Fantasy Football Today - Etienne; Most Polarizing Players; Drafting in Deep and Shallow Leagues (08/25 Fantasy Football Podcast)

Episode Date: August 25, 2021

Bid on our Draft-A-Thon items right now to benefit St. Jude! http://cbssports.com/ebay With Travis Etienne out for the season, James Robinson moves up in the rankings but how far? Would you rather have Alvin Kamara or Robinson and Nick Chubb? We also review more from Monday Night Football including the Saints depth chart ... News and notes (14:30) including why D'Andre Swift is moving down in the rankings. And then we get into the most polarizing players! Saquon Barkley (18:30), Joe Mixon (23:00), Antonio Gibson (28:00), CEH (32:30), CeeDee Lamb (37:15), Kyle Pitts (41:00) and Lamar Jackson (43:50) ... We talk about strategies in shallow leagues (48:00) and deep leagues (54:30). When should you make QB a priority? Is an elite TE more or less valuable in deep leagues? ... Email us at [e-mail] 'Fantasy Football Today' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our FFT team on Twitter: @FFToday, @AdamAizer, @JameyEisenberg, @daverichard, @heathcummingssr, @ctowerscbs, @BenSchragg Watch FFT on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/fantasyfootballtoday Join our Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/FantasyFootballToday/ Sign up for the FFT newsletter https://www.cbssports.com/newsletter You can listen to Fantasy Football Today on your smart speakers! Simply say "Alexa, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast" or "Hey Google, play the latest episode of the Fantasy Football Today podcast." To hear more from the CBS Sports Podcast Network, visit https://www.cbssports.com/podcasts/ To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Kick off an exciting football season with BetMGM, an official sportsbook partner of the National Football League. Yard after yard, down after down, the sportsbook born in Vegas gives you the chance to take action to the end zone and celebrate every highlight reel play. And as an official sportsbook partner of the NFL, BetMGM is the best place to fuel your football fandom on every game day. With a variety of exciting features, BetMGM offers you plenty of seamless ways to jump straight onto the gridiron and to embrace peak sports action. Ready for another season of gridiron glory? What are you waiting for?

Get off the bench, into the huddle, and head for the end zone all season long. Visit BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older. Ontario only. Please gamble responsibly. Gambling problem? For free assistance, call the Connex Ontario helpline at 1-866-531-2600.

BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. This is Fantasy Football Today from CBS Sports. On his way to the end zone. Tell you what, that was a spectacular play. It's time to dominate your fantasy league. What a play. Off to the races.

Touchdown. Oh, he's done it again. Now here's some combination of Adam, Dave, Jamie, Heath, and Beck. Polarizing players. Saquon Barkley, Lamar Jackson, Antonio Gibson. I can't believe I almost forgot to include Joe Mixon. Well, he's not polarizing. Everybody hates Joe Mixon, except for us. We're going to talk about it on today's show.

I asked you who are some of the most polarizing players. We used your responses, came up with the ones that really showed up the most in the responses, and also what we're seeing in terms of rankings and average draft position and things like that. Adam Azer, Heath Cummings, Jamie Eisenberg, welcoming you to the show. We just finished our IDP League, which has 10 IDP, 9 IDP spots. And we'll talk about that a little bit more on the Mailbag Show on Saturday. On today's show, it's the polarizing players, plus how to draft in 10-team leagues,

14-team leagues, 16-team leagues, and of course, our reaction right now to James Robinson stepping up into this lead role with Travis Etienne out for the season. Man, this stinks. Oh, man. So, Heath, we had a bonus pod with Jamie and Dave on Tuesday.

Now it's your turn to speak about this situation. Where are you putting James Robinson in your rankings? I've got a lot more information than they did. So, yeah, I'm probably going to still remain low

on James Robinson relative to consensus. I'm going to have him as a mid to low range RB2. I have been very, very discouraged by almost everything that has happened in Jacksonville since Urban Meyer became the head coach. And it was a terrible situation last year. But the one thing James Robinson had going for him last year is he was basically the only running back who touched the ball. They are not behaving as if that's going to be the case, even without Travis Etienne, because Carlos Hyde was touching the ball

before he was in preseason games anyway. They want to give the ball to Carlos Hyde on occasion. I don't know why. So I don't think Robinson's going to be as good as he was last year, but I do think that he's now a, uh, a number two running back that. And this was an analyst draft. He went, let's see, after Chris Carson and David Montgomery. But did he go before? He went before Mike Davis. Did he go before Daryl Henderson?

No. Henderson, Montgomery, Carson, Dobbins. Oh, Jacobs. That was a surprising pick. And then James Robinson. But do you think 36 overall, 3-4 turn, seems like a reasonable place for James Robinson? It's probably, I'm probably a little closer to Heath than there.

But I think early round four, I was going to take him, to be honest with you. And I had the third pick in the fourth round. So I would have taken him there. So it's in that range. I think, especially this draft, as you noted, Adam, it's it was very running back heavy. So it's you know, it just, it just comes down to, I think that he's going to be in that group. You know, I think it's the Deandre Swift, Chris Carson,

David Montgomery still Jacob's Sandra, you know, all those guys that we talk about all the time. I think he's in, he's in that mix. All right. So would you guys rather have Chris Carson or James Robinson? Carson. Probably Carson. Okay, how about Dobbins? I'd rather have Robinson. Robinson.

Even in non-PPR or half PPR? Non, I'll take Dobbins. Half and full, I'll take Robinson. I think I'll take Robinson on both. Okay, how about James Robinson or Myles Gaskin? That's the tipping point for me. Henderson and Gaskin is kind of where I come out on it. I think I have Carson 17, Henderson 18, Gaskin 19.

I haven't changed my rankings yet. He'll be right in that range. Just to answer your question, I probably would say Robinson. Okay. Yeah, Heath, Gaskin, Robinson? Yeah, I think definitely Robinson over Gaskin in non-PPR.

I think probably still Robinson over Gaskin in non-PPR. I think probably still Robinson over Gaskin in full PPR. Yeah, so he was number eight last year in non-PPR, number seven in full PPR. Basically the same in points per game. Played 14 games and his 16-game pace was 1,600 total yards, or

1,616. So that's 100 yards a game. 56 catches and on pace for 11 touchdowns. The touchdowns were a little lucky. Five carries inside the five-yard line. He scored on all five of them. To compare that, Ezekiel Elliott had 22 carries inside the five-yard line and scored on five of them.

No running back. He's a good player. He's a really good player, and he ended up in a great situation, and now the situation is very good once again. The concern would be is that how much is Urban Meyer going to force feed Carlos Hyde? And that's

the problem. And how much is Leviska Chenault going to take away from him in the passing game? So as he said, it's not as good as it was a year ago, the scenario, but it's now clearly the path to playing time is wide open. I got an interesting question from an emailer. He was offered Nick Chubb and James Robinson

for Christian McCaffrey. What would you do? Oh, no, you know what? I'm sorry. It was for Alvin Kamara. Would you rather have Alvin Kamara or Chubb and Robinson, PPR? Chubb and Robinson.

