The Ringer NFL Show - Draft Szn Mailbag 2

Episode Date: August 27, 2021

Now in the heat of draft season, we open the mailbag once again to answer questions about draft strategy, underdiscussed players, stacking, superflex leagues, fantasy court, and more. We also introduce a new segment to the show, called League Rescue. Check out The Ringer's 2021 Fantasy Football Draft Guide here. Email us at [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's good, everybody? I'm John G. Stremski, host to New York, New York with JJ. The first podcast on The Ringer and Spotify dedicated to you, the New York Sports fan. We've got episode three nights a week, plus bonus episodes whenever news breaks. So make sure you follow the show on Spotify. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Danny Hype, I'm joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Whirlbeck. This is episode 113. We're doing mailbags.

Again, email us at Ringer Fantasy Football at Gmail.com. questions, concerns, thoughts, hopes, dreams, desires. Mostly you guys send us questions. Also go to fantasyf football.thorringer.com. Our draft guides there. It is updated with our latest rankings. Please check it out. It works on your phone.

Works on your computer. Top targets. Draft tracker. There's dynasty. Whatever you need. And the draft checker's cool. If you click on the rankings button, it pops up. There's rankings, top targets, draft tracker.

You hit the draft tracker button. And then as you're doing your draft and whatever platform you do, you can mark along with our rankings. You can look at our rankings while you're doing yours. And that way you're not anchored to. and not just, you know. Yeah, it shows you who's the top guy on our list. And you're not just a mental feeble weakling

who's being influenced by whatever the Yahoo or ESPN of rankings, that, or whatever you're using is. Feeble. Yeah, I don't know. By the way, I think this is the first time you've said the episode number. I agree. I don't know why you did that. 113.

113. Why not start now? There we go. Better late than ever. Okay. So, yeah, fantasyfutball.com. Check out the draft guide there. Ringerfantasyfoologat.gumel. Email is there.

Let's get into the emails. Yeah, mailback time. baby, part two. Some very funny listeners, by the way. I was cracking up, cracking up reading out some of our emails. That's nice. Thank you guys. Awesome emails.

We decided to bring the mailbag back because, I mean, we're really approaching peak draft time. Like, we're getting really close to peak draft time here. So we figured we bring it back. Maybe we'll even do another one, you know? Who knows? We're going to start off with an email from Dylan. Dylan.

What moment in your fantasy football career has scarred you the most? Craig? Yeah, so the first year I ever played fantasy. I think I was 12 years old. And I didn't know what I was really. doing and my brother invited me in his league and I was all excited. And it was my brother and his friends. He's four years older than me. So he was like, you know, maybe 16. And one of the guys in the league was one of my brother's friend's dad, who's a, he was the athletic director at a high

school and a football coach. He coached Roy Hulu. Remember him? The running. Oh, yes. I remember him. So I, uh, it was the last week of the regular season, which was week 17 back then, because we didn't know what we were doing back then. So it was week 17 was the actual championship week of fantasy football and I was down four points on Sunday night and all I had left was Rex Grossman. And it was a points per completion league, folks. Jesus. That means if Peyton Manning goes 30 for 40, he already gets 30 points despite any of the yards of touchdowns.

What the fuck is wrong with you? Right. I don't know. It was 2006. Everything was really raw. It was a wild west. So I was down four points to this guy, Dave. And we were like, dude, Craig, the fucking 12-year-old is going to take down the big dog for

the championship in his first year ever. Rex Grossman on Sunday night football went two for 12 for 33 yards and three interceptions and got me negative negative 2.7 points in a points per completion league. And I haven't been in the same sense. And it's kind of shaped who I am today in fantasy football. I feel like I remember that game. I went back and looked at Rex Grossman's stats. He only in one year as a full starter.

And of course, that's the year I had him on my team. And it was a really bad year for Rex. Rex was better. That's a gut punch. Rex started in a Super Bowl. On the Simmons scale, that's an absolute cut punch. That's unrecoverable. That's honest, that's worse than mine.

My scarring moment was 2011. I had Drew Breeze who led the league in passing yards. I had Calvin Johnson who led the NFL in receiving yards. I also had Adrian Peterson. I was like, this is the best fantasy team I'll ever have in my life. But the championship was in week 17. There you go. Because the commissioner was an idiot.

And so in week 17, the other guy picks up Matt Flynn. Matt Flynn throws six touchdowns and I lose. Oh, my God. That's really funny, actually. It's fucking infuriating. DK on the docketer just has minds easy. I mean, I've already, like, bitched and moaned about it enough on his pot, so I'm to keep it quick.

But Alvin Kamara, can you not score six touchdowns? That was it? Wow. In one fucking game. Oh, my God. Just score four. Just score four, Alvin. Instead of six.

Glad you're over this. It's just ridiculous. He also should have scored, like, two more. I'm never going to forgive the fucking Vikings. His expected fantasy points were higher than a game. when he had six touchdowns. They brought in Taysam Hill just to troll everyone. Taysam Hill scored a fucking touchdown.

And then Camara scored another one later with like a minute left. I can't hear it. Taysam Hill just getting brought in to fuck with everyone. Taysam Hill might just be a Nathan for you sketch in the NFL. We don't know. Oh my God. It really is, isn't it? Yeah, anyways, I'm going to bury that.

I'm done talking about Camara forever from now on. Yeah. For that game, I mean. The plan. You're a quarterback, but you play special team. and you're 30 years old and you're 30 years. We're going to trick the most progressive,

offensive-minded coach in history to play a special teams player at quarterback. Here's the plan. We take our Hall of Fame quarterback off the field in key situations. The guy that's passed for 5,000 yards more than any other player all-time combined, we're going to take him off the field

and we're going to put this 30-year-old guy who wasn't even good in college as a pastor and he's going to be our quarterback. Now, we can't get the Saints to pay you like the quarterback, but with this mechanism known as voidable years, we can get it in writing that you will be paid in the future, $140 million, which of course you will not see. But people will talk about it on ESPN.

Wow. Anyway. Okay, let's move on. That was, let's pitch that later today for you. We got another email from Corey C. Does having a league with three receiver spots change their priority in drafting receivers? It's a league with two running backs, three receivers to tie down in a flex. Yeah, it does.

If you're in a league with three receivers instead of two, it's a decent difference. Like receivers are more important. Generally more of a certain position makes that position more important. Yeah, I mean, because it's like you're having to start more players at that. So therefore, I think people are going to start picking those guys more quickly. they're going to hoard those guys a little bit more. You have to have more depth. And it means the gap between the good ones and the bad ones is wider.

That's why tight end isn't a big deal because if Travis Kelsey didn't exist, pretty much all the tight ends are the same because there's only 12 of them. But now if you have a starting three wide receivers in a 12 team league, you've got to start 36 wide receivers and toss and flex. It could potentially be 48. So it's important to get the top guys. I think the simplest answer to be specific about what you do in a three receiver league. I'm a lot more open to drafting a receiver in the first two rounds in a three

receiver league than a two receiver league. I'd also say that after eight, your first eight picks, you probably want five wide receivers. That's a rough guide. When people say zero RB, it makes a lot of sense in a three wide receiver league. You could just, I have a friend who loves just starting his draft every year, three straight wide receivers and then just like figures it out. And it's always a scary team because like three years ago was always like he had like O'Dowell, Julio and, you know, DeAndreadre Hopkins and you're like, Jesus Christ. Like, this is extremely daunting. So give that a shot if you're in a three web receiver league and nobody knows what to do.

if you do that last year and then you get James Robinson at running back, then you just destroy everybody. That's the idea. And people say, wide receiver is the least fragile position. They usually don't get hurt. They last the longings are the most predictable. So that's, you know, a reason to do it. Do you guys like the three receiver sets? Sorry, the three receiver fantasy leagues?

11 personnel fantasy? Yeah. Do you guys like running 11 personnel? Yeah, I think my ideal fantasy league size would be two running backs to like a super flex. So you basically have two quarterback league in the three receivers. I like it because it mimics kind of what a real. team looks like. Originally, it's like one quarterback,

three out receivers, one or two running backs in the tight end. Again, it's like the two receiver format was 40 years ago, and now there's every team three receivers as starting

instead of two. So, you know. Yeah, there's just a ton of really good receivers now, too. Exactly. Yeah. You should probably have three receivers. Okay, we have two different emails

from the UK here. Nice. The first. Chirio. Sorry, that's probably not what they say. What did you say? He said, Cheerio. I'm sure they don't say that.

that's like saying put another shrimp on the barbie to somebody who lives in Australia, I think. I know. I know. D.K. the cultured explorer historian. I recognize I'm just being an idiot. So continue.

