Fantasy Football Today - Preseason DFS Strategy and Week 1 Lookahead! (Fantasy Football Today DFS podcast)

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

Download and follow Fantasy Football Today DFS! You can find FFT DFS on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else podcasts are found. Sia Nejad talks DFS strategy with a special guest! (3:00)- Preseason Lookahead (12:30)- Hall of Fame Game Pricing (30:10)- Week 1 Pricing and Values SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/fantasy-football-today-dynasty/id1696679179 SUBSCRIBE to FFT Dynasty on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2aHlmMJw1m8FareKybdNfG?si=8487e2f9611b4438&nd=1 'Fantasy Football Today DFS' is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Castbox, and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Follow our FFT DFS team on Twitter: @FFToday, @Mike5754 @SiaNejad Watch FFT DFS 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 DFS 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

What does possible sound like for your business? It's having the spend to power your scale with no preset spending limit. Redefine possible with Business Platinum. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Terms and conditions apply. Visit amex.ca slash business platinum. welcome everybody back to fantasy football today dfs my name is c and ajad your host and analyst but i gotta be honest uh i'm interested in the other analysts we have on this show we're bringing them back this is probably his like third or fourth time here

you're basically a co-host d bro-Bro. Derek Brown from Fantasy Pros. How you doing, buddy? Oh, I'm doing good. See, any day we get to hop on the mics together and talk ball, it's a good day, my friend. So really happy you slid into the DMs yesterday. And we're going to go down the D-Gen rabbit hole today, baby. I'm so ready. D-Gen rabbit hole indeed. And so that's the thing. We kind of rushed this episode in a sense in terms of planning it because we've got pads and helmets tonight at 8 o'clock. The Jets and the Browns. So I was like, hey, D-Bro, can you come on?

I want to talk NFL preseason in general, just the NFL preseason slates because they're going to be different from what is happening tonight. We have a showdown slate tonight that's a lot different than what we're going to attack over the next few weeks. But more importantly, pads and helmets, right, everybody? We've got 35 days. We're Christian Okoye, Aeneas Williams days away from NFL kickoff. And for the record, D-Bro, before we get into it, and I want to start, by the way, I want to start with some NFL preseason talk.

Just in terms of general sort of theory, not necessarily game theory, but how you attack NFL preseason slates, then we're going to get into the Hall of Fame game, which again is a different type of slate. That'll be showdown. And again, that game's tonight. And then I just want to get your first impressions. I know at Fantasy Pros, you've written up some stuff already on first impressions on the week one main slate and things of that nature. I do from a programming note, though, I do want to get something out there.

Next week, we're going to have Nick Bretwish on from Winn Daily Sports. The week after that, we're going to have Degenerate 75 on to talk some game theory, to talk some pricing, all of those things. We're going to have a lot of guests in August specifically. And then, of course, when September hits, it's me and Mike McClure giving you everything we always give you on Fantasy Football Today DFS. Okay, Derek, that was a mouthful. Got it out of the way. You wrote an article for Fantasy Pros, I don't know how long ago, maybe a few weeks ago,

maybe a couple of weeks ago, addressing how you attack NFL preseason. And you used the word at the beginning of the show that I think is really interesting, degenerate, right? You're like, oh, you know, but the interesting thing about that is I think that's the normal sort of mindset for people who play NFL DFS preseason.

But the reality is there's an edge there because not a lot of people are doing it and not a lot of people are familiar with it. So maybe you could go in accordance with sort of how you wrote your article. It's up to you how you want to do it. But what is how are you attacking these preseason games, these slates? Yeah, I mean, see, I love preseason DFS. I always say it's God's game. It's a fantastic forum. And the closest that I can compare it to all the DFS DGNs out there is it's really similar in some ways and aspects to NBA DFS in the sense that it is massively driven by news and you're following the news and all these different parts of pieces from beat writers constantly, because what we want

is snaps. What we want is playing time and trying to get the best projection you can. And this all leads back to, because when we talk about SIA, like in general, DFS terms, all that kind of stuff is snaps and volume are king. Well, it doesn't change with preseason. It just depends on how we're going to get to that end result. And so following the news and finding out and looking at these depth charts and saying, okay, well, and this takes a lot of grinding and going through everything.

I'm not going to, but here's the thing. That's why myself, Sia, and others are doing this hard lifting or this work for you and grinding all 32-team beat writer reports, you know, and following the news to the T because that's what we have to be doing to sit here and find out who is going to be playing. And when you marry that with depth charts and, you know, larger slates, now tonight, we only have one game, a little bit easier, but larger slates, five, six games. How are you going to parse out what quarterback am I playing?

What wide receivers, tight ends, things like that. And it all comes back to the thinner the depth chart, the more playing time said player is going to get. So like tonight, we have one team that is only going to feel two quarterbacks. So they're each going to play a half, you know, and figuring that out and getting not only the playing time projections as close as we can get and accurate as we can get. And there is some noise in that. So sometimes, yes, you can get burned if a team pulls a guy early or what have you.

