Fantasy Footballers - Fantasy Football Podcast - 10 Tips & Tricks to Win Your League + MEGALABOWL! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/19

Episode Date: August 19, 2026

Fantasy Football show for Aug 19, 2026. League-winning tips and advice! Andy, Mike, and Jason deliver lessons learned and actionable tips for fantasy football managers! Don’t miss this special episode headed into your fantasy football drafts and the 2026 season! Manage your redraft, keeper, and dynasty fantasy football teams with the #1 fantasy football podcast. 2026 ULTIMATE DRAFT KIT is available now at UltimateDraftKit.com Compete in the MEGALABOWL fantasy football league! Megalabowl.com (00:00) Intro (01:30) MEGALABOWL IS BACK (05:15) NFL New (11:25) 10 Tips and Tricks (11:55) Out Of Your Depths (18:35) Mock It Like It’s Hot (23:00) Mark My Words (26:20) Panic-Free TE (30:25) Move On From The Dusties (34:00) Elite QB Prices Are Cheaper Than Ever (39:00) The Bad Old Days (44:01) RB Dead Zone (50:05) Hawt Or Not Starts (54:25) Wipe The Slate Clean Connect with the show: Subscribe on YouTube Visit us on the Web Support the Show Follow on X Follow on Instagram Join our Discord Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to crush, humiliate, and totally destroy your competition and your fantasy football draft. It's incredibly simple, so let me just break it down for you. Ultimate Draft Kit. The ultimate draft kit from the fantasy footballers is hands-down the best fantasy tool in existence. I mean, come on. It's got sleepers, it's got bus, injury updates, full projections. This thing's even got full dynasty rankings. Don't overthink this.

It's the only wingman you'll need the ship. Head over to ultimate draft camp.com and grab your copy right away. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in the Fantasy Footballers Podcast, Wednesday, August 19th. Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway, in the. building in the house oh their growls are percolating the deucers are deusing as they do every day

but yeah we got a I mean we can get us straight to it I mean we got a big what got a big announcement today I don't want to hear the like subtle straight to what people have been asking for a while it's time. Go ahead, Jay. What's your announcement?

Oh, baby. It's terrifying this year. It is terrifying. That's right. The Magalabal for 26 is time, baby. That graphic is awesome. Yeah, we have an aquarium in the back. I would be remiss if I didn't point out some scale issues.

Those footballs The size of a boat Those are large football If you don't know what the Megalabal it is It is the largest fantasy football league It is the most prestigious The fantasy football leagues More than 21,000 of you played it last year

It is Megalobol.com It's go time If you're a footclan supporter You get an entry into the Megalabalabal Drafts will be held Friday, September 4th all the way through Tuesday, September 8th. Kickoff is Wednesday this year. And you can write this moment, go to megalobol.com, and you can claim your draft slot today.

Yeah, it's a fun league. We try to make all of the rules, all the settings exactly similar to how we play our league of record other than it's not a keeper format. You know, you're going to play against 12 people randomly assigned other Fok-Klan members. that love this game. Giant balls are back. I think I broke something for him. But it disappeared too soon.

I wanted it back for the second time when Jason was talking. Yeah. But the leagues are really, really fun. You're going to be playing with other Footland members. In the end, the last three weeks, if you make the playoffs, which the top half of each league does, it's tournament style highest points goes forward each week until the championship. ship and at that final week, the winner of the Meglabel is guaranteed a spot with us in the

next year's listener league. So if you've been... That's not all. And... An ultimate subscription. But wait. There's more. For life. Yeah, the ultimate Foot Clan membership. You will be a part of this forever. So a lot of cool reasons to play in the Megalobole. Everybody loves it. Sign up. Make sure you do it now. There's plenty of draft slots to go around. We're going to play. Yeah, I'm in it. I've already got my draft slot. We got draft slots. I'm sure the deusers will be in there, and it'll be a great time.

So you can do it now. Meglabel. Watching this, man. We need to make that screen like an aquarium more often. Oh, yeah. That's feeling good. Yeah, that was nice. I should add this too.

Like, if you bought the Ultimate Draft Kit and you want to be in the Megalibol and you're not a footclam member, we will credit your full amount of the UDK towards an ultimate membership. So it's $1 for dollar all the way up till kickoff. It's just what we do every year. because sometimes people buy the UDK, and they're like, well, I want to be in the Meglabel. Don't wait until kickoff, though, because then you'll miss the draft. Yeah, don't do that. Just do it right now.

And as far as how you do that, it's really easy. If you're logged in and you have the UDK, then it'll automatically, when you go to the Foot Clan membership page, it just automatically will show you the discount. Yep. So there you go. Meglabel.com. News and notes from around the league. By the way, we finally have our top 10 tips and tricks. Dang it.

It's not tricks. It's tips and, oh, it is tips and tricks. Trix and tips. I've been doing this every day now. Oh, man. What else could it be? What is dementia? You know what I mean?