Thomas writes, I wonder how all of you sleep at night. Me too. I drafted and got value at every pick. Yet I find myself discontent with my team. I have Dalvin Cook, Russell Wilson, and I think DeAndre Jondry Hopkins.

I find myself antsy and willing to. upgrade in preseason through trade. Do you ever come away from a draft happy? Or is there always this inert feeling and fantasy that you could have done better and be doing better? And is it a good idea to trade before week one? I want to focus on the first part, D.K., are you ever happy? Yes.

I am definitely happy sometimes after drafts. However, I find, I have found, I feel like, that whenever I'm happiest, my team ends up being the worst. And whenever I'm like, this team sucks. Yes. I'm always like, this team fucking won the lead. I literally said that to hype on the phone.

I was like, there's a direct correlation between a team that you kind of don't like and think is boring being good and a team you love and think is sexy, sucking. 100%. I think it's because you like get anchored

to this idea that you've picked all the best sleepers and like, these guys are sleepers for a reason. Most of the time they don't work out, you know? Yeah, it's like a baseball batting average. If you hit 30% in your sleepers, that's considered a good thing and you just draft all of them

and most of them suck. I mean, this guy's team, the reason why it's boring is because he has Russell Wilson who's been around forever and is good, inconsistent. And D'Andre Hopkins, who's like, kind of no longer like a top sexy wide receiver.

There's all these new guys that are someone cooler. But like those guys are probably going to have really consistent safe fucking seasons and he's going to win now. Yeah. And no one talks about Dalvin Cook either. Like it's just... You don't talk about Dalvin Cook because what he wants to say is really good. You should take him second. Yeah. Like it's, you know, there's not much for us to say, so we don't talk about it.

It's like that scene in the league where Ruxpin is roster baiting. Yeah. Like literally like after the draft, it's like yeah. And then I think it comes in last. Like that's it. Like if you're roster baiting after your draft, like, like take a cold shower. Yeah, I would say that we got to find it, we got to figure out a name for this.

Well, what you want to do is, is you want to draft players who are husband material, not just one night stands. Wow. Wow. That's, that's unbelievable. That's exactly it. Also, you can just do the Vince Vaughn and not have goals because then you'll never feel to reach them because happiness is just reality. I gotta tell you, it feels phenomenal.

What do you guys think of this idea of trading before the season? I think if you have a, if you're convicted on a player, if you have strong conviction, and you think this guy's going to blow up and the person that you're trading with is undervaluing them, then yeah, go trade with them. If you think, like, for instance, for instance, say, I don't know, I'll just pick CD Lamb out of a hat because I thought of him. But if you think he's going to, like, absolutely blow up

this year and the guy that you're trading with is just like, oh, yeah, he's a solid wide receiver too. Then, yeah, go trade for him because you could get value. I vehemently disagree with you, D.K. I think it's the exact opposite. I think you shouldn't, you should be trading against hype because C.D. Lam is really hyped, and there's zero chance. I don't want to be aggressive, but there's zero chance the guy who has C.D. Lamb's like, yeah, he's fine. It's like you fall in love

with your own players after the draft. You're disagreeing with my example. I picked a bad example of a player. I'm saying if you think that a guy is underrated, go trade for him. That's my main point.

Ced lamb is a terrible example. Say, find me, give me a good example of someone who's underrated. I hate when mom and dad fight. He's vehemently disagreeing with me even though like

we're actually saying the same thing. I'm just saying, I would only do preseason trades if like hype is involved. And you want to trade, if you have a hyped guy who's getting a trade away CD Lamb, how about that? Yeah, I would rather trade away CD Lamb to someone who's obsessed with him because it's like, you know what I mean? But I just capitalize on the hype.

Yeah. But it's easier to say that. Like you're not really going to trade away a hype player if he's on your team. Okay. Another one from across the pond here. It's from Mark. Hey guys. Mark.

You've helped me win my league the last two years, which has been extremely satisfying, being the only Brit in a league full of Americans. Wow. That's a flex. America is losing abroad. Wow. So thank you for your great work. It's like going to England and being better at everyone,

being better than everyone at soccer. That's exactly like that. Incredible flex. I have a few questions from the mocks I've been doing using your rankings. DJ Moore is always sitting there for me in the fourth or fifth round. I don't think you guys have talked about them much. I'm not listening well at work, quote, working.

So sorry if you've talked about him. How do you feel about DJ Moore in that Y receiver 2 spot? And really all those receivers there like DJ Morthiel and, you know, there's kind of that whole little grouping there. How do you guys feel about DJ more? Because I think that he's in that range with like feeling Deonti Johnson's around there,

Julio's around DJ more. Like, I don't know what to get. What do you think about that range of like those wide receiver twos, boarding wide receiver threes? Yeah, I mean, I really like DJ more. I think the problem is just over the last few years, he has not gotten the touchdown,

like the touchdown production that you really want from like a high-end receiver. I think he's super talented. He has come into the, league and produce from a very early age. He's like 24 years old and he's been in the league for three years. And so, and he's been really productive every year. But I think just, it's sort of like the Julio Jones conundrum.

It's like, is this guy going to score the amount of touchdowns that you need? Is this, like, if you're picking between him and say Chase Claypool, who I'm like, this guy could score 10 touchdowns that wouldn't surprise me whatsoever, you know, how do you lean? Where do you lean? I think DJ Moore is sort of a floor play because especially like in half PPR and PPR, um, he has the potential to like, go off in the touchdowns area, but it's just, it hasn't happened, and so I can't really trust it

yet. So that's kind of how I feel about DJ Moore. It's just like a floor play solid, not, he doesn't feel like the league winning type of player. I mean, I, how do you guys feel about it? It's funny how much our perception of him would probably be different if he just had like seven or eight touchdowns in each of the last two years. He's sixth in yards over the last two years out of all wide receivers. But he's literally never been in the top 40 in red zone targets in each of the last two seasons. So I guess my question is, is, do we have any reason to believe that with Sam Donald in this offense that that can change? Is it random? Will it get better? It's not random. The Red Zone stuff's really real because it's basically Joe Brady was the coordinator for LSU

when they had that huge Joe Burrough season. They went undefeated, won the championship, all the jazz. I believe, so before the 40-yard, if you look at DVOA, which is like basically offensive efficiency, it's like five yards and third and ten is pretty useless. Five yards and third to four is really important. So it's just adjusting for context. So within that, the Panthers had the second best offense by DVUA before the 40-yard line. Like, it was the chiefs were number one, Panthers were number two. Inside the 10, the Panthers went from the second best offense to the third worst offense. And it seems to be a combo of Joe Brady's offense isn't great in space. And then also, Teddy Bridgewater said they didn't practice in the red zone last year, like red zone situations, which is insane. one of the reasons I like Robbie Anderson

and I'm hoping that the Panthers get a lot better because one, it's hard to get fucking worse than bottom three. Like even just regression is the kind of thing that moves you closer to the league average on that kind of stuff. But not if you don't practice it. So honestly, I'm a little, like,

if they're still not practicing the red zone, that'll blow my mind. I'm kind of just banking that they will fix that this year, to be honest. And if that's the case, I mean, then you're drafting a guy who's like a lock for 1,200 yards. And I mean...

Well, this is why I like Robbie Anderson because I think Robbie Anderson is the cheaper DJ Moore. Robbie Anderson, you can get three rounds later than DJ Moore, and also he might just outperuse DJ Moore outright. However, Digi Moore has a higher ceiling,

which is why he's going higher. How does Sam Donald fit into all this, too? I believe in Donald. We don't really know if he's just going to tank this entire offense. You know what I mean? I believe in Donald a lot.

I think Donald's going to be very good. To answer Mark's question, just yes or no, are you comfortable with him, DJ Moore as your wide receiver, too, generally speaking. I'd rather have him. I'm comfortable with him.