I was going to say, non-PPR, it's definitely Chubb and robinson i was gonna say in non-ppr it's definitely chubb and robinson full ppr it's probably still chubb and robinson but yeah okay a couple other things from the monday night football game tony jones is that the new latavius murray if you draft camaro or just want a high-end backup is tony jones the guy for the saints. He's trending that way. I mean, at this point, like, you know,

for, for most people that are going to do their drafts in, in probably 10 days plus, you know, next weekend plus, uh, we hopefully will get an answer. You know,

if, if Latavius is cut or traded for right now, it's still a gamble. Uh, I would, I would probably gamble on Jones though, which is, you know, nothing I would have thought a month ago because I drafted Latavius Murray a lot.

On the broadcast, they said that Sean Payton said that Tony Jones was their number two running back as of Monday, going into the game. And he played as if he were. Which is typically what they would say in the meeting, you know, if they asked about it. Right, right. But, you know, it'd be shocking. It would, right. But, you know, it'd be shocking.

It would be shocking. But, you know, that's not the first time we've heard this. You know, The Athletic reported that his job was in jeopardy. Murray's job was in jeopardy. But that was the thought of Devontae Freeman at the time. Now there's a younger back that's cheap. Okay. And then at the tight end position for the Saints, Adam Troutman got hurt.

And is it Jawan Johnson, Heath? Is that who we're looking at? Do you have him in your top 20 for the Saints or what? I don't. I don't think I'm going to currently have any Saints tight ends in my top 20. They don't seem to think the Troutman injury is going to be season-threatening, but doesn't actually look like

Troutman has a passing role in the offense during preseason games anyway. So I'm not sure if they're just trying to hide that because we have had some camp reports that they were throwing to him quite a bit. He just hasn't even run routes. I'm probably just not drafting a Saints tight end and I'll use them as streamers throughout the year. If one of them emerges.

Sucks, but I would agree. Okay. So we're going to have more news and notes for you in a moment. If you want to hear about Marquez Calloway, well on our emergency podcast on our bonus podcast, Okay, so we're going to have more news and notes for you in a moment. If you want to hear about Marquez Calloway, well, on our emergency podcast, on our bonus podcast, in which we initially talked about ETN on Tuesday.

Yeah, Tuesday. Get the days all confused. We talked at the end of that. We had a Marquez Calloway discussion. We are one week away from our draft-a-thon, the 2021 draft-a-thon supporting St. Jude. This is a six-hour stream of nonstop fantasy advice from 6 p.m. until midnight Eastern, Wednesday, September 1st.

We're going to be joined by 30 industry friends like Mike Wright, Nando DeFino, and many more to get you prepared for your fantasy drafts while raising money for St. Jude.

And you can watch the entire stream on our YouTube channel, youtube.com slash fantasy football today. Well, the first two hours will be on HQ. Yes. First two hours are on HQ. The entire thing is on youtube.com slash fantasy football today.

We're going to be on location. Well, not all of us, but yes, Dave, Jamie, Heath, Chris will be on location in Washington, DC. And that's going to be, you want to tell us, you want to tell us about it? Um, I don't know exactly where we're going. I think Ben might know more. Hey, Ben!

They're going to tell us somewhere to go. These are Sportsbook, Capital One Arena. We'll be live from there. Don't know if we'll have fans in attendance yet, but we'll be on site there. It'll be a lot of fun. Heath, what you drinking over there? Just a little juice. Just trying to lozenge up my throat.

All right. Do you want to tell the story now? You know, I've had a rough week. Lots of stress. And I've been looking forward to this for almost 24 hours now. So I think you can definitely tell the story now. Oh, this story?

Okay, JVs. Do you know the story now oh this story okay jamie's do you know the story no do you want me to tell the story jamie because i i mean i kind of know it better than you but you know you don't well i i okay go ahead go ahead so um i get a text message from from our producer of our fantasy football today show. The name is Jack Capitore. You see him in a lot of our mock drafts, his name. He's such a snitch. And well, no,

he wasn't a snitch because I'm on the same text chain with Maron Berkson, who was another producer at CBS sports HQ. And Jack is in the championship game of the fantasy baseball league that Adam commissions. He used to be in this league. This is the league where Adam turns waivers on on Monday mornings and then adds players and then sends an email and says he's turning waivers on, right?

Yes, he's never done that, but yes, it seems like he does. I will defend him in that regard. Thank you. In any event, I get a text message that says, look at the scoring matchups for the championship week. And so I go and I see Jackson, his championship game, and I look at the semifinals and lo and behold, there's the team Adam and I share playing the other team that lost in the semifinals and not Meron Berkson, who should have been in the semifinals. So I'm thinking, OK, maybe it's like Adam said, like a scoring thing. Like, you know, if you lose in the. We lost in the quarter like you know if you lose in the we lost in the quarterfinals so yeah so we lost in the quarterfinal so i text adam knowing that he always has made a lot of these

moves without including me yeah so i text adam and he goes oh yeah i forgot to tell you uh where i want to make sure i get this word for word. So I don't get accused of telling the story incorrectly, like somebody often accused me of. So I text him, I text him with the scoring matchup with, uh, and he goes, yes,

I forgot to tell you. I forgot that there is third place prize of $50. And I write back to him. How are we in it? So he wrote back. Oh, bleep. We lost in the quarterfinals.

So not only did he put us into the the consolation prize skipping around he completely ignored the person that lost in the semifinals like he's trying to give us free money all right here's what happened it's so bad this is the worst just to clarify like when you remembered that there was a prize for third place, was the same point in time that you illegally put your team into that game? Yes. So what happened was Jack texted me and asked me about the payouts because Jack is in the finals.

And I said, oh, it's this much for winner, this much for second place, and 50 bucks for whoever wins the third place game. And I said to myself or to Jack, I said, oh, it's this much for winner, this much for second place and 50 bucks for the for third for whoever wins the third place game. I said to myself or to Jackson, oh, crap, I forgot to set up a third place game. I totally forgot about that. This was already after the scoring period had started on Monday. So I said, yeah, so that was the first mistake I made. I forgot. I forgot the consolation game. So then I knew Chris was in one of the consolation games. So I sent a note to Chris. And then we didn't talk until almost 7 o'clock. And I said, hey, we're in the third place game together. I don't know why I forgot we lost the quarterfinals, not the semifinals.

I said, do you want to play it out or do you want to just split it $25 each? Whoa, you're going to split the $25 and talk to me? Yes. You're going to split the consolation prize? Because I forgot. Top up the consolation prize. Because the scoring period had already started and nobody set their lineups.

