The Ringer NFL Show - Power-Ranking the 10 Commandments of the 2021 Fantasy Season After Eight Weeks

Episode Date: November 3, 2021

We run through the latest news, including the lackluster trade deadline before getting into this week's Power Hour, where we power-rank the 10 most important rules to live by after eight weeks of the fantasy football season. We finish the show with another edition of Fantasy Court. News (1:16) Power Hour (10:56) Fantasy Court (47:40) Sign up and compete against us in the Bad QB League on FanDuel 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

Hello, I'm Mallory Rubin. And I'm Van Leithen. Check out the Ringerverse podcast from The Ringer for all things, superhero movies, nerd culture, and fandom entertainment. We have instant reviews and fun takes on all the latest news and more available now on Spotify.

To The Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Heifitz, and I am joined by Danny Kelly and Craig Quirlebeck. Today is Power Hour Every Way. I can't speak English. Every week, we power rank something every Wednesday during the season. This week, we are

Power ranking the Ten Commandments, not the original ones. You did a little spin off. The Ten Commandments of the 20. It's the original power rankings here. The OG Power Rankings were the Ten Commandments, yes. Wow, those are the OG Power Rankings. I didn't think of that.

I feel like those are even a rip-off. I feel like there were Ten Commandments before that. And that's kind of like the aggregated like, you know, the previous. You don't have to go into all that. Anyway, we are Power-Ranking the Ten Commandments of the Twenty-21 Fantasy Football Season after eight weeks. We're going to go through that. But first, a lot of news, a lot of stuff happened today.

First, really depressing one to start. Raiders receiver, Henry Ruggs, is facing a driving under the influence charge after a fiery vehicle crash early Tuesday in Las Vegas that left a woman dead, and Ruggs and his female passenger injured, authorities said, according to the Las Vegas metropolitan police department, Ruggs was driving a Chevrolet Corvette a little before 3.40 a.m. It crashed to the rear of a to Ravre 4. the Touretta caught fire, the driver died, the police said she was not immediately identified.

Ruggs, 22 years old, quote, showed signs of impairment, police said in a statement and that he will be charged with felony DUI resulting in death. Yeah, I mean, there's really nothing to say other than, you know, our hearts and our thoughts go out to the victim here. And it's a terrible, terrible situation. It's just very, very sad. And the obvious thing is here, don't drink a drive. I mean, there's really nothing else to say about this at the moment. Yeah, this is a horrible situation. There's no segue from that, so we will just move on. But yeah, that's absolutely horrible.

All right, but the other, I mean, kind of overshadowed in a way, but the trade deadline was today. The trade deadline... Yeah, we were thinking about even doing a pot about the trade deadline, but it turns out nothing happened. It sucked. It was nothing... No one was traded.

I don't think any relevant skill players were traded. I mean, the only guys even in the weeks leading up to this, I guess were Mark Ingram and Zach Ertz. Are those the only relevant fantasy guys that even really were traded? Deshawn Jackson was released. That's not really the same thing. True. True.

No, nothing really materialized. I know a lot of people had the idea and the hope that maybe the Titans would trade for a running back or something like that. It ended up just being signing Adrian Peterson off his couch. Odell Beckham was not traded. Oh my, did you guys All right, the thing with his dad Did you, I know you saw the headline,

but did you actually see the Instagram post where his dad was like kind of calling up Baker? Like, did you read the Instagram post? No. Was he breaking down tape? Let me pull it up. Well, I thought Odell posted a video of him not being thrown too while open.

No, it's Odell Beckham. His dad is named O'Dell Beckham Senior. That's why you got to read past the headlines, guys. Come like, okay. Let me quote. So his dad was like, the hashtags or so. So he posted a video that was basically like,

Baker missing O'Dell. Like he posted a video of a YouTube video that he did not make of like O'Dell just not getting all these balls when he's wide open from Baker. And I got to read. Sure, that's going to go over well. The captain is, quote,

generally behind a scene, but not today. And then the hashtags are, I'm a father before anything. My twin. My ace. And he says, hashtag playing hurt.

Hashtag I hurt for him. Hashtag this really hurts. Hashtag very hurtful. Hashtag disrespectful. Hashtag when I hurt the hurt, I know. Too many hashtags. I love my son. Hashtag for you page.

Hashtag Beckham Legendary. I wish my dad would Instagram about me with the hashtag, uh, I hurt for him. This is love. This is what love looks like. Love makes you nuts. Love it. This is love.

LeBron James tweeted free OBJ. We're officially in free this person territory. LeBron Debron. fan. Is he? I think he's friends with O'Dell more than he's a Brown's fan. I'm just saying, I actually respect O'Dell's dad for just still being a helicopter dad, even though he's in the NFL. This sucks, though. This just makes the whole situation worse. No one wins in this scenario.

Yeah, yeah. I saw Clarence Hill from, he's a Cowboys writer, wrote today, tweeted today, Odell Beckham wants out. His relationship with Baker Mayfield is beyond repair. So that's great. Can you guys imagine if I just started tweeting, on my own, or my dad just started tweeting, like, Craig needs more airtime on the fantasy pod. Yeah. This is ridiculous. He's had so many opportunities and he gets talked over by high fits. Can you imagine if he posted a video of all the times where like, yeah, just, just something.

I just cut you off where I was wrong about something. You're like, who's the real problem? He cuts all the clips together, puts it on TikTok, a bunch of hashtags, free Craig. Oh, my God. That would be great. Actually, that would be fun. That would, let's try. Let's try and do this.

Anyway, so we have traded Craig Krollback to the Ringer NFL show. In return for what? DK., what do you think we could get from the Ringer NFL show for Craig? I'm not getting into that. What do you think we could get? What do you think Craig's trade value is?

You get like five takes from Kevin a year that you guys get to use on this show. No, it would definitely be conditional. Like, it would be conditional based on Craig's performance and then like how many appear, like we get certain amount appearances from Kevin. It would be like the Carson Wednesday deal. Like if Craig 75% of episodes,

we get Kevin for like this, first rounder, I don't know. The pod numbers need to go up or else you don't get anything in return. Exactly. Got to make the pod playoffs. That's really the key. We got to get a Webby award. Okay.

Anyway, no one cares about any of this. The trade deadline sucked is the point. The one thing, the Von Miller trade, do we want to talk about this at all? It's not really great for fantasy, but like, that's kind of cool. The Rams got Von Miller. It's amazing. It's pretty fun.

It's pretty fun. I think the Rams are clearly shooting for the Super Bowl this year, which is fun. I love it. Yeah. They're playing mad and playing fantasy. So giving up your draft picks, so the Rams have, they'll play, have like a fifth and maybe another fifth and maybe they'll get a third

for next year. Yeah, they'll get some comp picks or something. That's literally it. I like Stephen Reeves literally just said this in Green Room today and I loved it. The analytics obviously thinks this is a terrible trade because getting rid of a second and third rounder

for Ron Miller to play nine games for you was probably a terrible idea and getting rid of all your draft picks is probably a bad idea. However, Stephen made the point. This is to beat Tom Brady. That's it. I actually completely agree. Like you have to go win a Super Bowl somehow. And I kind of like is it crazy to get rid of your picks?

Yeah, it's pretty nuts. But once you've decided to do it, whatever. You better go win. They're too deep in to pull out. They're already in. So what's one more? Yeah, no half measures. Like, for real. Exactly.