Yeah, as my wide receiver two, yes, is my wide receiver no. Is my wide receiver one? No. Be a lot happier if he was the third guy. I must seem for me. Third guy, you're like, yeah, that's like, that's easy. Hell yes. Okay, another question from work here is that Tray Sermon is sitting at the top of my rankings

around six or seven. How do you feel about Sermon that high? Because there is this question of Sermin v. Mawr. So Rahim Moster left practice with a back injury. I mean, we don't know if it's an injury or not, but he left practice this week. D.K., how do you feel about T.C. and like the tip of the like the six or seventh round basically. I mean,

we've got him ranked there. I think that would be a good spot to grab him. I like him. I think his upside is astronomical, honestly, in this offense that runs a ton. They have a very good offense. He could be involved in a passing game. They could end up just using him as the main guy on three downs and all that.

And it could be awesome. However, he is still dealing with the fact that the 49ers like to generally like to ride the hot hand or whatever. rotate running back so you don't know exactly how much work he's going to get. He's still dealing with Rahim Moster, who's a very good running back. However, I think it is important to note today, or on Wednesday, I believe, Rahim Moster went out with a tweaked back. He's been missing a lot of camp with other injuries. So he's just, to me, he is not necessarily a very trustworthy leadback,

even though I think if he is healthy, he's probably going to be like the quote-unquote starter. I think Sermon has higher upside I think that Moster's going to be it's going to be hard to trust him to be healthy for the whole season so I'm really excited about what Moster can do this or sorry what Sermon can do this year

I'm comfortable taking him at that spot because the upside is so good Here's what I'll say if you're happy with your team it might feel like a reach to grab him in the sixth seventh round but Trey Sermon's the type of guy who really almost feels like a handcuff

but like a like a extremely extremely efficient handcuff but we'll get some time first. But if you think about what the Niners can do at the end of the season, Moser's hurt a lot. The Niners,

the fantasy playoffs and championship, the Niners play the Falcons, then the Titans, then the Texans. Yep. And if Rahe Mostert is, you know, classic Rahe Mostert,

he'll probably be banged up. And Trey Sermann could be like a top 10 running back for those three weeks. I think if you draft Trey Sermann, you should be prepared to just not really play him for the first three or four weeks and understand that it might take early, midway through the season until he's fully the starter,

and then when he is, it'll be awesome. Yeah, play along came. You might need to play someone else at that RB2 spot for like the first three weeks of the season.

Last part for Mark here. This is huge. I think my uncle recently became Mariah Carey's agent at least or at least her representation over here in Europe trying to find the best word and ask him about you guys

using her song without confusing the hell out of him. Thanks to get to keep it to good work. Mark. This is incredible. Listen, I'm I am constantly baffled and surprised and appreciative of our listeners

and this was over the fucking top. Mark, I'll do anything to get this song. If Mariah Carey, if gives us the rights to use this song, this will be the Mark to see football show on the Ring of Podcasts. We're going to just name it after him. Marxism. What do we tell Mark to ask his uncle? Like, how do we word this?

He's saying it's, he's trying to think the best wording to ask him about. We'll follow up. We will follow up. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll get Spotify involved if we need it. We have to finesse this, you guys. If we've fucked this up. Are you saying that we're not dripping with finesse?

It could be the worst thing ever. Hey, don't mention any artist that's not Mariah Carey, how dare you? You're right. Those are stupid not thinking about it. I'm not finessing. Okay. This is from Rafi.

This is a question for D.K. Since he's in so many leagues, I'm currently playing in four fantasy leagues. Almost all the formats and the way we draft are the same. They're all like 10 or 14 teams, snake drafts. What if I go for the guys I really want in all four? We wind up with four very similar teams.

And then if one of the star players is doing, sorry, I can't read English. what of my teams that like the players are getting up sucking or get hurt and cost me all of my seasons should I diversify my teams per league

yes absolutely so this is like the question is and I actually counted up yesterday I'm in 22 leagues you guys oh my I cannot do this it's like I thought it was like 12 and then I started counting and I was like

holy shit how did I collect all these it's like I'm a hoarder how did you confuse 12 with 22 I think it was like it was 12 two years ago and then I just stopped counting. It's like, you, it's like, how does your garage get filled with shit?

I don't know, it just happens. You play stuff along the way. I think D.K. might have a problem, like a genuine problem. I think I do, honestly. By the way,

fantasy drafts, startup drafts for Dynasty Leaks got me through the pandemic. I'm not even, like, kidding a little. It was, like, the one reprieve I have from, like,

the anxiety and stress of this pandemic. I'm, like, thinking about my teams. So I joined a shitload over the last, like, year and a half.

But now, what do you do one, Sundays because now you have players on your team you're rooting for and players who are playing against you. Dude, I have that problem and I'm in like two leagues. Yeah, and now it's like I just have a portfolio of Justin

Jefferson and it's like I don't know how I feel about that. Here's how it goes and this is honestly I think a good thing and why I would actually recommend joining a lot of leagues. It's good because as you go along, when you start out in fantasy you have like all this anxiety you got your guys got to do well.

You got to watch this one game for this one guy. blah, blah, blah. Now I've reached the point where I have every fucking player in the NFL, and I'm just happy to see anybody too well. No, that is so... But that doesn't make any sense. It's not stressful. I'm passionately disagree with that. The entire point is investing your hope into players

and watching them succeed and feeling that gratitude and the guys you picked paid off. It sucks to just have everybody. I'm living the Peter Lefleur lifestyle. I gotta say, it feels phenomenal. You're a nihilist. We're leaving this out. Like, you're a nihilist. Like, you literally take comfort in the fact that we're just,

like, like, meaningless bacteria on a space rock floating throughout our space and, like, comes and goes. None of this matters. None of this fucking matters. But having said that, aren't there one or two leagues you care about more than the other 20? Yeah, I'm sort of joking because I actually don't have all the players in the NFL, believe it or not. I think it's a mix. I go with a lot of the players that I think are good and I think are going to do well. But also, if you have Cam Acres in every league, you're fucked in all your league. You know what I mean? So you have to diversify. So basically, I think it's a mix. You take, I have a lot of,

the same players. Like, for instance, I took a lot of Justin Jefferson last year, and it worked out really well for me. However, I still, like I said, I have Cam Makers in several leagues this year, and those leagues are going to be really hurting this year. So you have to be able to, and I think it's actually kind of fun because it helps you sort of open your mind to like some of these other guys being really good. You know what I mean? And it helps me, in particular, recognize that I don't know everything. And I'm like, if everybody's really excited about this player. Why are they excited about it? I start to look deeper into it and makes me more willing to pick them in a draft. So long story short, yeah, just you have to diversify.

I think it's important. But that, I wouldn't say just, you know, just take one guy and don't take that guy again in another league. Like, if you really have strong passion about this guy doing really well, then yeah, you can have them on two out of four or three out of four, but just don't like have the same team in every league. We got a similar-ish question. question from Hizzy. I don't know who Hizzy is, but I kind of like the name, actually, Hizzy. Hizzie. Similarish, which is, would you rather reach on all your players and have a team of guys

you're confident in it or roll with the guys who drop in the draft and hope things go your way? For example, what does someone like Danny Hifitz do in Draft League where everyone knows he loves Mike Davis? Do you reach two rounds for Mike Davis? It's a good question. It's a good question. Yeah.

The answer is, no, like, I don't reach for Mike Davis, two rounds early. Because, like, first of all, like, yeah, it's weird, like doing this for a living now. And then all the people in my leagues know my sleepers. And so I talk about Mike Davis-a-law season. And then my brother, my draft comes and my brother just takes the guys that I talked about to spite me, which if you're listening, Michael, like, fuck off. Can we have Craig and Haifitz's brothers come on and just, like, roast them? Without us, it's just them, too. I'm just going to talk to that.

Well, my brother's going to be 30 soon. So maybe we can have an all 30 club for them. Sorry, fuck you, Michael. Okay. Anyway, but generally speaking, I don't want to reach because the whole point is that I love Mike Dave. Like, if I've radicalized a lot of you on Mike Davis. And I want to take this opportunity to speak directly to my Mike Davis radicals. Please don't take him in the third round.