So Chris said, let's play it out. I said, okay, so just set your lineup and I can make any adjustments, whatever, if you need me to. So I set the lineups. I put the matchup in there. And then I got the text from Jamie. And it was actually funnier than I think that Jamie even represented

because he's like, how are we in it? I wrote, we're not allowed to make roster moves. And I had to set our lineup at like 7.50. Oh, bleep. We lost the quarterfinals, not the semifinals. Wow. Hey, Jack. Jack, you're not going to believe what else he did.

Oh, gee, you called Jack? That's so weak. So who was supposed to be? Jack, we're on the air. We're live. It was supposed to be Marone versus Chris. I thought it was supposed to be me versus Chris. So here's what he did, Jack.

Wait, come on. Please don't bring Jack in this. You know what he did? He was going to split the pot for the third place game that he wasn't even in. He was going to split the pot? Yes. Did you imagine? He was going to split it.

If Chris had said yes, then I would have just split the pot. I would never even realize that I had made the mistake. Such an idiot move. Idiot moron move. All right. Let's get back to the show, guys. That's the worst thing you've ever done as a commissioner. Ever. It is, but it was a mistake. thing you've ever done as a commissioner. Ever.

It is, but it was a mistake. CeeDee Lambs in the COVID protocol. He was a close contact. Hopefully he'll be out within four days now. Daryl Henderson, mild thumb sprain. We talked about that. Not moving him down in the rankings yet. Minnesota signed defensive end, Everson Griffin,

who could just be kind of rotational for them, but their defense continues to look better, much better than it did last year. You've got to draft them as a number one defense. Don't gloss over Everson Griffin, the best part of the Vikings signing Everson Griffin. Which is what? He had to apologize to

Kirk Cousins for mean tweets about Kirk Cousins when he wasn't on the Vikings. Are you serious? Yes. Oh my. That is the best part. But they get Cincinnati in week one. That's a great matchup. Is it? Yeah.

Okay. Carolina signed Robbie Anderson. Two years, nearly $30 million. The world hasn't stepped on the field yet. That offensive line doesn't look good. That's a great matchup. A little more than $20.5 million guaranteed. This is big here.

Dan Campbell expressed some concern about the lack of reps for DeAndre Swift and to a lesser extent, TJ Hawkinson. He's not really worried about Hawkinson, but he is a little worried about DeAndre Swift. And I guess there's some quick questions about whether or not Swift is going to be ready for week one, Jamie. What is your reaction?

To go back to the Robinson, I would take Robinson over Swift at this point. I just can't trust this situation right now because he's going to be sharing on a bad team and he's already banged up. Like, this is just a guy that I had high expectations for, not as high as Heath, obviously,

but I, I thought he was going to have, you know, build off what he did last year. And this just feels like it's going to go South pretty quick. So I'm still hopeful. I just drafted him this weekend and one of my father, son league.

So, you know, this is, you know, developing, you know, feelings for me about this, but I just drafted him this weekend in one of my father-son leagues, so this is developing feelings for me about this, but I just can't feel comfortable about DeAndre Swift right now. Where he's going.

You tell me I'm getting him in round four or five-ish? Sure, but he's not going there. He went round two in our draft today. That's where he went in our draft today? After the news. Yeah, so it's troubling. It's certainly troubling. Well he's a kind of a polarizing player and heath you've always been the high guy on deandre swift so what do you think

i'm still going to remain the high guy on him i'm just going to lower him to where everybody else had him before this news um i i would still take him at the end of round three i've got him around running back 16 or 17 i think i haven't he is the guy that i didn't move robinson ahead of so i would take swift over robinson but they're right back to back. They had pretty similar catches catch total last year. I think Robinson played one more game. So I still, I mean, you'd think Swift would, would out catch him, right? I think if they both play 17 games, Swift's going to be better.

I just, I'm worried. I just want to know in terms of catches, if they both play 17 games, how many more catches do you think Swift would have than Robinson? 25. Okay. All right. Moving on. Buffalo wide receivers Gabriel Davis and Cole Beasley, they're in the

COVID protocol. Close contacts. They'll miss five days. Some members of the Patriots organization are pretty frustrated with Cam Newton, according to a report, because he misunderstood the COVID protocols and now he's out for a few days. And this is an opportunity for Mac Jones.

Carson Wentz appears on track to start week one, according to The Athletic. A.J. Brown reportedly looks healthy. Julio Jones did some light running at practice on Tuesday. Elijah Moore expected to play on Friday. That is great news. Will Fuller resumed running routes. Also good news.

The Falcons waived Javion Hawkins. Would you guys take Kadri Oleson or Tony Jones? Jones. Tony Jones. Would you take Kadri Oleson or Nick Chubb? Or Chuba Hubbard? Chuba Hubbard. Yeah, almost everybody is the answer for me

over Kadri Olesen. Okay. He might be a guy that gets some work, but yeah, I get your point. And Stefan Diggs practiced in full. Hooray. Most polarizing players. So in order of ADP, basically,

not entirely, but basically, let's start with Saquon Barkley. He is currently on CBS RB8. He is going 11th overall. And Heath, you have him where? 17. And Jamie, you have Barkley where? I think 6 or 7.

That's pretty polarizing. There you go, polarizing. And ADP is right in the middle, basically, at 11th overall. Okay, Jamie, make the case. Now, listen, we have a lot of guys to talk about here, so let's try, you know, let's try like five minutes for Barkley or whatever. Kick it off, Jamie. I just think he's trending in the right direction with his health.

If he's right and healthy, he has the chance to be a top five running back. I think I have him ranked sixth, so just outside of that. I don't think he's going to be as good as he was in 2018, but I would not be surprised if he's something close to what he was at the end of the 2019 season. With Daniel

Jones, having the chance to still be somewhat of a factor in the passing game, to what degree, I'm not sure yet because I just don't know. But the more time that Kenny Galladay and Kadarius Toney miss, I think that just helps his case because you need to put the ball in your best player's hands and he's still their best player. So again, if he's going to play week one, I will keep him there and that's the way he's trending. When he was going to miss a few weeks, he was clearly not close to this spot. But I will chase him there. And that's the way he's trending when he was going to miss a few weeks. He was clearly not close to this spot, but I will chase the upside with Saquon Barkley and hope that he is

something close to 2018 or the end of 2019. And I think that's the type of player that I'm going to get. Okay. Heath, not quite there. No, I, I'm still concerned that he's going to have an abbreviated workload early

in the year. And Devante Booker is going to play a bigger role than we want him to. And I'm still concerned that this Giants team is just really, really bad. I asked the question on Twitter as Jacksonville was looking like maybe the worst team in the NFL last night, what offenses will score fewer touchdowns than the Jaguars? And I was surprised I only got one team that answered the Giants. They didn't actually answer the Giants. They answered trash can Dan. I don't know what that is, but it's not very nice. No, Daniel Jones. But yeah, I just worry that the offensive line isn't that good and the offense itself isn't set up to throw to the running backs very much. And so maybe he's an 80 or 90 target guy and only scores eight touchdowns.