What is that? How do you spell dementia, Jay? A-N-D-Y. We would tell you, but you won't remember. Okay. Yeah, that's today. We will have tips and tricks. You may not believe in any of mine.

after this intro. Alvin Camara, here's some news. We'll miss at least one month due to a sprained MCL. Rumbolaya. And somehow Kendrae Miller is back in practice. Oh, stop. I don't believe you. But Travis A. Chan Jr., big deal. Yes. Kendra Miller, Devin Neal, back at practice, but they are not the type of backs. Like, I do worry about Travis A. Chan Jr. with Camara involved. He is, you know, obviously a big part of this franchise and he will take some of the receiving work with him gone. Kendrae Miller and Devin Neal are not going to

eat into Travis A. Chan Jr. We'll talk more about him upcoming but this is good news for Travis A. Chan Jr. Sorry, Camara. Quentin Johnson left Tuesday's joint practice against the 49ers with an undisclosed lower body injury but is quote totally fine. Well that, you know,

okay. Actually what's ironic about this is that the news was about Quentin Johnson's injury and then you see that and you go oh dude my guy trey harris but then it turns out the truth is that trey harris was actually missing he was gone for injury undisclosed and quentin johnson's fine so really the news is not that quentin johnson's injured it's the tray harris is why don't you share the other news for the other ones the uh no uh i will not share yeah the uh the uh all world center that the Chargers picked up

Tyler Biatish. He's going to miss a significant amount of time. Sounds like a lot. Yeah. He injured several ligaments, damage to his ACL and additional injuries to his left knee. Gross. He is seeking second opinions on how to deal with it so we don't know for sure. I mean, as of right now,

I think we just assume he's gone for the season. TBD, it could change, but it's terrible, awful, very bad no good news. news and Slater their left tackle also currently injured his is much better he's you know he's going to

miss a little bit of time but I mean yes it is better than potentially missing the whole season but didn't they say it was a flare up I thought I had read that so maybe I'm speaking out of turn no I'm unaware if it was a flare up or not yeah that is uh that's not great

Kyle Shanahan said after Tuesday's practice Mike Evans experienced tightness. This is quadriceps. Mike Evans did Grandpa Simpson give. He got back out there and goes, well, see you later. Also, I heard a foot injury on top of this. Mike Evans is falling apart. He should never have gone near that substation.

They're running out of wide receivers not named Strib Club right now. Yeah. It is confirmed that Slater is a flare-up, but the timeline is supposed to be about two weeks. And I say flare-up as in, because he's coming off a torn Patela.

So it's that. Yeah. That's not good. That's not good. That's not what you want to hear. It's like having a quadriceps injury after having a quadriceps injury. For Mike Evans? Yeah. Carnell Tate, undisclosed absence from practice. It was, he took

a very big hit and they weren't saying whether or not he had a concussion, but he didn't participate in the next day's practice. So dealing with something, but it was it seemed like it was head related. Did you know Jerome Ford was a member of the commander's niece?

I did. And he is now on Indrid Reserve. So is he, so then he's toast? He's out for the year? I just see injured reserve. I don't think injured reserve guarantees loss for the year right now. Kyle, is it the whole year? And Jerome Ford was not a part of the importance.

No, but Rashad White is not practicing. I mean, right now it's Bill. So, and then Jalen McMillan back of practice for the Buccaneers, which that is news that that team needed. Yeah, I mean, there was more news on a Mecca-A-Bucah. He was wearing one of those like hard-souled shoes to protect the toe, which from what they were saying that, you know, things came back clean. it's just not a great sign for the grade of whatever turf toe if it's turf toe he's dealing with which it's turf toe but what about me jay yeah get me something to break ted hearse yeah um really what about chris godwin who cares yeah and tess no i'm chris godwin looking like a mighty nice value right now all right now all right I don't think we have other news unless anything's been happening.

I mean, we either have, like, injury news that's real or injury news where they're like, that player just left and went to the tent and then went right back out on the field and then you're like, oh, okay. We get those a lot. I freak out many times a day. Oh, man, that Olavet pump fake yesterday. Oh, yeah. Unnecessary. Olave's.

Oh, it was a head injury, right? Wasn't it a concern about head? Oh, man, I didn't see that. If it was that, I would have probably peed my pants. I think I really would have peed my pants. If it was a head injury, that's what your reaction was to real extreme injury. On purpose. I would have done it.

In protest? Yeah. So not like a scared pee. No, no, no. I would have sat there until it was time. This is for you, Olave. This is for you. Cully.

Well, we have our 10 tips and tricks we want to share with you. It's a big show. So we're going to kick it off right now. Tips and Tricks. All right. It is time. to jump in, each of us contributing three different ideas for 2026 in terms of things to pay attention to, things that we're learning. We always try to bring you something new in this episode each and every year. So let's get it going.

Number 10. All right. Number 10 loosely titled, Out of Your Depths. I wanted to take a look and see how much depth you actually need to win at Fantasy. I've said it for years that Mike is, Mike's championship last year, I mean, and his dynasty team have been built on a lot of depth and the unwillingness to trade away some of that depth mid-season and held on to it and it paid off. You had a no win to consolidate. And I've always said I adore putting together that perfect best starting lineup. But how much depth do you actually need? So let me give you some uncomfortable math to start off.

27%. That is the chance. That is uncomfortable. That is very uncomfortable. Yeah, I hate that. That is the chance of Jayce. and peeing his pants on a daily, no. The chance of a running back playing a full season, 27%.

That is, you know, any running back. Seven out of ten missed games. Last year, here's some more math. Only six of the top 24 whiteouts that were drafted played a full season. Two of the top 12 drafted receivers played every game. So some level setting there for the amount of injury and things that you're going to deal with. Here's an uncomfortable math part two. Since 2010, only about 36% of running back one picks actually beat their draft slot.

Gross. So you have injury risk, you have missing games, and then you have performance risk. So basically the math is saying that roughly half of your first nine picks will either underperform their cost or get injured. And you're probably going to cough up 12 to 15 stars due to injury. So not surprisingly, you need death. That is the answer to the question. So maybe we don't always realize it and you try to thread the needle. Maybe you can get really lucky.