You can't give up like 80% of your picks and then stop. Like you kind of got to commit. They're going to, they're going to regret it. They're not going to regret it. They're going to feel this in a few years when their depth is gone to shit. But they'll cross that bridge when they get to it. because, like, honestly, it's hard to win in the NFL. I kind of like this.

Like, push all your chips in, you know? Well, it sounds good to say push all your chips in. And then when you lose your chips, you're like, damn, I wish I had some chips. Like, it's easy to say now. Sure, of course. If they lose, it's going to be disappointing. But that's the gamble they're taking, right? Like, they could lose, they might lose anyway.

And then those picks down the line turn into guys that take three or four years to develop or maybe never pan out at all. And, like, I don't know, just go for it. Also, you know who likes this? Rams fans. Rams fans are happy. You know what? Can I also say the one underrated part of this, which is that the Rams play in their own

building for the Super Bowl this year. Like the Rams are hosting the Super Bowl. I don't think that can be overstated. The NFL has gone so ridiculously out of their way to advertise this $5 billion stadium that, I mean, has this stadium been on primetime like half of the week so far? I mean, the NFL has just gone out of the job. Chargers and Rams have one of the others hosted a primetime game or the 4 o'clock marquee window almost every week it feels like.

They're trying to advertise this building and remind you constantly, football's in LA, football's in LA, football's in LA, football's in a light, go to the building. The Rams really do probably want to, like, this Super Bowl is more than a Super Bowl. If you win in L.A., that's how you build a fan base. Like, people kind of don't give a shit about a football team until they're good. And if you win the Super Bowl at home, that will actually build your business. Like I actually think from ownership on down, they're fine with this if they win.

Hell yeah. Screw, you know, actually wanting to win for the sanctity of the game. This is a brand opportunity. Yes, it's LA, Craig. Everything that seems pure is a brand opportunity. The Rams are not football players. They are influencers.

Oh, boy. That's actually a really good way to play. Does it feel like the dream of a L.A. versus L.A. Super Bowl is slowly starting to fade away? Yeah, the charges are, I've taken a step back. I mean, it's still certainly in play because the AFC sucks. and that would be the coolest Super Bowl ever. I really want that to happen.

What? The coolest Super Bowl ever? Who cares? There's no charge. Oh, that'd be fun. Okay, not the coolest Super Bowl ever. You always take what I say a little literally, but it would be fun to have the Rams and the Chargers

playing in L.A. at the Super Bowl, that'd be pretty cool. You don't think so? Hyphitz. It would be cool. I'm just like... It's like a very weird hill to like... Wouldn't it be awkward? To get upset about this.

But wouldn't it be awkward for the chart? Like, I guess, like, it would be... It's the Rams building. it's such a awkward setup like the chargers play there right they do but the charge like when the Giants and Jets shared a building everything was equal it was

written into the lease like everything the amount of paint they could use every inch of decoration 50 50 it's like the building is in the shape of the old Rams logo I don't think anybody noticed that I don't think that's a big

big factor I think what they would do is do you think they would cut the like each logo in half and do like a split logo in the middle of the field. That'd be cool. Half charge or half RAM. They would not. They'd probably just do the NFL one, but they should because that would be really cool. That would be sweet.

Also like McVeigh, Staley, that'd be cool. I don't know. It would be cool. I'm sorry to be a downer. I just like, I don't know. The charges look weird. He gave around. Let's get to the power ranks.

Yeah. I don't know how we got on any of the things we just talked about. That's all right. That usually happens. All right, power hour time. If you don't know how to power hours, we're going to talk about something. we're going to rank it and then you'll hear this sound to tell us to move on. Yeah, baby, Tom, Tom, Tom.

The eternal thing. By the way, one of our listeners said that that jingle is his ringtone. So every time it went off, he thought that his phone was ringing. That's incredible. Wow. Have we, wait, Hyves, you said that we're doing the 10, ranking the 10 commandments of the 2021 season after eight weeks, right? I believe I said that.

I'll say again. We're ranking the 10 commandments of the 2021 season after eight weeks. The 10 commandments for those who are wondering, what that means is sort of like lessons learned, aka the memento thing where this is what we're telling ourselves to remember. This is what our new rules for drafting based on what we learned halfway through the season. Does that make sense? We'll likely do this again after the season.

I feel like I'm the terse one here and I don't want to, but did we need to explain to people what the Ten Commandments mean? No. Google it. I feel like they got that one. Does that make us fantasy Moses? Do we need to explain what? what fantasy football is?

Yeah, that's less widespread than the Ten Commandments. Honestly, it's harder to describe fantasy football. We're going to start. Here's what you need to know about the Ten Commandments. They all start with Thou Shalt. Actually, that might not be true. Most of them start with that. Some of it's just, hold on.

Some of it's positive. Quick Google here, quick Google check. Also, wait, yeah, I guess Craig makes an important point. Are we coming down the mountain right now and stop worshiping or Mike Davis false idols. Is that what we're doing right now? Yes. Okay. Shall we do it? Or Craig, are you googling the actual Ten Commandments right now? Also, the Ten Commandments are really need to be reordered. It depends on the translation. It really does depend on the translation. A lot of them start with you shall. Yeah. I don't know. Whatever. It's fine. Whatever. Okay. Well, I'm going to read our first

commandment. Yeah. Start the timer. I'll start the timer. Oh, God, damn. Two minutes. This is a mess today. What is going on with us? Thou shalt stick to the average draft position early in your drafts, which is really boring. That's a boring one to start off with. D.K., want to explain this one? Yeah, so basically,

the old Maxim, you can't win your draft in the first round, but you can lose it. Basically, what we've kind of looked at, we looked at ADP, the original ADP from the season, and we sort of just realized almost all of them have been hits,

other than guys have gotten hurt, but you can't really go in, basically, trying to predict who's going to get hurt, who's not. But in terms of like the top 35 guys or so, there's very few pure busts, like guys that just did not play well or got benched or whatever. So the bottom line is the lesson here is trust the wisdom of crowds, trust ADP,

early rounds. Don't try and reach. Don't try and get too cute. Just go by ADP, at least somewhere around ADP. You can obviously have your own little favorites here and there. But basically, yes, again, the lesson is don't go crazy. don't reach in the first couple of rounds because the opportunity costs there is just too great.

And this is something that we were saying preseason, but I think it's halfway through the year we're looking at kind of like what guys have done and it's all confirmed. Yeah, like this may sound counterintuitive, but if there were any three rounds to auto draft, your fantasy draft, it's the first three rounds because it kind of seems like it just doesn't matter.

Literally, I was going through the ADP, I was looking at the top 35 guys, and I was like, every single one of these guys has relatively worked out. Antonio Gibson, who kind of got hurt, but it wasn't doing well before that. And Miles Sanders. Excuse me.

Those are the only two guys who really just haven't panned out at all. It's pretty remarkable. So if you're in an auction draft... McCaffrey's hurt, but aside from... Well, yeah. There's... Injuries aside.

Yeah, the way that we're defining bust is not like they got hurt or, you know, in Calvin early's case, he's taking some time away from the game. We're talking about, like, performance-based. These guys have been bad. And, you know, it's easy.