But that's all part of the risk. And while we're playing this game that we love so much. And so not only looking at just playing time, but athleticism matters in this. And I know that sounds crazy and it's a really obvious take. But in the sense of, do I want to play or roster a wide receiver that runs a four seven versus a guy that can burn a, you know, with a four three or such, I'm going to go with the guy that can run the four three. Am I looking at running backs that can break off long runs?

Because that's what gives us the ceiling. Because if players are not going to get seven, eight targets in a game, they're only going to be limited to maybe four, five, three. We don't know. Then when they do get the ball in their hands, who are the guys that could break off a 50-yard run, a 60-yard touchdown reception? Those are the players because even last year, man, I remember playing a DFS slate and I played Quez Watkins and I told everybody in the discords and stuff to play Quez Watkins too. He got got one freaking catch but he took it to the house with his speed for 60 or 70 yards and won one dfs slates that day and that's really what we need to be looking for because you're not going to get that same type of volume none of these guys

are going to walk into eight or nine targets and being able to grind these low a dot catches and saying oh he gets like eight catches for 80 and a touchdown. That's probably not going to happen in these smaller slates because the playing time is condensed. So athleticism matters a ton, as well as what we always care about is rushing upside of quarterbacks. They can break a slate. And there are some preseason slates where starters would get in the game. But again, we go back to playing time projection,

and it's like, well, if the starters are only going to play like one drive, then your chances of any of those guys hitting the optimal lineup are extremely slim. Okay, well, what about the guys that are going to play two quarters? Maybe they play the entire game because that happens sometimes in preseason where teams are just like so desperate or low

that they're like, well, we're just going to sit out all these guys. This quarterback's going to play the entire game. These two tight ends will play the entire game. That does happen too. But again, we have to marry athleticism with that. We have to marry the raw talent and the playing time all together and how we approach these slates. Yeah. You mentioned athleticism and it brings me to, we'll talk about the hall of fame game in a second, but we were talking before we went live about dorian thompson robinson who i think we both tracked i know you track all the college players um but i watched a lot of ucla and bet on a lot of ucla games late on saturday nights over the last couple of years and dtr was a very exciting player to me

now in this hall of fame game again we'll talk about it in a couple minutes but he's probably playing the entire second half this is a 6-2 200 pound kid that runs a 4'5", 6'40". This is a guy that probably in the first preseason game of his life, he's probably not going to have the playbook down. He's probably going to be scampering here and there, and he could pile up a lot of yards with his legs, maybe with his arm too, but certainly with his legs. So I think that's the type of thing you're looking for from an athleticism standpoint, but almost more importantly, in his case, he's one of two quarterbacks that's going to play tonight. So when you're looking at a full slate, a full preseason slate, Debro, are you looking, I mean, obviously, you know, the totals are generally low. They're generally the same. So I want to isolate the one thing you mentioned

about depth charts or just knowing that the depth chart's going to be thin because certain players aren't playing. Like, are those the games you're generally targeting? Let's say like it's a full like Thursday night slate of five or six preseason games. There's probably going to be like two or three of those games where you have a pretty good idea of how much a certain quarterback or running back or receiver are going to be playing because of the cut down of that depth chart. Yeah. I mean, it's, it's, are you going to target certain offenses because of that?

Or are you targeting certain skill positions on certain offenses? You know, like tonight where there's a really, really interesting case about one of the tight end groups that we're going to talk about, but it's, it's picking and choosing through these, these five or six game slates. And so you're going to have, you know, 12, 10 to 12 teams. So you've got a litany of options on quarterbacks you can play, running backs, wide receivers, all these different types of things. And so you're really going to drill down to the playing time. So some of that goes with team-specific, other than that can be depth chart-specific.

And the great thing is when those two things marry up in the middle and meet as in, okay, I'm going to get a quarterback that's going to play the entire game and his wide receiver options are limited. So am I going to stack this offense? And there's so many different ways. And we didn't even talk about that. See, is that you can stack offenses and teams in a very different manner than we look at stacking from a general perspective and usual DFS. Like if I'm extremely high on a certain offense, or I'm looking at this team that only has four wide receivers, five guys that are going to play the game. You can not only stack that offense and say, go the traditional route and say, okay, I love this quarterback and I'm going to try to get

one of his past catchers right in the first and the first half that he's going to play with. And if that guy catches the touchdown, then this stack goes to the moon. The other way that you could play that as well is, okay, well, one quarterback's going to play the entire game. Take two receivers from that team. Say they're going to rotate guys, and one guy's playing the first half, and one guy's playing the second half. You could sit here and stack it in a lot of different ways or like tonight, you can go running backs and quarterbacks. There's lots of different ways to get creative and different with your stacking to where you're looking outside the box and you're breaking the

norm rules of how we approach stacking in a usual DFS sense to really accommodate to playing time on these slates. And that's how you get different. And that's how you win. DT in Phoenix, otherwise known as Dave in the chat. He says,

this is pure NFL preseason degeneracy. I'm here for it. Inject it straight into my veins. We're here for you, Dave. That, that is for sure. Brett Japan five.

