The Ringer NFL Show - Power-Ranking the Best Trade Candidates for the Rest of the Season

Episode Date: November 9, 2022

We power-rank our 11 favorite fantasy players to trade for heading into the final stretch of the fantasy season. We finish the show by holding Fantasy Court. (2:12) - Lamar Jackson, Ravens (4:12) - Amon-Ra St. Brown, Lions (6:18) - Chris Godwin, Buccaneers (8:57) - Amari Cooper, Browns (10:48) - Tony Pollard, Cowboys (13:01) - Pat Freiermuth, Diontae Johnson, George Pickens, Steelers (17:45) - Garrett Wilson, Jets (19:54) - James Conner, Cardinals (21:57) - T.J. Hockenson, Vikings (27:02) - Fantasy Court Check out our Weekly Fantasy Football Rankings for positional rankings and more! Email us! [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck and Kai Grady Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You can listen to This Blue Up on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy. Football Show. My name is Danny Hyfitz. I am joined by Danny Kelly and that's it. Craig is not here today. Bill stole Craig from us for rewatching us. So Greg's not here. But it is still Wednesday. It's still power hour. We're recording this Tuesday, but for you, it's Wednesday. And so we are power ranking something every Wednesday. This week, we are just power ranking the trade candidates that we like the most. People to trade for. Yeah. It's that time of year. You need to make a playoff run. You need to maybe reset your team and just like change things up and get.

get some new guys in there, maybe change the chemistry in the locker room, things like that. These are players that we think are going to be good down the stretch, essentially. We had D.K., Craig, and I all made lists of our favorite players that we wanted to trade for. Craig's not here, but we still incorporated his list. So I power rank these guys. Yeah. And then DK and I, we have thoughts on the guys we submitted. Craig, we can just, I don't know.

We could just reverse engineer what Craig was thinking. We have no idea why he wanted to do this people. Yeah. Well, just play like Mind Hunter or whatever. What's he thinking? I never know what that guy's thinking. All right, but we can just get going here. And also, we're doing this power hour style.

So we're going to, two minutes per topic. And then after two minutes, you will hear this sound. Great song. Courtesy of Kai, our pinch-hitting producer right here. So thank you, Kai. And let's just get into it. Okay, start the clock, Kai. Our number one, trade target, halfway through the season, D-K.

You got Lamar Jackson, quarterback for the Ravens. Yes. So does this mean that you agree? with me that you ranked him number one, or you just intrigued by my decision here? Both. Okay, cool. Basically, I think people are probably getting a little bit frustrated with Lamar. Like, I know we got a couple of tweets talking about how Lamar's been just not really living

up to the standards that he has set over the years over the last few weeks. In fact, since week four, he's averaged just 15 points per game. He's a QB 16 in that stretch, which to me is just kind of astounding, considering, you know, the ability he has on the ground as a runner. But I think it is worth noting that this stretch of games that they've played have come against some really good defenses. So they play Buffalo, Cincinnati, the Giants, the Browns, the Buccaneers, and the Saints. And against quarterbacks, all those teams are pretty good. They're certainly above average, all those teams.

But going forward, the upcoming opponents, they do play the Broncos. So that's like a very tough game, obviously. But other than that, they got the Panthers, the Jags, the Steelers twice, the Browns. in the Falcons. And so the Steelers are not very good. They're 26 against opposing quarterbacks. Jags are 22nd. Panthers are 19th.

Falcons are 28th. Basically, what I'm saying is he has a pretty soft schedule coming up here with as far as it comes with opposing quarterbacks. And so I think going forward, he has a really easy schedule. I think he's going to kind of revert back to what we expect from him. He's going to run a little bit more. I think regression is going to hit. He's probably going to score a few more touchdowns on the ground.

And I'm just expecting big things from down the stretch. What do you think? The reason I like this, and this is a theme for me today, is I like players that their managers are actually getting frustrated with the guy. Yes. Like, because we always say, oh, it's like, Bilo. It's not a Bilo unless the person who has them is actually frustrated enough to give up the person. And I think everyone knows Lamar is actually pretty frustrated with him. So I like Lamar.

I think that it's realistic. The person who has Lamar might give him up. All right. All right. Look at that right on time. See, maybe Craig was the problem the whole time. That's like perfect timing. Craig was the reason we were disrespecting Tom.