In a snake draft, there's not much you can do. But if you're in an auction draft, try and spend extra money on getting as many top 30 guys. guys as you can because they tend to work out every time. Ooh, I like that. I like that, Craig. Commitment number two, thou shalt not overreact to

preseason news. A.k.a. the Jamar Chase Award. I think generally speaking, a good lesson is just don't overreact to anything. But, you know, so... You say it like that. The preseason, sometimes it does tell us stuff. You know, sometimes there are lessons to be learned,

but most of the time I would probably say, maybe not most. A lot of the time, that info that we're getting, whether it's from beat reports or just practice reports or whatever, it's just a huge red herring. I remember in the preseason, I got very excited about Leviska Schnott, based on what we were hearing from training camp. Well, I'm not singling out any one reporter because everyone in Jacksonville was saying this,

he just looked awesome. And all the stuff that we're going to see from him this year, everyone's getting super excited. He just hasn't panned out. I think you could say the same for Elijah Moore, though his injury certainly had an effect, but it felt like Elijah Moore is the next to Antonio Brown, like in preseason. season, all this stuff. And on the converse side, on the opposite

side of that, Jamar Chase was basically a bust based on what we were hearing from training camp. I think the bottom line is it's important to stay grounded to the more objective off-season analysis. In Chase's case, he is an all-time

prospect. Based on the models that I've seen, based on some of the variables that people like to use in determining who a good prospect is, he's like an all-time or one of the best in the last 10 years. Basically, him and Amari Cooper have been considered two of the best rookie receiver prospects of the last decade or so. And we should have remembered that. We should have been more, I guess, anchored to that or whatever, and try not to get too influenced by all the preseason lack of hype. And I mean, obviously what we've seen from Jamar Chase is awesome.

I think right now he's the wide receiver too. So that is a lesson that I'm definitely going have to take to heart. Even though I was, I loved Chase. Like, he was one of my favorite prospects. I still kind of fell for it and, you know, got a little down on the idea that he could be the elite, elite receiver that we were sort of like hyping him up to be. So, yes, I think stay grounded to the objective stuff. And sometimes the beat reporter reports are a little subjective and you don't really know

what to believe. Avoid the clickbait. I think that's my advice. You can't avoid all news. some of it's important. It's the clickbaity stuff like Antonio Gibson, the next Christian McCaffrey. It's like, is that probably going to happen?

Jamar Chase can't kiss the football anymore. You're like, does that actually make sense? Yeah, yeah. Of course, that is, that is, that this is all like easy to say. It's harder to do in practice, but something that we should remember. Just like the Ten Commandments. Exactly. A guide to live your life by.

There you go. Commitment number three. Thou shalt not assume too much about scheme usage or pace. Yeah, so this one I think is intriguing because we, base a lot of our offseason projections and rankings and all that stuff on what a team did last year. However, you have to remember, there's so many freaking variables that it's very difficult to predict what a team will do year over year. Case in point, the Cowboys last year. One of the past heaviest, highest pass rate, like all out aerial tech, blah, blah, blah. All we heard about that,

that's all we heard about last year. Of course, the problem was they were doing that in part, or at least probably mostly because of the fact that their defense sucked. Now their defense is actually pretty good. I don't know if anyone really projected the defense was going to take this big of a jump, so that was definitely a variable. We did adjust for the Cowboys, though, didn't we? We all knew they were going to take a step back in terms of how much they were throwing. We, yes, I think we did.

I think it was, we came into this with the idea that the Cowboys are unlikely to pass at the same rate. However, I don't know if we, I don't remember saying, like, they're going to go back to be in, like, early DAC career where they're just one of the most run-heavy teams, one of the most balanced teams in the NFL. I don't think we ever went that far. I think we kind of were just like... The Cowboys defense is a lot better than we thought. And that I think is what people didn't predict.

I mean, I don't remember anyone saying this Cowboys defense is going to be awesome. Like, do you remember that? I don't remember anyone saying that. Mike McAparthin said it. That was the only person I heard said it on Hardnachs. There you go. So maybe we need to listen to him next time. We should listen to the clickbait.

That's really the lesson here. Mikea Parsons said it was clickbait and I should have listened to it. I think so Dan Quinn. to his credit, has done a really good job of changing this defense and kind of putting guys in the position to succeed and coming in and not playing his style of defense. That was something they were talking about on the game the other day. Basically, Quinn was like, look, you have to be realistic. Things changed. People figured out my defense that I was running with the Seahawks, and he changed things. So getting back to this commandment, like, you can't assume everything

is going to stay the same year over year. I don't think we adjusted enough for the Cowboys going back to a really run-centric offense. And because of that, we probably overrated slightly guys like C.D. Lamb and Murray Cooper and underrated potentially. We didn't underrate Seek, but I think people were kind of

of the thought that he was just kind of sort of fade out and they weren't going to utilize him as much as they happened. So give me a few other examples, Craig. I mean, Camara never got three done to work before and that changed this year. Mike Williams was never a focal point of the offense. And people didn't really factor in

that they were getting new coaches in potentially a whole new scheme. Brandon Ayyuk. I mean, there's just a lot of stuff that, you know, can change on a yearly basis. So, bottom line, we can't always just translate

the scheme or pace or usage of guys year over year. And we have to remember that. Yeah, like, you know, sometimes, you know, there's like a two-minute timer and sometimes you need three. Things change.

I fit's so upset about this sometimes. Commandment number four. I like this one. Thou shalt not trust Kyle Shanahan. I mean, the only one to me that I think is rock-solve, like 100% of the time. This is like, thou shalt not kill. Yeah. This is really, we should have put this number one.

I regret it. This is the real. Like, the other commandments are sort of like suggestions to live by. Like, this is a good one. This is the real one. Yeah, I mean, look it. We just talked about Brandon Ayyuk. I think the Brandon Ayuk one was, there was some,

there was some evidence to suggest that his role wasn't clearly going to be as big as it in the second half of the season because second half the season last year, everyone else was hurt. So I think there was at least this thought that his role could diminish slightly. I don't think anyone was like, he's going to be on the Dante Pettus career track. The rotation with Trent Sherfield. Yeah, there's a difference between he won't get his job back as the number one guy and that he will just not really be a receiver. I think he's actually going to have a better second half. But there is.

Look at me. Trust in Kyle Shannon. Also, the Trey Sermon thing. We're like, hey, they traded up for Trey Sermon. They probably want to use them. Nope. All three. you're running back to get hurt and you'll just give the ball to the fullback because you don't like Trace Arman.

It's incredible. And you know what? This isn't just like an us thing. This isn't even just for the people listening. A you think. The Niners shouldn't trust Kyle Shanhan. Because it's clear if you look, like it seems like Kyle Shanahan has influenced in picking their offensive players, both free agency and in the draft and that the team and John Lynch's role is more like to pick the defensive players. Well, guess which one the Niners hit?

The defensive players. Is this actually the, this is, this is, actually the exact parallel to thou shalt not honor false idols. Oh my God. That's what So Shannon and Mike Davis

are false idols. He's the golden calf. I'm just want to throw out that. Like, is Zach Taylor and Kyle Shannon have opposite PR? But can you imagine

Zach Taylor was doing what Kyle Shannon was doing what Kyle Shannon was doing? Ooh. Ooh. The Bengals coach. Taylor. That's all.

Speaking of anchoring to narratives. All right. Number five, thou shalt not forget that sometimes the boring draft pick is the correct draft pick. This is a big one. Also, you can kind of fit in here. The Glansbergs.

The oldies and the Glansburgs win championships. It's never fun, but you got to stick to it. The Derek Henrys, the Travis Kelsey's, the DeAndre Hopkins. The players nobody's talking about in the later rounds, Lenny Fournette, Melvin Gordon, Adam Thielen. Yeah.