And it's just, that's, I'm worried he doesn't have the floor to make up for what is, or the ceiling to make up for how low his floor is. Yeah. It's not, is it a good situation for Barkley? Because on one hand he's going to be an every down back,

but on the other hand, he's on the Giants. Well, I mean, we just don't know what the Giants look like yet. There's an unknown factor to it because we haven't seen Daniel Jones with Gallaudet, with Tony. We may not see that. That's part of the flaws you have to bake into

with Barkley. But I think as a rookie, he was running against the most stacked box in the league and he had the most success, I think, for next-gen stats for how long they'd been keeping it

at that point. So I don't think he's necessarily going to struggle with teams trying to stop him to the extent of maybe some lesser backs

struggle when teams are trying to stop him. But again, I realize that I'm being overly optimistic on Barkley, but I'm hoping that he is going to hit. I'm going to chase the potential of what he is, and I realize that I'm doing that.

I drafted him in this IDP draft. I drafted him 10th overall. So if he hits, I'll be in great shape. If he misses to whatever degree, then that's the pains that I'll deal with with drafting him in the first round. Yeah, kind of interesting. Just to wrap it up, you talked about the end of the 2019 season. His last five games,

he was on his 16 game pace was, gosh, like 2,300 total yards and 16 touchdowns and 54 catches. So he finished with a bang at the end of 2019. But if you look at the game log, this is kind of what Heath is talking about. The Giants had three games where they scored 17 or fewer points,

and he only scored one touchdown in those three games. They had two games where they scored 36 or more points, and Barkley went off in those games. He scored four touchdowns in those two games. He rushed for over 110 yards in both of those games. One of those games, he rushed for 189. The other three games were like, you'll take it, but they're going to have to

have some games where they score some points. If they're horrible all year, then maybe you look at that game log and you see what it looks like if they score 17 points. It's not great. Right, but which Giants team are we judging Saquon Barkley on? That team? Last year's team?

This year's team? I don't know. It's such an unknown. It really is. And you've got to hope that putting him back on this roster with whatever Gallaudet offers, with whatever Tony offers, I don't think Heath is wrong in saying the offensive line is bad, but I think it's better than it was last year.

It has a chance to be better than it was last year. And so, you know, hopefully he's a difference maker for this team. Next up is Joe Mixon. So he is currently RB12 and he is going 20th overall. And it must only be CBS analysts who are

taking him there. We must be in a lot of drafts influencing the ADP. This based on everything I've seen. I mean, we seem higher on Mixon than a lot of people because they're bitter. They hate, they can't stand the injuries and he was pretty disappointing

except for one game last year. okay, Heath, first word on Mixon. Where do you guys have Mixon? 12. 15 or 16. Oh,

okay. So, who's ahead of, let me get Jamie's rankings up here. I'll tell you the guys i struggle with it's it's the same four guys that i move around all the time it's nazi harris antonio gibson uh joe mixon and um and who clyde yeah i think they're all ahead of clyde maybe just those three fourth guy yeah i guess it's chubb and PPR. Okay. All right.

Well, anyway, go ahead, Heath. Yeah, I think that this has the opportunity to be the best Bengals offense that Joe Mixon has been a part of and the best setup for him because Giovanni Bernard is gone. And his workload was great last year. He did have some disappointing efficiency but we've seen joe mixon be a top 10 running back before um i think the over the he's burnt me too many times as being a little bit overdone in comparison to some other running backs and probably the reason

i'm the highest on him is because i wasn't drafting him the last three years. And so I don't feel like that. True. Okay. Jamie, why do you think people are hesitant on Nixon? Why can't they buy in? I mean, everything you just said. The last couple of years have been frustrating. You hear, and I don't think Heath is wrong, but you hear what Heath is saying.

You've heard that for a few years. This is going to be Joe Nixon's's best year this is his breakout season you know and i'm not saying heath was saying that but the fantasy community was saying that and you look at his his production last year in the games he was healthy it it's kind of masked a little bit by the one big game against jacksonville um because it was so good but the other performances weren't as strong you know so this is still an offensive line in flux this is a quarterback situation that we're really not uh set on yet is joe burrow back to being the guy he was pre-injury because we haven't seen him um you know i i think what he said is 100 accurate you know it's just a matter of like i look at harris and and gibson and i think gibson's team is better

and gibson may have just as much if more, of a role in the passing game, even though he may not play on third downs. And Najee Harris looks like he's never coming off the field, similar to what the Bengals are saying about Joe Mixon, but the Steelers' track record tells you that that's probably going to be the case. And so will the Bengals stick to keeping Joe Mixon on the field, and will he hold up to that workload? So I think he's a very good borderline number one running back.

If you like him better than those other guys, then you should take him at the end of the first round, beginning of the second round. I just happen to like Gibson and Harris better in PPR and obviously Chubb in non-PPR. How much does the schedule matter? Because he's got Minnesota, who we expect to have a much better defense, Chicago, and Pittsburgh in his first three games.

And then you've got two games against Baltimore and two games against Cleveland during the season, too. Cleveland is Week 18, the second game. But yes, you do have two games against Baltimore. You have another game against Pittsburgh. You have a Denver game. Look, there's the Chargers. I don't know how they'll be.

There's the Raiders. There's Detroit. There's Jacksonville in Week 4. Green Bay actually got a lot better against the run late in the year, but overall they were terrible last year. But I don't know, there are some tough matchups and a tough start with Minnesota, Chicago, Pittsburgh right out of the gate for Mixon.

And I have really very little idea what to make of Minnesota or Chicago defensively. I don't think they're probably going to be bad, but I don't envision either the Vikings or the Bears being a team that in week eight I'm downgrading any players because they're facing them.

The Steelers, yes. The Ravens, probably. Maybe the Browns. And I know I'm always a little bit less bothered by that anyway, but I just don't know any like i feel like those defenses are kind of like the bingles offense we think they could be good but i'm not really sure okay all right then let's go to our next polarizing player and that would be it's really it's kind of like three in a row in terms of adp rb12 was mixing r. RB13 is Gibson. RB14 is Clyde Edwards-Elair.

I think Clyde is the most polarizing here, but Gibson is also on the list. People are a little split on him. 24th overall, you know, Jamie, the thing that always shocked me was how early I thought he was going. I just thought it was too early. It was more like 15th overall.