The Mike Davis, the whole reason I like Mike Davis is he is like the third or fourth round running backs, but you can get him later. Yeah, that's the whole point. So if you can, if you reach into the fourth round to get Mike Davis, he's just the fourth round guy like everyone. else. The reason I like him is that in ESPN, you can kind of get Mike Davis in the seventh round, and then in the fourth, you can take a receiver, and now you have Amari Cooper and Mike Davis, which I'll take over

J.K. Dobbins and Jamar Chase, which is what the other guy's going to have. So, don't reach too, I mean, get them if you get your guys. Just to me, reach one round early, never reach more than a round early for the guy. If they won't be there at your next pick, that's not a reach to me. That's what I was going to say is if you reach too

much, there's massive opportunity cost. potential. So if you're going to reach, do it by like 10 picks or 12 picks or whatever. To be clear, the definition of a reach to me is will they be there, not counting the first round or two, will they be there at your next pick? The answer is like, yes, that's a reach. Also, I would say that the later you get into your draft, the more you should reach because the, like, the hit rate of guys going around 11, 12, 13, like, it's just pretty much all the same. There's no huge drop bot between like round 12 guy and round 15 guy. So if you're in round 12,

and you like a guy that's probably not going to go to around 15, but you really want them, just take them because there's no difference. That's true. And the rankings matter less,

to be frank. It's all made up in the points in 10 spots. Yeah, it's the difference between our 30th and 40th guy versus our 140th and 130th guys. Yeah,

I mean, it's a huge difference. It's from Ryan. Ryan. Ryan. Ryan. We haven't said anyone's that. Do we have to retroactive?

Yeah, Thomas. I've been doing it. Craig has been doing it. Oh, you have? Okay. I just don't listen to Craig. Uh,

from Ryan, say you're starting a new podcast, not about fantasy football, and you need to draft a co-host. If your first overall pick were Danny, D.K, or Craig, what would that pod be about? This is an awesome question. So I really, really like working with you guys. I don't like where this is going. The implication that you two are at the top of my board is a little rich. I have the first overall pick to start a podcast with anyone.

Well, I already have a podcast with you guys. I feel like that's not diversifying my portfolio, as D.K. would say. However, if your first overall pick were Danny DK or me... Yeah, thanks for sneaking that criticism into a question. That wasn't the question. Don't flip this on me. If you can start a podcast with anyone in the world, you're like, going to take me first? Well, that's not the question.

The question is, what would you talk about? I know. I just wanted to be clear here. Damn it. Listen, here's what I think I'm doing. I think I'm doing a... I got two, there's two topics. SpongeBob, and its first four seasons before it sucked.

and it's a show's called binge Bob Sponge Mode. It's just binge mode about SpongeBob. I've been pitching it for two years at the ringer and never gets picked up. And the second is, I think I would just do like a real deep dive on like high school movies. I love high school movies. Ooh, that's a fun one. Yeah. So wait, hold on.

Yeah, with who? With me or D.K. Yeah, the question, so I guess I assume it's you're going to do the SpongeBob one with High Fits. Absolutely. Because I have never watched SpongeBob. Yeah. That might be tough. And I'll do the high school one with DK.

I'm great. I would be great at that. Wow. Let's do it. Let's do it. So my thought with Craig, it would be a bridge the gap between our generations' podcast where Craig just explains to me what the Zoomers are doing. Like, what are you guys doing out there? So basically it would be like a podcast where we talk about TikTok.

And you explained to me the TikTok phenomenon, what it's all about, who the stars are, all that stuff. I learn. Maybe the next episode is about, you know, music. that I have not listened to ever and have no knowledge on. On that note, Peter King... We're going to call it Bridge the Gap. Dude, Peter King in his column this week.

Peter King is, I mean, the legendary football writer and he's been doing this for 40 years and he wrote about how he just did this training camp tour for like 30 days with these two NBC production interns he had never met. And he was like, they showed me a lot of younger music, parentheses, I like Kygo. Oh, absolutely.

Wow. Peter King. Just picturing Peter King on the road. to like I go. That's fucking awesome. I now like Peter King way more than I did before. If I was going to do a podcast

with Hafeitz, it would be about, I feel like it would be about like crypto. Like High Fitz, Hyfiz is a conspiracy theory. Deep state. Yes.

We just read conspiracy theories and laugh about it. Actually, that's already a podcast. Let me tell you about the fallacies of government control centralized currency. Hyphus is just, I just ask him a question.

and then he rants. Bitcoin is the Mike Davis of cryptocurrency. The podcast is called Rocket Science and every single segment, Hyphids, goes, listen, it's not rocket science. And then he just tells you what it depends about. That's a really good hook. I feel like you guys really missed the opportunity here

to have a history podcast with me. No, that's, no one asked me. I'm going to do a history pod with you. Hyphids is the younger brother. Go ahead. Yeah, D.K just reads history books and tells them to be a belike. You're an old dad.

I actually want to do this. people who like don't want to call their dads, but like, do you want to hear from a dad? What if we call it softcore history? Softcore. And it's soft core, soft bellies. And it's D.K., just being like, just, so I read this book about ancient Rome. And he just tells you about the book. Yeah.

And I'm like wildly, like inaccurate. It's not really, it's like an audio book, but it's like not really what the book was saying. I read a book once and now I'm an expert. DK, you got to have a pot with Riscilla. Riscilla's all in on history as well. You guys would have a great show together. I mean, yeah. I love history.

Oh, my God, Rissillo and DK talking history would be World War II. Like, you know how they got the gas to Berlin? The whole war ended, it was about gas. It'll blow your mind. It'll blow your mind. We'll take about five days in May with church. Priscilla, we'll be like, you know, Napoleon and Kyler Murray a lot of similarities. And you're like, dude, I think they were just short.

He's like, no, there's a lot there. I read this book called Five Days in May about the five days that, like, swung World War II and how London didn't fall. And it was supposed to be like this incredible book that's the culmination of one of the top World War II historians ever. and it's like the culmination of his career. It's like, I have identified. These are the five days. It's one world or two. And I read it and I finished it.

I was like, it's pretty boring. You are saying. I was in the middle of pandemic. Such a super. You'll get it someday. That was, yeah, I just need to have children yet.

Okay. You're like, hey, what's going on at the hype house? That's more interesting. Okay, this is from Tim. For years, I've asked my league if we can do a memory draft. So good. This is funny. No cheat sheets or electronic devices.

is so loud. You can only bring a piece of paper and pen to keep track of the players drafted. Could you draft solely on memory? Which round do you think you would lose track of players? And he says, I think I can manage to round nine, but it would be like a flashback to final exam season in college. This is a phenomenal idea. And I want to add to it. I think immediately after the draft ends, the memory draft ends, you do an immediate live auction waiver where all the players that everyone forgot is this massive pool and everybody gets $100 and you each get like two players and you start bidding on the remaining guys. who do you think is the best player

that would not get picked? Well, these are the Glansburgs, right? Like, this is essentially... I think it's Brandon Cooks. Mm. I don't think Brandon Cooks would get picked. So you're not even allowed to write down... You can write down who's been...

You can write down who has been drafted. Yeah, you write down your play... Yeah. Right. Because I was going to write out all the divisions and all the teams. You can't do that, though, right? You know, it's all in your mind palace.

It's all in your head. I think you shouldn't be able to write anybody. Yeah. That is so good. Yeah, I think Brandon Cook's a great call. It's just all those Glansburgs-style guys. Robbie Anderson. T.Y. Hilton.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We're forgetting about him. Oh, yeah, T.Y. Hill, I would not remember. That's a really good one, actually. Like, like, Chase Edmonds? I don't know. Yeah. Miles Gaskin.

So funny if you get through, like, 120 picks, and it's like, Oh, shit. Did no one? He's like, oh, shit, did anyone take Miles Sanders? Yeah. Chris Carson. Miles Sanders. Miles Sanders is a good one.

Russell's still there? That's pretty good. Awesome. Tim, execute that idea. Yeah, let's some please people do that and let us know. Okay, we got a couple questions about stacking. So we got a lot of questions on this about, we got

Justin, Dave, shout out, emailed this, but we're going to read Chris's email, but shout out everyone who emailed us about stacking. In one fantasy league, this from Chris, I decided to really just send it in on the Packers offense. I drafted Aaron Jones, Devante Adams, Aaron Aaron Rogers, hashtag, hashtag. I hate hashtags, but that was really funny.