These are the guys who year after year, you have to ask yourself, why do teams keep signing these players? because they're veterans and they're good and they know how to play the game. And like Melvin Gordon's a good example because it's like generally speaking like Giovante is going to have a higher upside than Melvin Gordon. But there's a point where Melvin Gordon falls in a draft so much that it's a value. And that's the hard part is figuring out where is Melvin Gordon a flaccid pick?

And at what point is that actually like a really good value? I think one of my first lessons in fantasy was that you shouldn't always pick players that you think are actually really good. in other words, you have to sometimes pick players that you think are not very good because it's easy to get

distracted by up and cover like Giovante Williams versus Melvin Gordon's a perfect example. Javante Williams really fun to watch. Breaks a million tackles. Dynamic. Like I just got done

spending the entire summer watching his highlights from college, blah, blah, blah. You get so enamored with that stuff. People like the unknown. People like to take risk. They like the gamble. You like the up and coming guy

versus the really established veteran. Here's the thing, though, that's a problem. And I continually make this mistake. I just need to keep reminding myself this. Coaches trust veterans because they do the little shit, like pass block. They don't want their quarterback to get killed. Like, I understand, like, past blocking isn't, like, the number one priority for a lot of teams in terms of, like, what they want at running back.

But it is something that they require a running back to do in some cases. Yeah, somebody was just saying that Tony Pollard let up a blitz and Cooper Rush got killed. And somebody was like, this is why Zeke plays a lot. Yeah. And maybe that was why he had such, he didn't get hardly any action. It's probably also why Antonio Gibson never got the third down work. Right. Yeah, and it's like everyone talks about his past catching prowess,

but like pass pro is important too. Like obviously these quarterbacks are very important. And then, for instance, like veteran, like, Fournet versus Rojo. Like, Rojo, I think I got enamored with his talent as a runner, which I think, you know, he's still flat. is here and there. But like the little things, he doesn't do the little things. He makes too many mistakes. And crucially, Tom Brady likes Rojo, or sorry, Tom Brady likes Fournet. And that's important because he wants a guy that he can trust that he's going to run to where he's supposed to be that's

going to protect who he's supposed to, like, you know, supposed to in a blitz pickup, all that stuff. And Rojo, meanwhile, is just out here making too many mistakes. Even if he- just screwed up in the season in the first game of the season. And it was like, well. And then it was over. Having a short leash matters. We liked him as like a sneaky lead-the-league and Russian guy this time of the year. Well, no, what we said was that whoever wins the buck's job, if one of them separates themselves, we thought that person would sneakily be like a top-ten running back at the halfway point. I just thought that Ronald Jones had a chance to separate himself.

Lenny Fournett separate himself. He's a top-ten guy. Yeah. I think we just hitched our wagon to the wrong guy in this case. We had the right idea with, you want to be attached to this Buccaneers offense. But this is the lesson to learn that, like, these little mistakes, They add up and coaches just get fucking sick of it. Or in this case, the quarterback gets fucking sick of it.

And these guys are just not going to see the field. This is another example with Damien Harris versus Ramadre Stevenson. Just too many little mistakes. Even if he's a talented runner, too many little mistakes. They add up. Can't trust these guys. And that's why just sometimes the boring guys are the better picks. And I recognize that we're part of the problem because we get excited about these guys too.

Our actual mistake with the Bucks won, because that's a really good example, is sometimes we could be clearer about what we're confident in it. I think we were all really confident that the Bucks would be great this season. At least I was. I think that we could have done a better job saying Rojo or Lenny will be good

and that we were like, well, the Bucks will definitely be good. And I think Ronald Jones is better than Lenny and Lenny might be washed. So like let's go with Ronald Jones and maybe next year we could be better at the commandment like separating what we have like a 90% confidence in and what it's more like 75.

Yeah. The preseason narratives were sort of, the worry was, it was going to be both of them. They're both going to play a lot and they're going to wash each other out. Sometimes you don't know. Again, Ronald J,

what was this huge screw-up he had? Didn't he fumble, like in the first quarter of the season? Yeah. And like, sometimes that does just change stuff. Also, the way he, apparently, according to Ariens, it was the way he reacted to the fumble.

They just didn't trust him because he, like, got all in his own head and he was, like, really down on the sideline or something. I think this is what Ariens was saying. And Fournette, meanwhile, if he makes a mistake, because Fournette's made mistakes too, I think he fumbled in that game too. But they stuck with him because he was...

You know, because he's like, fine, I'll fix it. Short-term memory, baby. So really what we should do is we should go around and, like, just make all these running backs fumble and we just see how they respond. See how they react. We got to check the tape on how they react. Yeah.

See, that's the problem. We watch the plays. We should be watching after the plays end. That's like what I learned from that draft day movie with Kevin Costa. Amendment number six, thou shalt not draft players in the dead zone. This is a Craig one. What do you mean here?

So obviously you can't really avoid this if you're in a snake draft. You can if you're in an auction draft. The dead zone being rounds like loosely speaking three, four to seven, four to a half. Yes, four to seven, I would say is the general dead zone. And what I mean by this is, so I was going through it. I was just looking at the players this year through eight weeks who have been hits or misses. And I looked at rounds five through seven. And legitimately, according to Fantasy Pros ADP, rounds five to seven,

four out of the 20 guys, I would consider were a hit. Then I went to rounds 9 through 11, 10 out of 20 guys were considered a hit. So while you can't avoid drafting these guys because you don't know, right? You know, if you're in a snake draft and you're looking at Brandon Ayuk, Chase Claypool, Odell, T. Higgins, Kenny Gallaudet, Ronald Jones, Juju, Cortland Sutton, Devante Smith, Robbie Anderson. Yeah, it's really hard. You're probably going to have to pick one of those. But my point is, is the lesson in this is if you're auction drafting one, stars and scrubs,

is the move. You get as many guys in the first three rounds as you can and blow your money. And then you wait, you draft a bunch of $5 guys or less like your Marquis Browns and your Mike Williams. Both of those guys went between round 9 and 11. That's crazy to think about that. Yeah, I mean, it's a real thing. And this is what guys like JJ Zacharisen talk about all the time. So the dead zone is real. Maybe that's the time where you should draft your quarterbacks and your tight ends. And if we zoom out here, like why is this happening? Because Craig, you also mentioned how the first 30 picks essentially had like three busts that didn't have to do with injury, two busts.

we zoom out what's happening is the guys who are ranked at the top are ranked, because the whole fantasy is about usage and production, right? And like, mostly speaking, you get the production from usage. The guys at the top are at the top because we roughly feel really confident about how they'll be used. The guys in the 50s,

60s, we have a better idea, but it's more uncertain. And then the guys in the 90s, hundreds, 120s are like the shorter end of the stick for uncertain. But we don't have nearly the confidence in those situations and they're kind of the back of the same situations.

Well, yeah, the way I think of it is, like, after the first three or four rounds, we pretty much don't know anything, but we still have to put somebody in the fifth round of our rankings. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And it's the same as the guy in the 11th. They're very similar.

