The Ringer NFL Show - Listener Mailbag: WR First Overall? The RB2 Leap, and Salary Cap Draft Strategy

Episode Date: August 24, 2022

We answer listener questions about taking Justin Jefferson first overall in the draft, which 2nd round running back will make the leap, the best strategies for an auction draft, how to conceive of the best way to determine draft order, and more. We also settle the great Häagen-Dazs debate, and more. (0:47) - Should you take Justin Jefferson 1st overall? (5:33) - Which RB2 will make the leap? (7:53) - Best auction draft strategy (24:58) - Best/wrose PPR players (26:59) - Strategies for larger leagues (30:59) - Ways to determine draft order (34:30) - Fantasy traits to avoid (37:49) - Fantasy punishment debate (41:36) - Ice cream power rankings Check out The Ringer’s Fantasy Football Draft Rankings for tiers, sleepers, and more! Email us! [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mac Jones is ripped. The Celtics may actually trade for Kevin Durant, and The Ringer has a new Boston show. I'm Brian Barrett, host of Off the Pike, the show covering all things Boston sports. I'll have shows multiple times a week covering your favorite teams

and with your favorite Ringer and local guests. Plus, maybe Bill will stop by to rant about the socks. Follow off the pike with me, Brian Barrett, now on Spotify. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Hyphitz, and I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Carrick Coralbeck. And today we are doing a mailbag. It's a bonus episode for everybody.

We're just going to jump right into it. I want to start right off the bat with an email we got from Austin who says, am I crazy to take Justin Jefferson first overall? DK. Is that insane? I mean, there's varying levels of insanity. He's our number three ranked player. So it's not that crazy in reality.

I think based on the way that we've done our rankings and everything that we've talked about, Chris McAfrey, Jonathan Taylor, are on a tier of their own. However, if you're really wanting to play it safe, like just don't take a running back, right? Because they always get hurt. There's a line at the end of the first lethal weapon movie where Mel Gibson is staring down in the rain at Gary Busey for this final fight. And he goes, what do you say, Jack?

You want a shot at the title? And if Christian McCaffrey plays 17 games, you'll probably make the championship. So do with that what you will. But if you want to play it safe, I have no problems with you taking a, Cooper Cup or a Justin Jefferson. First overall, I went through and looked at all the running backs who were drafted in the first

round last year in fantasy drafts. And here's how many games each of them missed. McCaffrey missed 10, Dalvin Cook 4, Derek Henry 9, Camara 4. Zeke somehow missed zero, but he was banged up the whole year. Nick Chubb missed 3, Aaron Jones, missed 2, Jonathan Taylor, missed 0, and Sequin Barclay missed 4. There were three of those guys who finished in the top 10. Shocker, it was Jonathan Taylor and Zeke, the two guys who didn't get hurt.

And my point is that wide receivers don't get hurt. Last year, the guys who were drafted in the first two rounds of wide receiver, Devonte Adams, Tyreeks, Stefan Diggs, John Drey Hopkins, D.K. McAferson, all of them but one missed less than one game. So if you want safety in the first round and you want to guarantee yourself that you're not going to screw your team, take Justin Jefferson. But if you want to, if you want to shot at the title, you take McCaffrey. Here's how I look at it.

Cooper Cup last year in PVR was the number one player. If Justin Jefferson has a Cooper Cup-esque season, you're getting the number one. player. I think the odds are that he's probably not going to have Cooper Cups season. Yeah, but if McCaffrey plays 17 games, he's the number one player. Well, that's what I was saying. The odds that Justin Jefferson has a Cooper Cup style season where he wins a triple crown and has like a historic season, I would say are not as high as the odds that Chris McCaffrey at manages to stay healthy and, like, just dominates your league. But the odds of your running back missing five games due to a hamstring or a knee injury are pretty high. Well, it's a personality test. We've been saying

all year. Yes. The Myers-Briggs. So on our latest rankings at fantasyfobble.com, We actually moved Christian McCaffrey up to number one on our latest because we've been saying forever that the top two guys, McCaffrey and Jonathan Taylor, it's a personality test. McCaffrey's, as Craig said, going for the title. Taylor's safer. But if you want to be safer than Taylor, I'm totally fine Justin Jefferson for two reasons. One, sometimes it's worth stating the obvious. The reason the top running backs are getting hurt the most is kind of simple.

By the nature of what we do with fantasy football, the reason that those guys are in the top five are because they're getting the most touches. Like, if people who are putting in the top five are running backs that we think will touch the ball like 300 times. And so that's the most chance to get injured, especially because they probably touch the ball that much enough that we're trusting that they will happen. So they're the most prime to get injured by nature. Two, whether you're going to take Jefferson or not, I just want the definition of a

reach is very simple. Sometimes we get emails like this all the time. It's just like, am I crazy to do this? Am I crazy to do that? I think there's a very simple answer. It's only like truly a reach if you take someone who would be there when your next pick curtain around. So like at the end of the day, we're just pretty.

predicting the future. If you want to take Justin Jefferson with the first pick, he's not going to be there when you pick at 20. You know what I mean? So like do it. If you want to take Mike Evans, that's a reach because Mike Evans will be there. That's kind of less true in the first round because you're losing value. But like at the end of the day, we're predicting the future. If you want Justin Jefferson go for it, I also think with Stafford's arm kind of being the way it is, I feel even stronger about Justin Jefferson over Cooper Cup as our top receiver as well. I don't know if you guys are concerned, but there's, you know, more word from the Rams that Stafford's arm is a little. weird. So I think it's totally fine if you want to take Justin Jefferson. I think it's so funny how much psychology goes into this. We had the idea. I don't remember if we've talked about it on the show or not. We're kind of giving away a million dollar ID here, but we wanted to do a draft guide

designed around number one, you have to take the Myers-Briggs personality test and discover what, like, so I guess I'm looking at the Myers-Briggs. We will design your rankings around your personality. Guarded, optimistic, defiant, compliant, carefree, worried, decisive and ambivalent. Which one are you? We're going to bespoke rankings. Can you imagine the fucking, like, how annoying and tedious it would be to make those rankings? It's like getting a suit. We'll come in.