We see you all in the chat. I hit the like button. If you can, you, Dave. That is for sure. Brett, Japan, five. We see you all in the chat. I hit the like button if you can. You know what I want to do, D-Bro? Because we keep referring to this Hall of Fame game tonight. I think it's probably time to turn our attention to the Hall of Fame game. And I say that with the following context, which I feel like I need to repeat. It's a singular game tonight. So it's showdown.

And the builds, we're going to find out in a second that the builds are like a lot different than what you would have in a normal preseason slate if you will obviously everybody who's watching this show probably knows that showdown's a lot different from a regular slate but because we fancy tonight as like a preseason game it's not a preseason slate it's just a preseason game so the the theory changes a little bit but definitely take what debro um said to heart especially with the snaps and and the the depth chart uh issues and and athleticism following the news like all that's important and honestly like we're all like d bro at fantasy pros can give you that information we like to think we can give you that information over at cbs sports but also on fantasy football today dfs it's certainly what we're going to be doing over the next few weeks as well so let's turn our

attention to the hall of fame game but before we that, let's hear a message from our partners. Did you know 66% of utility damage is caused by not requesting a locate? Don't let your project become part of this statistic. A quick locate request can save you from unexpected downtime, financial penalties, and keep you safe. Don't let avoidable damage cost you 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. We are back on Fantasy Football Today. For a special Hall of Fame game edition. And speaking of the Hall of Fame game,

Derek, I want to ask you because it's showdown and I don't listen. I'll be perfectly honest. This is obviously a DFS show, but we really get started like this show. It's only in its third year.

We really get started when the regular season starts, or at least that's how we've conventionally done it. We have done some preseason content, but I know what we haven't really done is showdown preseason content. Cause this is really the only showdown game. Well, that might not be true. There's going to be probably some Sunday night and Monday night stuff, but I haven't really done much showdown DFS. And so when I first look

at it at first blush, Derek, my thought is, okay, well, you want to get the quarterbacks in there. And we just talked about how Kellen Mond and guys like Dorian Thompson-Robinson are playing probably a half each. And we'll talk about Streveler on the other side and some of those other quarterbacks. But my thought is, okay, well, that seems like guaranteed points to me. It seems like maybe kickers in defense to some degree are guaranteed points to me.

And my thought is, especially if I'm playing like a double-up or a cash game, and obviously there's two different things here. There's tournament and there's cash games but even in tournaments I gotta think people are trying to jam in some of those guaranteed points especially when it comes to kickers and quarterbacks am I missing something there are we all gonna have the same lineup tonight because people are gonna have Greg Zerline and and two quarterbacks on each side and then maybe one defense or one skill position player like how is that really going to like we all basically is it one v ones at this point because it's like the six guy in is going to be the difference maker it can be now if you're playing cash games on a slate like this yeah you're

starting a lot of your builds with considering double kicker double defense or both in the process and the quarterbacks are going to be high on your priority list. Specifically talking about Kellen Mond, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, and Chris Strebler. And looking at those guys, and if you're playing cash games, yeah, you're really just trying to target the highest playing time ratios that we could possibly get. And I love the fact that you led off here with defense and kickers because, you know, nobody wants to play a defense, nobody wants to play a kicker a lot in showdown, especially at the captain position and stuff,

which you're getting the increased scoring at the captain spot if you're playing showdown. But yes, you hit the nail on the head, Sia. Defenses and kickers, if we're talking about playing time, they're the entities that never leave the field. Those kickers are not splitting snaps. And again, going back to the news, there are times when that is a concern so if you are playing showdown there are teams that will carry multiple kickers into uh there's the

into perpetuity in training camp and and mix and match these guys so you do have to monitor that but we don't have that situation with tonight so yes defenses are always out there stable sources of points and the other thing we have to go back to and realize is on the outside looking in just common sense this it's a preseason game the total is disgusting yes and hey oh there's backup players they're going to be playing yes they're going to make mistakes yes defenses are strong, but to the overarching point, I think defenses and kickers are popular, and there are ways to be different about that. Not playing both defenses, not playing both kickers,

or doing such in your lineups, or playing, because the negative correlations that we usually see in DFS, it's like, well, I don't want to play the quarterback against the defense. That doesn't matter here. You're looking at playing time, and you're looking at raw points. You could play Dorian Thompson Robinson at the captain and still play both defenses or play, you know, the Jets defense in the same lineup. It does not matter because you're looking at, he can have a really good game and Kellen Mond could stink it up the first half and they could have a defensive

touchdown. So both of those things make the optimal lineup. You really in preseason DFS, it is a totally different beast than playing showdown in regular season or even playing a slate in regular season. So a lot of the, the rules that we kind of like build our lineups by, you need to toss them out the fricking window because they do not play here. Some of them do,

but not all of them. And yes, I sound like I'm cherry picking. Well, that's because this is a niche DFS sport and you have to change it up based off of these are the rules about how you win by. And we look at playing time. Let me ask you this. If you're doing a, and I don't want you to give out a lineup, so I'm not going to ask about specific players for this particular question, but if you're doing a double up, for example, let's say there's 500 people in it, something somewhat significant, 500 to 800 people in the double up. Are you in a position where the kicker and the kickers and the defenses are such a priority from a floor standpoint?