I saw an early ADP or mock drafts and things like that. 24th overall is a, is a much different story here. Cause you know, the top five wide receivers are off the board. Waller might be off the board. Anyway, is that a good spot for,

for Gibson? And where do you think, why do you think people are polarized here? Split on Gibson? I mean, if you tell me I can get Antonio Gibson 24th overall, I think that's stealing personally. I, I, Gibson 24th overall, I think that's stealing, personally. We saw what the raw Antonio Gibson looked like last year.

11 touchdowns and some big games against Dallas, and I think was building towards something before the toe injury in a midweek game against the Steelers. So forget about the Christian McCaffrey comparisons. They're going to use him quite a bit. The only thing that I think is holding me back a little bit is the fact that McKissick is still playing on third downs. And so that's going to keep him maybe from being a top five caliber running

back because I think he has that type of potential. This offense is going to be better. This offensive line is very good. This coaching staff is great. They will throw to their backs. You know, sometimes McKissick, my God, imagine how many catches he could get. So I think, you know, Gibson's in a great spot. And you said this, Adam, I think it was the Sunday night show reviewing the weekend,

that you don't have to necessarily throw him the ball on third down for him to get catches. I mean, they're going to use him and they're creative enough, you know, first and second down to throw him the ball. So I love the upside of Antonio Gibson. Yeah, if there's the hesitation, and I've mostly come around. I think I have him 14th in PPR now, so I've mostly just come around to not ranking him too low. But the hesitation for me is that I don't think J.D. McKissick is going away,

and I don't think he's going to match his touchdown rate from last year. And he's one of those guys who had some really high-volume running games last year, but was not a high-volume back in college. And so until he's done that, I'm going to have a hard time just assuming he does. And so I think he either needs 70% of the running back targets, which I'm afraid McKissick standing in front of, in the way of, or that 16,

17 carries a game, which I'm not, I'm just not sold yet that he'd hold up to that. But if he does either of those things, I think he's going to be a good buy at this ADP. So far through two preseason games. And again, this may be them trying to get, you know,

you brought this up, Adam, about him saying he's not fully comfortable with certain things, running the ball, and trying to still grow into this role as a running back. But, he's been on the field for 24 snaps, and he has 17 combined carries and touches in those 24

snaps. They are giving him every opportunity to touch the ball, and it could be special this season if that's the case. They are, yeah. And what I was referring to is he said that he, you know, it was last week, I think he said, he's still figuring out when to cut back and when to hit the hole. And then after the preseason week two,

the ESPN reporter in his little write-up, was that? John Kine. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was him. It may not have been him. I'm sorry. But somebody wrote up that he had a couple of short yardage situations. He couldn't pick up the first down.

He's still kind of learning how to use his body. So that's the issue with me with him is that he only had four games. As Heath was saying, not a huge workload. He only had four games, more than 14 carries last year. I'm just not sure that he's a he's not a complete running back, rusher yet. His talent is so obvious. He's just terrific in space.

They're using the hell out of him. I kind of like him saying that because I think looking at Clyde Edwards' layer last year, it's quite obviously true for him. He missed all types of opportunities that have been documented. And so I think the Chiefs seemed more willing early in the year to give Clyde that big workload.

But Gibson, so far, has looked like the more talented back and definitely the better pass catcher. Then let's go to Clyde Edwards-Elair. And Gibson is showing a lot as a pass catcher. Like I said, you get him in space and he's got some serious speed. But I think Edwards-Ziller, when he's been given the chance to run the ball,

you talked about him missing opportunities. The results have still been pretty solid, right? And in the preseason, in very limited action, he was good. Yeah, I think he's a good player, Heath. I just hope they give him the opportunity with Clyde Edwards-Ziller. But I do think people are really stung by how bad he was as a first-round pick last year. So he's going 27th overall in CBS ADP.

CEH is RB14. Where do you see the split in the opinion here? I think it's just the way that he started the season so on fire. And not necessarily on fire, but just playing almost all the time. And then had one game in his final eight where he played 60% of the snaps. And most of those, he was below 50%. Le'Veon Bell was bad last year. And the Chiefs were giving him touches over Clyde.

I think it's just a concern that the Chiefs used him for six games as a feature back, didn't like what they saw, and went away from that. And I think there's still a possibility they go back to him this year. And I agree with you, the offensive line's gotten so much better. If they decide they're just going to give him 20 touches every game, he's probably going to smash this ADP. But we didn't go into the draft process last year thinking that Clyde Edwards-Solaire was necessarily some special running back. He was the fifth or sixth best back in the class, according to most people. And the Chiefs took him the first round, and he got boosted up because of that.

He didn't live up to last year. Jamie, you've always been kind of the high guy on CEH, here anyway. Well, I hope he's healthy. First off, you know, we still haven't gotten the diagnosis on his ankle. So, you know,

that'll clearly change anything. I'm sure, you know, I'll drop him maybe where he hasn't been. He could probably drop me more in any event, if he's healthy, I'm going to buy into this offensive line. I'm going to buy into this offense.

I'm going to buy into this coach. I'm going to buy into the lack of competition. And I dropped their Williams everywhere. I mean, he said, he knows I have a trade offer pending to him trying to get Daryl Williams in our dynasty league. So I'm buying this running back situation, you know, so if Edward Taylor does have any significant absence at some point this season, I think Daryl Williams will step up and potentially be that guy. What we'll see with Jack McKinnon, but in any event, I'll go back to those six games. It's very similar to Gibson and a lot of these players

from last year that had no offseason and were thrown into some complex situations. This is not easy to walk off the street and pick up an Andy Reid offense. You better protect Patrick Mahomes if you're going to be the running back back there. I'm sure that's the majority of what his offseason was, was learning how to be a better pass blocker. But they

can't invest his capital in the offensive line and not invest in running the ball a little bit more. Andy Reed has been so good for fantasy running backs throughout his career in Philly and Kansas city. So I'll buy back into it. It's different this year where last year was around one pick this year. It's a late round two pick and I've dropped them a few spots even before the injury,

you know, so where it's closer to the swing picks, but you know, I still think he's got top 10 upside and I'm going to chase that. How do you guys rank Mixon, Gibson, Edwards, Ziller? You did. Gibson, Mixon, Edwards, Ziller. I'm hoping that this might be silly.

The Chiefs' worst game was their last game, right? They got crushed in the Super Bowl. And in the first half, they ran for... Mahomes had, let me see. Mahomes had 33 rushing yards, I think, in the first half or something. And the rest of the team had like 20. They ran for 57 yards, and 33 of them were from Mahomes. They come out and start the second half.

Clyde Edwards-Elair gets, I think, 36 yards or something on two carries. They need to be able to run the ball. I'm hoping, for his sake, that they saw they were too one-dimensional, need to be able to run the ball, and that's got to be an important part of their game. He's by far the best running back on the team, I think.