All right, next one here. You and Craig both had Amonra St. Brown for the Lions. Craig had him as his number one trade target. So take me in the mind of Craig. Why do you think Amon Ra was Craig's number one guy? Honestly, this is like pretty similar to the Lamar argument. It's like, I'm on Ross St. Brown. If you're not paying attention, like I think his managers are probably a little bit

frustrated with the production lately. Obviously, there's the caveat. He's coming off of an injury and the Lions have been playing poorly. But if you look at the underlying numbers, like he had a 37% target rate last week. if you just look at his final score, nine and a half points, you know, you're going to come away being like very underwhelmed, disappointed. I think there's an opportunity here if, you know, again, if a manager is a little bit frustrated with the production lately,

it needs like some type of different, maybe a different position or something. This is a great time to go get Amman Ra because the underlying numbers are still really strong. Hawkinson's no longer in town. DJ Chark is on the injured reserve. Deontre Swift is still hurt and probably only going to be playing like a third of the plays going down the stretch.

Amman Ross St. Brown is just going to have so many targets. And I think the production that we saw early on in the year is going to come back. So I'm guessing this is what Craig is thinking too. It's just like the underlying numbers are still really strong. And there's no one else in this offense right now catching passes. So I think Amman Rossin Brown could have like a really explosive, huge second half. Here's the problem. I feel like once a player is really good and shows that they're sealing, like Joe Mixing this week, he has 55 points.

Once that happens, especially early in the season, it kind of sets how people psychologically view that player. And the problem I have is a moniker. at Amonraza by low is when he started the way he did with like, he had like 50 points in the first two games. I feel like at that point, it's going to be very difficult for anyone to actually part with him for like quote unquote cheap. So like I don't know. Like what would you get? Let me be clear. I didn't look at this as by low necessarily.

I did you, we said players to trade for. And so I looked at it as players that are going to have really strong second half. The reason I had Lamar and Amman Ra up here is that there could be some slight frustration with with managers. but I'm not saying they're going to be cheap, if that makes any sense. I'm not necessarily saying these guys are really cheap to trade for. I just think they're worth trading for. Does that make sense? Yes, we're going to come back to this.

Very similar player. I have next up, I have Chris Godwin for the Buccaneers. I think this is very similar to Amon Rae St. Brown. Godwin has like a Monra. They're not running, Godwin is not running deep right now. He's not running deep routes. They've like turned him into Keenan Allen. But if you have Godwin this year, like you have to be disappointed.

Chris Godwin has, if you play in half PPR, Did you know Chris Godwin has two double-digit games the entire season? Like, if you just, yeah, too. If you just cover the names and look at the stats on the year, Chris Godwin is indistinguishable from Josh Reynolds and Mack Collins. That's tough. He is. That's really tough.

Yeah. So you think this is going to change going forward. Well, that's the thing. And again, what I like in a trade is when you're targeting a specific player, I think it's if a player is doing well, or even if they've done well, period. people usually don't want to give that person up. And so, like, I just like, when you, you don't want to waste time. When you're looking, you kind of want to target players that are so underperforming

that their managers are already considering benching them. Like, if someone hasn't even played Chris Godwin the last few weeks, look at them. So like, here's the thing. Chris Godwin is the second most targets in the entire league over the last month. And he is the third most gatches. He's just not scoring touchdowns. That's it. But you look at the bucks, they can't run the ball.

I'm not, like, I'm not saying Chris Godwin's going to be great. he's not going to have big games necessarily with like tons of receiving. Mike Evans is the guy that's going to have 200 yards at a game. That's not Godwin right now. And he's coming back off the UCL. But he's just not scoring touchdowns. Like I feel like we're so mentally just tied to that that as soon as that changes, I feel like people, I don't know.

I feel like you could get Godwin for pretty cheap. And Amonrat's the same thing. Amonrat just had touchdowns the first couple weeks. And he hasn't any sense. And he's like possession receivers when they don't score, there's kind of a valley. Rich Rebar was talking about that this week. Yeah.

I think this, so psychologically what you're talking about, I think there's just more, it's more easy to rationalize trading away guy like Godwin, Amun Ra, even Lamar Jackson, if they haven't been playing that well. Like, it's impossible to trade for guys that have like, you said, Joe Mixon, playing out of their mind scoring 50 plus points a week. Like, you're just not going to get those guys. But psychologically, it's easier to like kind of convince someone that, oh, like, you need this type of player.