Some of the best NFL teams are the healthiest teams at the end of the year. That's nice. But what strategy do you apply per position and how should you think about that? So briefly, I just want to talk about running back position when it comes to depth. Injuries transfer value for that team very predictably in the sense that the backup for the team or the committee back generally steps into that role. So you know, I mean, we've named a bunch of guys this offseason, Blake Corum, Tank Bigsby, you know that there are top tier backups and committee situations that are valuable to target. Menongai is one of them. Kenny Gainwell is one of them. These are draft day targets that you can

add, knowing that they're going to have a direct predictable value if the starter goes down. On the other hand, top tier wide receivers, if they go down, the targets on that team tend to scatter around. Not very many teams are the Pickens CD-LAM situation. So what that means for wide receivers or what this tip kind of alludes to is that it's much tougher to predict or pre-draft the players that are going to benefit from injury, even though you know injuries are going to happen at the wide receiver position. So the way I like to think about it is you can get predictable value transfer with depth running back selections, but the waiver wire is really going to be the place that you win when it comes to finding, you know, a valuable wide receiver. And this is why I like to

take swings later on high upside guys at the beginning that may be beneficial to your team. And you can see right away, depth is not fully solved at the draft. That's the point is you can draft a bunch of really good players, but you're going to deal with these injuries. You're going to deal with wide receivers. And those are going to get solved on the waiver wire more than they'll get solved by drafting the next man up type of thing at wide receivers. So the math is tough. The math I don't like. I don't like, I mean, we don't like it right now in preseason. The amount of injuries and things that don't, the unpredictable is going to happen.

It is inevitable. Yeah, it sucks. I do like the idea, just the mathematical reality that stashing more running backs at the end of your bench is probably wiser than the wide receivers. because wide receivers, I mean, we've talked about this before. We'll talk about it again. The rookies get better as time goes on, not first rounders, but the later drafted rookies.

There's also guys that come out of notice. John Jennings last year. Breaking news. Oh, no. Don't be bad. Don't be bad. Don't be bad. Is it bad?

It's bad. Jaden Higgins is a torn ACL. Oh, man. Houston Texans. He was one of the big. publicity guys like the Pat Bryant's and Cyrus Allen. Jaden Higgins talk was,

that's Texans wide receiver. That's a big ball. That is a major injury for them because... Was yesterday the sleeper episode? I don't know. Yesterday, this week we had the sleeper episode. I went Jordan Mason, but it was close between Jordan Mason

and Jaden Higgins, but then he had the injury. That stinks. Obviously, Tank Dell now has a shot. It's... Yeah, I mean, their depth chart is, so Tank Dell, which that's a complete wild card of, number one, will he ever really be back after that type of an injury? You know, there's Hutchinson and other players involved. Yeah, and their third rounder from last year, Jalen Knoll, I don't know that he's a player that can like take over for Jaden Higgins.

It's probably Hutchinson and the doctor. Andy, the slowest man alive. Dr. Shultz is freaking dare. He is so there. Bro, if you're in a tight end premium where you get boosted reception totals, Don Schultz is probably going to have 80 plus patches.

I didn't want to start the 10 tips and tricks. That's kind of breaking news. But yeah, the TLDR there. Build your draft around starters, spend the back end on running back backups you know are going to have a shot and receiver lottery tickets and then realize that you're going to need to,

you build the team in August, but it's finished up in November. right? You keep the waiver wire going, play the whole season, recognize that you can keep adding. I think maybe another thought that just hit my mind, too, is that like, don't be, don't wait so long to take a shot on guys that you know are going to have chances at the waiver wire to start the year. Just add more and more depth. Never think that you're done on adding debt. I very much agree with that. All right. We are going to take a quick break and then we'll move it on to one of Jason's picks. All right, we're into our 10 tips and tricks, and we're on to number nine. Mock it like a ding-dong, baby.

Mock it like it's hot. Mock drafts are exceptionally important. I know our mock draft episodes, people love watching, but you need to be doing mock drafts and you need to know how you should be doing mock drafts. This is one of the most important tools available to have success in fantasy football. This is why we just built a mock draft tool in the ultimate draft kit. We have it now. And our, you know, we've had over a, probably at this point, over 200,000 mock drafts done on our mock draft tool.

We've had a lot of feedback. People are loving the fact that you can actually put it to the platform you're playing on. And you can use it to where you're seeing what you're going to see. I want to give you a couple examples of why that's important. Kyran right now is a round cheaper on ESPN than he is on sleeper, like just better values. T. Higgins right now is round three on Yahoo and a fifth rounder on ESPN, whereas Garrett Wilson is the exact opposite. You got David Montgomery, a guy that in the offseason, I was like, I like, I like David Montgomery. Now it's like, he's a fifth rounder.

But then I was looking, I was like, he's a seventh rounder on ESPN. That's like, okay. Even I can get with that. All right. Trevo? You know, Trevo's a seventh. rounder on ESP and a fourth rounder on sleeper. I mean, those are wildly different. So what you do is you put in the platform that you're playing on so that you can see what the ADP is.

ADP affects drafts. ADP, it affects even our, like we make these rankings. It affects the psychology of every player in your draft when they see the board and they feel like they're passing on somebody perceived to be better because the system tells them that is. Yes. And so then once you are doing mock drafts with your platform ADP in there so that you can get an idea, you, the way that you do, we say this all the time, right? Stay water, not stone. Like, be willing to pivot. That does not mean have no plan.

Don't just know players and have no idea where you're going. When this happens, you know, genuinely, a draft is if this, then that. I go into every league of record draft knowing if this happens, then I will do that. You know, look at, if you don't know where you're drafting from, you should be drafted, you should be doing mock drafts from the second pick, the seventh pick, and the 12th pick. Because at that point, you get to know who is available around the two, three turn, or the three four turn, or if I'm in the middle of the draft, you get to know what player types are there. And your first four rounds of your draft should really, maybe even the first three rounds, should really dictate where you go. And

it's different for everybody. Because what you think of certain players, you know, you might be out on Tyler Warren, Colson Loveland, you might be totally in on them. And that makes a big difference. A perfect example here of knowing what your game plan is, is if you do mock drafts, first of all, you should not be just, every time you do a mock draft, it's like, I'm going to grab the, I'm just drafting the players I like the most every time. And then you end up with the same type of team over and over. You need to explore other options. And I have found personally that when I choose to draft Brock Bowers or Trey McBride. If I pull the trigger on them, which I'm happy to do,

I hate my team if my first round pick was a wide receiver. Because then in the third round, I'm drafting my first running back. It gets kind of like I just don't love where it goes personally. So if in the first round, I just learned from mocking, like, oh, if I ended up with a really good stud running back, then I can grab Brock in the second or McBride and then...