Is it viable to just full stack higher power offense it's like Green Bay or Kansas City. And then also a lot of people want to know that, but like just the receivers. So to be clear, this makes sense in daily fantasy, which is weekly. It's a little riskier in a regular fantasy league.

Basically, I think it comes down to this. The Packers are like a bad choice for this because the offense just had the best red zone scoring season ever. And if they just are a lot worse, like it's kind of dangerous. You're right in the regression. Yeah.

Yeah. It's like, there's a lot can go wrong. If I'm going to stack a team, what I don't want to take a team that's really good at a high value. I'd rather take a team that, like, people are generally low on that I think could be a lot better than everyone else's thinks. Like the Packers is like, everyone thinks they'll be good. You need them to be good.

But if you go like, let's just throw this out there, the 49ers, where you can get Rahim Moster or Trey Sermon, like, outside the top 60 picks. You can get Brandon of Yuc outside the top 50 or 60 picks. George Kittle, you know, top 30. and then Trey Lance outside the top 100. That's your betting on an offense. And if you're completely wrong, it doesn't kill your season.

I like stacking. I think it's a higher variance strategy because you could really, you have to ride the lower lows if neither of these guys have a good game. But I mean, man, if all three of these guys, Aaron Jones, Devante Adams, Aaron Rogers,

and that especially too is an offense that concentrates a lot of its production and its top three guys. So I like this. I'm wondering how we got Aaron Jones. I guess it's probably like he had like a late pick in the... I think you could pretty easily do that. I guess you'd probably like pick Aaron Jones first or not.

If you have like the 10, 11, 12th pick, I think you could pull up. Yeah, if you have nine, you can pretty easy. Regardless. The other thing I think that I would just say about general stacking strategy is pretty much what we were talking about earlier with your guys. Stacking, I think, is good. Reaching a lot to get a stack is not good. Like, in other words, if you have to reach a ton because you're afraid that you're not

going to be able to complete your stack, that's not. I don't think that's like a, like a very efficient or effective way to build your team. So just let the draft fall as it may. And then if you end up getting the opportunity to do a stack, I think that's cool. Something I can't speak for personally is that my team's never been good enough to do this with my own players. But if you're Packers or Chiefs fans, fucking go for it. Because the Giants have never been good enough. I'm like, oh, yeah, I'll just take like the best, like, but that would be fun.

And that's the same for the value thing. We talked about reaching before. The exception for reaching is, if. you have a player on your own team that you love or a player that went to the college you went to that you also love, then fucking reach for that player. I don't know that. You couldn't make the argument for the opposite. Bill, like, 10 years ago wrote this whole article about, like, how to draft him.

One of his points was, like, never draft a guy on your team because it's just double the pain if he tears to ACL. Oh, no. Bill, it's the freaking Patriots. Emotional hedging. Bill had Randy Moss for the 2007 season. He'd feel differently about it. He just didn't have it.

All the other Patriots offense is. But imagine drafting Tom Brady and you're all excited and he tears his ACL. And you're like, well, now literally both of my seasons are over. No, you're right. It's like the diversifying with DK. There you go. I guess that's why Bill probably never ever... Yeah, this is why I have every player in the NFL on my fantasy teams.

Can't get hurt. Got to tell you. I feel phenomenal. Do you draft Chris Carson and Russell Wilson? Like, do you do that? Yeah, yeah. You could target them. So I built my first dynasty team around O'Dell.

And that was awful. That fucking sucked. It's probably good for the first couple years. No, it was, it was, it ended so poorly. It was so not fun. Anyway, I just kind of, and don't go out of my way to do it or not do it. I, like, if I, you know what I mean?

I kind of agree. If it happens kind of inadvertently, then it happens. I'm totally indifferent. But yeah, if you want to go for it, yeah, go for it. You're betting on, like, you know, Chiefs for, like, Amazon stock. I like, our official position is sure. Sure. It is.

That really is. Like, sure. Go for it. Yeah. Okay. Hey, Danny's and Craig. I'm in a 16 team league with unique, their quotes, unique scoring. One of those rules is at the center of a dispute.

In this league, quarterbacks get, half point, oh my God, half point per pass attempt, this is like Craigs O'SX League, half point per pass attempt, full point per completion, and minus a tenth of a point for incomplete passes.

My argument is that because of the scoring system, a quarterback gains four tenths of a point for a play where they threw a fucking incompletion I added. I think this is dumb, am I wrong? Yeah. Also, my league is full PPR and gives a half point per rushing attempt.

I have never heard of that. So there's a league-wide theme of rewarding volume, but I think a scoring system where a quarterback is better, throwing in completion, than not throwing a pass is counterintuitive. Hope I get to hear you thought. Best wishes, Stefan. So this has literally sparked a new segment

that we are going to introduce called League Rescue. This is so ridiculous. This is insane. I don't know if you guys remember those like restaurant fixer shows called like Kitchen Impossible. or restaurant impossible. That guy Robert Irvine. There's been a bunch of people to do it.

They just come and do a restaurant. I like the Gordon Ramsey one. Fucking clean house. The sea scallops are not at the proper temperature. They shit all the waiters. The fengue of the restaurant's all wrong. The kitchen set up poorly. This menu.

What are you doing with this menu? You go to YouTube and you type in bar, like the top seven messups or whatever on bar rescue. It's pretty incredible. They're trying to do too much. Too much. Do less. Well, this girl pours the drink into the,

mix her and she's like, no, what do you have to do first? And she's like, oh, right, and pours it out and then does the same thing, pours it right? She's like, did you just pour the thing into the thing? I just told you not to pour the thing into? She's like, we got a lot of cleaning to do here. Who the fuck thought about 0.5 points per pass attempt? Craig is upset. What the hell is that?

Craig, I've never seen you so angry. I just can't. I would love to know how this man, this man should be a politician, whoever got everybody to agree upon this. Point five points per rush attempt and pass attempt? No, no, no, no. it's not a politician. I'll tell you exactly who this is.

When we talked about the archetypes of the three people who show up to your auction draft or your salary cap draft, one of them is like the wizard who's got the spreadsheets and is like, I'm going to let everyone else like spend their money and I'm going to sweep up. That guy who like has all the math and all the spreadsheets and is like very careful. That guy is like, well, you know, the randomness needs to be eliminated because we can predict the volume, but we can't predict the scoring. so we need to make the whole game of fantasy more predictable, so we're going to do the rules to reward volume

because that's the skill, is predicting volume. You're right. I see you're saying volume reflects that your player's good. Which on one hand is true, and that volume's more predictable. And on the other hand, it is a complete and utter disengagement from reality itself and a misunderstanding of what it is to be a human on earth,

because except what's outside of your control. This is, this is, this person has lost their grip on reality and has control issues. Kevin Clark maybe made this league. This actually might be secretly an email from Kevin. Remember Kevin was like, let's just get rid of touchdowns in fantasy because they're unpredictable? That was his hot take. So is the league, this league is basically rewarding players like quarterbacks who pass a lot, but also are efficient, right? So like, it's not just giving extra points to like the Tyrod Taylor's of the world who complete 12 of 30.

team passes and, you know, whatever. Like, this is like Josh Allen is going to go absolutely nuclear in this league. Yeah, this is the dumbest. Also, it's really important. To Craig's point about this being a politician, it's a 16 team league. Can you believe they got 10 people on this? I would hate being in this league. What is 16 team league?

This poor person, Stefan here is like, I love that he's like, my argument is that the scoring system is dumb and counterintuitive. Like, how no one else in the league? can see what poor Stefan sees? I don't understand. Stefan, leave that league. What do you guys think of, as long as we're on the subject of weird rules, would you guys think of like 100 yard bonuses, 300 yard passing bonuses, all that stuff? I don't like them. They're arbitrary.

I don't push for them, but I also am in a couple leagues where people have, people like them. Like, you know what I mean? It's like... 100 is a random number. Yeah, it is a random number. It's also like... And then you get an extra touchdown for it. It's stupid. Well, it's also fantasy football. And in your fantasy, no one gets 99 yards.