And that's kind of what we're talking about with preseason cash games. I imagine that you're putting all four of those in there, or you're kind of picking and choosing and making sure you got your quarterbacks in there. You understand what I'm asking? Yeah. Yeah. I'm picking and choosing personally because out of all the quarterbacks, I do not want to play Kellen lawn tonight. I, he will be popular, but I'm hard fading him. So that's auto, like one way to auto be different in your cash game lineups. You know, Dorian Thompson, Robinson, and Kelamon are probably going to be the two highest rostered quarterbacks on this slate. Now, the way that you get past that

chalk when you're building these types of lineups is, am I going to captain one of these guys and not captain the defense? Because probably these two defenses are probably going to be the highest rostered captains on this slate. So playing the defenses, but not playing them at captain or playing both of them or playing the quarterbacks, I think are going to help to make your lineups auto different or picking and choosing some of those quarterbacks. Like you can play both Cleveland quarterbacks in the same lineup. People might shy away from from doing that but there are ways to get different with your lineups and the auto way to get different is just look play a skill position guy at the captain instead of one of the defenses and yeah you could roll out lineups with both kickers and both defenses because the other thing about it is if you pick a a guy that's going to

get work and there's a few of them we're going to talk about here see ya but some of these are going to be much more popular than others. And there are ways to leverage that as well to where you can roll out a chalky flex lineup and get different at the captain spot and still take on the cash game. Yeah. Yeah. So let's actually go set our sights on like tournaments for tonight. And again, anybody who's watching or listening to this, obviously when it comes to the hall of fame game, game, you know, this isn't going to be relevant if you're listening to this tomorrow. But we still have six hours until the game tonight. So from a tournament standpoint, is it a quarterback?

I mean, I got to think you're picking one of the quarterbacks in the captain spot. You're kind of taking a stand there. But then you're going to some skill position players, right? There's a few different captains that I like. The quarterbacks will be at or near the top of the list. My favorite two quarterbacks in this game to captain, and I will have at least one lineup for both of them at captain, is Chris Strebler and Dorian Thompson-Robinson.

Dorian Thompson-Robinson is going to be markedly more popular than Strebler because we do have a little bit different projections and playing time. Like we talked about the Cleveland guys, Deshaun Watson, Joshua Dobbs are not playing in this game. So literally it is going to be Kellen on starting. He's going to get the first half. Dorian Thompson Robinson is going to get the second half. So from a pure playing time, medium projection, they're both playing two quarters.

Get at it like that. That's they have the highest medium playing time, medium projection, they're both playing two quarters. Get at it. Like that. That's, they have the highest medium playing, playing time projection in this game versus somebody like Chris traveler. If you were in a way that, you know,

to leverage it as if Kevin Mon and Dorian Thompson, Robinson are going to be the two most popular quarterbacks, both in lineups or at the captain position, play traveler, play traveler and a lot in lineups at captain over those two guys because he's going to carry maybe half the roster percentage, maybe less at the captain spot. And it's because of the playing time

because Zach Wilson's going to play and you have Tim Boyle in the mix. But the thing about it is with both of those guys, and this is where it comes down to piecing together playing time is they know what they have in Zach Wilson he is their number two quarterback on that roster and even though he is playing tonight he is not going to play along because if anything were to happen Aaron Rodgers they do not want to be lit like having to depend on Tim Boyle and the Chris Travelers of the world so with Zach Wilson there they are going to protect him even though he is the QB2 on this roster. And yes, he is going to play.

So I look at Zach Wilson. He might only get one drive. He might get three drives. Three drives is probably the max that I'm going to project him for. So even looking at it from that perspective, maybe that takes up the whole first quarter. Tim Boyle, I think, probably plays into the second quarter and up to the half. But what happens after that time is we don't know. Tim Boyle might come out and start the second half.

They might just give Chris Streveler the entire second half. And if that's the case, and that's the way I'm playing it, Sia, then Streveler has the exact same playing time upside as Mond and as Dorian Thompson-Robinson, but he's not going to carry the same type of popularity in chalk. So you can play him and make your lineups auto different by instead of playing Kellen Bond and Dorian Thompson Robinson in the same lineups, pick DTR. Obviously I said, I like him and play Strebler over Mond in that lineup. Yeah. I like Strebler a lot. And for those of you that sort of forgot about Streber, maybe that name sounds somewhat familiar to you. First of all, he's in King baby preseason King,

but what's funny about that is he actually managed to get into a couple of games. Thanks to a lot of injuries at the quarterback position for the jets. I mean, he played against Tennessee, I believe, no, the Seahawks and Jacksonville in sort of the, like later in the season, he actually didn't look that bad for what was like the third or fourth string quarterback at that time so um I hope he gets the whole second half because I agree with you it's to me it's DTR or it's or it's Streveler in the uh captain position before we move on to sort of our first impressions of the week one uh main slate and by the way for everybody like the next couple weeks we're going to dedicate some time to the main slate as well game theory wise and pricing wise skill position players. If we're playing a tournament,