License to Brock. license the Brock. And so you can't get that experience without trying, like, take an early quarterback, punt quarterback. Just explore, and I'm telling you, your drafts will be a hundred times better if you spend, and you can do this in one day. You just do four or five mocks from the spot where you are, or if you don't know, do beginning, middle, and end mocks, and just have a plan saying, if I start this way, the end is good or the end is bad, and you'll have far more success in fantasy football. Yeah, and less likely to have those panic picks in the middle of a draft, I'd say, as well.

All right, Mike. Number eight. All right, these tips and tricks, you know, sometimes we like to get, you know, in the weeds, like Andy's digging through a bunch of data, a bunch of numbers and analytics and things. My tip is real easy because this is just, this is a reminder. We're calling this tip, mark my words, and it's literally that. mark your players like at the bottom of the draft

in the bottom of the ADP and I say this because you're like oh of course I do this it's so obvious it's real easy to forget man like do it right now I you know we've had several times

in our league of record drafts where you're going through the draft we're in like round eight or round night and then a name gets called out and I go ugh because I literally forgot to mark that player Like it was just, I'm telling myself in my head over and over, I'm going to do this so I don't forget this player.

I never get to marking that guy. So do it right now. Like players who are lower in ADP that you're interested in, you know, like Stefan Diggs, he's going to be way down at 80P. Because he just, he's not getting enough time to climb up the actual board. But people are going to know. Keen and out. Keen and out. Exactly.

These types of players that you know you do want to get value on. that player. But everyone else does as well and just they can get lost in the shuffle. They really, so. So. So. So. And there's, there's different ways you can mock. Like, sure.

Mark them. If you've got the UDK, we have, you can, you can literally highlight them. If you're printing a cheat sheet, circle them, go to the bottom and circle them. Um, you have to do that. Otherwise, you forget the tank Bigsby is out there. You're like, ah, I wanted to leave the draft with him and. Exactly. And then like right, Tank Dell.

Yeah. I'm seeing a 16th rounder. You're not going to see him. You're not going to naturally see him. He's not, yes, you won't just catch them because you won't scroll down far enough to see him. And other teams, other fantasy managers are going to be targeting those players as well. And you're going to hear their name or see it pop across the screen. And you're going to go, gosh, darn it.

I forgot to mark that guy. Right before your draft, the preceding three or four days, news can break. Sure. And that, those guys are not going to have enough time to move up. ADP. Like if this Higgins news happens one or two days before the draft, like you said, Tank Dell, or maybe it's Hutchinson, or maybe you want

to raise another player up, or Dalton Schultz, you know what I mean? Like, just things to pay attention to. It's just being prepared. It's very simple, but we're all humans and we all, we all do dumb things all the time. So I'm just, hey, hey, just do it right now. Just start marking the players

off, especially if you got the UDK, that will really help to mark them, but just do it. it right now, man. Yeah, I mean, I do the printout, you know, but in the UDK, you can go mark out, you know, four different types of players so that they're highlighted. Yeah, I mean, if you don't, if you don't have, if you don't have it, then just get a piece of paper and write down the name, just write like the names of those guys super low in ADP that you don't want to forget. Yeah, and it'll make you feel like your draft went much better if you steal three or four

those guys at the end. So, moving on. Number seven. All right, I'll call this panic-free tight end. And this is something that's been emerging a little bit over the last month, I think, with some different names. But, you know, we've talked a lot in the offseason during our top 10 rankings episode for the tight ends, how badly we want one of those elite guys. Jason just talked about how if he drafts a running back, he feels a little bit of a license to draft Brock or McBride. But I'll throw Loveland, Warren, into that group. But if you don't get them, maybe you have craft, maybe you have kid. If you don't get the big time tied in, I want to highlight what you should be looking for at the

tight end position, either late in the draft or more so. on the waiver wire throughout the year, things that we need to pay attention to to actually get viable tight ends later in the draft on the waiver wire that produce. So we looked at the last seven years of data and here are four things that we pay attention to. The big one, target share. This is an easy one for us to understand. It's a go-to on the show all the time. But targets for, I mean, I remember doing this 10 years ago, sorting by, sorting the waiver wire tight-ins by targets.

when I'm looking for a streaming tight-in. Just who's getting the ball. Targets have the highest correlation year-to-year for fantasy. It just acknowledges how involved the players in the offense. What we're looking for, 17-plus percent target share, closer to 20 percent. Receiving yards per game again, another easy one to look at. You need 45-plus receiving yards a game to be a top-10 tight-in. If you want to be top six, you've got to be up over 54, maybe.

55. Thank you. You look at route share when they're on the field for a pass play, are they blocking? Are they running a route? There are lots of different types of tight ends? So are they actually running routes? What's the percentage of routes they run on their snaps? And then air yard share is something you can look at just to show downfield potential.