So maybe that's a stretch because look, they got to the Super Bowl. They were missing, they were favorites. They were missing their two starting tackles. It was a unique situation, but I'm just thinking maybe that they look back and say, hey, listen, we got to run the ball this year. We got to be able to, we got to be two dimensional.

Well, they don't want to see Mahomes doing what he did in the Super Bowl ever again, you know, running for his life and, you know, having to try and make these miraculous throws where he's, you know, sideways to the ground and, you know, his receivers are still dropping the ball. They want him to have clean pockets, but you know, you have to have balance to some extent. And I think that'll be the case. You know, how many touchdowns will he score? How many catches will he have?

No, those, those are the, those are the question for edwards there because he should lead them in touches in terms of their backfield okay uh let's go to cd lamb cd lamb 42nd overall wide receiver 12 and i know he doesn't like that jamie what about you 42nd overall wide receiver 12 for Lamb. I mean, if the Cowboys are still going to be as high volume passing as they were in Dak Prescott's five games last year, then I think all these receivers have a chance to be special.

But you got to downgrade it a little bit because Dak says he doesn't want to throw for 6,000 yards. He wants his best buddy, Ezekiel Elliott, to get touches and be successful. But I think this is another example of the younger receiver being slightly more talented than the veteran. And I know Mark Cooper's not like Julio Jones was last year, but it is a little similar to what happened in Tampa Bay a few years ago when Chris Godwin was better than Mike Evans in the 2019 season. So I would not be surprised if both of them are very good,

if both of them are pushing each other to be top 15 fantasy wide receivers. And I hope that's the case because that's kind of where they're getting drafted. But I think CeeDee Lamb can have a better season than Amari Cooper. I think he can be a borderline number one guy. I think, as you saw last year, he was averaging over 16 PPR points per game in the five with Dak Prescott. And so they are doing everything to put him in a in a position to succeed moving him around playing him outside

playing him inside i hope this you know stint on on the covet 19 list doesn't ruin any of that momentum but if dac is right i'll buy into cd lambs upside and i think he's going to be the best cowboys wide receiver one of the best receivers in fantasy your re rebuttal, Mr. Heath Cummings? I do not yet believe that Lamb's definitely going to be the clear number one over Amari Cooper. And I don't think this is a pass attack that is concentrated enough that there can be two top 12 wide receivers. And so that's basically my objection, that they're going to throw the ball to the tight ends and Zeke and Gallup enough to where if Cooper and Lamb

are basically side-by-side in targets, they're both going to be number two wide receivers and not top 12. And so Lamb probably needs an injury or he just needs to displace Amari Cooper as the team's number one. And those are both possible outcomes. But I do think this is a lot closer to his upside

than it is to his reasonable floor. Do you think he gets 20% target share? I think that might be exactly what I have him projected for. And that would be how many targets? Because if Dak throws 40 times a game, that would be eight targets per game. If Dak throws 40 times a game, then he should probably targets per game. If Dak throws 40 times a game, then he should probably be QB.

Well, how many times did he throw in 2019? So I have him at 130 targets. Okay, so he was on pace for 128. Well, this was for 16 games. He was on pace for 128 targets in the five games with Dak Prescott. And his 16-game pace was 93 catches. So let's say he does this in 17 games.

93 catches, 1,386 yards, and six touchdowns. You would need more touchdowns. But if he can get 93 catches and 1,386 yards in 17 games, it's probably going to be... Yeah, I bet him at 87, 11, 50, and 7. 11, 50 on 130 targets. He was so much better than that with Dak Prescott last year. So much better.

That is a very, very small sample size to project over a full season when it's that much of an outlier in relation to what other wide receivers do. How many pass attempts? Can we look? I think Prescott was at 39 pass attempts in 2019 full season. Let's see. That was 596 divided by 16. I think Prescott was at 39 pass attempts in 2019, full season. Let's see. That was 596 divided by 16.

What's that, Jamie, off the top of your head? 596 divided by 16? Sorry. No, it's a big deal. It was only 37.25. So he might not be able to get to eight targets per game if Dak's throwing, which is a lot, 37.25, but okay. Kyle Pitts, 52nd overall, tight end four, basically tied with Mark Andrews,

tight end four, tight end five. They have identical ADPs. Who do you guys like better, Pitts or Andrews? Andrew. I know he's going to say Andrews. Andrews, oh yeah. Yeah, I want to hear Schneier talking aboutyle pitts and he's being used on the outside i hear dave talk about kyle pitts they think about him as a as a wide receiver i definitely

want to get some kyle pitts on my fantasy teams but if i only had one team i don't know how much i'd want pitts at his adp if that makes sense because obviously he he i think he's got a ton of boomer busts here we probably all feel that way. I think that makes perfect sense. If he's a wide receiver, and this is his last year as a tight end designated player, then he's probably going to be someone that we should have been drafting where he's being drafted. But I do

think, again, it's kind of like what I said with Lamb. I'm not saying it's not possible that he could justify this ADP. I'm just saying that the odds are not in your favor. I don't think we're going to get a ton of disagreement here. The ADP is 52nd. But Jamie, if you were going to play the part of somebody

who's really high on Kyle Pitts, there are a lot of them that are willing to take him in the first four rounds. What would your argument be? Well, I mean, again, you know, you saw what he did in college. You know, you see what his role is,

what his opportunity is without Julio Jones there. You know, the hope is that you don't spend a top five overall pick in the NFL draft to not feature him as much as you can in the offense. And this is still a team that I think could be, if everything works out for them defensively and they're above average defensively, they'll be in the playoff mix. But they have to get a pretty big season out of Mike Davis one

and probably Kyle Pitts too, because it just can't be Calvin Ridley and Matt Ryan trying to, you know, make, um, make plays and, and, and save this team. You know, he's going to have to have a second guy. I don't think Russell gauge is that guy. So, you know, Kyle Pitts has every opportunity in front of him to, you know, be the best number two target getter for the Falcons over the last five years, the last five years,

the number two guy in targets was the best player was Russell gauge. Um, what I mean by that is in terms of the amount of targets, Russell gauge was the second most targeted guy over the last five years. Most of that has been opposite Julio Jones last year. Gage had more targets than Julio because he missed time. So behind Calvin Ridley. So,

you know, can he have more than 109 targets? I think that's probably fair. In 17 games, he should. But what will he do with those targets? How many touchdowns will he score? Are teams going to try and take him away? So there's a lot of things at play here.

It's just not a position that typically posts dynamic numbers in a rookie season. Maybe he will be that guy because he's going to be used a little bit differently. All right, Heath, pick one more. We're going to, we can do either Lamar Jackson or Josh. Oh, I think we should do Lamar Jackson. All right.