maybe we want to throw in, I know yesterday you mentioned Tillman. I know somebody in the chat was referring to, I believe it's Abinaconda. Um, there we go. Uh, the jets running back. Um, any of those guys, are they, would they make your tournament rosters or is there anybody else? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. I can rattle off a few names for the people at home. So outside of those three quarterbacks that I love, the other guys that are going to make my short list tonight, Israel Abednakanda is going to be one of them. I think Michael Carter and Bam Knight don't get a lot of run in this game. They're probably going to exit whenever Zach Wilson does. Maybe Bam gets a few

carries after that, but I don't think Michael Carter is going to play much. And the Jets running back room is really thin. You have Demaria Crockett, Travis Dye also there, but both of those guys are coming off of serious knee injuries. So I don't think they're going to get a lot of run in preseason week one, but Abanacanda, I think he can get upwards of double digit carries tonight. He's one of my favorite captains. And with the explosive ability that he has with his speed and his burst, we're talking about, again, athleticism. He's one of the guys that could take one, take any carry 50, 60 yards to the house.

So even if you're playing that, you're playing props. I'm betting the overs for a band of Candice rushing yards tonight. On the Browns, I think there are two guys that stick out. It's John Kelly and Hassan Hall. The other guys in this backfield, Chubb's not going to play. Jerome Ford's not going to play. Nate McCreary is just a camp body. Demetrik Felton played 64% of his snaps in the slaughterout wide last preseason, so he's a wide receiver in a running back position.

So John Kelly and Hassan Hall are also in play as far as captains and running back flex. Just going through a few receiving options here. Jason Brownlee has gotten all of the social media pup. There's been so much puff about him. Adam Schefter's out here tweeting stuff about camp clips from the Jets. So as much as I hate to say it, you're playing Jason Brownlee at captain or you're fading him is how I'm approaching this because he is going to be

extremely popular. And I'm not telling you it's not for good reason because the dude's been lighting it up and he's burnt sauce Gardner on a few different reps and camp. So he's got talent. But if we're talking about, see, I'm not playing for second place. I ain't playing for cat for hitting the men cash. I want freaking first place. So I don't want the most, could be one of the more popular captains in this dang game.

So no, I'm either playing Brownlee captain or I'm fading him. Another guy I want to bring up for the Jets is Xavier Gibson. Really talented slot wide receiver, ran a 4-4, 82nd percentile agility score. He had over 3.0 yards per outrun in college. You probably have never heard of that name, but he could carry you to first place tonight. Because again, he is far down the depth chart. Moving over to the Browns, their receiving options are extremely limited tonight, Sia. Like half of their receiving depth chart for everybody at home,

I'm going to rattle off the names where you need to just X them out of your lineup. Nada, none, do not play them at all. At all. Marquise Goodwin is silent with blood clots. Jakeem Grant is only practicing every other day because he's coming back from an Achilles tear. Jalen Darden has hurt and been out of practice. his silent with blood clots. Jakeem Grant is only practicing every other day because he's coming back from an Achilles tear. Jalen Darden is hurt and been out of practice. Mike Harley hurt and been out of practice with a concussion.

Austin Watkins was signed as a camp body on the 22nd of July. So he probably doesn't even see the field today. I mean, just right there. See, I lopped off five or six wide receivers to just not even consider. So now we have a condensed field of six different guys, and we're going to whittle that down even further, baby, because Cedric Tillman has the talent, and he went to high school with Dorian Thompson Robinson. So that connection

is already there, and we're singing in camp, and so you need to consider Cedric Tillman. If you're playing DTR, you need to consider playing Tillman and the flex or at captain in those lineups because he's going to get a lot of work. I do not want to play David Bell. I just don't believe in the talent. And we saw it last year in an NFL regular season perspective, does not draw targets. Same thing with Anthony Schwartz, although I think he does get a lot of playing time. The other guy we'll bring up here is Dal dalen baldwin who has been producing and flashing in

camp good possession guy um and a few of these tight ends man like i think zach kunz is going to be extremely popular the tight end for the jets because that's supposedly what his wheelhouse is is if he is on the field he's going to run routes he does not block very well and i think in that instance he is going to be popular, but I'm more likely going to fade him because of this reason. See, the jets do not are probably not going to play Tyler Conklin and CGU Zoma. They're veterans. They are not going to play in this game. Maybe Jeremy record gets some snaps with Zach Wilson. Maybe he gets a little bit longer run. I don't know where he's at as far as being submitted

on the depth chart. And if that's the case, you're staring at a Jets tight end room that's going to possibly play four guys and divvy up the snaps between them. So that's, I don't have a lot of like faith or want to play any of those guys. Take your shots on Coons if you want to, but I'm not going that direction. What I am going to do is I'm going to play one massive ton of this guy you probably have never heard of before ever at all but he's one of my favorite favorite off the wall plays in this entire game and I will run some lineups with him at captain because I think he's only going to be two percent one percent rostered and that's Thomas Greeny Thomas Greeny is a tight end that came out of Albany. So small school, little more limited as far as his athleticism runs a four,