I need this type of player. I'm willing to, you know, whatever. like I think it's just easier psychologically to trade for these types of players. And I like the Godwin one too. I think he's due for some positive regression touchdown. I think he's just going to get stronger as the year goes on. Because he's still coming off of that major injury, you know, the knee injury. So maybe that's like why they're sort of easing him in underneath for all stuff.

So we'll see. I do like this one a lot, though. I was wrong. Craig's not the reason we were disrespecting Tom Tom. Just blow through it. Yeah. Craig did have next step. We have a Mark Cooper receiver for the Browns.

Yeah. So how do you feel about this one? It's tough to trade for someone that just had like their best game of the season and Amari Cooper had 130 yards. I think this makes a ton of sense. I mean, Deshawn Watson will be back in December. We'll see if he's even an upgrade. He hasn't played in a couple of years.

But I mean, Amari Cooper, he's playing really well. He's like a Glansburg. No one wants to admit that Mark Cooper has just been like a top 10 receiver of fantasy this year. Like he's playing fantastic. Yeah. So I assume Craig is talking just like this has been sort of he's actually turned into pretty reliable.

He's the wide receiver 11 in half. FVR. And yeah, like, I think maybe probably the Deshawn Watson thing coming back, like, that could potentially raise his ceiling significantly, especially if they start playing a little bit more pass heavy when that happens. I think it is worth taking that risk and kind of like

the unknown with what happens when Deshawn Watson comes back. So yeah, I think that's probably always thinking. Amar Cooper's also just good at football. And I've always looked at him as just he's better in real life than fantasy. And that's always like why we didn't really like Cooper. And he also never got that big an amount of the Cowboys targets. But

Cooper's been fantastic. Like that Monday night football game, he just was crushing the Bengals. He has two games of less than 10 points. Otherwise, it's 25, 23, 20, 14, 10, 22. He's been really consistent. I feel like that's sort of different from what we're used to. I don't know. Maybe he's just like stung us in the past because of the injuries and sort of the uncertainty. He's always on the injury report. I think that always helps. Doesn't seem like it's been that big of a deal this year. Would you rather have a Mori Cooper CD-Land for the rest of the season? CD. Here's the thing, though. Why?

probably just because of bias. Because C.D. Lamb has not had a single game as good as what Amari Cooper did last week. Citi Lambs had 100 yards in a game. I knew Cooper Rush is playing. But I'm just saying like what? Perceived upside, I guess. That's the thing. We're so everything.

It's anchoring. I think that's come probably where Craig was guy. At least we're aware of it. But speaking of the Cowboys, you also had Tony Pollard 5th. I'm fascinated by this. Why are you Tony Pollard 5th? You're trying to trade for him off the best game of his career. Again, this wasn't in my mind by low.

was guys that have potential to go off down the stretch. I'm kind of just to me this is. Wait, so people to trade for are people that could go off? Both. Well, you want to trade for them because they're going to have high ceilings down the stretch, essentially. That's how I thought of it. It's just hard to trade for someone after the best game of their career.

Yeah, but here's the deal. Here's why I said this, because there's this overwhelming discussion, partly due to what we've talked about on this podcast, that they're just going to go right back to Zique. You know, we talk about what Jerry Jones has said, oh, we go where Zeeke goes. Like, Zeke's still going to be the starter. you know, they still see Zeeke as like the foundation of their offense, all this stuff. Like, I think there's probably people out there that want to capitalize on what

Pollard just did and try and sell at his highest point, assuming that they're going to go back to Zique. To me, this is more just like, what happens if they don't actually do what they're saying? Like, maybe this is just lip service to Zique and they're actually going to have Pollard be the quote unquote starter, not necessarily starting officially, but like be their lead back. Did you see Skip Pete, the Cowboys running back coach said that they, they liked Pollard just getting like 30 steps a game max because otherwise he doesn't have his juice. Yeah. So you think that's horseshit maybe?

To me, I don't think it's horseshit. I think there's a world in which he gets like three or four extra touches a game because they see how much more explosive he is. And that to me is enough to push him over the top for like going down the stretch. Plus, by the way, like he has a knee injury. Like what if he reagravates this? Like to me, this is sort of a hedge betting on maybe he's going to re-injure that. Maybe he's just going to slow down and maybe against all the narratives that we're and everything that we're so annoyed about right now.