There are certain tight ends that are just going to be close to the line of scrimmage. Not a lot of them are going to go way down the field. Air yards measure the distance of football travels through the air from the line of scrimmage to the target. That's the definition of it. And so we want downfield threats, not necessarily, Kyle would say like Austin Hoopers, right? So you want something above 15% in that metric. And so some late round tight ends to highlight this year that meet that,

that aren't the top guys. Kyle Pitts, who I really like, I do, I do, I really like it. But his target share. What did he say? His target share is 21%. Rout percentage is 86%. Air yard share 21%. He checks all those boxes.

Sam Leporta. Target share, 18%. Same thing. I mean, he checks all the boxes. Dallas Goddard. And then the one that we haven't said a lot, maybe because he's always infinitely boring in our minds. But Hunter Henry, who just signed another extension,

target percentage, 17% last year. Route percentage, 72%. 15% air yard share. Just kind of a tried and true guy. There are lots of guys at the end. I mean, I think Isaiah likely is going to be in that category. Corey this year. But predicting touchdowns is really tough. But looking at target chair, looking at air yards, that's your best chance at not panicking at tight end, not feeling forced to submarine

your draft. If Jason's in the first round and he takes a wide receiver because that's the best player available to him and he doesn't go for one of those big names, there are some things that you need to pay attention to at the tight end position. So I just wanted to highlight some of those. Yeah, I mean, this is why personally I hate middle round tight ends. I just think you're wasting opportunities to get quality running backs and wire receivers. Because at the end of the draft, when the draft is over and every team has drafted every player imaginable, I can look on the waiver wire and see five tight ends that I'm like, those are just as good as some of these.

Like maybe they're a point worse or their opportunities a little less good, but it's like not that big of a gap. You don't need to freak out about tight ends in the middle of your draft. I like that tip. All right. We are moving on. What are we on? Six.

Is that right? Six. Yep. Cool. Because the seven's on the board. Yeah. That's good. Number six.

We are moving on. We are moving on from the dusties. You can. What does that mean? That means that the dusty picks at the end of the drafts. I see. Move on from them. Do not just hold them because of promise of the future.

What if they're super good? Well, then they're not dusty. then they're not dusty and you don't need to move on from them. But I want to make it, I think the best way to realize this is not making a move is in and of itself a move. That is your transaction. Every action has an equal opposite reaction.

You are choosing to keep that player. That is an active movement. So just to clarify for listeners, you're talking about the last, when you take those shots at guys very, very late in the draft, You're saying quickly move on from those players when they don't show you something. Don't stay on the promise that you will see something.

Exactly right. And there has so much data behind this to just say that, you know, we're playing an odds probability game. And the odds are that those guys who don't do something good in week one aren't going to do something good in the first month of the season. It doesn't mean that they won't be good the second half of the season, but you can pick them up off of waivers later. you holding on to them for the six weeks it might take before they finally show up,

that's not a good transaction for your team. I talked about this on a former Tips and Tricks episode of take dumps now, not later, with regards to week one and week two. Matt agrees. Yeah, Matt takes dumps now and later. He's dumps like a truck, you know? Here's the thing.

thing, those week one and week two waiver wire pickups, they are statistically, yeah, there it is. Oh. Shout out Leonard for Nets. They're just statistically so much more valuable, not only because you get more weeks, but just because they perform better. The guys who show up in week one tend to do better. Here's a perfect example from last year. Rounds 11 through 15, okay, no kickers or defense. So that's 60 picks other than, you know, taking out kickers in defense.

there were four players of all of them that made an impact in the first month of the season. It's just like, take, take, how many? Four, four of those rounds, 11 through 15, yeah, it's just most of them. And two were quarterback. It's like it makes sense of, they touch the ball every, every game. You're going to know. Be willing to move on quick. Just don't hold on.

Like, draft them. You got to draft someone in the 11th, 12, 13, 14, 15th round. That's a rule. You have to. But if they don't hit in week one, be fine moving on. Now, the only exception to that, I would say, is kind of going with Andy's tip of depth, those insurance running backs. You know, you're, Blake Horm's going to be rostered everywhere.

Yeah, you're not expecting to see something. That one you're holding on to so that you don't have to bid 100% of your fab when and if they have the chance to become a superstar. Outside of that, and I would say especially lower NFL drafted wide receivers, those guys. Cyrus Allen, you talked about him as sleeper. If he's not on the field week one in like, you know, getting 75 plus percent of snaps,

pun him off a bridge. Baxter this thing. Okay. All right. It's Mike's turn. Number five. Speaking of quarterbacks, the elite quarterback prices are cheaper than ever. And you need to understand what's going on with the market.

Because it's fantasy football, especially in the draft season, everything is the market. The, you know, the early years of this show, we were completely late round quarterback. That was the theory, the game theory that we subscribed to, to tremendous success. Because of, I mean, a lot of it was just fantasy football players

weren't quite fully educated on the value that you could extract from the end of mobile quarterbacks. I was saying it was a little bit of the emergence of the mobile power. Yeah, and like 10 years ago, you know, everyone, well, I got to get Tom Brady. He's the best quarterback in the league. He's going to be the best fantasy football quarterback, of course. And it was, well, actually, your opportunity cost of giving up that first, often back then, or a high second round pick is you're missing out on high probability running backs and wide receivers.

The market has kind of flipped that this year, not kind of like it has severely. Right now, so Josh Allen is, he's the certified QB1, I think he should be. Right now, he is going five picks later. So that's not a ton, but he was about the middle of the second round. Didn't last year? Yeah, compared to last year. And this year, he's going to about the end of the second. And here's where stuff gets wild.

