The Ringer NFL Show - The Secret to Winning Your ESPN and Yahoo Drafts

Episode Date: August 19, 2020

We dive deep into the ESPN and Yahoo draft experience and outline ways to gain an advantage on both platforms, including general strategies to follow and specific players to target. Check out The Ringer Fantasy Football Guide for our updated top 150, positional tiers, expert mock drafts, and more. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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You could get arrested. You could incur huge legal expenses and you could possibly even lose your job. We all know the consequences of driving drunk, but one thing is for sure. You're wrong if you think it's no big deal. Drive sober or get pulled over. This is the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on the Ringer podcast network. I'm Danny. He's Danny. He's Craig. And this is my favorite episode of the year. How are you guys doing? Doing really, really well, Danny. How are you doing? Why is this your favorite? Because this is like the cheat code.

This is like the, you know those weird ads on the bottom of like websites where it's like from outbrained and it's like gut doctor tells you to cut out this one weird vegetable now? And it's just one weird trick for like abs. Have you ever clicked on one of those? Yeah, I have six pack now and it took three weeks. Wow, you need a different podcast about that. I cut out one, this one vegetable and my gut doctor just told me like I would get shredded. No, but this is the fantasy football version of that. You'll see these ads now if you haven't.

If you think it, you have no idea what I'm talking about. You're going to see it soon. But this is the fantasy football version of this. This is like the one weird trick. And honest to God, this is like the best fantasy advice. And it's also the easiest fantasy advice. And therefore it's the most fun. But first, before we get into that, you guys know redwood trees?

I'm aware of them, yes. Great. So there is this famous study by this psychologist called named Daniel Connman, and he developed something called anchoring, which is basically when you have a starting point for a number around something, you can't get it out of your head. So they did this with a study, and they talked to people about redwood trees. They had a group of people, guess how tall is the tallest redwood tree in the world over under 200 feet? First of all, what do you guys think? Is it because you set the line at 200, so you assume it's

close to that, even though it could be 700? Precisely. I'm going to say they're not 200 feet tall. I'm going to say, God, I don't actually have no fucking idea. Just over or under? It doesn't matter. Under.

That was my instinct to say under. They had people answer that question, and then they were like, okay, now give us a number. How tall do you think the tallest redwood tree is? And then I think the average or the median guess that people gave was like $2, 280 or something. That's not important. The important part is they also did a nether

group, control group obviously, where they gave people the same question, but they asked them over under 1,200 feet. And then they were like, how tall do you think the tall's tree is with a specific number? The average for that group was like 900. So just the process of giving them an over under before of 200 versus 1,200, move the actual guess 700 feet for a fucking tree. with the point being that your starting point, even if you know it's wrong,

if you have a starting point at a number, that's where your brain sets the default, the reset. That is what you keep coming back to. So I have two thoughts about this. One, this is one of your better anecdotes. Wow. That relates to the topic of the show. I'm desperate to know how tall these trees are.

Really good job. And number two, this also just tells me how stupid and impressionable human beings are and how we can just tell them to do anything and think anyway, and they will think that way. Honestly, thinking fast and slow is an amazing book because it's about how stupid people really are.

And I highly recommend it. But this is like extremely relevant for fantasy football for a very simple reason. You can pretend to prepare for all you want. But the reality is when everyone's in your league is looking at your draft room, whatever you're on, ESPN.com, Yahoo, CBS, NFL, whatever website you use. Everyone is looking at the same numbers. Yeah. Everyone's looking at the same. And that moment in time, everyone's going on the same numbers.

And everyone's mind is anchored to the super. 63 that's in front of Jarvis Landry's face. And no matter what you really think of him, that becomes your anchoring point. And the cool part of what this episode is about today is the easiest trick you can do to extract value out of your draft is in the moment when everyone's drafting, you want to unanchor yourself from the one that everyone else is tied to so that you can get better values on players by understanding where the rankings you're looking at are different than everywhere else and every other ranking on earth. that's what we're going to be looking at today,

specifically with the ESPN and Yahoo because they're the two biggest platforms. Yes, that's what everybody uses. And I have, I mean, to be honest, even when I do a mock draft and we have our own rankings up on the ringer.com and I've, you know, subscribed to a lot of expert rankings,

Evan Silva, you name it. If I'm in Yahoo and I see something, if a guy's 20 spots higher than what my personal belief is, it still affects the way I draft. I'm like, man, should I take them now or should I wait 20 spots because that's where I actually have them?