We'll take your measurements and we'll give you your rankings based on who you are. The fantasy tailors. Anyway, yeah. So, Austin, no, it's not crazy. All right. We got one from Walter. Walt. He says, Walter.

Which top 20 running back is the best chance to make the leap and become a top 10 running back? And as an unabashed lion's homer who is heavily drinking the Honolulu Blue Kool-Aid while watching hard knocks, I feel like DeAndre Swift is the best chance based on opportunity and skill to make that leap. Dekam, curious, who you would answer for that question, which is basically another way of saying

of what running back not in the first round this year will be a first rounder next year. DeAndre Swift is a good one just because the way that the Lions are set up is like they have a good offensive line. In theory, they're going to be playing from behind a lot, so there's going to be a lot of passing game action. So I think that's a good one.

We really like DeAndre Swift both this year and last year. So that one makes a lot of sense. Javante Williams is up there clearly. If it ends up being Melvin Gordon is a clear-cut backup, then Javante Williams is going to skyrocket in value. You know, a guy like Travis E.N., who's very explosive, but unproven hasn't really played in the NFL to this point. He could be the Deontre Swift to this year.

This is the thing we've been saying all offseason is basically picture Travis E.T.N. in the DeAndre Swift role for the Jags this year, and that could happen. So those are a couple guys that come to mind. Who else you guys think in? If you want to go a bit deeper, because Giovante and, you know, DeAndre Swift

are kind of fringe round one, round two guys. They're kind of fringe top 10 guys already. If you want to go deeper, you could say that Clyde could finally make the leap this year with, you know, not having, was it gallbladder surgery? What did he have? Yeah, I think gallbladder and he lost like 30 pounds or something.

Right. So, you know, this is Clyde's third year with the jeep. big gallbladder he had. Hey, oh, that was a dad joke. Doctor joke there, yeah. And then if you want to go a little bit deeper, you can even throw out Rashad Penny, to be honest. I mean, the guy was the best running back in the league for five weeks.

I know Russell Wilson's not there, but if you want to talk about somebody who could put together another really good year and has the talent to do it, Rashad Penny, who's going like in the mid-20s for running backs right now in drafts. It could be him. Yeah, I think Javante's probably the answer for talking about 2023. Yeah, that's easy. I mean, he's already like what he's like the,

running back 13 or 14 in most people's ranking. Exactly. It's like, yeah, I think dark horse guy outside the top 50, Clyde, if Clyde just is really good and that she's kind of remake their offense around power running, which is more Clyde's deal. Yeah. It's really interesting. All right.

We got a ton of questions about auction draft, salary cap drafts, whatever we want to call them these days. Like a lot. And I know that sometimes we always talk about rankings in our linear fashion of like this player's 30th ranked and we don't really talk about dollar values. So we want to talk about auction values. A lot of questions. We saw your questions. So we want to just start with like auction 101. here of like things that work for every year. And then we're going to get a little more specific

on like auction stuff for this year. So just kind of an overview for auction drafts. Obviously, you're just paying money and bidding on players instead of just a snake draft. One, I just think in auction draft, your actual thing you're doing is focusing for a really long time. Take some Adderall. Yeah. Yeah. You just need Adderall. Three hour long process. You're waiting three hours and you're basically just trying to find like the 20 second span where the other nine people don't pay attention. You get a problem. You get a player randomly for $5 less. Somebody's got to go eat at some point.

Yeah. I got to get up to go to the bathroom. Pounce. Pounce on that opportunity. So Stars and Scrubs is a very popular auction strategy. I think that I don't want to speak for you guys, but it's very popular.

I'm a big believer in it. Like you basically, even though the numbers look crazy to see $60 for Justin Jefferson, they're generally worth it to pay that money and then you can get pretty good players for not that much later. Another general thing is everyone's extremely anchored to the little number.

besides the players' names, because at the end of the day, you actually have no idea what to pay for these people. So if the computer says that Austin Echler is worth $54, it's kind of funny to see people get really afraid when it goes to 56, but pretty like, no one will ever stop bidding at 45 because that's what the computer says. And so you want to look at either our rankings or other website's rankings to get like a gauge of what players are worth because you don't want to just like have the specific website you have dictating all the prices. You guys know what I mean, right? Yeah, absolutely. One of my rules for auction drafting is to find players you like more than consensus and spend for them. So my example this year, and I did this in my auction draft is Sequin Barclay. Sequin Barclay, if you look at Yahoo's projected price, is $35, which puts him at like the RB11-11-ish range price-wise, 35 bucks.

But if you like him more than that, like let's say you like him as maybe a top seven back or a top-five back, be willing to pay for him as if he's a top-seven or a top-five back, which according to Yahoo's 52. which is $17 more than $35. But the beauty of it is that you're not going to have to pay 52 because everyone's going to see 35 on Yahoo. And then when you start betting 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, people are going to back off because they're going to go, oh, God, he's $5 more than Yahoo's telling me to. And you'll get him for a discount, you know,

to where you actually have him ranked, which takes me to my second rule, which is I'm calling it the numbers that end in zero mental block of auction drafting. I'll bet you notice at your auction draft. that a lot of players go for $29, $39, $39, $49. Because people are afraid to breach that new digit. It just looks different.

The difference between $39 and $40 just feels larger than the difference between $35 and $36 bucks. We remember a month ago when we thought, we were like, oh, what's advertising? This is the latest segment, and here's how advertising works. $39.99. Yes. Do not be afraid to break through that new digit if you want the player.

Everybody gets weird when 39 pops up. No one wants to go to 40. They sound dumb now, but you will notice you're going to feel the urge to lay off when a guy's at 49, you don't want to go to 50. Do it. I think this is like the big thing and it's very difficult to get over, especially if you're sort of a frugal person in real life. Like, it's okay to spend a lot on players.

What you just said is so key. It's actually really important to be self-aware. How do you spend money in your real life? If you're someone who just like blows money, then be aware of that. And maybe if you're on the fence, air on the side, like just air on the side of spending less. And like Dika said, if you're really frugal, air on the side of spending more. Like, you should actually be aware of how you're spending as a person. Fantasy-wise, the other thing I think that's crucial is like, you've got to use tiers.