Maybe Pollard does actually just get more volume down the stretch. So that's to me, that's the bet. Would you trade Leonard Fernett for Tony Pollard straight up? That's a good question. I would probably ask for a two for one, Fournett for Pollard plus something, a throw-in. But honestly, like, that's a good question because it seems like Fortnet is getting slowly but surely

phased out of that offense. He just hasn't been all that effective. So this would be like a good... You're selling high or sort of on Fournet and hopefully buying low on Pollard. Frenette was pissed on the sideline that he wasn't on for a drive during the Bucks game. Speaking of no, correct. Steelers.

You had Pat Fryermuth. Yes. Sixth tied in for the Steelers. And then I have Deonté Johnson, like, put him seventh. I'm just going to make it one conversation about Frymuth and Deontet. But you start with Patty Fries. Yes. So I actually sent this to you last night for the record.

And then I saw today a coach for the Steelers. I can't remember who it was. Oh, is Mike Tonlin. He said, I could remember for it was a. Steelers, who was it? No, I can't remember for it was a position coach. Mikey T.

Basically, he said that one of the big reasons they were willing to move on from Claypool is that Fryermuth's skill set, quote unquote, is redundant to what Claypool is doing. He's going to be a target over the middle of field. I think Patty Fries is going to see his target rate go up. And by the way, it was already pretty strong, especially with Kenny Pickett at quarterback. So since Kenny Pickett took over, which is minus week six, which I think Pickett was out with a concussion or something. I can't remember.

Friar Muth ranks first on the Steelers in targets in those games. He's second in target rate. He has 21 catches, 11 PPR points per game, and that's with no touchdowns. And now Chase Claypool is gone. And I think that Friarmooth has a chance to be like the primary beneficiary of a Friarmoot's absence and just be the guy over the middle of field that, that, Kenny Pickett, is peppering. So plus I think their schedule eases up a little bit. Like they've had a really tough schedule to start, you know, in terms of with what

what pickets had to deal with. And going down the stretch, I don't think it's going to be quite as difficult. I need to check that, though, but I think it's just going to be less. No, I can tell you. The Steers schedule is not,

this is why I liked Deontay Johnson as well. And I just think the Steelers, because again, I looked at this more as if you're going to trade for someone, it has to sound a little strange. You know what I mean? Yeah. In my mind,

because if it's not, sure, you can have them. Yeah. Yeah, yes. Like, if it's like,

if the person's, it's like, it's like kind of like, Tom Sawyer. Like, you're going to get someone to paint. You have to make it seem fun. And if you want someone to give something up, you want to reach for the thing that they don't use or like right now and just sitting

there. And I look at Deonti Johnson. Did you know that his roster ship in Yahoo has fallen to 85%? Interesting. So Deonti Johnson's been cut in one out of every six Yahoo leagues, basically. The people who still have him are probably sick of Deonti Johnson. He's probably on a lot of benches. He's last in yards per target.

in the entire NFL. Like he, like, again, take the name away. He has eight points per game this season. He's basically Zay Jones or Zay McKenzie or Darius Slate. Those people have eight points per game. So you can kind of get them for free. It's the same thing to what you just said. If you just zoom out though on this Steelers season,

talk about buying low. This what just, just forget the context, forget everything. The Steelers inserted the rookie quarterback against, to start his career against the bills, the bucks, the dolphins, and the Eagles. Yikes.

It went terribly. Terrible. It went terribly. Why? How weird would it have been if that went well with the worst offensive line and all this stuff? The fact is after the buy, it gets easier. Like they have like the Saints, the Bengals, like there's just easier games.

Because they played like the toughest defenses on their schedule right when Kenny Pickett started. Now they're on their by week. Claypool's gone. This offense like more or less can't get worse. I feel like they have to improve a little bit. And I think they'll probably have more identity without Claypool and like concentrated and Fryermuth. And again, Deonti, you know, Deonti Johnson is the seventh most targets in the NFL.

Like, it's all the good receivers. It's like Cooper Cup and Stefan Diggs and Devante Adams. And it's like literally, and Travis Kelsey and it's every receiver you'd expect. And then it's Deonti Johnson. He's seventh in targets. He's like 47th in yards. He has zero touchdowns. And it's like as soon as that changes, you'll like having Deonti. And again, I'm not saying give up like Quarland Sutton for Deonti Johnson. He's a throwin. He's a throwin. He's a throwin. He's a Throw in, exactly. If you have, like, added, like, a Gerald Everett and Darren Waller is, like, just language.

You could probably just flip Darren Wall. I don't even know if Darren Wall was going to play again. Like, you could probably flip Deonti Johnson for Kenyon Drake. You know what I mean? Flots him. I think people are probably frustrated with him. And honestly, he's probably been on a lot of benches lately just because he's been just so low ceiling. So, yeah, I like that one.