one example of this that I think is great. So right now in ESPN, T.Y. Hilton is ranked 47th and Terry McLaurin is ranked 48th. On Yahoo, Terry McLaurin is 38th and T.Y. Hilton's 63rd. So just by the, like, you could be in the same group of people, but depending on the website you're using for your draft, Terry McLaren could, quote unquote, fall 10 spots in a Yahoo draft. And that would be exactly where ESPN thinks he's ranked. But the fact of the number of his ranking is so. different than the pick on the board and the quote unquote value you think you're getting,

it's inseparable in your mind. And so really this whole episode is around have different rankings in front of you while you're drafting. And that's really what we're going to be talking about today. So, yeah, ah, this is, wait, hold on. How tall are the trees? I looked it up. Okay. 200 to 240 feet, Redwoods. Well, the question is the tallest one. I believe the tallest is 379. Memory serves. But memory infallible. Also, great part from the book. You don't remember shit. Malcolm Gladwell had an episode about that on Revisionous History. Very interesting. Yeah, it's like, you ever had a childhood memory? And then your mom was like, no, that's not how it happened at all. You're like, oh, I guess I was blending three of those things together.

Yeah. You basically remember your memories. You don't remember the actual event. Oh, that's weird. Damn. Yeah. We're not even at the lucid dreaming part of this. Okay. But let's go in to just start with just some general differences between Yahoo and ESPN. No other leagues matter. Everybody plays Yahoo and ESPN. I'm a Yahoo guy. I don't know what you guys normally do. But that's what we're sticking to. And again, this works for everything, but use Yahoo or ESPN. And Yahoo's traditional standard scoring is 0.5 PPR, which is what we're going off of. And ESPN's traditional scoring is full point PPR, which is what we're going after.

To be clear, though, this works in every system. Like, if you're drafting on My Fantasy League, which is a popular one for Dynasty stuff, like their rankings always throw me off for a loop, too, because they're pretty different from ADP lists. So bottom line is, before you go into a draft, if you really want to nail it, like have rankings or some ADP in front of you so you can cross those off. We have that actually at the Ringer Fantasy Football draft guide too, where you can cross guys off as you're going through the draft. Instead of just rely, don't just rely on that draft room rankings is the bottom line here.

We're essentially bargain shopping. Like we're going to different grocery stores with coupons and be like, oh, this is cheaper here. This is more expensive here. Okay. Yeah, it's like going to a tag sale and then look. up how much it sells for on eBay and decided to buy it or not. That's what we're doing here. Gary V would be proud.

Okay. Let's throw just some general differences. Yahoo is a whole lot higher on quarterbacks by a crazy amount. Just one example. Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys, quarterback, if you haven't heard, is on ESPN, he's ranked 79th. And on Yahoo, he's 57th. So a difference of 21 spots. But honestly, it's kind of part for the course, because even if they're kind of,

ESPN and Yahoo have somewhat similar quarterback rankings of, like the tier of Tom Brady, Matt Ryan, Carson Wentz, Josh Allen, Drew Brees, Matt Stafford. Those guys are all somewhere between two, three, or even four rounds apart on Yahoo and ESPN. So one, why do you think that is? And two, which are you closer to drafting DAC 57th or is or him 80th? Well, I guess that's my question to you guys is how do you view this? Like let's say, so Yahoo's, he is at 57 and ESPN is at 79. If you personally think, he's worth 57? Do you wait to get him at 79 if you're doing that ESPN league because you know he'll fall that late? Or do you get him at the value you think he is because nobody else will be

drafting him at that time because he's supposed to go 20 picks later? I look at it this way. When you're in a Yahoo draft, so Yahoo is higher on quarterbacks. They have them ranked higher in their rankings. When you're sitting in a Yahoo draft, in my opinion, at least this is not how I sort of look at it, there's going to be a few quarterbacks at the top of your rankings that are sitting there, and you have to be disciplined enough to let other people take that guy. Does that make sense? So, like, deck press guy, he's going to be at the top of the rankings for 5, 10, 12, 15, whatever, how many picks.

The idea is let someone else take him because you don't want to, because that, like, that anchoring thing like Danny was explaining, that, that is an anchor there. Someone in your league is going to take him earlier than you think he's actually worth. say you think he's worth 79, which is closer to the ESPN rank, and actually is much closer philosophically to what we all are based on our ringer rankings, which is we all agree that in one QB leagues,

it's better to wait on a quarterback. So, long story short, is you're going to have a guy, you're going to have like a Dak Prescott or a Josh Allen or whoever, sitting at the top of your rankings in the draft room,

and you have to be disciplined enough to be like, I'm not taking him, I'm going to let someone else take him. I'm going to look at the receivers. I'm going to look at the running backs in this range. scroll down the list a little bit, and don't be afraid to, quote, reach on another guy because they have, you know, the quarterbacks ranked a little higher. Yeah, I think this quarterback.