It's maybe even more important in an auction than a snake draft. We have tiers on the fantasy guide. If you go to fantasyf Football.org.com and you click on the positional tab, you'll see our tiers. And the reason you need tiers is because you want to track how many players are left in a group because basically you kind of want to go into a draft with a plan of like, I don't know, I might spend like 90-ish on my running backs. Yeah. You know, 90 on my receiver slash tight ends and then I'll have 20 for maybe quarterback.

But then you need to adjust that as things go. And so if you have tears, you can be flexible. As D.K. Or, well, really, Skippy once said to me, D.K., very wise woman. Yeah. You have to know what you can compromise on and what you cannot. And that's really the point of tears. Yeah.

Because, like, for example, this year, I really would love, like, to get, Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson or Jalen Hertz or even Trey Lance. But I know in my heart I can compromise and I'll actually be fine if I spend one or two dollars and get Kirk Cousins. I'm fine with that. But if I have to do that for running back, I'm not happy with that. Like I need one of the top 15 running backs. I maybe I really want two.

And so I can compromise getting two, but I have to have really one of the 12 running backs I want. And so you have to know that for every position. That is exactly what I was going to say to. It's like basically, I do think it helps a lot to go into your draft with a specific plan. not necessarily like you have to get every player you want but i think you should have some plan ahead of time on the like how your team is comprised like what your team is comprised of so if it's a super flex league do you want to go and get two of the top quarterbacks like that's going to

cost you a big huge chunk of your money um if it's a one quarterback league you probably want to like shell out on having two really good running backs or something like that whatever it is your strategy is you need to i guess identify that and then you're go in and not be afraid to overspend, quote unquote, overspend on a couple of guys that are in the tiers that you're targeting. Does that make sense? So like I did an auction draft the other day and I went heavy on quarterbacks and I went heavy on one running back and one receiver. So I basically had two good quarterbacks, a running back, an elite receiver and then I filled out the rest of my team with just a bunch of randos. And by the way, you'll be surprised at the end of

these drafts, how many guys you still really want and you can get for like one or two dollars. Yeah, that was going to be my final point is, you know, Heifitz talked about like, what is your spending habits in real life? If you're not the type of person who likes to spend a lot of money and you don't want to drop $70 on McCaffrey and 42 on DeAndre Swift and then be left with 80 bucks for the rest of your team, you can go the other way and it works. You know, Cooper Cup is listed as 55 bucks on Yahoo. Cortland Sutton, Alan Robinson, Mike Williams, and Brandon Cooks. If you add up all of their prices on Yahoo, that equals $55. So you can get all four of those guys for the same price as one Cooper Cup. There are,

there is tons of value in the middle rounds of auction drafts. Everybody gets excited. They blow their load and they spend a bunch of money in the first like hour. And then you're going to literally see guys like, like a Jerry Judy go for two bucks when Cooper Cup went for 58. And is Jerry Judy won 50 of the player Cooper Cup is? No, obviously not. So if you want to wait, I personally, my favorite strategy I've learned over the years is to kind of just sweep up a bunch of the $20 guys. Get your one guy that you want if you want Dalvin Cook or Derek Henry, whoever, and then you can really be patient,

let a lot of guys go for that next hour, and then you can fucking clean up the Brandon Cook's Mike Williams category of the draft. I think that's kind of stuff that works for every year. And I'm curious, I guess that's Craig's strategy at receiver this year. For this season in particular, like approaching auctions this year, I'm probably most flexible at receiver because what Craig said, I want to vacuum those guys up.

I think the way I'm thinking, just an example for like this season, I really, like in an ideal world, I want a rushing quarterback somewhere between like the Lamar Jackson of the world to like Tray Lance, I'll settle for Kerr cousins. I want two of the top like 15 running backs, like exactly what Craig said. Like maybe I'll spend like 90 bucks and running, 80 bucks and running back. If I could get Dalvin Cook and Sequin Bar. Markley, two guys that you could might be able to get for like 40, 45 bucks a pop. I think they're both undervalued.

If I can get those both for like 85, 90 bucks, I'm happy. If I could get Christian McCaffrey for 60 or 70 and then like Travis CTN for 20, I'd be happy for that, like $90. You see what I'm saying, give or take. But the flexibility comes in when, uh, maybe all those top running backs, everyone freaked out and overpaid for them. If I end up, like I would be able to compromise on that second running back. if I get Mark Andrews at tight end.

You know what I mean? And so I guess I would encourage people to think about what's your version of that. If I, I will overpay for Trey Lance by like $7 this year and I don't give a shit. You know what I mean?

But you have to know, okay, I missed out of quarterback, but now I have more, because I'm going to spend $1. And I'm going to be even more aggressive about I want Justin Jefferson and I want A.J. Brown

and I want X. But I'm fine to have a shitty tight end because I wanted Dallas Goddard and blah, blah. Basically, you should have like a loose budget and be either have a spreadsheet in front of you or at least be vaguely aware of how your money's allocating,

but you really want to know what your floor is at each position. And, like, D.K., I'm curious who your guy, like, for this season, I'm curious what you could, like, compromise on versus what you could not for, like, this year at, like, running back or receiver or wherever. Yeah, I don't know. It's tough. I think we already kind of mentioned this, but, like, a guy like Saquan Barkley, I'm willing to shell out a little extra money because I just want that, you know,

I'll sleep better at night knowing I've got a running back that could really, have a three-down workload kind of deal. So, like, targeting one of those three-down workload running backs that are going to have, they're not going to be sharing a backfield, blah, blah, blah. You're not, like, basically relying on coaches to put in your guy X amount of times per game. Like, that just gets so annoying throughout a season. So I know that this is reiterating a little bit what we said. But, yeah, just like targeting one of those tier of running backs and getting them is

important to me in those types of drafts. And then, like I said, you know, you get like one elite receiver, but there's so many receivers that you can scoop up value on. I feel pretty confident just like kind of like punting on that position a little bit till later in the draft. And yeah, I think what Hyford said at the very beginning is actually the most important advice is focus for three hours. God, it's hard. It's hard. It's it's hard. It's especially hard early when it takes like an hour and a half to get through the first like 10 guys because they're all like the most like highly sought after guys and the bidding keeps going back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. You kind of forget that as the draft goes on,

they become much more quick and it kind of goes quickly. But man, yeah, it's tedious at the first, like the first hour and a half, I'd say, is pretty tedious because, you know, you got guys, like, even if guys like you don't have any interest in, it takes like 10 minutes for them to fucking bid through these players. Well, and that's the other part of it is that, like, in my auction draft, I had no interest in drafting Clyde Edwards-Hillair this year, and then he was there for $5, so I got him. You got to pay attention, too. It's like, yeah. So I just, this is a life thing. I just got to. cat.