Yeah, this is quite the list. Sorry, I don't mean to disrespect, Tom, Tom. Yeah, I mean, look, so, I mean, you could go through the rounds, 9 to 11. There are a lot of hits. Jalen Waddle, Mike Isicki, Michael Pittman, Mike Williams, Marquis Brown, Tony Pollard, Darnel Mooney, Marvin Jones, Alexander Madison. All these guys hit. I just still am kind of like

doing a double take every time I see that Marquis Brown as like a top 10 receiver. See, this is what's so amazing. All right. We're going to skip to another. I had this lower, but we're going to do this right now. Number nine. Number eight, thou shalt not get dynasty brain, which is really for D.K. specifically

where you just confuse Dynasty and RealDi-Di-What did you just say that? And I don't mean this in an antagonistic way, but it's like you were on Marquis Brown years ago. And I was like, what are you talking? about. This dude's a rookie who's like barely played it as a foot injury and you're like he's amazing. And now we're like in year three, but it's like if you zoom out, that's exactly what is supposed to happen. A receiver's supposed to be good in like year

three. So like, why does this happen where people who get so excited about the draft expect too much and then like are out on the player by year three, which is exactly the time they're supposed to be good anyway. Yeah. I think, well, in most cases, hopefully you don't, you're not out on the player by year three. I think with Marquis Brown in particular, it was like he was doing so many, like he's so many drops and things like that. It was just like annoying. But we also get impatient. I think human beings in general, especially nowadays.

If it doesn't work quickly, we move on to the next one. Markies Brown and Elijah Moore are the same player to me in the fantasy context of what people expected way too much from this and then like are going to dip. And I'm sure Elijah Moore will be amazing in 2023. Well, maybe Elijah Moore will have a lot of peanut butter smoothies put on 20 pounds. And next offseason we'll be like, ooh, Elijah Moore. Remember that? We were so excited about Markees Brown's weight gain last year.

I think the way that the way that. that I explained Dynasty Brain is basically in Dynasty, young players, young up-and-coming players have an outsized value compared to like production,

especially relative to like guys like DeAndre Hopkins, Devante Adams, all that stuff. Like the Dynasty number one receiver is not the top scoring receiver necessarily. Like not like a DeAndra Hopkins or Devante Adams where you're going to get whatever it is, 18 points a game for the next few years,

it's guys like Justin Jefferson or Jamar Chase who are going to be great for the next 10 years. So Dynasty Brain is basically like it messes with your sense of value in right now, like your value in games this week. And that's definitely something that I've been susceptible to. Get a little too excited about young players. I mean, but then there's always exceptions. And so that's also like hard to like gauge, you know,

because like look at Jamar Chase. He's the number two receiver in football right now. So it's hard to like, it's hard to separate the two. And last year, Justin Jefferson, 1400 yards, you know, that was another example where, like, I should get more excited about this guy because he's like he's elite prospect. He's awesome. He's in a situation where he could have production could have volume. But not, it's important to remember that like it's rare. It's it's the outliers that actually produce in year one and are like elite elite guys from the from the get go. There's always maybe like one or sometimes there's one. Like Calvertidly, for instance, was like good immediately. But it's more common for it to be like a two-year thing or a three-year thing. A second-year jump for rookie receivers is a big deal. But bottom line is like, and again, I think these are all lessons that we're trying to learn ourselves and to tell you guys to remember.

If you're playing both formats, like, that's something I'm going to have to definitely remember is like don't get too excited about young players because a lot of times I'm so excited about the long-term value of these guys. I forget that. And this is actually very related to the veterans thing. that we said the commandment from a few ago where coaches just trust veterans more. Just something to remember.

DK just renamed Tom Tom Club Dan, Dan Club. Did I go over by two minutes alone? Yeah. Said fuck your Tom Tom Club. I'm opening a spite store right across the street called Dan Dan Club. I'd be a really bad debate moderator.

Just let me talk. Come on. I did. I literally just did. Thank you. Number, you need to get it off your chest. That was actually cathartic. All right. There we go. Commandment. I don't remember what one we're on. But commandment, next one.

You just use number eight. Now it's going back to seven. Okay, yeah, that. Thou shall draft as close to the season as possible. I don't really understand this one as much. You need to explain this to me. Because, I mean, first of all, Travis CTA got hurt, Jackie Dobbins got hurt, K-makers got hurt, and then, Gus Herbert Scott. I mean, D.K., you know this better than anyone with the Scott Fish team.

when we draft like July 4th weekend. I will say, that's ridiculous. I think this is a, I think, look, I think actually, to be totally honest with you, I think this is a little bit subjective

because it's a double-edged sword. In a lot of cases, you can get really good value if you're drafting early in the summer and you're convicted on a guy, you think he's going to be really good, and you can get him like three or four rounds earlier than ultimately he ends up being drafted

as we get like into August and early September. Sometimes drafts go that late. However, I would say, generally speaking, is better to wait because the value you can get on those guys is probably not as significant as, like, the risk you have with injuries. And like, look, my Scott Fish Bowl team is the perfect example. We drafted it on the 4th of July weekend. And I want to read off my team, which is bad. It's really, really bad.

It's a combination of guys got hurt. Just read the list. Guys got hurt and guys underperformed or didn't do what there's. supposed to do. So first round, this is a super flex. Russell Wilson. Second round, Aaron Rogers. Sorry, let me start that over. First round, Russell Wilson, he's hurt. Second round, Aaron Rogers, he's been good. Third round, Cam Acres. He got hurt

shortly after we drafted. Fourth round, Michael Thomas, found out he was going to miss the first 10 weeks of the season shortly after. Alan Robinson, fifth round. He's been bullshit. Sixth round, Tyler Lockett. He was good for like two weeks before Russell Wilson got. hurt. Seventh round, Deontay Johnson. This is my one good pick out of the first seven rounds. I mean, actually, I guess you could say Aaron Rogers is fine, whatever.

Eighth round, Kenny Goliday, been hurt, like pretty much the whole year. Ninth round, Claypool. Chase Claypool. Okay, so can we change it to, thou shalt not draft on July 4th weekend. Yes. That's a good command. This is the word, this is like, I compared it to like flipping, like flipping or landing a tails. like 20 straight times. Like the odds that I would have so many bad picks right in a row. And honestly, when I picked this team, I was like, this is pretty good. Like, I feel all right about this.

And based on ADP and stuff, like I had some good values in here. I got like Alan Robinson Tyler Lockett. Like, I thought these guys were going to be wide receiver ones, wide receiver two's, and they've just been terrible. Which this parlays nicely into the next commandment. Yeah, it does. Thou shalt not try to make sense of fantasy football. Nobody knows anything.

No one knows how to do this. It's chaos. We're just predicting the future. When you studied all offseason and had your cheat sheet and you showed up to the draft all ready to go and you turned out with DK's Scott Fishbowl team and the guy who forgot it was draft day showed up and is now in first place. You just have to let it all go. Serenity now. Yes.

I felt that for my leagues this year, the ones where I left the draft most uncertain, I'm in first place. And the leagues where I was most confident, I'm not. We were talking about this during the off season. is like always teams that you're like really excited about. This is going to be sucking. And then the teams you're like, oh, God, how is this team going to win? It's like the team that wins you the fucking ship. It's because it's normally filled with a bunch of boring veterans.

To round it all around. Yes. It's like, why do I have Lenny Fournette? Why the fuck did I pick him? The only boring vet you didn't want is Mike Davis. Other than that, all the boring vets are great. Man. It really is true, though.

