mean? You're going to barf or crap yourself at some point. If it's not crappy ingredient, you know what time. I'm not going to barf.

And I won't say the full name of this disgusting establishment on the air. And shockingly enough, Jamie, he went back to it two days later, which is... I would eat there every day. I mean, it's the best... It's one of the best restaurants. And you live in New York now where you get real pizza and you're still saying that. It's insane, dude. And by the way, the initial one, it was hot, the mushroom was good.

I said four Florida pizza. I never said overall. Oh, God. The story just keeps changing. No, it doesn't. You're putting words in my mouth. You and Nando should share a team. Just miss quoting me all the time.

All right, I'm down for an eating contest, no doubt. Actually, I don't think I can beat Dan. No, no, you guys haven't any contact. What he did with a cheesecake and the sandwiches from the Mount Kiscoe diner, I mean, it's, it's like reckless. It's reckless. I feel bad for his body. All right. The burping was still, like, it haunts me to this thing.

It was haunting to be in that position where I couldn't, it was crazy. I threw up in my mouth like six times on that stream. Oh, I'm sorry. The two of you miced up on a tennis court, 50 feet from me. I'm sorry that I actually used. Why would you think it's me? That's so insulting. It was obviously, Dan.

That's so insulting. All right, we'll talk to you on Monday. Have a great weekend, everybody, on Fantasy Football. Podcasts. Welcome to Pluto Fo. If you knew the name of the movie you'd like to see, just stream it for free on Pluto TV. Where all your blockbuster favorites are landing all summer long.

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