Zach Wilson has a receiving touchdown this year. Deonti Johnson does not. I just think that's going to change. We might as well just make it like a trifecta. I would add George Pickens to this list also. Like second year rookie breakout. Because people are thinking about cutting them. If there's any chance that the Steelers' offenses gets better

and or the targets get more concentrated with those three guys, that's good for fantasy. So that's like that's the short, that's the elevator pitch right there. All right. Next one here. This was another inside the mind of Craig Coralbeck. Craig like Garrett Wilson for the Jets.

I consider putting him down too. So I'll take this one. I agree with Craig. I think there's a, it's the same. deal with George Pickens, what I just mentioned, like second half rookie breakouts are a real thing. Like, we've seen the stats over the years. In the second half of the year, a lot of times rookies start to really establish themselves in offenses, start to really know the playbook,

start to get more chemistry with their quarterback. All those things matter. All those variables matter. The only thing that was holding me back from really putting this on the list was basically just this offense is very run heavy. You know, Zach Wilson hasn't really broken out yet. He's not very, he hasn't been very good so far. Um, but that being said, like, Garrett Wilson's by far the bright spot in the passing game for this team. And he's getting a ton of targets. They're moving him all over the formation.

He's been playing outside a whole bunch more lately, which is, I think really sort of sparked his production. Um, he just moves different, man. Like, I actually have been watching the college quarterbacks come in for, for a draft piece I'm working on. So I was watching C.J. Stroud. So I was watching some of last year. And I'm like, oh, yeah.

Now I remember why I love Garrett Wilson so much. into the draft. Like, this guy is freakishly good. Like, he has an incredible body control. Like, he can go up, pirouette, catch a ball, land backwards and, like, flip his hips and keep running without, like, barely even stopping his momentum. Like, he's an incredible athlete. Yeah, he has incredible legal. He's like literally a reliable Cadarius Tony. Like, he's a, Cadarius Tony actually plays. That's what Garrett Wilson is. He's the reason, he has why we were so excited about Cadarious Tony, if that makes any sense. Um, what do you mean, we? I was Well, we were excited about him last year, weren't you?

After seeing him, a couple games. Yeah, after two games. Right. Craig's not here. After that game, after that first, that always. Yes, after those two games. Okay, that's what I'm saying. This is my point.

After that game, we were very excited about Cadarious Tony. Craig and I have held on to that excitement. Hyphitz has not. But yes, this is who, this is who Garrett Wilson is. I think he earns targets. He has a good rapport of Zach Wilson. So I'm into this. I like Tom Tom, Tom Club because they just come in and, like, end the Kadaristone

conversation. That's why I appreciate Tom Tom. Save. I haven't saved by the Bell. Saved by the TomTom. Save by the Tom. All right next one. I got James Connor for the Cardinals.

Okay. And again, it's just the same theme. It's just like, here's just people who are going to produce that the people who have them probably don't know what to do with them. James Connor just missed like a month. He had this rib injury. He came back.

He only had seven carries. But he played like all, like took his whole roll back. I thought assuming James Connor coming back, he had this rib injury that like, Eno Benjamin would like have more. No, he just played seven out of every 10 snaps,

which is like one notch below elite. Like if any running back over 80% of snaps is like those are the top five guys. And James Connor was just at 70%. He just, again, hasn't scored a touchdown since week one. And so if you have James Connor, you probably don't even know if you should be flex playing them or not unless you have, you don't have excellent depth. If anyone has James Connor and you ask about him, I don't think anyone's going to be super attached.

And yet I don't love the Cardinals' offense, but he's going to be the starter. I assume he's probably going to go right back to being the goal line, all the stuff. And it's, again, he's just this friend. He's not sexy. You go ahead and ask if someone wants Ken Walker, if you want to trade for Ken Walker. The person's going to laugh at you. I'm not saying James Connor will be better than Ken Walker, but he's just the straight up starting running back on this Cardinals offense. But you probably aren't going to have to pay that if you want to get him in a trade. I mean, assuming he can stay healthy, I like this a lot, actually. You know, he kind to look pretty good this last week. As much as I hate to admit it, because I had been sort of

of Benjamin Truther coming into the year, like, he might end up sort of like supplanting Connor or whatever. He just didn't really earn more reps. You know what I mean? Like, he didn't look good enough when he got these opportunities to really just take the job outright from James Connor. And we saw that last week. Like, he barely played. He was essentially just like spelling Connor when he got tired kind of deal. And so the other variable here that I think does matter. is James Connor signed a three or $21 million deal over the offseason. His cap hit, this year is $4 million. Next year is $10 million.