You get 100. Like, let's be real here. And so I don't mind them. I wouldn't push for them, but I also don't see them in a league. And I'm like, oh, get rid of it. Like, it's, yeah, people like that. I don't mind the idea that it's, like, fun, I guess. But there's no, like, base in reality of why it makes sense.

Doesn't make any sense. No, I think there is an impact, though. It's kind of like in basketball, when someone hits 50 points, if you're in a fantasy basketball league, and somebody gets 50 points, it's just as arbitrary. No, you should just get the 50 points. You should just get the points they scored. There's no.

And in the sports. a football or basketball, there's no extra bonus you get for playing extra well. I don't know. Doesn't make any sense. I, okay. We're going to league rescue. All right, Stefan, we're just going to, the answer is like, just leave this broken system. Or Stefan, let us get in there and excavate. Yeah, let us fix everything. Let us. If there is a league and you guys will just outsource your rules to us, just do it. We're just drop us in your group chat. We're going to fix everything. Yeah. Send us your bad shit league rules and we'll fix them. Yeah. Title it under league rescue, please in the email. Ring your fantasy football at gmail.com. Okay. Question about handcuffs from

Evan. What's your pen pencuffing your top one guy. Right, sorry, Evan. What's your opinion of handcuff and your top running back? I go back and forth on it every year. See a lot of mixed opinions. We'd love to hear your thoughts. If the handcuff has their role defined as the guy who will take over, I pretty much do it every year. I'm a handcuff.

I'm not a handcuff player. I like to grab guys that could end up being handcuffs for other teams. So if you hit on those handcuffs, it's like double bonus. So in other words, I'll try and grab. I'm not going to try and grab the backup for Christian McCaffrey in my league or whatever. I'm going to try and grab the backup for Derek Henry and for whoever. And if I, and if Derek Henry gets it,

that's like a double bonus for me. Wait, I don't understand. Why would you not do the McCaffrey one? Because he's probably not going to get hurt. And what? He got hurt last year and his backup was like a top five running back when he played. What are you talking about?

I thought I'm saying that like I will draft a handcuff to my team if I know that the guy I drafted, if his backup has a defined role like a Latavius Murray or in Alexander Madison, I will draft that guy. But if you have somebody whose backup situation is like kind of hazy, I won't take a risk on that. It's not worth it. So, yeah, and I understand what you're saying.

I don't necessarily like say don't do that. What I'm saying, and this is a strategy that I've seen people touting, and I think it makes a lot of sense, is if you take Christian McCaffrey, he's like your main guy. Well, if you have McCaffrey, okay. Right. And then you also take late in your draft, take a few dart

throws on guys that will be the handcuffs for other big time guys. Okay. If you hit on those players, you're fucking winning that league. If you have McCaffrey and you get his handcuff, it's neutral. At best, at best. So your thinking is basically you want to plan on, you don't want to play in like your draft goes perfectly, but you do want to try to at least live in the world at the beginning where you did well and your enemies will get weaker as you get stronger.

One is high upside. One is high floor. Right. Exactly. If you, so like if you're doing those straight handcuffs, it's a neutral situation if you get hurt at the very, very best.

If you get someone else's handcuff and it's like Mike Davis from last year. So you have Derek Henry and then you had Mike Davis as your handcuff. Now you might win your league. Now you're literally

winning your league. Right. So I actually like that strategy more. It's also a great fuck you like your friends, you know, like you do. Right. And then you can hold him hostage.

Yeah. Yeah. If you don't have that much faith that he's going to be a full handcuff you can hold him hostage when the injury first happens and just get to Vante Adams

or something ridiculous. I will say, though, the spite involved, so I have, I probably have speculated on other people's handcuffs for, I feel like six years. Even when you hit and like the guy gets hurt, which let's be real, it's a little fucking greasy to just be like, oh, got Tony Pollard, fucking hope Zeeke gets hurt. Can't wait for that tweet from Schaeffer. But then aside from the moral ambiguity of that, the second part is that guy never wants to trade with you because out of, it's, it's rationally, it's like you lost Zique, you should get Tony Pollard. actual practice, they're like, fuck you, you fucking ambulance chasing bastard. You waited all seasons for my guy to get hurt just so you can flip him to me. Still worth it.

Go to hell. I've never once successfully flipped someone to another guy. I don't even think you do it to flip. I think you do it just to piss them off. You start Tony Pollard then, and then that guy has nothing, and it's great. I'm a ambulance chaser. That's good. It's true.

That is what handcuffing is for other people, though. It's ambulance chasing. Hank, okay. But I see what you're saying, DK. So wait, on that note, this is actually kind of an important question. Who are the handcuffs are actually willing to do?

And a handcuff, I think it's important. It's that it's below a committee. It's, in essence, a guy that you would basically never play if the starter was healthy. So it's not like a committee. So Tony Pollard is the backup for Zika and Dallas. He's draftable. Alex Madison for the Vikings,

backup for Dalvin Kirk is drafted. I don't know I just did use the example for Christian McCaffrey, but you definitely should draft Chuba Hubbard in the late rounds. Chuba Hubbard is drafted because Matt Ruhl, Panthers coach's wife, texted him, he was like,

you should draft Chuba Hubbard. He's also good. He's looked pretty good in the preseason, too. Does A.J. Dillon qualify for this? He's probably the highest level of it. I don't think he's not a pure handcuff, but absolutely he would go off. He's the highest form of committee

that I would say qualify as his handcuffed because that would be a crazy role for him if Aaron Jones got hurt. The other one I'll say, Derek Kennedy's basically, yeah, Darrington Evans for the Titans. Yeah, I like Derrington Evans. And the other one is Tony Jones,

dude, for the Saints. We don't know this one yet, but dude, Latavius Murray might not make the team in New Orleans. And Latavius Murray's been that handcuff for a while. Might not make the team. Remember when you guys made fun of me for bringing up Tony Jones a couple episodes ago? I will defend myself in that all of the other guys you mentioned still likely are not going to do a damn thing. All of the other guys? What do you?

Like, name them. I can't because I've never heard of them. Ah, you're full of shit. Okay. Let's get some superflex talk. We got a lot of superflex questions. We got Harrison, Brandon, someone named Dangerous. I'm going to read Brandon's question because dangerous scares me

and then also is the best one but they're all the same basically Brandon's ask I'm playing in a Superflex league for the first time this year according to Danny I don't know which one it's a oh me it's a non-standard size league which is 12 people I was wondering strategies to use for Superflex should I go heavy on quarterbacks purely out of scarcity and their relative increase in value or should I draft follow similar strategies to standard leagues what do you think TK

yes go quarterback I would say. As a rule of thumb, you want to have two good quarterbacks on your roster. It's like the most plus EV. You're going to be a huge disadvantage if you're not starting two quarterbacks.

Evie makes you sound smart. You're saying extra value, right? Expected value. Yeah. I would say you don't have to do the thing where you take two quarterbacks right away. I would say in your first two picks, you want a quarterback.

And then from there, there's a lot of different ways to approach it. You can still hammer like running backs and receivers for the first couple of rounds, grab a guy like Ryan Fitzpatrick a little later, or whatever, whoever the other guy be, Daniel Jones, Kirk Cousins is a guy that tends to fall pretty frequently. These are fine as your QB2 throughout a season.

I personally think, like last year, for instance, in a Super Flex league, I had Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson, and I won that league, largely on the backs of those two guys. Obviously, Wilson kind of, both of them actually kind of faded a little bit down the stretch, but regardless, I think having two elite quarterbacks is like the easiest way to win a Super Flex league. The problem is then you have to hit on some later guys. You have to hit on the receivers later. You have to hit when you're drafting some of these like less established players later.

It's like any normal draft. But yes, bottom line is quarterbacks are going to score by far the most points on your roster if it's standard scoring. And not starting two quarterbacks is a massive disadvantage for your team. you definitely have to start two quarterbacks in Superflex. There's a few ways to do this. It's you can take Patrick almost to the first pick in a Superflex league. It's totally fine. You can also wait and wait on quarterback,

but the definition of weighting changes in a two quarterback league, it starts to be ugly around 50, 50 or so, whatever ish or in an auction like there's a certain amount of money. It's really important of quarterback tiers and figure out which of these guys are just unacceptable to start at the second quarterback position and draw a thick red line and be like, I'm not going below that.