The QB2 in ADP right now is Lamar Jackson. compared to 2025's QB2, it's a full round and a half later. So your opportunity cost is not a second round pick for the QB2. It's an early fourth rounder. In fact, this year you have the guys who I think can be up, you know, the most likely to be the elite game-changing quarterbacks. The end of that tier is Jane Daniels and Jalen Hertz, who are going right now in the sixth round,

the QB5 and QB6 ADPYs are going in the sixth. So, you know, I still prefer to go into my draft with the idea of, okay, I'm not going to burn an early pick on a quarterback and really hope that it's the difference maker when I need to be building up my depth, like Andy was pointing out. This year, though, there's a lot of guys who are presenting value at the position. Joe Burrow, a player I love this year, I love the Bengals. I think that brook can push to be the QB1 this year.

He's going in the fifth. And then they said, Daniels and Hertz are going in the sixth. So it's, while you can go into, if you're a late round quarterback drafter, you can go in with that strategy of, you know, I'm still going to wait. I'm going to get value. And I'm not, there's fun guys who are going late. Of course. Someone will emerge from that crop because they do every single year.

But when you're building your team, the highest probability is these early quarterbacks. but they're not early round quarterbacks anymore. They're now mid-round. It changes the acclades. So it's all about the market. It's all about the opportunity cost. So just be cognizant of the fact that, like, I'm not looking for a quarterback in the fourth round.

I normally get them later. Just peek at that quarterback tab. And you might be like, holy crap. Lamar Jackson is still there at the turn of the fourth round. Sometimes just take the value. What I've seen a lot in our mock drafts in my experience, experience this year is that Josh will go, Alan will go.

And then people will kind of wait and then when the next shoe drops on quarterbacks, they all go real quick. Because, like, Lamar, Burrow, May, Daniels, hurts. Those guys, you can see the like the game of chicken

happening a little bit. Sure. Which again, whether you want to get in on that or not, the value is so much different is what Mike's saying. Yeah. And, and, and, look, this is ADP. You got to know your league. Perhaps you're in a league where quarterbacks just, they fly off

early. Then you just chill out. Like we said, there are guys who are going later that are fun and you can see what the ceiling cases. You can easily make the ceiling case for a lot of these later round guys. So just I guess it really, you know,

it's just an evolution of the stay water don't have a rock solid firm plan that you will, that's rigid and you can't deviant. And don't feel guilty at this point. Correct. Taking the quarterback. Like, we've been in a lot of mucks.

We had so many years a late round quarterback. We get into a mock. I'm like, I like this guy at this spot, but I almost feel guilty taking a quarterback. You feel like, oh, that's not the, that's a one. This isn't the way. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right, we'll take a break and continue the countdown.

All right, our top 10 tips and tricks continue. Number four. All right, this one I'm calling the bad old days. The bad old days. This one was not BAT. T-L-E. You going to battle? No, bad.

Bad. Space. Old. Days. It was O-L. apostrophe. Because there's a phrase, people say, the good old days. Right.

Yeah. So this one's like the, these are the battle days. These are the battle days. The battle days. I hate you guys. All right. This was my, this is my favorite one because it was a journey to discover these numbers on my own. Like, I was very curious.

So I took a look at the last 10. years at the 10 oldest players drafted each year in fantasy. Okay. So that's a lot of, a lot of players. And I wanted to look which ones were what I'd consider a win that would be exceeding their ADP, a loss much worse than their ADP, or a push, kind of met their ADP.

So 10 years worth of data, the 10 oldest players each year, here's the numbers. 30 wins, 50 losses, 20 pushes. So a true hit, like winning on that pick, has a 30% hit rate. But I was like, let's look at it by position because maybe age has a correlation more with a position. And it did. The worst bet you can make, and it's ironic timing with the Evans News this morning, is on older fantasy wide receivers. In that 10-year span, they went 7, 19, and 8.

So that's seven wins above ADP. So 7, a 21% of the time above ADP. 19 losses below ADP and eight pushes. So the receiving age cliff seems to be very steep. Like when it goes, it goes. We've been there with the Julios and AJ Greens. We've been there with, you know. So who is that this year?

That's Devante Adams. Yeah, I'll give you them all. I'll give you all those. So old tight ends in that span did the best, but you kind of. Yeah, that's Kelsey. You kind of know why. That's just Travis Kielsey. That's not fair.

I mean, he wasn't old. He wasn't in the sample for, you know, 10 year ago sample. But they were six, two and one. But if you weren't Kelsey, if you weren't a Hall of Famer, they were horrific. So if you were a non-elite, you were 0 and 5. You never out kicked your ADP. Also, one of the things I think that was interesting looking at it is that over the years we've had Hall of Famers that were older, that performed super well. and it kind of made us think

that old guys perform better than they do. If you look at Brady, Breeze, Rivers, Big Ben, Fitz, Gore, like those were these older, elder statesmen that always performed. But... That's what scares me about like... Kelsey even? No, no, no, like two years from now, Dack. Because I love Dack. I love him forever.

But it's like, we look at these guys who are playing at 40, Brady and Stafford and go, well, Dak's going to frigging crush when he's only 37 but it's like is he is he that level is he a hall of fame level quarterback because they because most people don't well look I'm going to try to tell you what to pay attention to to try to figure out who will perform if you're an older player one thing to know half of the losses were availability not declined so in other words injuries were prominent for older players yeah I can

I can attest one thing you can pay attention to and we've seen it with some of the older guys recently, or one of them, especially, the encore effect is actually real. If a player was old and already performed old, they're more likely to do it again. So Derek Henry, Travis Kelsey, those guys, if you did it once, if you broke the mold, if you outkick the 30%, you're more likely to do it again. That's something to pay attention to if you don't want to take Derek Henry off the board. Which I won't. Yes, exactly. So I will give you, here are, the oldest players. I'll give you the oldest players being drafted this year. But the TLDR is basically that over the last decade, drafting one of the 10 oldest players

in the first nine rounds lost you money half the time. So it's just something to keep in mind. And profitability, doing well with the pick. Old quarterbacks did well. Travis Kelsey did well. But this year it's Matthew Stafford. He's 38 years old. It's Travis Kelsey, 37, about to be. It's Devante Adams and Mike Evans Travis Kelsey 37 36.9 I'm just saying

the fact that he is still out there So like Matthew Stafford So these are drafting the first 12 rounds this year Stafford, Kelsey Adams, Evans Kittal Yeah We kind of were like excited about him