eight. But again, we're talking about, this is a, a field that's going to be full of practice squad guys. So the athleticism marks are going to be ticked down a little bit. So does his receiving acumen play up a little bit more here than it wouldn't in a regular season NFL game I think it does and he has the receiving chops see you like at Albany last year 700 receiving yards 1.8 yards per outrun 86 pff receiving grade these are all fantastic marks and when you marry all of this with the fact that the Browns are going to roll out two tight ends, two, two, two, two, two, two tight ends. That's it, man. And Greeny is going to be the receiving guy because Zaire Mitchell Payton does not draw targets. He is a blocking tight end. Last preseason,

only three targets and 0.5 yards per outrun. So what are we talking about here? We're talking about one guy that could play most of this freaking game and go overlooked because he's a tight end and he's way down the depth chart and nobody knows who the heck he is. And this is how he wins. See, he is going to be what he is. One of these skeleton keys to taking down one of these tournaments tonight. I think you want to get weird. You want to like get used to getting weird or get comfortable with the uncomfortable. It starts right here. It starts tonight with a lot of those guys that Debro just mentioned, because newsflash spoiler alert, when we get to like the actual,

and that's, that's actually what we're going to do next. When we get to like actual regular season DFS, we're going to play some conventional guys, but we're going to be getting weird in a lot of places too, because that's especially in the big tournaments. That's where it's going to be takedown season. We're going to get to that in one second. But first, let's hear another message from our partners.

We are back. This is Fantasy Football Today, DFS. One more thing to cover, and I want to let everybody know we're going to be covering this in a really big way over the next few weeks. So with Derek right now, I really just want to touch on a few guys that I know that he likes just from a value standpoint and maybe just a total standpoint and things of that nature. So Derek, that's kind of where I want to start. You wrote an article over at Fantasy Pros right when pricing came out, I believe. You put it up on your Twitter, which by the way, it's at dbro underscore FFB, correct? Yes, sir. I'm sure everybody listening already follows D bro, but if you don't, that's how you follow D bro. Um, so you actually at pretty much each position,

you listed a few guys that you liked, whether it be from a value standpoint, contrarian, like I'm not really sure, but I like you to, maybe we can go position by position, a couple of guys at each position that just jumped out at you and we'll start at the quarterback. Yeah. Two guys that jumped off the hop and we'll start at the quarterback yeah two guys that jumped off the hop and I approach this from um a little bit different perspective I mean in the sense that I picked out a lot of um standouts to me as far as pricing and maybe just because of how my GPP bro mind works it's the guys that people are maybe not going to look at or care about first pass so I want to highlight those. The two quarterbacks I wrote up were Geno Smith

and Russell Wilson, and everybody's going to be like, Ooh, really? But yeah, we're, we're talking about these guys because Geno Smith is going to take on a Rams depleted secondary and defense and week one. And I think as we get closer to week one see he probably and I say this with um a grain of salt like as as we talk about quarterbacks being popular in the sense that like none of them are ever uber chalk you can play them it's fine but I do think that he probably gets a little more popular but if you're looking at Gino yeah man like the Rams even last year were, especially in a zone coverage aspect, they defended the eighth most pass attempts in zone last year, allowed the 10th highest CPOE in zone. Gino was money versus zone, 12th in yards per attempt.

And a similar kind of conversation with Russell Wilson. He was good against man coverage last year, and that's going to lead me down the well of, yes, I want to stack him with Jerry Judy because Jerry Judy led the entire NFL as far as wide receivers and yards per out run against man coverage last year so they are those two quarterbacks in that stack I just highlighted are going to be guys that are a little more off the wall and maybe people don't want to sit here and play them because they're not the sexy names you know we search for ceiling and stuff but those guys could rival possibly the Lamar Jacksons the Jalen Hurts of the world in week one but they're not the sexy names. We search for ceiling and stuff, but those guys could rival possibly the Lamar Jacksons, the Jalen Hurts of the world in week one,

but they're not going to carry not even half the roster percentage. But moving it over to running backs, man, Derek Henry, I'm going to sit here and I'm going to have a ton of Derek Henry. And this comes down to people are going to shy away from the New Orleans Saints run defense, but the run defense is far degraded compared to what we've come to expect out of them in recent seasons. I mean, they have been an elite run defense over the last few years,

but that wasn't the case last year, and they retooled in the offseason. So telling me that all of these different things are going to perfectly mesh in week one, I doubt it. So I'm going to have some Derrick Henry. That game, actually, the Saints versus the Titans, is one of my favorite kind of like sneaky shootout games that I think first pass people are going to look at and they're going to say, ugh, these two offenses. I don't want to, I don't want anything to do with this game, but I love that game. Yeah, I know you're going to have a, I don't know this, but it wouldn't

shock me if you had a skinny stack with Derek Henry on one side and Chris Olave on the other. Or if not, maybe another receiver on that Saints team, which we're going to get to in a second. As far as running backs are concerned, do you agree with me that Alexander Madison at home versus the Buccaneers is probably going to be a pretty chalky guy? I mean, are you buying into the chalk at 6,500 there? I'm not going to buy into the chalk because Tampa Bay has had in a top shelf run defensive last few years. I'm actually been from a redraft perspective. I've been out on Madison. All the different metrics and efficiency stuff like screams to me that he is replaceable. I think that that team could be more of a committee than we think. And we could