And they can't really get out of it. So they're going to ride this guy, I feel like, just based on the fact that they're paying him a lot of money. Well, speaking of paying for stuff, the Vikings just traded for T.J. Hawkinson. This is my 10th one here. And T.J. Hawkinson played 91% of the snaps from Minnesota last week. That's like the third most of his entire career. He showed up on, like, they traded for him Tuesday.

He got to Minnesota, what, Wednesday or Tuesday night? and then four days later plays nine at every ten plays. Does this guy have a Stanford education? How did he do that? Oh, because Christian McAfee. This is what Adam Schaefter said about McCaffrey. Oh, my God. Yeah, I'm sure McAfry spent a ton of time in class.

Yeah, I'm sure he did all of the work. I love it was like Christian McCaffrey because he has the Cooper Cup like IKEA. I'm like, okay, let's just keep naming white players who just are like those of the smart people. I can't believe they played him so much. He also got nine catches. That's also the second most of his entire career. He showed up four days ago.

I like this one. This is good because we had the dilemma, I think, where we talked about it on our Friday show. It was like, what do we do with Hawkinson? Because there's a world in which they barely play him, right? Because he just doesn't know the playbook, which would have been very valid, I think. Obviously, coming out there and like trying to integrate yourself into a new offense

where you don't know the language necessarily, you don't know the quarterback. You don't have any chemistry. You don't know what you're doing. You don't know your job is, blah, blah. And he just went out there and played like every play. And he was like, I think he got a game ball from the coach after the game. Yeah.

So, yeah, I like this one. I think, you know, he has a potential to be one of the surprise. I mean, he was already, like, in the tight end wasteland. He was already, like, tied in four or five coming into the game, I think. But he could end up being, like, a top three guy going forward. I think that, so this is a risk, obviously. It's been one game, like, you don't want to extrapolate. But I actually am willing to pay what he just did is going to be, not nine catches,

but he's going to be a top five tight end going forward. Like, he's, I think he's going to be, like, maybe in that Dallas Goddard range. because I think the Vikings have needed a third receiver for like six years. It was Stefan Diggs and Adam Thielen and they had nobody for years and years and you had third spot. And then they traded Biggs.

They got Jefferson and Thielen. I'm going to just blow through Tom. Do it. But they've never had a third receiver. I think they finally did. They're demoting Adam Thielen to third receiver. And I think Hawkinson is now the number two in this offense because Justin Jefferson is Justin Jefferson.

But Hawkinson's the only guy on this offense that has the juice for yards after the catch. Like nobody else is actually elusive other than Jefferson and Cook. Now they have Hawkinson. And Kirk Cousins is such a robot.

If Jefferson's not open, I think he's just looking at Hawkinson all the time. I like this one. I think, and the other thing that we didn't really talk about too much, but, you know, Cousins is a pretty big upgrade of Gough. Like, they're both, you know,

boring quarterbacks or whatever, but like Cousins is so much better than Gough. Yeah, he is. All right. So there's our power hour. So again, trade targets. I love how we just did different things in this exercise. This is a running bit on our show where we don't actually define exactly what we're doing.

So we come at it from different angles. I think it works. It works out. It's a good reminder for trades themselves where two people can look at the same thing. And we're like, yeah, people to trade for. And I'm like, here are people you can actually acquire if you text the person. And Dic is like, here are people who will be good. It was, to be honestly, I didn't look at it by low versus buy high.

I looked at it like these are players that could potentially be had and could have really good second half of the seasons. I do think you could trade for Amun Ra right now. It depends on, like, a lot of the time, it depends on if someone is really hurting at another position. You know what I mean? And then they're willing to give up a guy who's already been struggling. They can rationalize it a little bit because,

oh, they haven't been nearly as good as we thought they'd be, blah, blah, blah. That's the kind of like way that you can get trades done. The quick reminders on our advice on how to actually get trades done is, Number one, don't be the guy who just sends low bowl offers because eventually you do it so much that everyone just knows you as a low ball guy and you're the boy who cried wolf. And then even when you said a real offer, no one even just intrinsically wants to do business with you. Start with your team and be like, what do I need and what can I give up? And then just go to the bottom of the standings and keep going up and just look at like their what do they need? And like, it's amazing what you can get done when you just look at another team and be like, and text them.