Nice. This is big. I, email me at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com if you have any advice on fostering cats. We're trying to make it more comfortable. He's like advice.

Don't foster cat. We also need a name for the cat. It's tentatively named Sam. We love the cat. I'll tweet a picture of it. Oh, I got a great name for him already. Ready? Funk.

In honor of Funk Davis. Funk the cat. Bring up bad memories. Call funky. Well, it's going to be a joint decision. It's got to be a joint decision with my girlfriend. so maybe we could bring her on. She could judge some names.

I got a dog. You got a dog? Oh, yeah. Wait, how's the puppy? George. He's doing great. He is, well, we don't really know what he is. We were told initially that he is a Irish Wolfhound mix of Irish Wolfhound Shepherd mix.

But now there's some doubt as to what he is exactly. There's like some, I mean, I can't even remember. Pyrenees. There's a bunch of different breeds that they think he potentially could be. But bottom line, he's awesome. He looks cool. he's really big he's going to be I don't know probably like 80 pounds

once he grows up because he's like 20 pounds already and he's four months old very chill dog very good with Calvin trying to remember other things got a very like soft coat love him it's the best adorable we'll tweet pictures of our animals

we had a we had a dog Lola for like a very long time and she passed away last year and so this is kind of we're we finally had the mental fortitude to like get a new dog and kind of like Calvin really wanted one for a long time too. So yeah, it's exciting. I love the name George. I love human names for dogs. Yeah. That's why I liked Sam, but before we lock in Sam for the foster cat, I wanted to just kind of

get a tap into the audience. So the reason I brought this up, though, was I've never been around cats. And it's crazy how cats will like, if they're going to pounce on something, first of all, they're just like a little hunter or assassin in your home. It's insane. Wild animal. You ever seen a cat that's going to like, a small lion or cheetah? And it's like so still. And it just like waits and waits and waits. Yeah. And then boom, it just goes. And you kind of have to be like that in an auction draft because you kind of have to sit still and be extremely patient. You do. But then when your moments there, you just got to strike like lightning.

And so I feel like we're always talking out of both sides of her mouth. It's like, be patient, be patient. Also, when it happens, just go for it. But it's really both. You have to be like a cat. Also, don't tell your friends the players you are interested in. I know it's fun to talk fantasy, but don't do it. I told all my friends they listened to this damn podcast, how much I liked Michael Pittman.

Couldn't get them. They bit them up. Don't tell your friends who you like. No, do it. Just lie. Or lie or lie. Yeah, lie. You could lie professionally.

So you love Antonio. Craig, you could just lie for three months before your drafts go. The whole pod's a long con. We don't even like any of these players. Just try to win in fantasy. Mike Davis was a prank and you guys are all fooled. I was taking Mike Davis. Okay.

So to bring this all home, just because we had so many questions about auction drafts, and I feel like we probably don't talk about as much as we should. the other part of this that's important is like the players at the end of the draft are so important. So I honestly kind of feel my approach in auction drafts is kind of the same as snake drafts, but you can be even more targeted. So like I would love to get six receivers in the top 50, but then what at the end of the like the rookie receivers like the Elijah Moore's, or like the Garrett Wilson's on the Jets, the Drake London's, those guys are like five, six, seven, eight bucks. You want those.

But like the dollar players, the running backs, I kind of like the stockpite. them at the end. Like Kenneth Gainwell for the Eagles, you can get for maybe a dollar, maybe a Michael Carter for the Jets for a dollar, maybe Rashad Penny for a few bucks. That's a starter for Seahawks. Damian Pierce for the Texans

might be like a couple bucks. And so if you manage to have like five or six like really elite receivers and you have your star running back, but then you kind of just throw darts at the board and try to hit on starting running backs at the end, like the Tyler Algiers or the Falcons for like a dollar, those guys are so valuable because you can plug them in,

but also three weeks into the season, everyone looks at the roster and wants to trade for a running back, and everyone's like, no, no one wants to trade the running backs away. And if you have the surplus running back value, it's always, it's like the,

like, $10 to throw darts at like three or four bench running backs always is worth like so much more, like three weeks into the season that I love to litter my bench with high upside running backs. Yeah, a good call. You do kind of forget that, like,

trading is legal in these leagues most of the time, you know? Well, you do because you're in 23 Dynasty League, leagues and now I understand because we're doing a dynasty league with your friends. And they're all offering you like, I'll give you a 17th round pick swap to move up 12 spots. And I'm like, can you speak English? It's literally like more complicated than being an actual GM drafting a startup dynasty draft. It's impossible. Yeah.