I think this quarterback example is actually the perfect example of what we're trying to get at here, which is that anchoring exists, but then how do we use that? Basically, because the rankings you're looking at aren't God. That's the point. And honestly, ESPN and Yahoo's quarterback rankings, a lot of the quarterback rankings out there aren't that different. It's about the value judgment of when do you want to take a quarterback. That's actually the difference here.

And I am way, way happier to take Drew Breeze around 100th overall than I am 80th. And I think that you're going to have a better team almost every time, especially if you have a one quarterback league. Almost every time you're going to have a better team if you are taking running backs receivers or even tight ends through around the first 90 picks or so or using how much, honestly, 98% of your budget a quarterback if you're in an auction draft. So I don't really like Yahoo's rankings here. And that's just something to know. So the point is, is wait on quarterback even later than you normally would maybe even wait if you're in an ESPN league because they're already later than the Yahoo rankings. And if you are following the philosophy that we follow, which is get a QB late,

you could probably wait 50% longer than you normally would and still get a decent one like the guy's high fits listed earlier. Well, yeah. Most importantly, it's just if you're in Yahoo, don't pay the sticker tag. Like that is the number one takeaway here. You got to do a D. D.K. said is you got to allow the name to sit at the top of that draft ranking and just be like, nope, I'm not going to bite. Even though he's sitting right there, I'm not going to bite. So, like, where is, like, Matt Ryan? He is 75th in Yahoo. And on ESPN, you know, he's quite a bit further down.

So if you see Matt Ryan there at the very top of your list and he's, it's just staring you in the face and you're like, oh, I could actually see like, oh, the Falcons could come like be better this year, blah, blah, blah. But then if you like, you know, it's so tempting sometimes, but you have to be able to like resist that. be like, okay, I'm just going to get Rathusberger, you know, 30 or 40 picks later instead. Well, and it also gets scary if everybody else in your league is listening to Yahoo and they're listening to ESPN and they're taking all these guys a lot earlier and you're like, well, crap, my rankings tell me to wait. You know, it's hard to not get kind of sucked into what everybody else is doing. Yeah. Don't smoke because your friends are smoking and don't jump off a bridge because your friends are doing it and don't draft a quarterback because they're all doing it. It's not cool.

Don't, don't vape, kids. Yeah. So in this example, though, I just want to say one last thing. Matt Ryan is 75th on Yahoo. PPR. He is 109th on ESPN for their PPR top 300 cheat sheet. So that's a really significant. Here's the thing. They're not that different on Matt Ryan. It's a philosophical difference that ESPN is saying wait on quarterbacks and they're showing you to do it with their rankings. Same thing with tight ends. Yahoo and ESPN don't really agree on the positional value of tight ends.

Yahoo ranks just all tight ends way higher than ESPN does. And it's not disagreements. They're saying that the most valuable tight end, Yahoo has George Kittle at 16. ESPN has George Kittle as their second tight end, but they have them at 28th. They have Mark Andrews on ESPN is ranked 61st. Mark Andrews on Yahoo is ranked 43rd. That's huge differences. And it's because ESPN is just a lot lower on tight ends.

They're lower on quarterbacks because ESPN's rankings have running backs and receivers way higher. And that goes all the way down the board to tight ends lower down too. So, for example, Hayden Hurst, tight end for the Falcons. ESPN ranks them 134th. Yahoo ranks him 99th. The ringer actually has him 80th. We have him 80th in our rankings. We love Haydenhurst.

I am driving the Haydenhurst bandwagon. He's a value to me on Yahoo. But on ESPN, if you can grab Hayden Hurst to me around 120th, and that's theoretically a reach if you're in an ESPN draft room, that's where this gets to be really useful for me, is when you can theoretically grab someone early. but to me that you're getting them four or five rounds after you really want them. Yeah.

And I think going back to the human nature thing, too, it's, I think that in Yahoo, you're more likely to have a run on tight ends earlier. So for instance, George Kittle on Yahoo is ranked 16th overall on ESPN, 28th overall. So Kittle and Kelsey are going to be the first two tight ends off the board

almost every single time. If you want either of those guys, you're probably going to end up having, yeah, you're going to have to take them a little higher in Yahoo. Just be aware of that going in. You know, like he's going to be a second round pick, probably, versus, like, potential third round pick in ESPN. Just based on, like you said, the way people react to the rankings in front of them, you know, you never know.