And you have to reach, like, because the rankings may not reflect the real. And so you just have to understand, like, Matt Ryan and Kirk cousins are a perfect example. You might get Matt Ryan and Kirk cousins and be thrilled with it and then you'll have really good players. So I think that you either get Mahomes and like, you know, Russell Wilson up top, you wait, you get Matt Ryan and Kirk cousins or you do some combo with that. Any of those can work. It's really more just knowing in advance what is like the worst quarterback I'm willing

to have start for me. Because if you know the answer to that in advance, you'll be fine. Yep. Going from Superflakes, just as like some more beginner stuff, some 101 stuff, get an email from Emma, when is a good day to set up your draft? How many players should I take at each position? And then when you're in the draft, how do you decide you're going to pick? I think those are actually a good question.

Sure. Right. Schedule the draft as close to the season as humanly possible while getting everyone to come. You have to get everyone. You can't have auto picks. It's awful. Weekend before is ideal, I would say. Yeah.

Only, I mean, so positions, you want one defense and one kicker. honestly, there are plenty of leagues like sleeper. You don't have to even take a kicker. Like, don't take a kicker and take a running back if you don't have to. You don't have to take a kicker in Yahoo. They don't make you. Yeah, exactly. So if you don't have to take a kicker, don't.

Like, just draft the running back. So you're saying take a different player, wait until the day before the games kick off. And then you can figure out who the best person to drop is. Exactly. So like, imagine if you had had on your team, you know, one of these running backs who just recently got hurt. And then you have that guy because you had them on your team. You know what I mean? and then their value goes up,

like just, you know, in case two weeks for the season, something happens. Right. Just wait to make the decision. I only take a backup quarterback only if it's a high upset guy

like Justin Fields of Traleance. I don't think I really ever take a backup tight end. I usually do. I don't know why. Well, it depends. If you get a late tight end, if you're drafting like a guy like Noah Fant,

I usually will take another one. But if I'm drafting Travis Kelsey or Darren, I do not. But the part of this I'm really interested in is, well, one, how do you decide you're going to pick? But like, on that, how do you sign how you pitch for your bench?

Like, you get your starter at the first five or six rounds, and then it's like your bench is coming. Like, how do you actually fill out your bench and you're thinking of how many running backs you want receivers? Or are you just thinking about players you like and it shakes out, how it shakes out? Yeah, I mean, as I go along in a draft, I kind of keep in mind how I need to fill out my roster.

But for the most part, I'm just picking the players that I think are going to have the best seasons. Like, I know that's sort of just a very generic way to put it. But like, I'm not trying to do the thing where, oh, God, I got to get a running back. here. I'm trying to do the thing where I'm like, this guy is going to have a huge year. I want to add him to my team. And then as you get it later into the draft, then you can start to like make sure that you're filling out your roster, have enough running backs. Generally

speaking, if you start two running backs, you want to have at least three or four because there's by weeks, there's injuries. And then receivers, clearly if you start three receivers, you need to pick up an extra two, extra one or two guys to like fill those spots. If it's a two, if it's a start two receiver league, I would say at least four. And then with the flex, like, depending on how many flexes your league has, just keep that in mind, like, if, you know, then you don't have to worry so much about, like, having X, Y, or Z, like a running back tight-in or receiver, you can just kind of pick the best players. So in terms of deciding who to pick, though, like, the most, the easiest way to do it is

to look in the little, you know, the guide box that is on ESPN, Yahoo, or whatever platform you're drafting on and just like trust the ADP, trust the rankings that that league has. But the other thing that I would say is like, for instance, we've pitched this before. Like go have our rankings up on the draft tracker at the fantasyfobal. Theringer.com and click off guys that have been taken. And then you can see who the top ranked player is on our board at all times. And so when your pick comes up, you can just say, hey, they've got this guy ranked high, you know, and you can go from there. I got a question for you guys.

I don't think we've ever talked about this. Do you guys like to use the queue in a draft, a live draft? You know, on the platform, Yahoo ESPN, they have the queue where you can, like, star players and keep them in the queue so you know they're still there. Do you use that? I do. I do for a couple of reasons. One, just basic real politic in case my internet cuts out for whatever reason, which has happened

to me a couple times, especially if you have, like, the auto pick, if you have the last or first pick in a snake draft and you go back to back, I have had my internet cut out, and then I go back to back. So that's one, the most basic reason. Second, I use it to keep track of certain guys. All the research you do for fantasy to me is just to not panic when there's 25 seconds left. And the cue to me is just one, like the break glass

in case of emergency. Like, okay, there were eight guys that was six picks ago. Six of them got taken. These are the two I really care about. And then you start panic. You know what I mean? Like, to me, to me, it's just, you just want to be calm when that's happening.

Like, I use it. I don't, do you use a key, Greg? Yeah, I do. I like the cue because later, as you get later into the draft, and this is sort of something we talked about earlier in the pod, it's like, you don't have to worry so much about reaching. You don't have to go based on whatever the rankings are on the platform that you're drafting because there's like a hundred guys that you could pick at any certain spot.

Like, I really wouldn't think it was a reach to grab like any of the, like, a hundred players. So I like to use the cue because at the, as you get later into drafts, I find that it becomes more chaotic. There's just a bunch of guys on the list, and I don't want to draft 90% of them or whatever. And so I use that to find my favorites, to keep track of them. And that way later in the draft is just less chaotic.

I got to say, I try and be good about it, but I'll bring the piece of paper with, like, my own tiers on it, and I will cross guys out, like, one at a time as they get drafted, I'll cross them out so I know who's available. But do you guys ever struggle with, like, the literal timing of it? Especially if you're in, like, an auction league where, like, by the time somebody drafts, you know, when you're like in round six

and somebody drafts like Trace Sermon and you got to like flip, oh, it's on this page, you grab your pen, you cross them out, oh, you realize you forgot to cross someone out last time. But at the time you do that,

you're like halfway through the bidding. I do find some times that like, it's hard to be really organized just because of the timing and how quick players can go in drafts. You laugh at me, but this is why I think the biggest advantage you can have other than actually doing your research.

But if you've like, you know, done your work, or whatever, not drinking during the draft. Like, I'm not, I'm serious, man. Like, if you just, the difference between not having, or have one, but like, if you have five beers and you're trying to, like, and you're trying to cross players off and you're like, oh, right,

I haven't done that in 20 players. It's like, I don't know. It's like, the end of the day, like, it's hard to keep track of shit if you're drunk. Yeah, honestly, have one beer and sip it the entire time, so nobody makes fun of you, but do that. Maybe two. The other one, but I love this question from Emma of just how do you decide who you're going to pick.

It's so simple, but like, like, like, I think another one is we talked about three receivers early, but if you have two receivers in a two receiver league, generally speaking, four weeks into the season, everyone wants to trade for running backs. Like no one wants your wide receiver, unless they're really good enough that you don't want to give them up.

No one wants Robert Woods from you a month into the season because everyone's happy with their wide receivers in a two receiver league, but everyone wants running backs. I found more often than that I load up on running back in those leagues trying to hit a dart and you can either keep them or flip them. having said that, at the end of the day, it's what D.K. said, where just take value players, like players that are going to be good. And it's okay to have a weakness.

Like, it's okay to be weak at a position when you leave the draft if you're really strong elsewhere. And then you can fix that as the season goes on. Do you guys ever think about how one of the saddest parts about fantasy football is that if a guy just auto drafts, his team's pretty good? Yeah. Well, this is why for all we talk about Snake, Bill likes auction better and salary cap is just a better league.

There's one friend in one of my buddies, big leagues. Every year he just says fucking auto drafts, and he gets like fourth or third every year. Have you guys ever had an auto draft or win your league? I don't think so. I don't really put, we try and make it so we don't have auto drafters. Whatever year was Jimmy Graham's the year he blew up, that guy got Jimmy Graham in the auto draft. It's really funny. And he won, and it was infuriating.

And that guy hated his team. This is a cop out, but like, you have to manage your team throughout the year. Like, you have to pick up waivers. You have to set your starting lineups. There's more to fantasy football than just drafting. I know in bestball it's different, but that's part of the game too. It's not just the draft. You have to manage your team.