For those listening, I got Craig. I roped Craig and Hyfitz into doing a dynasty league finally, all three of us together. And yeah, it was really funny because I think for both of you, like the startup draft was a big change compared to like most drafts right like you have to keep these guys forever there's so much goes into it you know you want to win now or win later yeah figuring out yeah figuring out your strategy figuring out how much guys are worth how much each pick is worth yeah it's a lot i went full joel a cup and i i plan to win now and later so win forever hey craigs light light years ahead of all this okay so that's our auction stuff and then lastly i guess the last thing i would say on auction stuff

is honestly paying up for tight end it's nice yeah yeah and i kind of think dallas got her my floor. He's the, he, I was going to say I got him in this draft that I was talking about earlier. He was like the, I got to go. If I'm going to get a tight end, I got to get at least Goddard or better. That's what I got as well. No one's ever gotten a discount on like Travis Kelsey or Mark Andrews or Kyle Pitts in a draft. If you do great, fantastic, but like Dallas Goddard's the guy where it's like, you know what? He's probably going to be underpriced in every platform. That's all our auction stuff. If you have more questions than that email, so at your fantasy football at gmail.com and you also can see our auction prices and our tier at the, at our draft

guide. Okay, we got a question from Ryan on PPR players and he just... Ryan. Ryan. Who are the players at each position of the biggest swing in where they should be drafted based on whether you have point per reception or just standard scoring? Which is zero points per reception. Yes. So for quarterbacks,

if you're in a standard league where you have zero points per reception, quarterbacks are actually all worth more because as a percentage of total points, they're actually much higher because all the catches aren't points. So that's a good thing to know. And then really, I think the biggest swings on the pass catching running backs, like guys we expect to catch a lot of passes

this year are valuable in PPR, obviously, Aaron Jones for the Packers, DeAndreve for the Lions, Travis Eton for the Jags, Cordorale Patterson for the Falcons, James Cook for the Bills, yeah, Austin Echler for the Chargers, Naheem Hines for the Colts. J.D. McKissick, you can just forget about him.

Exactly. So, like, in PPR League, a guy like Austin Echler is much more valuable and probably drops lower in his standard, but still in the first round. And then there are guys that are, like, off the map. like Nahim Hines for the cult,

if he's like the past catching back is worth a lot, but basically almost undraftable in the standard league. No PPR. Derek Henry, Damien Harris, Elijah Mitchell, Brian Robbins, and Nick Chubb,

those guys are all worth more. So that's the short answer. It's knowing about the receptions of the running backs. Is there anyone you would add to that list? Kind of same with receiver. You know, there's like your deep ball guys who kind of don't wreck up as many catches.

You're kind of like your Brandon Ayukes. And then there's the possession receivers like your Hunter and pros, who do a lot better. Yeah, Jacoby Myers and Hunter Renfro and not worth very much in a standard league. Jacobi Myers is like

the classic don't draft in standard leagues because he scored like two touchdowns ever on like, I don't even know, 200 catches in his career or something like ridiculous. Yes, you got to,

obviously you got to look at that. Like in PPR, the slot receivers in general a lot of times are sort of like they hoover up targets, whoever up catches, but maybe aren't scoring that many touchdowns or making big plays

and they're just less valuable in standard. Okay. We got another email from Joe. He's asked about he's in a 14 team league and he asked how strategy for draft changes in a deeper league. I have a couple thoughts. I'm curious if you guys have any.

Go for it. So I think that in a deeper league, I think a star running back or two is probably more important because you're just not, you're not able to count on getting one off waivers as much as you are in like a 10 team league. I think the gap at tight end is. bigger because having an elite tight end in me is more important. Having a start quarterback to me is probably less important. Like in a 14 team league this season where there's 13-ish, 14-ish quarterbacks that are

probably like perfectly fine. I would probably be more willing to wait on quarterback for this year in a 14 team league. More important to me get two of the top 14 running backs if I can. And then just get a Mark Andrews or Kyle Pitts and just try to get a tight end and not just relegate yours because like, man, trying to find a tight end off waivers if your draft guy doesn't work out. in a 14 team league's going to be brutal, and then just hammering receiver,

like for the whole thing, and basically get star running backs, get a good tight end, wait on quarterback, and then just hammer receiver for like basically seven picks. And that's the way I would try to build a team this year in a 14 team league. And also know your rules.

It's really important to know what we were just talking about if it's PPR or not to know if Nahamahe Heinz is valuable or whatever. Also, I think handcuffs are even more valuable in deeper leagues because they're less likely to be on the waiver wire. So, like, you want to make sure you have Alexander Madison on your team if you have Delvin Cook.

You want to make sure you draft your Kenneth Gainwell type players just so you don't have to add them or they won't be on somebody else's team. They'll be on yours if somebody gets injured. Do you guys like playing in the deeper leagues, 14, 16 teams or do you prefer 12, 10? I've only ever played in 10 and 12. I've played a 14 team league. It's just, it's a different vibe because obviously the player pool gets so diluted and your team doesn't feel as good. Okay.

We got a question here from a guy named Bill Simmons. Hmm. Who wants to know when is high fit is going to admit that he's only seen like 20 movies in his life. He actually sent the Ringer Fantasy Football Gmail account that email. That is real. Did he really?

I thought he texted you. Wait, do we have this? Yeah, I found it. No shit. Oh, that's funny. It's from his email. He sent it in and that's all it is, is that line. So Hyphitz, I think this is the perfect time to announce that we're going to be doing

another as told by episode this week and we are going to be doing it on the movie Step Brothers, which Hyphitz, have you seen Step Brothers? I have not. There it is. I'm excited to do. it. God, man. I'm not like I avoided it on purpose. You're in the 1% of people in their 20s who hasn't seen stepbrothers. And it's not like I don't love all the other Will Ferro movies and can quote them like till, like, I was going to say cows come home, but that's like a thing old people

say. But I don't know. I was so embarrassed by this that I was trying to think why I hadn't. And I don't know. I think part of it's because it was R-rated and it came out when I was in eighth grade mixed with for whatever reason. Like I don't know. Exactly the type of movie in eighth grader. It does everything possible to see. My parents brought made of the departed when I was in fifth grade and like I sat between them and that was like a terrible movie. And so I think that they overcorrected and stopped letting me see R-rated movies for a while. And then I don't know. My friends, I don't know. I just like, we just always watch Talladega. We always watched like the other Will Ferrell movies and it just somehow

never happened. I don't know. I feel like the 40-year-old virgin right now. You're in for a treat. It's like grabbing a bag of sand. Like a bag of sand. So here we go. We're going to have Step Brothers this week. That'll be fun. God, this movie is just, it goes completely off the rails in a great way. It's just, I feel, I love the parents the most in this movie. I cannot wait to watch this movie. Elite Adam Scott performance as well. And Catherine Hahn.