Someone might reach, quote, reach on a guy early in your draft, but this is just generally how people, like, if you're any, if you're in a Yahoo draft and tight ends are going fast, don't worry about it because Yahoo's really high in tight ends. That's all we're trying to say here. Yeah, like, you're not missing out. The only thing you have to be aware of is that perhaps all of the, like, if you're really going to wait, all the tight ends could go. and then you'll be stuck with somebody late because they're all going to go early. You do have to be aware of what everybody else in your draft is going to do

because odds are, hopefully not odds are, but odds are not everyone's going to listen to this podcast and all your friends in your Yahoo draft are going to take tight ends early because Yahoo is telling them to take them early. So you just have to be aware of what everybody else is doing. Be aware of the trends

and be able to capitalize when you think you see a good value. I think the move is is if you really want George Kittle, you should just, and you're in a Yahoo League, you should just tell your friends, let's switch over to ESPN this year. And then they'll wait on him.

And then you can get him like 10 pigs later. Yeah, that seems like a very complicated way of going about it. Just switch every year based on your draft strategy. It just might work, Craig. Yeah, it just might work. Just lead a coup. I'm a huge fan. Yeah.

Fantasy leagues are the smallest version of democracy. And if you can just kind of take over your own little league, you know what? More power to you. One other discrepancy we wanted to note is that there's just a lot of differences between ESPN and Yahoo on these mid-tier running backs? Craig, do you want to run through some of those? Sure. So basically, you got to find the guys you like and make your own rankings or use in experts' rankings like ours,

and then notice when these guys are going to be likely to go on ESPN and Yahoo League. Fantasyfootball.org. Dot the ringer.com. If you want the correct rankings, use ours. Hell yeah. So on ESPN, these guys are way lower than Yahoo. For some reason, Yahoo's got Jonathan Taylor, Melvin Gordon, and Mark Ingram, much higher than on ESPN. But on ESPN, they're super high on Levon Bell. Leonard Fortnett and David Johnson. And when I say super high, they're around 10 to 15 picks apart

all of these guys. So make sure when you're going into these that if you like Jonathan Taylor, he's going to go way earlier in Yahoo than he has an ESPN, 19 picks apart. So you've got to be aware of when that stuff's going to happen. Because if the clock's ticking down and it's like beep, beep, beep, and you're like, oh my God, I'm about to auto draft someone and you're between some receiver and you end up drafting Levion Bell and you're like, well, he was one of the best running backs left, and then you check a different website, and you're like, oh, my God, they haven't ranked 20 spots lower, and you're going to realize, oh, what am I doing? You don't want to be unprepared for that moment.

The top five players that they're suggesting you draft, don't be tricked by that. The other thing to keep in mind here, too, is that Yahoo, its standard is half PPR, ESPN's full PPR. Even with that difference in scoring, I think, generally speaking, people tend to, like, some of the top experts, even I don't think differentiate between half PPR and PPR when they're making rankings, because it's not that big of a difference in terms of the scoring. So while that is something

we're saying, like Yahoo's standard is have PBR, ESPN's PPR, that might be, it might explain a little bit why Yahoo's higher on guys like Jonathan Taylor who isn't expected to catch a ton of passes. Rahim Moster, who, again, isn't expected to catch a ton of passes. But it is something to keep in mind

as you're going into these drafts that it probably, depending on how you view these guys, guys. Like, that doesn't explain the entire difference to me. Like, there's, there's some sort of philosophical thing going on here where the mid-tier guys just aren't as valuable to ESPN rankers. So let me ask you, I got a question. I have a philosophical question for you guys. And I'm going to use David Johnson because he's high-fitts a nice favorite player this year. So let's say you think David Johnson is the 36th best player. He's on your rankings, your personal

rankings, has 36. And you're in a Yahoo draft where he's ranked as 50th. If he's, you your pick is up and it's pick 36 in the draft and David Johnson is sitting there, as you're thinking, I'm going to get him because I have him as 36 on my list and he's right there. Or do you go, oh, well, Yahoo has him at 50th. So maybe I'll wait to the next round and I can get him then. Oh, I'm waiting around. Because the whole point of this entire exercise we're doing, this is a good question and this is a really important concept. The whole point of what we're doing is we're trying to get value. So we're going,

it's what we said before about you're at a garage sale and you're trying to sell stuff on eBay. Just because David Johnson is ranked 36, the whole point of what we're doing is you try to get him 45th in the next round.

And then people think, oh, you grabbed him five spots too early or whatever. You got him nine spots later than you wanted him. That's the point. You want the nine spots. If you have him ranked 36th

and you take him 36th, okay, cool. You got your 36 player. The whole point is getting your 36 player a round or three later. That's the entire value here. And essentially, you want to do that for every pick. So instead of taking David Johnson at 36, you're going to take somebody else who you had higher who has fallen to 36 on the Yahoo rankings. Exactly.

So you're essentially getting a steal with every single pick because you're using your own rankings. I think the other thing to bring up, though, right here in this example specifically, is, and I don't disagree, actually. I like the idea of getting value, trying to use these discrepancies in your favor to get value. But at the same time, you know, if you're going to draft and you really want to just get your, quote, your guys, like David Johnson is definitely your guys' guy this year. You think he's going to easily outplay his thing. The other thing to think about here is someone else in your league could be doing the exact same thing you're doing and be like, you know, I've got Johnson 36th year. I think he's a great value at this spot.