even see that week one. So yeah, count me out on Madison. Another running back. I want to ask you about like two more before we move over to the receiver position. So I think the 50 point total in that Miami chargers game that's over in LA, I think that's going to be a really popular game. It's an afternoon game. It's going to be the most popular game. And I'm curious if you think it's even a pivot to go to Austin Eckler, who's high price. I don't think people are going to want to necessarily pay that price, especially if they're stacking Justin Herbert with a receiver. Now we know with the Chargers, you can just stack Justin Herbert with Eckler and really just get all the points, you know,

the rushing and the receiving. With that said, I'm just curious where you stand on Eckler, because I think 8,400 is going to be really intimidating to people. And I think a lot of people are going to go to Justin Herbert and let's say Keenan Allen, for example, and try to have a run back with like Tyreek killer waddle uh where you at on eckler specifically at 8400 i mean with that high total game i just want a full game stack and i think the way that you get over any kind of chalk is you just you just make a game stack that game

if it goes off then all the pieces are going to go with it you know and so the closer we get to that um i do think that if you're looking at how the most probable way that people stack that game, it's probably going to be Justin Herbert. Um, maybe Austin Eckward gets into the mix, but it's probably going to be some semblance of Justin Herbert and Keenan Allen. Um, so for me, the way that I'm at least right now early, I know it is that I'm looking to approach that game. I'll probably take the other side of it. I want to go with Tua. I want to go with Tyreek Hill. Maybe I double stack because the other part about that,

Tua is not a running quarterback. We know where the targets are going in this offense. Maybe I'll double stack Tua or I'll just skinny him with Tyreek Hill. I think both are on the table, and then I just run it back with Chargers and just full game stack it, like have four players from that one game in my lineups, not counting the quarterback position. I love it. And one other running back I wanted to ask you about,

cause I'm huge on him. Redraft wise. I do a prop show every Friday for sports line. This was a guy I was just hammering his over and yardage pretty much every week. And it kept going up and it kept coming in. It's Nick Chubb. He's at home.

He's 8,200. He's at home. He's 8,200. He's typically, especially early in the season, not a sexy DraftKings play because the perception of course is he doesn't catch passes. Now he might, he caught a few more passes last year, but he might catch some more passes without Kareem Hunt behind him. But I'm just curious, 8,200 against Cincinnati, is that somebody you'd consider? And do you think he's going to be super low-owned? I think he could be low-owned. Right now, staring at him, I'm probably not going to go that direction, only because Cincinnati had an elite run defense last year. And when I get closer, writing all this stuff and the primer and stuff,

I'm going to go through personnel and stuff. And if they did not have any kind of major losses, that run defense is highly intact, considering what it looked like last year. Then I think we feel a little bit better about them retaining that type of top shelf run defense year over year. So it's probably not a direction I'm going to go for week one with Chubb. All right. And well, let's get to the receiver position.

Now, you mentioned Jerry Judy. Love that. I love the stack with Russell Wilson. That's 5,900 to 6,600. But let's talk about Tyreek, who you mentioned, but more specifically the Saints receivers. I like both of these guys you mentioned here. Yeah. Tyreek Hill, like I talked about with Tua, that's the guy that I want to push my chips in on because the Chargers defended the seventh most routes in man coverage. And why does this matter? Because Tyreek Hill eviscerates man coverage. He had the highest target per route run rate

and third highest yards per route run against man coverage. And this is per Fantasy Points data last year. So if you're going to play Tua or you want to play a receiver from the Dolphins, it needs to be Tyreek Hill. I'm not saying you don't get Jalen Waddell into the mix. If you want a full game stack, that's fine. But the first name you're going to click on the side for the Dolphins needs to be Tyree Kill. And I'm going to go back to that Titans and Saints game. See, again, people are going to snub their nose at this game. We have

seen the Titans be efficient. We have seen that, that offense explode and have massive games and, and people want to remember what the saints looked like last year. They have more competent quarterback play, and you can say what you want about Derek Carr, but when we're going to marry the blinding speed of Chris Lave and Rashid Shahid, that is taking on a secondary. And again, some of the defensive metrics year over year can be a little bit wonky and they're a little bit noisy. And then we got to wait until week four, week five for some of this stuff to kind of solidify on what teams are good, what teams are bad for this new NFL season. But walking into

week one, Sia, I'm going to make a bet that these two speed merchants in Chris lobby and Rashid Shahid, who Rashid Shahid is free. He's 3,700 on draft Kings. Give me that all freaking day because this secondary, which is largely intact, replace it. Like a lot of the same guys are coming back was first in the NFL and

receiving arts and receiving touchdowns allowed on go routes. And if you don't know what a go route is, the receivers running straight down the freaking field. And if they catch the damn ball, they're going for a 50 or 60 yard touchdown. And a lot of times, both of these guys were exceptional at running go routes last year. Chris Alave checking in with the 14th highest yards per outrun on go routes. Rashid Shahid, and it is a smaller sample. I get that people, but per fantasy points data, the fourth highest yards per outrun on go routes last year going against the NFL's worst secondary worst. They were top of the hill, top of the trash heap and defending go routes. Oh, you're damn right, Sia.