I mean, it's like when we get starts sick questions and someone's like, Melvin Gordon or Lenny and Fornet, it's like, dude, I don't. know. No one knows. No, that was Lenny Furnett. Unless there gets the Saints, in which case, I don't know. You know, it's just like, hey, man, no one really knows. This is supposed to be, you know. I just think I liken it. I started liking it. Look, I think there are definitely edges that you can have. And I've gotten to be a better fantasy player by listening, by talking to you guys, by listening to other fantasy pods. Yeah, absolutely. Like, you can definitely find an edge and be better than your league mates. But at the end of the day, like, you're kind of, you're definitely, um, you're, you're definitely,

you know, vulnerable to injuries, to guys getting bench, to a million different variables that you don't know. There is a limit to how much your research can pay off. The margins are slim. The goal is give context to numbers. And then you want to identify the patterns of the types of players who break out and then grab as many of those specific types of scratch off tickets as you can and try to hit them. And then that's generally what we're trying to help you with. Having said that, a little bit of the Wizard of Oz here. If you're winning, it was in you all the time. Yeah. One thing I will say to something actual actionable for this, number nine, just try not to make any sense of it.

I think if you think you're a good player, and I think if you're listening to this podcast, you probably are very interested in fantasy and are a pretty good fantasy player. Convince your league to have extra flex spots. Because the more starter spots that you have, the more players that you're playing in any given week, that's where the margins

starts to actually pay off because anybody can have like a seven team T seven seven starter team that's good like and can do that on a hot track. That's where random because it's kind of like

the same way of five game series in the NBA is more likely for an upset than a seven. When you only have seven spots and one's a kicker and a defense, it's like well, the 20 point week from the kicker might just lose you,

you know what I mean? You could lose you the game. Also, I will say this is why the waiver wire is so important. This is why we do this all season long It's why we do the podcast all season long. The waiver wire is important. You got to make moves.

You got to be a mover and a shaker. Because sometimes your draft just is shit. It doesn't work out. And you know, if you're in like a six team or an eight team league and you know, you start your classic eight guys, maybe bump it up till 11. Start three flex spots.

Start four flex spots just to make it seem like, you know, you have to start more players and put a little bit more work into it, a little bit more mental stress on your league. Also, your sleepers pay off more that way. Like if you identify a guy late in the draft and he turns out great. Like you're, you got that big edge that way

and you can start that guy. So yeah, I think all that stuff is, yeah, don't be a bitch with your league size. Is that what you're saying? Yeah, I guess.

Get more friends. That's Craig's, that's Craig's, um, leave guys, get more friends. If you have a, if you have a 10 person league,

definitely up the number of starters, for sure. If you have a 12 person league, also up the number of starters. What you should do is you make a profile on hinge and say, looking for fantasy football league mates. Should we make an app like hinge, like hinge but for people who want to be in fantasy leagues together?

It's not a terrible idea. I think there's... Should we cut this out of the part? I think there are things that do that, yes. Should we cut this out? Or should we let this be into the world and hopefully someone makes it? Or should we do the idea ourselves? Can we...

I wish we could like verbally just copyright something right now. That's our... I wish that should be a thing. Copyright. What is it in the office when he's like, I declare bankruptcy? I declare copyright. Damn, that'd be nice. Oh, man.

Intellectual property. Okay. are like three tom-toms through this thing. Oh my God. All right. It's become Tom-Tom-Tom Club at this point. It really is. Okay. Last Commandment, thou shalt remember that this should be fun. And don't be a dick about the fantasy football.

Yeah, it's fun. My piece of advice is, listen, draft the guy you want, not the guy that any other website or us have ranked a little bit higher. At the end of the day, no one knows if Trey Sermann is going to start or not. Okay. If you like one guy... Including Carl Shanahan, who it cannot be overstated, traded up for Mack Jones and changed his mind. So, like, literally, like, he didn't know what he wanted to do either.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, if you're like, man, I've always kind of liked Marvin Jones. Take them. It's all right. It's supposed to be fun. How relatable is that, though, that, like, we're out here as fantasy football, like, like, we are obsessed with this. And we're like, damn, who do we pick?

And you look at the actual NFL, and Kyle Shannon's like, should we trade up? What do we, we trade up? Like, shit, do we really want this guy, though? What do we do? Like, it's the same thing. The Rams got Matt Stafford, and Kyle Shanahanhan was like, we need to draft up to get a quarterback. I don't know which one, though, but we should. And they're like, okay.

I don't know which one, but we can't keep doing that. Because your freaking friend Sean got one. Now I need one. Right. Really, that's what the NFC is, right? It's just a fantasy football league between Matt Lafleur, Kyle Shan, and Sean McVeigh. It's kind of what Shanahan said to McVeigh on flying coach. He was kind of like when Julio was up and there was rumors that he was going to get traded.

Kyle was essentially like, yeah, we inquired because we just didn't want the Rams to get them. And that's more of a reason for us to get them is that they don't want the Rams to get them than they want themselves. It's kind of like how every league has someone that you'd almost get almost as much joy out of them losing as much as you winning. I honestly feel that a lot sometimes.

Yeah. They're back to the German words. It always comes back to the old German words. So have a good time. You know, when you experience a brutal loss, it's all part of the fun. Yeah, I mean, I was going to throw a little bit of nihilism. I think, first of all, Yes, this is supposed to be fun as a hobby.

You're doing it with your friends. Like, try not to get too wrapped up. I know that in some cases there's money going on this. But think about it like you're investing in a good time with your friends. Don't get too crazy when you have a bad week. You know, don't get too high when you do have a good week. It'd be cool. The goal is to have fun.

And the best way to have fun is to win at all costs. I was going to say that at the nihilism angle, though. Talk as much shit as you can. None of the shit matters. We're just specks of dust. hurtling through space we're going to be gone and no one's going to remember us.

My favorite D.K. is nihilistic DK. I love it. As he has like a newborn baby in the other room. Just like like curling. Like, we will all die.

He's not a newborn. He's two. Whatever. He's a toddler, Craig. Craig and I know very little about the baby aging curve. He's relatively newly born. Oh, I can't,

between the ages are like two and, like three and six. couldn't tell you how old a baby. It's just no idea. Those aren't babies. Three to six year olds are not babies. Whatever, toddlers. I'm in my mid-20s. I'm still a baby. Craig, actually, I'm 100% know what you're talking about.

When you have a kid, it changed, like, it totally changes. I had no idea how to talk to kids before I had a kid. How do you talk to kids? Can you tell? I've never known. No, I'm not going to do that on here. But you just talk to it. Do it. Well, I think the secret is you just talk to them like a normal human being, but I didn't really realize that. I just didn't have a lot of experience. talking to kids before.

Calvin, pass the salt. No, not quite like that. You got to, like, inflect a little bit more to get their attention and to get them excited about stuff. And you have to pretend to be excited about stupid bullshit that they like, you know, like little toy trucks and things.

Stupid bull. I don't have to pretend. I love toy trucks. Dude, legitimately, here's a perfect example this morning. It's Recycling Day at the Kelly Residence. D.K., I still love watching garbage trucks. Every time trucks go by, I'm like, I start screaming at Calvin like, oh, the trucks, the trucks! And he like runs to the window, starts banging on the window, so excited. You definitely, once you have kids, like you, I mean, people, I'm sure have this before

they have kids too, but like, in my case, you start to like be able to understand and communicate with kids a little better. That's basically you and all the dynasty receivers. It's like, oh, oh, Elijah Moore. Oh, Markis Brown, Ron, Little Deacon. Banging on his computer. Ron Dale, go, go my little Ron Dale. Yeah.