He might be down the rankings a little bit. and it might look like a reach to everyone in that draft room because he's a little bit down the rankings. But to that guy, he sees him as that's value at that spot too. Yeah, that's a great point. So, like, the idea is, I agree with you, I tend to agree with you guys on like the getting the best value thing. But the other idea, the other concept that's at play here is don't think that he's a reach, even if in this draft room it says he's a reach. You know what I mean?

Like, don't feel bad about, quote, reaching on this guy because people's rankings are like pretty wildly different. on these guys. So I think that's kind of the thing to keep in mind, too, is like, don't be afraid to scroll down the list a little bit and grab a guy a little earlier than it says at your rankings. If you have a strong opinion on that guy, if you think this guy is way better than what his ranking in Yahoo is or whatever. So that, I mean, is diametrically opposed to pretty much what Hyfit said. However, I think you're right. I think you're both right. And it's happened to me a lot with D.K.'s scenario where I'm like, you know what? It is a reach, so I'm going to let him go.

and then I get upset because one other guy in my draft is also thinking like I do and then he gets them. And that happens like five times in your draft and then that's when everybody says, just pick the guys you want. Just pick the guy. If they're there and you have them generally

in your rankings in that spot, just pick the guy you want. High Fitz, what do you think? Yeah, there's no rules. There is no rules. What D.K said, like what you said, DK, don't be afraid to scroll down the list. That's the entirety of this episode.

Yeah. That's a good point. So that's like some general differences between ESPN and Yahoo, again, just to illustrate, you've got to know how the rankings in front of you constructed. So again, just to go over that, Yahoo is really high in quarterbacks. East Pian's pretty low on them. Yahoo's high and tight ends. East Pians low on tight ends with the basic idea being ESPN's trying to elevate the importance of running backs and receivers. Yahoo's basically saying you should fill out your starting lineup earlier. That's basically

before your bench. ESPN's saying, no, fine, have bench players before a quarterback. It's fine. just know that going in and also know your mid-round, know your personal feelings about running backs because the actual list you're looking at can have a difference in value. Now, that's some general stuff to know. We're going to then get into some specific players that we love the values on either on Yahoo or ESPN.

But first, let's talk about direct TV. Why only watch one Sunday out of market game when you can watch all of them? I want all of them. You want all of them? I give them all. I don't want one. Who wants me?

I want of anything. I want everything. This country was not built on one and one of anything. Well, if you want to watch all the out of market games, we have good news, NFL fans. Direct TV has expanded the service. If you live in an apartment or big city where Direct TV service is not available, you can now get NFL Sunday ticket without a satellite. To see if you are eligible, go online to NFL Sundayticket. Dot TV and stream every NFL Sunday ticket game this season to follow your favorite team, no matter where you.

live. Use promo code the ringer at checkout to save 15%. And exclusive student discounts are also available. All right. We've gone over some general differences between ESPN and Yahoo's rankings. Let's get specific. Let's get to some specific people we're looking at where there is such a huge ranking variance that we are targeting people on a specific site more than we are in other sites. the first one that just jumped out to me is ESPN is so much higher on fast receivers. I think Al Davis made these rankings. Yeah, Al Davis is doing ESPN's rankings.

Everyone I'm about to say runs a 4-3, basically. Miko Hardman on the Chiefs is ranked 114th than ESPN. It's about 60 spots higher than Yahu is at 170. Basically, Miko Hardman and the Chiefs, Robbie Anderson and the Panthers, Curtis Samuel in the Panthers, Henry Ruggs and the Raiders are all around 100 overall. or so on ESPN. And they're all in like the 160s on Yahoo.

That's wild to me. And the fact that if you're so obviously in ESPN, they seem to me closer to fairly priced. They're all intriguing. But if you're on a Yahoo draft and you can get any of those four, but especially Mikul Hardman Henry Ruggs, or actually like Curtis Samuel more than Robbie Anderson,

but basically you could get speed, quote unquote, 30 picks too early on Yahoo. That's an amazing value. And I'm looking at those guys. Yahoo disrespect speed. Why do we think that is? They don't care.

They don't care. What is... I'm just wondering if it's maybe like, philosophically, it's a floor play versus ceiling play at these, in these areas. Maybe Yahoo's playing it safe. Maybe Yahoo rankers just look at it that way.