You have to pick up good players on waivers. You have to start the right players. Yeah, it's like 70-30. Speaking of which, we're going to have in-season episodes. Everyone tuning in now when we come to you during the season. That's right, baby. Right, don't just stop listening. Don't stop.

Get to fantasy court. This is a fantasy court from Matt. This is big. We're bringing fantasy court back. You just cruise right through that. Don't, yeah, what? There was no pomp and circumstance there. I'm sorry.

Can we have like a bailiff call me in? Yes. Yeah, all rise. And then do the little like hammer. I have the sound effect. I do it all the time. I did it all last. I can't remember.

Okay. We're rusty. Okay, good sound effect. Cool. All rise. All rise. I wish I had prepared something. Okay, we have a brief from the plaintiff.

If you're a lawyer who listens to this show, please email me at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com to learn. I need to know some legal terms for this. It would be super helpful. Matt. In the league I'm in, the winner gets to have a rule change, which is an incredible, I love that, actually. Two years ago, I won and made my rule change to go from full PPR to the superior half PPR. Unfortunately, that change never got implemented in time for the new season.

I didn't win last year, and now the new winner's rule is to get rid of half PPR, even though it was never put into effect. I've now stated to my league that my rule either gets put into place, and if it doesn't, I get to propose a different rule change, where I won't have my money put into our league. league spot. I agree with Matt here. I think what they should do is the winner is allowed to change the rule, but it can't be the half PPR rule. It has to be a different rule. Why did, why did the league not change the rule? I mean, they probably just forgot. Listen, this happens all the time. It's like how Hyphitz forgot to put in the lineups last year in the Daily Fantasy. Like, I guarantee you, these are a bunch of 25-year-olds and they just like, fucking forgot. And the league started. They're like, shit. Are we projecting on that one? I think his rule should be kept. Yes. And then I think

this other person should think of a new rule. I agree. He just can't, he can't change the weights per receptions ruling the new winner guy. He can change anything else, but the half-p-R goes into effect for this year. Listen, I understand that this was a tough year for everyone. It doesn't mean it didn't fucking happen. He gets it. He gets his rule. This really should have been settled out of court.

This should never have made it to fantasy court. Are they really, this is... I'm ashamed of you lawyers for bringing this in front of me. Matt, we rule unanimously in your favor and your league needs to figure that shit out real quick. Think of a new rule. This isn't even a fun, like switching it back to like, come So do we issue an injunction to stop the league from beginning until they change the rule? Is that within our power or jurisdiction?

I really need lawyers to email us. I want to hear the devil's advocate for all of these things. I'd love to hear the guy who's like on the other side of this argument being like, no, it doesn't make sense that Matt gets to keep his half-PPR rule. Like, I want to know what that guy thinks. We'll follow up for more documentation. Yeah, follow up. We're going to follow up for more documentation.

Okay. I'm another email. God damn it. This is good. Dear gentlemen, I hope this message finds you well. It is with great pleasure. I present a financial opportunity from the famed diva Mariah Carey. She has been notified of a communal advertisement opportunity through radio podcast opportunity.

As her lawyer representative official, I have a unique privilege to offer you famed song fantasy for a limited time, say 90 days for American dollars, 40,000 U.S. If this suits you as her representative, I can handle the financials completely. If you can send traveler checks in $100 American dollar denomination or gift cards from your desired department to facility to my address in Abiza, Spain, sorry, Ibiza. Abiza. The O'Box 1134. Thank you for your unique financial opportunity from Dominique, famed representative of Mariah Carey.

This is an incredible bit. Whoever wrote this email did it in like the perfect amount of like broken English. It's so incredible. There is no way that we weren't going to read this email on the five. Also, where do we? The money is on the way. We don't even care if it's famous. I sent this person thousands of dollars.

What do you guys think is more real? This email or Mark's email that his uncle actually knows. Hey, listen, you don't talk shit about Mark. I believe Mark and his uncle. I desperately want to believe Mark. Let's just go with Mark. I just love the idea that we could potentially get Mariah Carey's fantasy through this guy, Mark, and it had nothing to do with the fact that we work at Spotify.

Yeah, that's the best. Well, okay. Last time, we got a fun fact from Kelvin. Kelvin. on the origin of Liz Kelvin. I might have just misspelled it. It might be Kevin. Regardless.

Apologies. Kelvin or Kevin. Well, we'll find out. I'm sure he'll email us all upset. Okay. Wish I had something cool to write to you guys about for the first time, but I had some knowledge and personal experience with a Liz Frank injury after the Travis E's end discussion. The Liz Frank is named after Jacques Liz Frank, a field surgeon in Napoleon's army.

He described a specific injury that happened when soldiers got knocked off their horse with their foot stuck in the stirrup. which is a good way to understand the twisting and terry nature of the injury. Gross. He also found it that it was a weak area of the foot that made a convenient place to amputate the forefoot when necessary on the battlefield. I know this because when I was a fourth year medical student, I got on a moped after a long day of tailgating in football, crashed, and got a Liz Frank injury in the process.

And as a medical student sitting in the emergency room, every doctor and surgeon comes up to you in the room tells the same story about Dr. Liz Frank to take. teach me something while I'm sitting there in pain and now I get to pass the story on to you guys. And now we're here in pain. I don't even, yeah. Do you think it happened to Jacques or did he just see a lot of people

suffer it and he named it after himself? It sounds like he saw a lot, he treated a lot of people, a lot of the soldiers or whatever that had fallen off their horses or gotten knocked off the horses for whatever reason. I don't know how I feel about that. Well, I feel like those guys get hurt

and then they're like, well, you need Liz Frank. and they're like, where's Liz Frank? And then eventually they just call it Liz Frank. Oh, I see. Like, you got to go to Liz Frank. He's the guy for the horse foot. Yeah, Liz Frank's the guy. It was originally called Horsefoot.

They were like, no, you got to go to Liz Frank for Horsefoot. Exactly. But man, Liz Frank really cashed out here. Jacques didn't even get hurt. Cashed out. I feel like he didn't make any money. Well, his name lives on forever. Does he know that?

Does that matter to you? Like, he's dead. And now his descendants are known as a foot injury. Dude, people love to get shit named after themselves. What are you talking about? That's like the basis of every building and every college. It's like every rich person wants something named after them. Yes.

Because they can't fathom the idea that after their life, no one will think about them anymore. I think in the science community that, yes, it's like a big deal. Well, I don't know. I'm speaking very, very general. But if you didn't know, do you need to have that happen while you're alive? Like Van Gogh sold like three paintings while he's alive. No, obviously not. Someone's like, Craig, do you care if when you die, you won't know, people will know your name after you're dead?

No, I don't care about that. I'd like to know people are going to know my name. I got to start naming injuries. The Horlebeck sounds like an injury. Your name, your name the Horlebeck, it's horrific. DJ Charks suffered a Horlebeck last week. That just sounds bad. That's why Michael Thomas is on the PUP.

He's got a horolebeck. Just gruesome. The Horlebeck injury is gruesome. Hyper extension of the elbow is a horlebeck. Oh, Jesus. Yeah, it's also like when someone brings up your name, do you really want, it's like always negative. If you have a Liss-Frank injury, that's never good. Yeah.

Okay, that's it. I also just occurred to me that Kevin Durant had the foot injury. That was a Jones fracture. Right. That's also probably the same exact thing. Tommy John. Tommy John. Yeah.

Okay. That's enough. Okay. Thank you, Craig. Thank you, D.K. Thank you to everyone for emailing us. Thank you to the people that we get back to you. Please keep bailing us at ringerfantasyfootball at g-gill.com.

Fantasyfool. dot the ringer.com, you can find our draft guide there. And of course, the one, the only. Thank you, Lorne. Lorne. Thank you, Mariah Carey. I will not, I will not say another singer on this episode because it's very important.

Okay, yeah, you're right. I was going to, okay. I know it's a duplicate, but whatever. A shining light in the music industry in the 80s, 90s, and today, Mariah Carey. We love you, Mariah. Her voice is like crystal. Malifluous voice, beautiful. So, so's your whole body. We will do literally whatever you want to write.

So pure. Listen. You can be You can be the voice of this show, Mariah. We got, we got to work on that pitch. We're workshopping it live.