I don't know that much and I'm kind of happy about it. Oh, my God. Okay. Pfez, could you do a little disclaimer first and then people driving in their car with their kids can turn it off and we can like insert it at the beginning of this segment? Yeah, I'm just going to do this right now. Parents, if you are listeners with your children, highly recommend pausing.

We're just turning it off. Yeah. Or turning it off. Just skip ahead five minutes. We got an email from Andy on Andy says that he lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, which is the Bachelorette Party capital of the West, which is a title of just made up.

And for his league's draft order, he says, our plan is to go into Old Town Scottsdale in a weekend. And they're going to ask a bachelorette party to assign them their draft order. Andy is asking us, I'd love to get some input from you guys on how you think this group of women should rank our league to determine this year's draft order. This is potentially going to go very awry. What do you guys think? So if you want to be dirty about it and get down in the gutter, I think you should do, I think you should get the girls to order the draft based on who they think has the biggest to smallest penis.

just based on vibes, just based on vibes. Not looks, has nothing to do with looks. Just kind of, just the overall, like, basically BDE is just BDE. BDE, yeah, no, the energy, the aura. BDE. Just based on the color of their aura, who has the biggest dick. I like that even better because I was going to say that they should all just submit like a, like a hinge profile, and they should all like swipe left or right, but that's even better.

Because that could get mean because then it's like everyone, oh, all the girls think this kid is ugly. Well, no, because it's not guessing. He looks like he was a very tiny. tiny penis like that one affects us. This guy's micro penis. At least it's guessing. At least it's speculation. Just based on your face, you look like you have a small penis.

Isn't that better than going looking at your face, your last because your face is ugly? Is that how a hinge works? Isn't that the whole point of day? Yeah, but who wants to be told they're ugly. Yeah, I guess you don't know who's swiping off. Craig, let me ask you, would you rather be told you're ugly or would you rather be told you look like you have a small dick? I'd rather be told I look like I have a small dick.

That is the, well, of course. It's speculation. Oh my God I was saying it's funny Because like a lot of dudes Don't really have any sense Of what pictures They should put on their profiles

And I'm pretty positive That like a dude's idea Of like oh, this is the picture I want to show them To make them think I have BDDD Me flexing on a boat with a beer Yeah I don't think that's gonna be like how

Women perceive BD Also I think the girls are gonna get creative They're gonna like Add some sleeper picks You know like the skinny guy Who's got a big penis The Pete Davidson of the group Like they're not just gonna pick

the ripped guys. I'm telling you. They're going to get creative with it. BDE. When BDE became a thing like a few years ago, I was like, it was so funny to me, especially like the women at the office who were just like, oh yeah, I know exactly what this is. And I, it somehow came up in a conversation with my mom. And she was like, BDE. And I was like, yeah, it's like big dick energy. She's like, what's that? I'm like, well, for example, my co-worker says the golfer, Brooks Kepka has BDE. And my mom was like, oh, yeah, yeah, okay. Yeah. I know exactly what that means. It's essentially just confidence, you know?

Charisma, if you will. I would watch a game show. I would watch this game show. Andy, if you do this, can you document it? Because I actually want to hear what they say. Yeah, they should get a group of men to come on a game show, and women have to guess who has the biggest penis, but it's like, you know, it's like a deal or no deal situation.

And it's always surprising which one is the winner. Oh, my God. Well, depending how you verify that, you're going to have to depend to what channel you're going to be on. Right. Craig, are there like briefcases involved here? Like a dick in the box kind of deal? Oh, interesting.

Go getting somewhere. I just keep thinking about all the nice parents who emailed us about like listening to this podcast and I always think about these moments. All right, we got an email from a guy who identifies himself as Kenny Tiny Hands. Kenny Tiny Hands. He says first I saw that Andy Greenwald on the watch, which is a ringer pot of ours, went into a solo countdown of the top 10 blueie episodes while Chris Brian was on vacation.

Wow. Nice. You were not part of it. This is like Batman and during the Bat signal. I want to do this list, but I can't do it off the top of my head because I don't remember it. I'll be honest with you. Calvin hasn't watched Bluey in like, I don't know, eight months or something like that. He got over Bluey.

And so he's too mature now. He's really into the show called All Engines Go. It's about Thomas the Train. Really fucking catchy theme song, by the way, which I sing constantly. D.K., do you feel familiar now and well-versed in the Thomas the Train, like, lore? Are you like a Thomas-the-Train expert? No. My knowledge is essentially.

There's a train called Thomas. By the way, this reminds me. Someone, there's a funny tweet where someone took like a picture of a book from Thomas to train the book. And it was like, Thomas turned around. And then the person just tweeted, how? Like And then there's just like an entire like tweet thread of like thousands of replies of people like digitally creating ways in which Thomas could turn around. On track.

It's like the most unhinged thing I've ever seen in my life. You should look that up. That new movie Bullet Trains weirdly there's a there's like a subplot about Thomas the Thomas the train. Isn't it Thomas the tank engine? Yeah, it's definitely Thomas the Tank Engine. engine. Yeah. There's a whole subplot in that movie Bullet Train about it. Check it out. Did you guys have that wooden train tracks thing when you were a kid and you could like

have the train tracks that like you could like, oh my God. I know exactly what you're talking about. Man. Legendary toy. Okay. Kenny also asked that since Craig and I aren't on Daddington Island here as fathers and we don't watch Bluey, he was wondering if we're still young enough to have used the apps and if so what is like the running back equivalent of things that's like an automatic like swipe left?

Like a guy's like Under, yeah, like if a guy's too short, some women will just swipe left. Like, what's the running back version of that? I swipe left on players who are fresh off an ACL injury, and I swipe right on the talented players who are on the year after they had that ACL injury. That's my kink. Swipe left on sub 200 pounds? Oh, yeah.

Spindly receivers. No thanks. So, Craig, you health shame and dicker you body shame. Mm-hmm. Too skinny. I like them thick at receiver. Okay. Sorry, D.K.

Oh, that's the line. That was too much. Calling a wide receiver thick is too much. The dick size guessing game. And this was too offensive. I mentioned my mom agreeing that Brooks Kepka has BDE, but you know what? C.D. Lamb not thick is a problem. Jesus.