Be like, hey, do you need this? because I have this and then it's just, it's just good way. And then three, never be the person just trying to convince someone that the player that you are trying to get for is bad. Just explain to them why that person will help your team or why the people that you have will help their team.

It's just like you have to do both. Otherwise, it's transparently bullshit. Yeah. You want to get some emails? Let's do it. First of all, holy cow, a lot of people emailed us about losing with Joe Mixed. Oh my God.

Wasn't it like 300 something? emails. You got a lot of, I thought we'd get a small handful of stories. I thought it would be like, you know, almost nobody who had Joe Mixon lost. A lot of people had Joe Mixon lost. It actually made me reassessed things. It was unbelievable. So I'm sorry. Might not be able to get all of those, but thank you to everyone emailed us. We went through them. I actually was stunned. I might have to reevaluate your life. A lot of people play fantasy. Turns out. Got to reevaluate your life if you lost Joe Mix. So I'm sorry about that. That's tough. We got a fantasy court here. All right. It's from. Oh, I lost.

the name. My apologies. Let me pull up the name. I'm going to do it redacted. This is from redacted. Okay. Redacted. No, actually, it's from Jerry. Jerry. I'm like 90% positive. It's Jerry. Jerry. So two people in my league made a trade Sunday morning where they swapped tight ends. As commissioner, the trades go through when I approve them and I approved the trade like an hour before kickoff. But one of the guys didn't know that I would approve the trade that close to the games. So he didn't check his line up and the new tight end was stuck in his bench and gets locked in his bench. So when he sees that, he asked me to use the commissioner power to just put it into the starting lineup. It's not a crazy request. Here's where it gets dicey. The projections are

close. There's no set rule because this hasn't happened for. So I decided to leave it up to his opponent who happens to be my wife. Oh, no. And she says no, he should have paid attention to his lineup. Every single email we get is a commissioner whose wife gets in a fight with someone else. I feel like that's like 70% of our fantasy courts. It is true. We just become like fantasy marital. course. We're the wedding crashers lawyers. We're Jeremy and what's his face, just like moderating these divorce proceedings. Every email is the same too. It's like, hey, I'm the commissioner, but I broke the rule so my wife would win. Is that against the rules? They're passing the buck to us because they don't want to say no or yes to their wife. Exactly. And then exactly.

It's exactly. Jerry knows what he did. No, I think, I think that's actually totally reasonable. If you approve the trade, he should have texted them like, hey, I sent this through, put him in your lineup because he gets also very clear this was like done to fill spots on like a bi-week or whatever. So I think it's totally reasonable that I use the commissioner power to put the tight end. But yeah, Jerry, just you need us to be a conduit. That's fine. Yeah, no, the tight end should have been. To finish the thought, I kind of cut you off. His wife said no, he should have been paying attention to his lineup. Don't. She will not allow him to. Yeah, who she was playing. Why would the wife be like, yeah, let him play. See, this is where I start. So obviously there's a fine line between

abusing commissioner powers and basically just ruling with an iron fist. I think on some level, as a commissioner, you just have to make the calls and not try and you can't please everybody. And you just have to say, look, I understand you're upset. Tough shit. This is what happened and this is why I think it's fair. It's also like when you are basically saying the league can't vote on trades because all these dumb minion peons with dumb pea brains aren't smart enough to understand when a trade

should be vetoed. You also then, when you're just like, okay, well, every trade is based on my schedule. I don't know. You got to be a little flexible. I mean, it's like, look, you're the commissioner. There's a reason it's not like a democracy, you know, like this, you're the commissioner. Sometimes you have to make some calls. I think, I've had this happen before, especially if it's pretty early in the game and someone's like, oh, shit, like, whatever happened, I didn't have this guy in my starting lineup. Here's the situation. And I make the call and say, yes, I'm putting that guy in. I'm going to tell people here's why. And they're just going to have to deal with it. All the Australians are up in their arms right now, or up in arms because they're getting up at three in the morning.

You set their lineups. On a Monday. On a Monday morning. Sorry for mixing that up earlier. Got an email from Austin. He says, my name is Austin. And I'm from Dacula, Georgia, where Jeff Saturday is from. But it's pronounced Dekula.

But he wrote it away, I still don't know. Dekwela? Dekula. He wrote Dekwela. Dekula. Oh, Dekula. I think it's Decula. No vampires.