I'm going to play a lot of Saints wide receivers, and I'm going to give the people at home the skinny preview. I'm going to have in my, probably one of my more favorite Millie maker lineups right now, and I could say this right now, as long as injuries do not strike. I'm going to have a Derek Carr double stack. I'm going to play, Rashid Shaheed is going to be in every one of those lineups and I'm going to rotate

between Chris Alave and Michael Thomas on the second wide receiving option. I'm going to run it right back with Derek Henry and enjoy. I love that. That is so just, it just warms my heart that we're even talking

about this right now. Me too. I'm so giddy, man. I love it. DFS is back, baby. September 10th, we are 35 days away from kickoff, but then I guess that would be 38 days away from NFL Sunday and the main slate. I'll just note that in your article over at Fantasy Pros, you mentioned Tyler Higby as a as a tight end option at 4800 versus Seattle.

I'll tell you what, I think this is probably a good time to close. But what I want to know first, over at Fantasy Pros, what do we have going on, Derek? What's going on over the next few weeks? I mean, it sounds like you just told us over the last 40 minutes what's going on, but anything we should be looking for? Oh, man, everything's gotten a good spit shine, Sia. Right now, we're still closing the end of best ball season right now. So all my best ball ranks will be up late, updated later today. Um, as well as all the redraft content, August is redraft season, baby.

So drafts are gonna be popping off the entire month and we got you covered over a fantasy pros too. We have our, uh, redraft kit is live on the site. So head out and check that out. Um, as well as discord is popping. I'm in there every, at least once a week. I have my own AMA channel, so I hop on there, answer questions every Friday, as well as I'm in there 24-7.

People tag me all the time. I answer questions as often and as much as I possibly can. And really, if this Hall of Fame article was my love letter to all the DGens out here playing showdown with us tonight. Then my perfect draft article is my love letter to all the redraft folks. That is my article where I take you through every single round of the draft. 60 plus players are in that article. It is a Bible.

It is massive. But really, I want people to not only have the cheat sheet ability to be able to do the draft wizard and draft Intel and get ready for your dress, but also where you could pull up this one article and say, you know what? I can't go through through ranks and all this kind of stuff. Like I can't keep up who's who's available. Who's left. Oh, let me pull up this article. Okay. In the fourth round, he likes, okay. Christian Watson. Okay, I'm going to draft Christian Watson. You can use this article as my lovely guide for you on the players that I like in every single round and dominate your drafts.

Christian Watson. Debro was on Christian Watson before it was cool to be on Christian Watson. Back when everybody was like, man, Romeo Dobbs, he's looking really good. Debro was like, nope, I was at the senior bowl. I saw him. He was just kind of okay. Christian Watson is the dude in Green Bay. Tried to tell him, see, I tried to tell him.

Nobody wanted to hear it, but I tried. Well, I'll tell you what, go check out D-Bro. D-Bro, it's D-B-R-O underscore F-F-B. He plants his flag a lot. He's not scared. So go check him out. He does those, the Twitter spaces. I mean, there's so much free content at Fantasy Pros that he puts out on Twitter. So definitely go give him a follow.

And don't forget, we have so much content coming here on fantasy football today, DFS. We've got Nick Brett wish from wind daily sports next week. We got degenerate 75 coming on after that. We're going to be talking game theory. We're going to be talking week one pricing. We're going to be talking preseason DFS and using the template that D bro just gave us. So Derek, thanks for coming on again, man. I, I, again, are you a cohost? I should, should we, do we, do we need to break off the shows? I'm fine with that. I'll take his spot. I'm not as pretty as Frank, but you know, I can talk to talk. Well, I'll tell you what, when we get to September, it's going to be me and Mike McClure.

Hopefully we can get Frank to stop by, but D bro, this is probably not the last we're going to see of you this year, if I have anything to do about it. Thank you for joining us. And thank everybody in the chat. He says, where do I sign up for DFS? That's an interesting question, Japan. Well, it would be DraftKings. It would be FanDuel. Where else, D-Bro? Yeah, I mean, DraftKings and FanDuel are the big spots if you're playing player props and stuff like that for preseason stuff. I know Underdog carries preseason player props as well as prize picks. So, you know, whether you're getting your DFS action there, you know, there's a lot of different outlets, whether you want to go with the player props or you want to go with the straight DFS action. There's a lot of good stuff for preseason and regular season as well. Yeah. And I'll tell you what, on this show, just so everybody knows, we basically, when we talk about pricing, it's almost always, we're referring to DraftKings pricing. That's

not to put FanDuel down in any way. It's just, that's been the more conventional DFS across all the sports that we have been witnessing over the last couple of years. So DraftKings would be a great spot to get started with DFS and we'll get started with DFS again next week. My name is Sian Ajad. That's Derek Brown. This is Fantasy Football Today, DFS. Thank you for joining us and have fun watching some football tonight, the game see you later