Kevin's approximately the size of Rondale, so that makes sense. Do you have a nickname for Calvin yet? Do you call him Cal? I don't think he needs a nickname because the Calvin Kelly is an unbelievable name. Do you call them anything else or no? Yeah, we call them all kinds of different stuff. Cal-Cal. Hyphins, you might appreciate this.

We call him Bubby. Wow, I love it. Which I think is a Yiddish term for like grandmother. I don't know exactly. But like it's also been used for little kids, little cute little munchkins, I guess. Yeah, it's like a boob. It's just like a little cute little bubby. Yeah.

The bubster. Bubber Rooney. Bubster's fantastic. We call them Cal. We call him Calvin. Oh my God. I love it. Can you guys start calling me Bubba?

Bubba. I've called you Bubba. Oh, we call him Bubba too, which is, you know, like a southern word that we, I don't know how that worked our way into here because I'm in Seattle. But yeah. All right. Email time. It's from Ben.

Ben. guys a trade request was made in my league a couple hours before the monday night chiefs giants game the trade was travis kelsey for marquise brown it's important to note that the kelsey owner or the kelsey manager made the request i argued in the group chat that this is a severe underpay for travis kelsey and kelsey's positional value and the trade should be vetoed multiple people in the league agreed and said that kelsey manager should at least get more players a service of running back or receiver in addition literally hours later kelsey up a dud. Am I the asshole for potentially ruining the trade value for my friend who just

needed a receiver? And what would you trade for Travis Kelsey at this point? Well, first of all, the trade should not be vetoed. If both parties agree on the trade, let the trade go through. Yeah. Yeah, it's like you're not your job to manage other people's teams. It's like, if somebody makes a shitty decision, let them make a stupid decision. Imagine you couldn't sell your house. We mentioned you sold your house and then you're like, your HOA came in and was like, hey, hey, you didn't get enough. We're voiding. We're vetoing the sale. Actually, can they do that? I don't know.

I assume not. David Stern did it. That's actually the best example of them all. You have followed, we followed all these leagues and all these trades and there's been one veto in the time we've been watching sports. Yeah. One. Your lifetime.

Okay. Anyway, but the second question's good, though. What would you trade for Travis Kelsey? I don't know. I mean, that's really hard. I mean, he's still the tied-in one, I think, despite the dud. So the problem with Kelsey, he's the number one tied-in,

but he's not the number one tied-in by a lot, which is what you drafted him for. So last year, Kelsey was basically like 80% better than like the other top five guys. Like, Darren Waller was good. But like, you know,

T.J. Hawkinson, Mark Andrews, Logan Thomas were like the real three, four, five at Tidend last year. And Kelsey beat them by like eight, he was like 80% better, like eight-zero percent better than the three-four-five tight ends.

This year he's like 12% better than those guys. They're like almost as good as he is. And then last year, like, Travis Kelsey, the number one tight end was like twice as good as the number 10 tight end. This year, he's like 50% better than the number 10 tight end. So it's

like the gap has slowed down. So it's like, what is he worth? Now, basically, it's really a referendum on like, will the chiefs turn the offense around? So I'm kind of curious what you think about that, D.K. Yeah, it's tough. I think what you get, the point you guys were making was

Kelsey no longer is the outlier tight end. He's just a good tight end in terms of the players at the same position. Yeah, exactly. You believe that for the remainder of the season, you believe he's no longer going to be the guy he was his whole career? Well, that's the question, I think. I know he hasn't been, but

I think it's enough of a question that especially in this case, vetoing that trade doesn't make any sense. I think there's enough question marks around him. The age, the eye test, I don't know about you guys, but it doesn't look like

he's quite as explosive as used to be. Maybe he's like fighting through an injury or something like that. Also, yeah, the offense, this is a variable that you have to take into account. Their offense has been struggling over the last few weeks. I don't think it's an injury. I think it's, he's not used to not getting the ball involved early in games. I think it's like a confidence thing. Not that he has a confidence issue,

but that when a player who has just been absurdly dominant for like four years just can't get involved and has one catch for three yards. I think it's forgotten like for fans how the players need the ball. basketball, he need to touch the ball to stay mentally involved. And those, it's just strange for a player's elite. Are we, are we just basing this off this Monday night came? I mean, he's, he leads

the tight ends and targets. He ever just nine targets a game. No, he's still the number one tight end, but it's just the question of like, would, is, do you, will he go back to what he was last year? Which again, like, people who have him probably took him in the first round or very early in the second. And like to see, so to see Mike Gisickey have like

11 fewer points or 12 or whatever it is than Travis Kelsey. It's kind of disheartedly. It's like, you know, it's like the grass is always greener. We're seeing Kelsey number one. The Kelsey people are looking at this. Like, I could have had Micah Sickier for almost the same, like almost the same production. Right. I would say if you have a serviceable backup, if you can plug and play like a, I don't know,

you know, a Dossan Knox and trade Travis Kelsey away for a guy in the top 20. You know what Justin Jefferson? I might say do it. If not, depending on Knox's health, but because he's not quite back yet. But regardless. Like a Dalton Schultz. But the more interesting question is, do we think the chiefs come back? And I honestly thought they were going to come back on Monday night.

They looked really bad. I really thought. And like the fact that they couldn't come back against the Giants. And the Giants kind of did the thing everyone else has been doing. They're putting the two-eye safeties back. And it's like this referendum. It feels like on the Chiefs. I know it's not as simple as like the two-eye safeties.

But it kind of, that's what everyone's doing. And the Chiefs are struggling. They're not blitzing. What? Yeah. They're putting into, they're camping too high and they're not blitzing. They're just rushing four and letting Mahomes make mistakes.

Can Andy Reed and Patrick Mahomes be? patient and like just do boring. Basically, can you be Mike White? Can you just check it down immediately? Yeah, can you guys be boring? And run and like the the Chiefs did this last year. They ran for 230 yards or something in a game because they just the Beals did this. But anyway, I don't

know. I was, I still think the Chiefs will turn it around but. Yeah, I mean, I think ultimately we're not going to see the same we're not going to see the Chief's offense we saw last night is not going to be the Chief's offense all year. I think there's still much better than what we've seen. However,

we don't know that. And I just think generally speaking, like, to get back to the question, like, you shouldn't veto trades that are at least, I think this is at least, like, defendable. If you have a crazy,

crazy-ass trade and it's clearly collusion, that's a different matter. That's a different question. This is not collusion. I kind of look at it is, the guy needs a receiver. If your argument is this person should have gotten more,

and it's a question, then you can't veto it. Like, if it's Christian McCaffrey for like someone, like, that's, or if it's like, you know, Dalvin Cook for like, I don't know, some practice squad guy.

That's not debate. That's obviously not a fair trade. But like people, anyway, we've talked about this a lot. Let's do another case. This one's from Parker. Hey, guys, I run a sleeper league with sleepers an app. A sleeper league where two settings have now controversial defaults. One is that free agents can be picked up any time

and two, players can be dropped after playing. Someone picked up Adrian Peterson and dropped Jamal Williams. Some people are upset about this and think we should revert the transaction action and change the rules midseason. Other things we should change the rules next season, leave it as is. Thoughts, because this is something I mentioned yesterday of like, you can

on some platforms, add a player before waivers if they weren't on a team, so you could rush, beat the official signing of Adrian Peterson and the Titans and get him and beat waivers altogether. Do you guys think I'm sketched? I did that in a league. Do you think I'm sketchy for doing that? No.