I don't know what's, what's polarizing about Lamar Jackson. Yeah. What's polarizing about Lamar Jackson? I think he's QB two close to Patrick Mahomes. And in some sites he's drafted that way. In our most recent draft, I think I got him at QB five and round six after Mahomes went and in some sites he's drafted that way. In our most recent draft, I think I got him at QB5 in round six

after Mahomes went in the fourth and Allen went in the fourth. So I think that there's some people who aren't sure, because they're not giving Lamar Jackson the contract extension like Josh Allen got this year. I think there's some people who aren't sure yet that Lamar Jackson is going to be a great franchise quarterback despite the fact that he won an MVP. You can count me in on that, by the way.

I was saying some people. I was definitely talking about Adam Azer. Well, I think that he's going to be a great fantasy quarterback even if he's not a franchise quarterback. But I think it's basically going to come down to when he gets to the playoffs, can he do enough with his arm if you find a team

that can somehow maintain him? I think he's kind of a little bit, and we talked about this with Mahomes in the past, but how crazy last year was in terms of quarterback scoring. Lamar Jackson had a really down year and finished like QB 9

at 25.7 fantasy points per game. And any other year year the last three years that would have been qb2 or qb3 yeah it's just the whole league went crazy last year and for some reason my home's numbers didn't really go up that much and jackson had a down year so his went down but he's still he and my homes the 32 or 33 points per game they averaged in 2018 and 2019 was better than what anybody's done as of late. And I still think he has as much upside,

if not more upside than anyone, especially in a four point per pass touchdown league. And I'm not sold on the fact that he's not a good passer yet because we haven't really seen, and we might not this year with all the injuries they have, we haven't seen him with enough, enough help besides Mark Andrews. No,

I'm not sold on, I just a little unsure that he's ever going to be quite good enough. But that's an NFL discussion, fantasy discussion. He's going to rush for 1,000 yards. So, Jamie, what's your take here on Lamar? I love all the top five quarterbacks. So, I mean, it's like I look at my rankings. I look at when rankings i look at

when i'm drafting you know and it gets to a point like i was going to take my homes uh he went right in front of me so i was going to take my homes around four um and then i was going to see if if any of them got back in round five which they didn't and so uh you know we did the quarterback people like i told you i had lamar jackson ranked ahead of josh allen they're all so close you know i i think you said it heath if if dac throws to that amount of volume he could be the number one guy kyler who knows what his ceiling will be if he continues to rush and and the increased weapons that they have around him so they're all so good i i i think the thing that you bank on with lamar is you know the floor is like you said adam a thousand yards rushing if he's healthy and so

will he be the first four thousand one thousand guy i think that probably – it may happen for a couple of guys this year. I know Jalen Hurts, as we saw last year, he showed you that. Kyler Murray may get there. Lamar Jackson can get there. So, you know, all these guys could be just so amazing. I think it's just personal choice. Okay. Justin Fields, 4,000, 1,000 this year?

It'd be nice. Have to start in week two. Or a halftime of week one. Yeah, sure. Sure. Hopefully by that point, the Rams will be resting their starters. Okay, those are some of the most polarizing players in fantasy football. We're going to take a break.

And when we come back, differences in drafting in 10-team leagues, 14-team leagues, 16-team leagues. We'll tell you about it after this on Fantasy Football Today. Did you know 66% of utility damage is caused by not requesting a locate? We'll tell you about it after this on Fantasy Football Today. time, and money. Click before you dig. Ensure your next project is safe. Visit OntarioOneCall.ca. It's free. It's easy. It's the law. Data sourced from the ORCGA 2023 Dirt Report.

All right. We have a few minutes left before Jamie has to hop off, but Heath will stay on, and we'll continue talking about this topic here. We talk a lot about 12-team leagues. Let's talk about 10-team leagues, and let's talk about the deeper leagues as well starting with the shallow leagues jamie if you if somebody's doing a 10 team league instead of a 12 team league what adjustments would you tell this person to make so we had a question on uh fantasy

football today on hq and dave said something which i say a lot and i think he does also because we did a lot of these previews for our draft room. Take difference makers. Take superstars. Well, that should obviously be the goal of every draft, and it'd be nice if you could, you know, everybody's going to say I'd like to have superstars, but I think by qualifying that is don't be afraid of taking a quarterback

early in a 10-team league, especially one of the top five guys. Don't be afraid of taking one of the top tight ends early, like we typically do, but maybe lean into that a little bit more. But even maybe prioritize a guy like Andrews or Pitts or Hawkinson just to make sure you have one of the top six guys later on in the draft. But I think you want to have a position stranglehold of some sort. So you want to know you have top half quarterback, top half tight end, or the best group of running backs,

best group of wide receivers. So try and figure out how you can manage to make that happen. But this is the type of scenario in a 10-team league or shallower where you want to say, I have this edge every week, and I'm going to beat you in that department. In terms of quarterbacks, though, do you still feel the same way about the top five? That you don't need to, say, get Patrick Mahomes, you can just get a top...

It's more important to get a top five guy? Yeah, so I think, you know, I remember, like, Heath and I... So when you open the draft room on our site, for the first time, you know, not if you're going back to it multiple times, but you open the draft room on the site, there's videos the first time you know not if you're going back to multiple times but you open the draft on the site there's videos pop up and heath and i did all of these 10 team uh or no we did all of the non-ppr teams but we did the 10 team one for non-ppr um but the same it's same conversation you know you you want to get uh potentially a quarterback

early you know so take one of those guys in the second round third round because the receiver pool is so much deeper now the running back pool is even deeper um so i think it's it's in your best interest to try and get one of those top five quarters but you're telling me that in a 10 team league you're gonna take dak prescott or kyler murray in the second round uh probably the early third really i would consider it, yeah. Okay. Keith, are you as... But it also comes down to, again, knowing your league. Yeah. Okay.

I would be much more willing to take Lamar Jackson in round three in a 10-team league than I would in a 12-team league, yes. Even though it's earlier picks, which doesn't make sense. Like, you're talking pick 20 through 30 instead of 24 through 36, but I'd still be more likely to take Jackson in round three. I find myself, my, my longest running lead is,

is a 10 team non PPR league. It's the same people from, from college, no matter how many times I've tried to change it, they don't want to change it, but it's, you know, it's still fun to play in these types of leagues.

And I find myself every year doing the same thing, which I'm going to stop doing, which is I always have the best bench by far, because I'll just sit here and pick off running backs and receivers and, you know, build that group. And then I'm always chasing quarterback. Like last year, I traded for Josh Allen because I needed something. And the person I traded with had Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen. So it was an easy trade to make.