They want someone who's going to be having that higher floor. These guys are all probably really high variance. Like McColl Hardman could have 20 points in one game and a freaking goose egg in the next game. And maybe that is a reason that is so much lower on Yahoo. Maybe ESPN's just really... bullish on these guys breaking out

compared to Yahoo. I don't know. It is, it's fascinating, though, because they're all like 60 off, 60-ish, like, picks off. And you know, Yahoo may be playing it safe, but Hyfit's talked about this in the Monday episode, I think. You want to get your,

you want to be riskier as you, as you draft on. Your first pick should be safer, and as you move your way down, the draft, you should get riskier. And Yahoo's playing it safe here in these rankings, but you should pull the trigger on these guys if you like them, because the upside of them is so much better than a guy like Haifitz denigrated in the last

episode, Cole Beasley, who doesn't have a huge high upside. So don't get tricked by these rankings if you're in Yahoo and Henry Ruggs is super low. Grab them because he's got huge upside. And an important note, again, once you get to like round 11, doesn't matter. We already said there's no rules. There are no rules after round. Don't let anyone tell you anything after round 12, including us.

There's no rules. And because you know what happens if your 13th rounder isn't that good to start the season? You cut them. They don't matter. You will pick up someone else. The whole point is you're trying to get someone that, oh my God, this person can be in my starting lineup if I want. Like now, that's someone that you're trying to have on your bench. And that might be true for Henry Ruggs. That might be true for me, Cole Hardman. If you're wrong, then it's like, whatever, you're going to cut them for a different free agent. There's no reaches.

You should envision a scenario in which could this person be on my playoff team succeeding. And if you think Cole Beasley, you go, hey, you know what? He probably won't be starting on my playoff team. But if you go, you know what, there is a world in which Curtis Samuel could be on my playoff team. Those are the guys you should be drafting. Who do you like how that group the most real quick? Hardman, easy. Yeah, Hardman's a popular sleeper because the thing about Hardman is, even if you don't agree that

this is like his breakout year, it's all about the price. His breakout at you, 114th overall on ESPN, that's around like Noah Fan. That's where ESPN has like Stafford, Drew Breeze, Aaron Rogers, those quarterbacks we talked about. That's a starting quarterback or maybe a receiver. But once you get to Yahoo's got him basically unranked,

then you're talking about the difference between him and literally your last pick. You could cut a defense and add me Cole Hardman. Like, that's crazy to me. You could cut your kicker and add him. So, that's- I think I'm easily the highest on Curtis Samuel of anyone at the ringer.

I'm just looking at our ranks right now. We've got him 118th and half BBR. I've got him ranked 94. Wow. So where do you have Robbie Anderson? Because those are related to me because that, like, they're rolling in the offense. I've got Anderson at 1-08.

So I'm probably more in line, I guess, with ESPN on these. I'm bullish on these guys. Well, here's my question. If you have DJ Moore, if you have DJ Moore in the top 40, if you have Robbie Anderson and Curtis Samuel in the early hundreds, and I think you have Ian Thomas ranked too. Why not draft Teddy Bridgewater? I know.

That is one of those things where it's like this cognitive dissonance or it's just it doesn't connect quite right. Maybe I do have Teddy way too low. Based on all, based on my rankings, I probably do. Yeah, I think that's a very interesting point. And it's something that happens a lot every year. Like people will be really, really high on the Rams receivers, for instance, but then low on golf. We're going to anchor Teddy Bridgewater in your mind, D.K.

Yeah, maybe I am way too low on Bridgewater. Maybe I haven't been fair. And I'm just super excited about all their skill players, but not their quarterback. That doesn't really make sense. Let's get to some specific players that we like on specific platforms. O'Dell Beckham Jr., he is 39th in ESPN, and he is 27th on Yahoo, which is a pretty huge difference. especially for someone that famous. I think that's a pretty different,

that's a pretty big discrepancy. So which ranking do you agree with? I obviously like the value in ESPN. I think he's a lot closer on the Yahoo thing. To me, he's not like an automatic person at 27, but if I were to see him at 30, not, no-brainer. It's not even close. Like, I'm willing to reach five spots early

for him to get him like 35th or so in ESPN. No question. Yeah. We have him at 27 overall. too. So we're right in line with Yahoo. Yeah, so if you're doing that ESPN draft, that's a lovely third round pick right there. The other one that just, this is honestly the best example of the entire exercise.

James Connor on the Steelers. This is a great example of how rankings are not God. Yahoo has James Connor ranked 26th and ESPN has him ranked 52nd. So literally double. They literally have an entire, like 26

more spots till ESPN gets to James Connor. Isn't that funny? Because like, I mean, these rankings are compiled from experts who read and write and figure things out and they create these massive rankings and they are so far apart on James Connor, which just goes to show, I guess no one has any fucking clue how James Connor is going to perform this year. That's what that tells me. Really what's supposed to be a reminder is at the end of the day, this is predicting the future and that's impossible. So again, it's about extracting value out of that.