Okay. Email from Peter. PD. Petey. I was going to name Peter. And then my dad said that that was a synonym for penis. but then that kind of like went away in the 21st century. It's not like a thing anymore.

Yeah. Interesting. Yeah, I mean, your dad's right. I like the name Peter. Peter says, Peter's probably like happy. We read his email and they quickly got like unhappy that we talked about that. Sorry, Peter. Peter says, I love, first of I love the sound effects after the fandal read.

And it made me think of turning on grunt birthday party in Halo 3. Shout out hyphen to that reference. Thank you, Peter. Peter also says that his league this year is doing a twist on the Waffle House punishment. You know how we had that Waffle House ad that everyone was mad at us up for? because it played too much, where the guys, the punishment is 24 hours

in a waffle house and then you have to eat every waffle you eat takes an hour off the total. So his league is not doing a twist on that. It's 12 hours in a dive bar and every shot of fireball

takes an hour off your total. And I'm curious what... It seems dangerous. Ration, how would you guys play that? I actually put some thought into this. Here's my strategy. I'm like everything else he says.

I think you should go during the day when there's a sports game you want to watch on. And you go to the dive bar, because I'm assuming there's going to be a TV, and take about six to seven shots during the game, throughout the game. About a three-hour game. You're taking like two an hour.

DK.'s eyes just went like, whoa. Two an hour. Two an hour for the game. The game is about three hours long. So that is six shots that you took in three hours. So now you only have three hours remaining on your time. Perfect time. Go sit in the corner of the booth.

It'll be like 4 p.m. Go for a noon game. take a nap for the final three hours. They're not going to wake you up. It's a dive bar. They will absolutely throw you out of the bar if you fall asleep. Well, it depends on the bar.

That's how it works. If it's a busy day bar and people are just like watching games and you're just like kind of like head on the shoulder and booth. The more likely you're going to get thrown out of your sleep. Look, I have fallen asleep in many bars. You always get thrown out.

Wear sunglasses. Ooh, that's good. Simple. Let me tell you. Wait, wait, wait, wait. We get that Bernie's guys. Come on. I like how high if it said you always get thrown out when you fall asleep.

How many times have you fallen asleep in a bar? I have fallen asleep at many bars. I've fallen asleep in clubs. It's, yeah. Clubs. Are you like, you are actually 80 years old? Well, so the thing is, it's like. Many.

I want some context on what many is. Are we talking like 100? I actually can't get over there. You fall in asleep in a club, which is the loudest music on the planet. Well, no, it was not like that kind of club, but like, basically there was a thing last year. Like a golf club? Basically, it was like we did the boozy brunch, which I'm kind of just done. paying like $40 for bottles for like eggs and stuff but today we did the boozy brunch and then we

just kept going all day. And there was no like post day drink nap thing. And then we just went out at night. And it was and then it's like two in the morning and we're at a club and they had a very nice chair and I sat in the chair and I fell asleep. And all my friends gave me shit. Describe the club. What is the club? What is the club? It was. It's not like a dance club. No, no, it's just like it's They call it club in the name, but it's more like an arcade bar, but it was like to with a dance floor and it's like cool and like. It's got a bottle service? There is. Yeah.

It's so like it's a club, but like it's not like what you're thinking. It's like some raucous dance floor with like fucking flat like strobe lights and I'm just in the corner. But fell asleep and everyone's giving me shit and the bouncer wakes me up and my poor girlfriend has to be like, no, no, no, he's not drunk. He's just a loser. And that didn't work. And we still got kicked out. But the point is I was just like, dude, I've been drinking since 11 of the morning. it's not two in the morning.

Can't I just be tired? Is that not allowed? I mean, no. If it's the right dive bar and you nod off in a booth, I bet you the least. Or tell the bartender. Be open about what you're doing here today. Maybe they'll let you sleep.

Cat nap. Cat nap. Watch a game, get ripped. Go to sleep. One day I'm going to give you guys my pitch for like my terrible shark tank pitch for like a whole bar thing where you could fall asleep in a bar.

For another day. We got an incredible email about ice cream that's settled like this hog and dog argument we were having. Can I just say nothing makes me happier than... It feels like we are constantly like living in front of a jury because the second our pod ends and goes up,

we immediately find out who is right or wrong or what people think. It's wonderful. Thank you to everybody who responded about our ice cream. It's kind of just a group of people who settles your arguments with your friends. It's really convenient. Also, by the way, and this is a good segue to this email,

but like I love how creative some of our listeners are. Like, they'll go to pretty, like, far lengths to come up with something super fucking creative. Yeah, correct. You want to read this one? Thank you for that. Sure. This is from somebody who goes by Mr. Bell. He says, hello, old buddies.

Mr. Bell. I loved your debate of what qualifies as an elite ice cream. And I agree with all of you to a degree on your impressions of Hogandahs. Parentheses, I've held down my A key to get those. Oh, sorry, I'll cut that. Hagen-Doh. He's doing the oomblots over the Hock and Daws. That doesn't need to be in the font.

He'll read whatever's on the proctor, folks. Honestly, just keep that. That's hilarious. Give people a little window into the mind. How do you pronounce Hagen does with the umlet? Hagen does. Fucking kidding me? I don't know.

No, that's how they want you to pronounce it. Correct. I don't know how to pronounce an umulat. Sorry. You already do is my point. Hagendaz is essentially the Mason-Dixon line of quality ice cream. It has some of the simplest ingredients and is a notch above the budget national brands and store brands.

Danny is right that the high-fat content is often associated with overall quality and richness. And then he goes on... Hayfitz was right. He says, I think they were more of an elite brand 15, 20 years ago before the rise of artisan ice creams, but they are still worth a scoop. Price-wise, they tend to land roughly in the middle. The high-end brands are a good 30% more, while budget brands tend to offer far more ice cream for less dollar. So I was right. I said Hagen-Daz's middle of the road. This guy knows a lot about ice cream. What happened to Hyphitz was right, like 30 seconds ago? You were right about the fat content.