And I was like, this is just so much better, you know, in this type of league. So in a shallower format it just you know you don't have to build your depth as much because the waiver wire is going to be more robust the the talent pool is not going to be the same so you want to get some significant difference makers and i think getting one of those quarterbacks in a shallower league matters i i think that's also and this is hard to gauge and some people may not have a reasonable opinion about themselves and their league mates. But if you are in a league where you are putting in more research than 80% of the league, and it's just a bunch of friends from a long time ago, and I mean, I'd say like Jamie, maybe some of Jamie's

friends are all really active and that's not what that is. But if you're in one of those leagues, cause I'm in one of those leagues, then I would take quarterback and tight end much earlier. Cause you're probably going to have four of your top 25 running backs and four of your top 25 receivers. Yeah, right. That makes sense. Tell me if you agree, though, with this. You have to figure out the point in the draft where you have run out of elite players.

To me, that's somewhere around 30th. And I'm probably not taking anyone other than Mahomes before we get to the Carson, Dobbins, Henderson, James Robinson. At that point when you start to get the question marks, but I still think any of the top 10 to 12 wide receivers, including McLaurin and maybe Allen Robinson and maybe the Gibson, Clyde Edwards, I'm still going to take those guys over quarterbacks because I still think we're talking about the elite players at that point.

But then once you get past that, you're even less likely to take someone like Miles Sanders. In a 12-team league, I might take Miles Sanders over Kyler Murray. In a 10-team league, definitely not. Well, we tier positions, you know, you should tier the, the, the line, the talent pool line, essentially, you know, so like what you're saying, the, the, that run on receivers, which we typically see in the third round, that, uh, that run on running backs, which we typically see in the second round, you know,

those get pushed down around because of the lack of fancy managers that you're dealing with. So it, it just, it's where you're dealing with. So it, it just, it's where you feel comfortable with, you know? And so like what Heath is saying, I think is, is true in most leagues,

you know, it's not just 10 team leagues. It's most leagues where there's probably 60 to 80% of the people are digesting this stuff, reading podcasts, listening to podcasts, you know, uh,

whatever form you're getting your information from. And then there are people that look at the draft podcasts, you know, uh, whatever form you're getting your information from. And then there are people that look at the draft, literally the first day, the day of the draft, look at, look at the players the day of the draft and say, Oh, okay, this is the rank list I'm supposed to follow. Or this is the, this fantasy analyst got me to a playoff run two years ago. So I'm going to follow them again. You know, the things that we are all the time. Okay. All right. Jamie's going to hop off and Heath and I will talk about 14 team and 16 team leagues. Yeah. I'm going to go fix your baseball problem.

Thanks. Bye. Nobody can fix that problem. Okay. So what about deeper leagues, Heath? What's your advice? You've got to figure out, and it's format dependent. It's more difficult to figure out in a full PPR league

where you start three wide receivers in a flex. But if you're in a deep non-PPR league, you kind of just forget about wide receivers for a while. I think you probably need to not worry about quarterback as much because you can find a starter in a 14 or 16 team league later in the draft in most cases. Running backs and tight ends become even more important to me in the deeper formats, just because those are the two most shallow positions and they get even more shallow in the deeper format. We did a draft.

We did the IDP draft and it's a 12 team PPR league, but I consider it deep because it's there are 10 bench spots. There are 10 or what I say there are nine IDP spots, but then there's an additional 10 bench spots. There are 10 or what did I say? There are 9 IDP spots, but then there's an additional 10 bench spots. So the reason why I consider this a deep league is because the waiver wire is much thinner. And I've learned it's really hard

to get a running back off waivers unless there's an injury, and then everyone's in on that running back, right? So I make it a priority to have some, I try anyway, it didn't quite work out just because people were, you know, running backs were flying off the board. I try to have running back depth. And the other thing about that is not just the waiver wire, but those are really valuable trade assets. If you happen to be one of the lucky teams that has some running back depth and you can make a trade, people are

desperate for running back, you can name your price in certain cases. I didn't really think about it from the tight end standpoint, Heath. Not saying you're wrong. I just focus on running backs. But I guess if I were going to try to counter the tight ends being more important, well, we know there aren't usually that many good tight ends, right? So if you don't have, if you have, you know, just like an Irv Smith or a whatever, John O'Smith or somebody not named Smith,

you're not at as much of a disadvantage because there are more teams in your league that have a kind of crummy tight end. I was just thinking if you had a Travis Kelsey or a Darren Waller or one of those guys, there's even more teams that you have an advantage over. I know, I know,

but it's so hard to build running back depth if you take a tight end early. Yeah. I mean, in our draft today, I didn't, I ended up with no offense because I just kept missing out on guys. Um, but it's definitely, I end up with no offense because I just kept missing out on guys.

But it's definitely very difficult to take a quarterback early and have good receivers and have a good tight end and have running back depth. I don't think it's that difficult to have running back depth and a good tight end if you're willing to sacrifice one or both of the other positions. Yeah, okay. And I did take Darren Waller in this draft, 23rd overall. But my number three running back is Michael Carter.

I have... Let me tell you, if you're in a PPR league, James White, Giovanni Bernard. You need a flex and a pinch. They go so late. I have James White. You probably took Gio. I did take Geo.

Yeah, there you go. I mean, they're just, they're not going to win your league, but. In a deeper PPR league, those guys are really nice to have on your bench when something goes wrong. And you can just plug them in and say, I've got 10 points this week,

and I'll figure the rest out. Yeah, that's exactly my point. All right, is there anything else you want to say about deeper leagues? Again, I just think it makes the scoring system and the lineup construction that much more important, so make sure you read all your rules because there's wild swings in a non-ppr2 wide receiver versus a

full ppr3 wide receiver and that's true in a 12 team league it's much more true in deeper leagues whatever position is going to end up running out of talent is going to run out of talent that much faster now i am a fantasy coward i think everybody knows that. Yeah. So, we always have the conversation. We often have the conversation, should you handcuff your own running back or should you take someone else's handcuff? Right. And some people say,

well, if you take someone else's handcuff, then you could have two great running backs. And I say, well, if you take someone else's handcuff and your guy gets hurt and the other guy doesn't, then you could have two terrible running backs. In a deeper league, I personally, being the hashtag fantasy coward, maybe I'll change my Twitter handle too. Uh, I am much more likely to take my own handcuff

because I just fear a worst case scenario. My first round pick got hurt. My season's over. I hope you all enjoy fantasy football this year. I'll be, I'll talk to you next year. I think part of that is also like in a deeper league, you see 14 and 16 team leagues. Sometimes we're still only six teams make the playoffs. True. In that case, you need to really just forget about what your floor is. You're almost playing like a GPP. But if it's a 16 team league where eight teams make the playoffs,

then the cowardly way might get you into the playoffs. There you go. Alright, well, let's see. So invite me to your 16 team league where eight teams make the playoffs. The fantasy coward will be there. Thanks to Heath and Jamie. Thanks to Ben as well. And thanks to all of you, of course, for listening. We will talk to you tomorrow on

Fantasy Football Today.