That's why it's not the high school is not with Dracula. But his point is that we were talking about how Jeff Saturday, the new coach for the Colts, was a high school coach and he went 20 and 16. And Austin writes that Christian Hebron is a private Christian academy and it's small and it competes in class A, which is the smallest classification in Georgia. Do you have enough players to like get guys on the field? Well, his point is for context, de cool, what are we saying? Decula.

Decula. Decula. Why did he write QUE for the pronunciation? Dequila. I don't know. I think it's Decula. Whatever dekula, that makes more sense. Maybe we should Google this.

Hold on. Decula. No, that's funny this way. Decula High School is in Section 8 or Class 8, which is eight class 8, which is eight classifications larger than Christian Hebron, where Jeff Saturday went, 20 and 16. I feel like we're no closer to knowing how to pronounce. No, I don't know the answer still. It's all right.

We're going to move on. I got an email from Kellyn. Kellyn. Yeah. So I was waiting for my Zoom class to start today. I was at the end of this week's WaverWire episode. And as soon as I get on the Zoom is at the point of the podcast when Craig asks, how many farts have been farted into the world?

My entire class heard Craig say that on the Zoom and thought it was me. Love it. I told him to stop blaming what he says in a public space on this podcast. How did his whole class hear it? He was playing it out loud, like on his phone. And then he joined the Zoom and I guess he went to pause it. And then the part that they heard was Craig saying, how many farts have ever been parted?

Can you imagine if you were like a student and like Zoom begins, someone joins and says that and they're trying to be like, no, it was like this guy on a podcast and that wasn't me. That's funny. For some reason I thought he meant he was doing Peloton. I don't know why. Like picture,

because we went back to the Pelotan conversation in my brain yesterday. Like Zumba? Yeah, something like that. This makes sense. So it's just like Zoom class. Got it. If you didn't catch the waiver episode, it's really fun. Check it out.

I also wanted to shout out Nick with a great celebrity encounter. I'm bum Craig. At the Miami Super Bowl in 2020, I wanted a few co-workers to a party just outside of Miami in a big warehouse. As we climbed the stairs to get into the second level of the party, a man blacked out, reeking of vodka, wobbling on the stairs, bumps into me and yells, watch it. I look up and it's Shooter McGavin.

I gave him the double finger guns and said, Shooter! And he yelled, fuck off, kid, and then three beautiful women is with helping him down

the rest of the stairs. This makes me like him even more. He's just in character. He's just adopted Shooter McGavan as his like persona.

So this is a real chicken in the egg. Do you think that this guy, because everyone has the story, everyone who meets this guy just says he's an asshole. Do you think that

he has adopted the persona of shooter McGavin? Or do you think he was so good at being Schuter McGavin? Because he's actually been always been like this even before he had that role.

Maybe a little bit of both. I think it's probably like a combination. Does he have a, he has a reputation of being like an asshole to people? I haven't heard that.

I thought he was really nice. It's not an asshole, just in person. He's just always Shooter McGavin. I think he's doing fan service by being Shooter McAvin in some of these situations.

Because this guy said shooter to him. It's not like he said, hey, whatever this guy's name is. I can never even remember his name. What's his name? Christopher McDonald. Like, I'm not going to go, hey, Christopher McDonald.

Obviously, I'm going to say, Hey, Shooter. I'm going to ask him if he wants to go to Sizzler or catch him grab. Craig's not going to listen to this episode, right? I'm wondering if he's on cameo, could we get Shooter McGavin to like wish Craig?

Could this be our wedding gift? Tell him to fuck off, kid. Yeah, just say, hey, Craig. Congrats on getting engaged. Fuck off. No, no, he's like, sorry for winning. I was too busy winning. Yeah, what he finished?

Dead last? Yeah, had a good day, though. This could be our wedding gift for Craig. I'm all about it. I think this is what I would do if I had played Schroeder McGavin in a movie. That's incredible. All right.

I'm going to see if Shooter McGavent's on cameo. There's no way he's going to find out. All right, that's all we got. All right. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Kai, for pinch hitting today. And of course, thank you, Lauren. Thank you, M83.

Just a blank stare. No idea. I don't know. Midnight City. Solitude. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Check it out. Oh, French electronic music group.

It was a great, great history. Yeah, they're really good. Antibs. that where they're from. Yeah, I bet they could pronounce tequila. Probably. They could probably pronounce Duverne. Duverne.

Duvonne duvalne. Duveldne. All right, goodbye, everyone.