I was right about where Hagenas stands in the ranking of ice cream quality. I'll admit, you're probably right in that I think Hagenas has more prestige with older people. Like yourself. Than it probably goes under 40. Yeah, because people who fall asleep in clubs love Hagenas. Well, he also, I mean, Mr. Bell here also had an incredible, he kind of went on and actually, we asked jokingly if people could compare ice creams to cars. And he did, and it's an unbelievable list.

he says, so he goes through him so he says, Jenny's ice cream is Porsche, Salt and Straw's BMW, Van Lewin is Mercedes, and Cool House is Audi, Talentee, that makes sense.

Talentie, which is very good is Lexus. Bluebell, which I've never had, is Accura. And then we go Hogandas is a Mazda, and he says,

shout out to Craig and his CX-5. The fact that Mr. Bell remembered and knew that I drive a new CX-5, bonus points to you, Mr. Bell. Blue Bunny. Also, I've never had that, is Subaru. Ben and Jerry's Volkswagen.

Oh my gosh. That's really good. Jerry's is Volkswagen is unbelievable. Because it's like from Vermont, you know, people driving Volkswagen. That's so funny. Tillamook is Honda, Turkey Hill, Toyota, Eddies and Dryers is Ford. Briars is Hyundai. Oh, that one really, that resonates. And Baskin Robbins is Chevy.

Chevy. Just good old-fashioned American ice cream. Unbelievable. Holy cow. shout out Mr. Bell. That is an unbelievable email. Blue Bell is accurate. It just fucking kills me.

I love Ben and Jerry. I haven't tried like a lot of these. I haven't even heard of a lot of these ice creams. I've never heard of Turkey Hill. Cool houses. Turkey Hill sounds like an alcohol. You don't know a cool house if it's that's all over L.A. Turkey Hill is definitely a like a more East Coast thing, I think.

I just stick with the Ben and Jerry's. I'm a VW kind of guy. Yeah, what is everybody's favorite on this list? You're a Ben and Jerry's guy? Yeah, big time. Well, I'm freaking out the game now because I'm like newly lactose intolerance. Out of the game.

Do you ever go dairy free? Yeah, well, yeah, well, Ben and Jerry's was easily my favorite before. I mean, Jennings is great, but Ben and Jerry's is like unbelievable. Like the, what's that flavor? The, um, the, I used to love half-baked, but then the Jimmy Fallon to night dough is like half-baked on like steroids. It is unbelievable. I, uh, I don't know if this is a hot take or not, but I think Ben and Jerry's is just

fucking weird. way too much. Money or their whole schick? There's just too much in it. There's too much in it. It's like chaos in there. That's what I like about it. It's like a candy store

was shoved into your vanilla ice cream. I don't like it. So you don't like, I love debris in my ice cream. That's the thing. I like to sift for gold. My favorite ice cream on the planet is a scoop of high quality vanilla.

Oh, for crying out loud. Damn straight, baby. There's nothing better. If vanilla wasn't white in color, if it was pink, everybody would think it was an awesome flavor. It's just boring because it's white. and the name vanilla.

Well, the irony is we say like vanilla is like boring, but it was actually very valuable. It's an amazing flavor. If it had a different name and a different color, I swear, we think it's like fucking,

I don't know, cookies and cream. No, we like cookies and cream because there's chunks of cookies in it. Yeah, but that one's just like, it's like Oreos and vanilla

kind of mixed together. I'm okay with that, but it's, I don't like when it's like cheesecake bites with chocolate covered potato chips and Swedish fish. Oh, see,

I love that. That's incredible. Jesus, that's too much. Unreal. No, it's so good. That's like, you just described the Colbert flavor. It's unbelievable. I love fudge chunks.

I love cookie dough. Uncooked. I also kind of like the bat, like the bat, like love me the cake. Well, cake batter is a little kind of like gimmicky, but like the brownie batter or, oh my God. That's nasty. This reminds me of Calvin eating because there was one point where I literally almost started gagging because he was eating pizzas dipped in hummus with shredded cheese and pickles. That doesn't sound that bad

You fucking kidding me Pita with hummus is super normal Pickles is still kind of normal And then some cheese Oh God It was terrible You had to be there I was just my baby cousin

It turned one And he just has this like Bib that catches all the food That falls And so he was just eating from that That got all the food That he like dropped From the last two days

That's what I thought you were gonna say Ben and Jerry's is like If the Will Feral character from Elf made ice cream. Yeah, that's... Well, yeah, it's just these two hippies from Vermont. And I get it. It's like pop tarts and syrup on your spaghetti

with chocolate syrup. Too much. I went skiing in Vermont once that we like drove in the snowstorm and we drove by on the way up or back, I forget. And we drove by a Ben & Jerry's factory and we went in hoping it was open and it was closed. But then we realized that it was closed

and no visitors were there. So we just did donuts in the parking lot in the snow. And there was just like four-story tower that just said dairy. Like this little nose unbelievable. I thought you were going to say you broke in and stole ice cream. Oh, I wish.

That would have been cool. Okay, that's what we got. Thank you to everyone who emailed us in. Emails of ringerfantasy football at gmail.com. If you have a name possibly for my cat, that would be great. I'll tweet out a picture. I want you to see the cat before you throw out the name out. That would be ideal.

Email me at ringer fantasy football at gmail.com for the cat name. Shout out to you can get your dog. Thank you to everyone who emailed us in for the mailback. two more episodes this week. Thank you, D.K., thank you, Craig. Thank you, Lauren. Lauren. Thank you, Warren G.

Regulators. Nailed it. Hyvitz. What's your favorite muse song? Mace. What's his name? You got the name wrong? Dude, a lot of people gave a shit for that.

A lot of people were like, damn, that was, it was one of those like, you sling mud, you get dirty. It's all of us like that in that conversation. Somebody actually tweeted at me during the show, and it said, he said, Mace, left gospel, signed with G unit, went back to being murder Mace. It was a huge flop. He's also in the middle of a huge publishing rights discrepancies As an artist and manager Interesting

We'll get our narrative pot on Mace Just a little follow-up to that story Come out next fall, yeah Maybe next episode you'll name a Mace song I'm never going to do it Because once I do that I'm opening up the floodgates If you just like to be like name five songs And I just don't want you to be able to do that

The point has already been made Goodbye Alright.