So if you're on ESPN, don't be afraid to really reach if you want James Connor. And if you're on Yahoo, you're going to have to pay a pretty penny to get him. You got to really like James Connor if you want him. Would you rather... Well, not, would you rather have him 26 or 52? But, like, do you think his real value is closer to 26 or 52? Closer to 26. What about you, Deacon?

Oh, man. I'd say closer to 52, but... And we have him right in the middle at the ringer. We have him at 37. Yeah, I'm sort of... I've been rethinking my Connor rankings and take. lately just because I think it is so true that the Steelers use a one, like a three-down guy so often, they really rely on it.

You know, Mike Tomlin came out recently and was talking about how he sees the advantages of having a guy that goes in there snap after snap after snap. So he can get in the flow with the offensive line, get in a rhythm with them, start to learn that offensive line because there's a lot of interplay between the offensive line and the running back. And so he's a big believer in that. If Connor can stay healthy and we can, no one can, guess whether he will be or not be healthy this year.

And yeah, I think he's then his value certainly. Maybe Yahoo's just more bullish on his health, I guess, than ESPN is. And we're kind of right in the middle, I guess. So I would say he still makes me nervous, but that's probably anchored in the recency bias from getting burned by him last year. And I think, you know, his true value is probably a little bit higher. It'd be closer to the Yahoo one. Another couple of receivers who wanted to mention with big discrepancies.

Cortland Sutton on the Broncos is ranked 32nd on ESPN and 55th on Yahoo. I don't want him on the ESPN. I think he's closer to 50th and 32nd in that just because there's so many good receivers and he has such big changes to his supporting cast. I don't like Sutton on the ESPN ranks.

I'm much closer to the Yahoo ones there. Agreed. One other person that stands out to me is Bobby Trees on the Rams. Craig. This is your guy. This is your Cinderella. Well, I think he's under.

rated in both leagues. ESPN has him at 42, Yahoo at 54, so 12 spots apart. The only difference is ESPN has him ahead of Cooper Cup, which I respect the hell out of ESPN, and Yahoo has him behind Cooper Cup. We have him at 36, which is higher than both these rankings. So I'm grabbing Bobby well before in Yahoo and ESPN. What do you guys think? Yeah, we've been all, I mean, we've been all over this the whole time. I think we're just like, we're going all in on Robert Woods this year. Like this is what you talked about, D.K.

When you were like, do you reach? Like, it will look like a reach when I draft Robert Woods this year. This is the Bobby Forest. It's where we are.

If you're going to, quote, reach on Robert Woods this year, and you're going to take him somewhere, like where we got, I'm 36, you're going to have to go, you're going to have to take

him over guys like Cooper Cup, Keenan Allen, Sutton, Lockett, McLaugh. I'm fine with all. So if I'm on Yahoo and I can take Robert Woods

over Keenan Allen? Hell yeah. Because in Yahoo, let's say that if you're starting with your draft with one of the four top running backs and then you come back around and maybe you can grab

I'm just throwing a name out there like Aaron Jones or someone and then you can grab just throwing out names Kenny Goliday in the third round maybe you can get Odell or Jude and then you come around to the fourth round or the fifth round

and you can grab Robert Woods as your third receiver in the mid-40s. That's a wrap. That's unbelievable to me. And honestly, if he goes at 54, he could be your fourth receiver. So I think that's absolutely nuts. I love that every time.

And I actually would be comfortable with him being my second receiver. Another one that's actually nuts is Darren Waller. ESPN has him at 62. And Yahoo has him at 84. We got 22 spots apart on Darren Waller, which I actually thought everybody was kind of in on. but I guess Yahoo, they're so late on tight end. It's not the case.

They have him below Hunter Henry, Jared Cook, and Tyler Higby. How do you guys feel about that? I think there's a real fear that he's just going to get no targets because the Raiders are loading up on other guys. You know, like Brian Edwards is getting a lot of hype in camp right now. Obviously, Ruggs getting talked about is as a Z or slot receiver, so he could steal some snaps, or not snaps, but targets from him. And then people still believe in Hunter Renfro.

I think there's just a real concern that he's not going to get the target totals that will be sort of necessary for him to kind of live up to what he did last year. But I'm high on Wall or two, though. I think just he's everything you look for in a tight end. Number one, super athletic, smooth route runner, can make plays at the point of the catch.