But we forget there's an age component on top of the injury So availability for Kittal is going to be a question Stefan Diggs, Derek Henry, and Aaron Jones. So to Jason's point yesterday, when his sleeper was Jordan Mason, Aaron Jones at running back, that's a tough one because I would not say the encore effect is in place for Aaron Jones. No, he hasn't been special at an old age. Henry it is. Henry it is, Stafford it is. I wouldn't have said that Kittal probably fit. Kittles just breaking into the older group. So that was one where we're going to see. But Evans and Adams, I think, are the biggest decisions

for fantasy players. There was a part of this offseason pre-substation, Jason, where I feel like your Evans has gone. Yes, I was so high. Down. When he signed with San Francisco, I was like, holy crap. Yeah. I love this. He's perfect for their system, perfect for their quarterback. I loved everything about it. And then it's just like, man, he's so old and broken.

And he's playing next with substation, yeah. Oh. The graphic with no sound? I made the sound. I made the sound. I made the sound. But Jason, do it again? What does this sound that a substation makes? Thank you. Well, that's disappointing.

I thought Tara McLaurin might crack this list. That's why I was really curious if he was. So he's not one of the 10 oldest. He's 30.9. He'll turn 31. Yeah, he's not one of the, he doesn't technically fit the age. He's a little scared.

It doesn't mean he's fine. It just means he doesn't fit the stats. So there you go. Do with that what you will. we're moving on. Number three. The hangman is back. We are revisiting the dead zone.

This is the dead zone for running back. We just got a question on that recently. And I knew this was coming. If you've been playing fantasy football long enough, you know about the running back dead zone for years. It was like the rounds four through eight, they were not great hit rates to draft running backs. because usually what happens in those rounds

is people who they've got a lot of red flags, they just get pushed up. It's the desperation. Yeah. It's the, oh, no, I'd have to get a running back here. And so you burn a pick on a running back who is only there because the other, because supply is running out.

You're like, well, well, he's a starter. So I got to take him in the fourth. And you're like, you're missing out on on high level wide receivers or tight end. Yeah, you were. And then the last couple of years came, and it didn't really work out that way. Those rounds weren't just a dead zone and weren't terrible. But I think we're back. This year, looking at ADP, I think we are back. See, what's happened now is you've got a lot of running backs being drafted.

I mean, more than half of the first two rounds are running backs. The studs are being drafted very high. But what is happening is that is pushing up the lesser good backs into a round. range that they haven't been the last couple of years. I'll give you a couple examples here. The running back 24 in 2024 was in the seventh round. The running back 24 right now is a mid-fifth round pick. It is significantly higher. An eighth round pick was the running back 36 in 2024. So that's like a fringe flex play. Eighth round, that's okay. Um, you. You, I'm sorry, he was 10th rounder, and now he's up in the eighth round this year.

Those players being pushed up really means, I mean, part of this is the correlation to your quarterbacks going a little bit later. Running backs are being drafted. Mediocre middling running backs are being drafted higher than they should go. And we have a tool on the website, the Value Scout tool. It's in the UDK. It's a really cool thing we came out with last year where it takes our projections, looks at basically what the true value would be according to historical precedent for what you would expect them to be drafted at ADP was. And then it compares to where their ADP currently is.

And so there's a handful of guys right now that if you look at the Value Scout tool, you just see they're being significantly overdrafted what the expectation of their ADP should have been. Travis H. Chan Jr. right now is being picked 10 spots ahead of ADP. Now, obviously, maybe this changes with Alvin Camara being out for a month. David Montgomery, right now, you know, we've got him priced basically 15 picks behind where he's being drafted in ADP. Jalen Warren looks like an eighth rounder, according to Arkansas's projections, but he's being pulled up to the sixth round on Sleeper. And Tony Pollard, another one where he's going, you know, 11 spots. ahead of where we project as ADP should be.

You can check out more of these players in the Value Scout tool. But this is basically, it's not to say, don't hear what I'm not saying, it's not to say that there won't be any good pick in the rounds four through eight for running back. But what matters that you need to know is that when you are drafting the running back 24 through 36, you are paying a lot more right now than you have in recent years. And if you are, it mathematically means that other. players at other positions are being pushed down and they are a better value than in years past. So you just got to play the market.

The pendulum swings back and forth. The health of running backs the last two years has just pushed running backs way too high in those middle rounds. Do you want to know something cool? Yeah, I do. Heck yeah. If you take two awesome running backs at the top of your draft, you don't have to worry about that. You don't have to worry about no RB strategy. Just do.

Just draft great running backs. I pretty much require two of my first four. four rounds to be running backs and potentially three because I love to just, you know, hi-tie, shotgun those wide receivers for a while afterwards. Yeah. Number two. We're calling this one hot or not. Number two may think of Matt.

I remember that. Oh, hot number two is hot number two is not a place you want to be. Oh, goodness. Been there. Let's not focus on that. This is a PG show, remember? Rim. What did he say?

So we actually, we just fielded a question about this where people were saying, you know, what is the kind of the emphasis on early season schedule? And because we're talking about hot starts and it does factor in the first month of the season. It carries a lot of weight for fantasy, for emotion. And when also a part of that is like, because when you are, when you go 0 and 2 or 0.3, it's really difficult to not panic because you feel under the knife. You're like, I got to make, I got to make moves here. And you can end up making trades that are just, they're bad decisions.