I don't think so either. I think, look, I think, and like, we talked about this many times. People should check the settings of your league at the beginning of the year. Rule changes like this should be discussed before the season starts because

people are obviously going to be if one guy has an advantage, the other players in that league are going to be like, hey, yeah, like, that's not fair. But they have a fucking bias. You know what I mean? Like, another question that we've had, I think, with the Sleeper app, which I think is

applicable to this, is on Sleeper, I think sometimes you can pick up a guy who's on IR and put him directly onto IR. You don't have to have an open roster spot. So in things like this, in like the way that the set up, the way that the apps are set up, the way that the settings are set up, I think that's something that people need to be aware of before the season starts. And if you're trying to take advantage, gain that edge by using the app or like whatever, ESPN, Yahoo, whatever it is that you're on. platform is the word I was looking for.

Like, whatever platform you're on, if you want to use, like, the rules, this is, this goes back, honestly, to the question of whether Tase and Hale should be able to be started as a tight end. I argued vehemently in favor of people being able to find that loophole based on the settings or the platform. Some people feel differently about that, but I just feel like that's something that you should be, that should be legal. Because if you're trying to ask that question in season, obviously the people that are not

able to do that are going to be against it. That's kind of unforeseen, though. There are some things that are unforeseen. don't think it's, there's a difference between like, should you get a, should you get a point for a catch and you figuring that out in week two? And there's a difference between that and like, I didn't realize that you could add a player who wasn't on a team on Tuesday when all the other players between, like that's a loophole. Like, let's call it what it is on, like, but on other platforms, it's not. But it is a loophole. It's a loophole that's available to everybody in

the league, though. Yeah, but I vote, but it's weird. My vote would be. this happened in my league. We basically found out that there was some rule that we hadn't fixed that when a Thursday night game would happen, Christian McCafferick got hurt and somebody immediately added Chuba Hubbard. And then everybody was like,

this is not okay. Like the players on the team's playing at Thursday night should all be locked. All the free agents should be locked after the game begins. And we were like, this makes a lot of sense. However, we let the guy keep Chuba Hubbard

because it's how it is. He was available. So we let him keep Chuba Hubbard and then we changed the rule midseason. So I think you let the guy keep AP and if everybody doesn't like this rule then change the rule but he gets AP because he took advantage of a fair law. You can change it now

or you can change it next year but you don't revert direct action. My thinking on it was game theory I was like well someone can pick them up I might as well be me and then I was like if people blow up in the group chat and are like that's stupid I was perfectly happy to be like yeah let him go back to waivers but I was like if we're going to have this argument in the group chat anyway it's going to be about me

that was kind of how I looked at it. Yeah I make sense and then no one said anything so here we're go. Yeah, my advice is to let the guy keep AP and then determine as a league whether you want to change the rule now or later. But this goes back to the came in about like having, it's weird. Like there's an app, there's a piece in the group chat that's because we're all having fun and there's a piece that's the absence of tension.

And sometimes it's like, it's a hard mix sometimes between like, hey, we're doing this for fun. Like we don't want to piss people off versus sometimes people get really mad about something and you don't want to just, you know what I mean? Yeah. And you're like, but they're wrong. Well, you've got to pick your battles. Yeah, I know. Okay.

Anyway, I don't think that the free agent pre-wavers thing is a battle worth picking, and I didn't think the quarterback 10-end thing was worth picking even for Tays Him Hill either. All right. Can I read you guys one last thing? Yes. The Texas Monkey Story, did you guys hear about this?

The Texas special, this is just nothing to do. This is not a segment. I just wanted to discuss this. Did you guys hear about the special teams coach of Texas? I did see some stuff about it on Twitter. I did not read the article. Okay. This is one of those who you see.

and you're like, I probably don't care about this for my life. And like, you care. Let me tell you. I'm going to read T.M.Z. A report late Monday night claimed the white-faced cappuccine monkey that belonged to the girlfriend of special teams coach Jeff Banks attacked a trick-or-treater and the monkey's jaws having to be, quote, pride open to free the child.

Jesus. I hope the kid is okay. Basically what happened is the special teams coach for Austin, for the UT Austin, apparently, left his wife and children for a stripper. who's stripper's name is Pole Assassin and Pole Assassin has a monkey

that is part of the routine and the monkey's part of it the monkey collects the tips there's Instagrams or the monkey with the dollar bill it's wild and they're apparently taking in trick-or-treaters on Halloween

and the monkey bites a kid not a good situation however the kid went to their yard like the back where they keep the monkey and so the girlfriend

posted a video and then which she quickly deleted, where she's like, look how far you had to go into my yard to find my monkey. Well, were they giving out candy in the yard? They,

in a different part. Apparently the kid had to walk through a gate. There were like balloons block it. The kid went through and then had a reach. And so it's like, I don't know. Do we need a fantasy court decision here? Like who's,

you know, do you become expert in monkey law? This is a real court issue. It's like sunny and Philly. It's like an actual civil case. You're saying Charlie's an expert in bird law. Was there a beware of monkey sign on the fence? That's what we should follow.

I think that I saw that there was. I think she said it was like, there was. There was a sign like says, don't touch the cage, monkey bites or something like that. There were so many lawyers to listen to the show. If any of the lawyers of any insight into the monkey case, please email us at rigor fantasy football at gmail.com. So did he leave,

did he leave his wife and kids? Like, is he divorced from the wife? Or is he secretly having a relationship? I don't know that much about that part. I can't say that I have the all the details. You need to come with all the details, buddy. I don't know if they're all. out there yet. Although the poll assassin did go on Jerry Springer. Oh, I see it here. There's a

one of the best. Yeah, she has. Craig, if you're at work, don't watch that. Is the monkey in this video? No one goes to work anymore, D.K. There was a pandemic and everything. I am constantly at work and not at work. Make sure you're on your personal device. They call it work from any, they call it work from home. It's really just you live at work. That's really would be a better. It's good branding. Dude, I actually heard that like you. I sleep in my office. I don't work more. People work more. People work more. when they work from home. It's this whole thing. Oh, you're telling me.

It's like unlimited PTO. Nobody takes it. I had no idea. Thanks, D.K. Oh, man. How is the monkey incorporated into the stripper routine? Does he just walk around

and collect all our bills? No, I think he's on the pole. With the pole assassin? You think he's doing a pole dance? I don't have all the answers. I mean, he has a short Instagram clip. I bet you he can do some crazy shit. It's a monkey.

It's probably better than the person. This monkey puts more. cell to fucking shame. Yeah. All right. Anyway, I just, I just wanted to just run through that. It was football adjacent, so it's,

it's relevant. Thank you, Danny. Yeah, good, good one. All right. Thank you, D.K., thank you, Craig. Thank you, Moses for the Ten Commandments. We appreciate those. Thank you.

Shouts out, Moses. Thank you, Paul Assassin. Thank you, Lorne. Lord. Thank you, the monkeys. Ooh. I got to say, was that the weirdest list of people Hydevitz has to be. He thinks Moses and the poll assassin. That's the greatest

name. I love when there are certain things that happen and you're like, I'm definitively positive. I'm the first person ever say that sentence. Thank you Moses. Thank you, Moses. Polis. Oh my God. That's a Bo Burnham bit where he says sometimes I'd like to say sentences that have never been said before. Like, hey son, I loved your comedy show. Oh, that's good. Goodbye, everyone.