You get on tilt. Yes, you tilt. And we don't want to do that. So we want to have, you know, hotter starts. So for a strength of schedule, a different way to look at that. Last year, we looked at, we took the. data, we had eight teams that were projected as underdogs. This is overall the NFL team. They were projected as underdogs in three, at least three of their first four games before the

season even started. Of those eight teams, only one of them won more than a single game. And it was the Jacksonville Jaguars. And that was like, oh, this is the team that people were pretty wrong about. Like the Liam Cohen effect on the Jags really took them to a different place over those first four games. They won three. They had a positive point differential. That was a great year. Six of those

eight, though, bottom 10 in points per game scoring. Six of the eight scored less than one rushing touchdown per game. So it's like look, the sports books, they're not trying to lose money. They're trying to put lines where they think they can win it.

But these people know what they're talking. talking about. It was Jacksonville, Carolina, the Titans, Cleveland, the Jets, Raiders, Giants, and Saints. Dang. They were, it wasn't good. And so I bring that up for it, you know, maybe it's going to help you make some tiebreaker decisions. And the running backs from those teams, guess who ended up being a value? Travis A. Chan Jr. because he's on a winning football team. It's like, Gentie. There was a great game. There was a great game in there, but overall, for that pick that you made, it was a big bummer. Chuba, a couple good

games, and then it was rough. Breece Hall, it was not a strong start. Camara, the same. If you're looking at those four games, and Tony Pollard, these were not truly, like, these weren't running backs that you could plug and play and feel good about. So,

let's look at 2026. Who are the teams projected to their underdogs in at least three of their first four games? Okay. Get the numbers for this. It's tough because it's Arizona. Yeah. Cleveland.

Yeah, Cleveland. The Colts. Yeah. That's interesting because Johnny Taylor splits and wins and losses are pretty wide. See if you can spot what's going on with. Keenan didn't throw their, they didn't become favorites instantly? See if you can see what's going on with you. Okay, Colts.

Raiders. Yeah. Dolphins. Yeah. Dogs. They are dogs in at least three of their first four games. And those are first and second. running backs. Jay-JAN, Taylor,

Jets, Breece. Surprisingly, the Broncos are in there, too, because their opening schedule is tough. But this is not to say that all of those guys, all those running backs are going to be bad or bust picks. It's just uphill battle. It is definitely an uphill battle for guys who are going very early

in your fantasy football draft. So, you know, when you're deciding, maybe it's a, maybe it becomes a tiebreaker. for you. Yeah, that's interesting and kind of sad. Yeah. Because of the players we love this year. All right, we're there. Number one.

All right, our tip it's always been something a little bit like this every year. Number one is just wipe the slate clean. We all suffer. The fantasy. Wipe it. Burns. The bad memories and thoughts. Well, Mike didn't have any bad memories last year. No, no. He wants to keep

a slate dirty. But we are recommending to you, Mike. wipe that slate clean yeah let's remember nothing get back to hey that's what I'm doing but you got to you got to move I won last year I will remind you that I won last year but it were on to I don't really remember that I was it's funny I was I wiped the slate clean yeah I followed the rule I was on uh I did a guest spot for Tony Realee show and we were talking about like bad beats and I brought up the how I had Lamar Jackson week one he takes me up by one point eight points. They end up going into overtime and he fumbles and I lose and it's like this is a

horrifically bad beat. It turns into one of the worst, not what it turns into the worst fantasy football season where I'm just getting bad beat and he's like, well, did you ever go back to Lamar Jackson? I'm like, of course. Yeah, he's a mar. Of course I went back. Like you can't. When a player of of that caliber, it's like Christian McCaffrey. There's, there are many people last year who are like, I will never ever draft Christian McCaffrey again because of what he did to me. The phrase the phrase that people probably used was like, well, I'm just willing to let him be great and I won't deal with the risk. But they might not think that anymore.

They might think, I wish I had drafted him. And I'm not saying, sometimes a player burns you and like, then they burn you again. It's just, it's a new year. It's a new you. Thank you, Jason. A brand new you. if a player destroyed you with injury last year, just wipe the pain, man.

It's tough, but you have to do it. Yeah, I feel like Jason's hat is so perfectly blending with these back wall graphics. It's like all the dudes. The deucers are just like nodding their heads. It's like you don't even have a top of a head. Oh, I mean. Now, do you need to make a little PSA for people that the other day

you had gotten a haircut? Oh, yeah. And people, a lot of people thought, Oh, so welcome to the ball club. I got, I got, I'm not full. We got bad news for you. We got bad at this guy. Not bald yet.

Got bad news for you, Baldies. Look at these luscious. He's not one of you. Not yet. All right. His slate is not why he clean up top. Am I right? Team bald down bad.

Yeah. Sorry, Baldies. Losers. I mean. Oh, yes. Josh. I love the idea of you just turning horribly against. for sure. If you're balding, you just need to know. What a loser.

I mean, man, what are those coldest sacks? I would never get real. Oh, my gosh. There you go. Hey, one final reminder here. The Megalabal. Megalibol. It is available. Entries right now. Grab a draft spot. Come play with us. We'll be playing 20,000 plus players, a chance to win the ultimate Foot Clan for Life. and a spot in the listener league. Let's set the new record.

Every year we've had a new record. Let's do it again, Foot Clan. You are undefeated. Meglabel.com. Yeah, that'll be so awesome. And then tomorrow we're going to get into bust and value picks. And on Friday, it's mock draft mayhem.

So you do not want to miss an episode. It is go time. If you're drafting tonight, tomorrow soon, good luck. Hopefully some of these tips and tricks helped you out. We will be back tomorrow with another episode. Take care. Goodbye. you for listening to another episode of the fantasy footballers podcast.

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