The other thing is that's really important is Derek Carr has always been this guy that really utilizes that area of the field. And so I think that just really that matches up with, you know, that matches up with him really, really well. So I'm bullish on Waller. I think, you know, I lean putting Waller ahead of those other guys. Yeah. So I think the reason why these Yahoo, I think I'd rather draft in Yahoo right now is because I could get these guys I like so much later. I mean, if I, we have him on the ring or Darren Waller at 54th and Yahoo has met 84th. So if I'm in

Yahoo League, I mean, I could wait until the eighth round, seventh round and get Darren Waller when I would probably have drafted in two rounds earlier in a different league. That's the stuff you got to point out. That's amazing. That's unbelievable. And again, not to mention East Pians lower on tight ends, but they're higher in Darren Waller.

So that's unbelievable. Yeah. One last guy I wanted to point out, was Preston Williams, who I actually still, I don't understand why he's not higher across every board. Like, I don't know why people are not talking about him, but Yahoo has him 194th undrafted. And he pretty much,

outperformed Devante Parker when they played football together in Miami last year. 194, ESPN has them pretty much 100 spots higher. So once again, I agree with ESPN's ranking heavily. But good Lord, if you are in Yahoo! I've been doing so many Yahoo mock drafts. And I am convinced that you don't even need to draft a receiver until the sixth round, and you will be fine. You will be fine.

So, like, I'm honestly recommending you get George Kittle or Travis Kelsey in the second or third because you can wait so long. get Russell Wilson, Lamar, because you can finish your draft with Deonté Johnson, Will Fuller, Marquise Brown, Preston Williams, and your team is set.

But isn't this the Incredibles where it's like if everyone's super, no one's super, which is actually about Ein Rand, just TBAH, but isn't there a problem where, yeah, I guess now we're just spouting

Iron Rand on this podcast, but if everyone's receivers are better, because the receiver's so deep, is there a case to just, you should have really great receivers? Or what do you actually do in a landscape where no one can have bad receivers? How do you stand out from the ground?

It's just, it's having Kelsey? Kittle, you're saying? It's Zag, I guess, right? You go three RB-1s on your team and a tight-end one, and then you get a bunch of middling wide receivers that you trust can break out because you've done your research. Well, not middling, it's that if you getting Bobby Trees,

our beloved Robert Woods with the 45th pick, gives you actually a top 10 receiver because no one cares because his name's really boring. But then you're spending your first three picks on, you're saying like running back, tight-end running back maybe. Yeah. Or even Kittle, if you're on ESPN, you could Kittle at the third round.

And that way, your receivers are just as good at the receiver spots as your opponents, but that you're running back in tight-end spots are better and give you an advantage. If you can go Dalvin Cook, George Kittle, Austin Echler, and then to Sean Watson, and then three receivers, it's interesting. This has been a big subject in our Slack channel of late where Craig is just doing all these mock drafts. Well, I'm actually doing, I've done a few of these drafts too. I was going to put out, Craig's start of the year going zero running back. I don't want to draft a running back in the first seven rounds to.

I want to only draft running backs in the first seven rounds. So I just want to throw that out there. Is there a problem with that? I feel like there's a problem in this country. People can't change their... We want people to grow and learn, all right? I'm learning. No, I agree with you, though.

I think because I've been going running back heavy, like, hard in my last few drafts. And because it's like we've been talking about it in the Slack channel and on this podcast, like, you can get those guys so much later now and feel pretty good about it. But part of it, part of, like, fantasy, part of, like, a big part of fantasy fun,

I feel like is when you're done with your draft and you're looking at your team and you feel good about it. It's just not a good feeling if you're looking at your team and like, oh, fuck, I need this running back to get hurt in order to do anything this season. You know, it just like is a terrible feeling. It is the Sahara Desert in round five and beyond for running backs.

Yeah. So, I don't know. It's one of those things like it, if you want to feel really good about your draft, going running back early, I mean, that's not necessarily going to guarantee you going to win your league. It's like buying a fixer up or house. it's like, it probably makes sense, like, if you run the numbers,

but it's like, who wants to do all this work? Jeez. So, all right, just to summarize this, if you're in a Yahoo draft, you probably want to wait on quarterback because they're all overpriced. Don't pay the sticker price. You also might want to wait on tight end. And if there's a run on tight ends, don't be afraid because, you know what? You're going to have good value in other positions.

Corton Sutton's a big value in Yahoo. Darren, well, Quentin Sutton is more of value in Yahoo. If you like them. I don't like them. If you like them, big value in Yahoo. Darren Waller is a big value in Yahoo. Know you're running back rankings, but really honestly,

just don't draft a quarterback early in Yahoo, because they're wrong. And then if you're in an ESPN draft, it's kind of the opposite. They're much lower on tight ends of quarterbacks. Their quarterbacks in my mind are much more appropriately priced. And the tight ends,

if you go get your guy early, don't have any problem with that. If you like, like me, Hayden Hurst, drafting 20 picks early. Don't worry about it. It's still a good value. And then also on ESPN, O'Dell, James Connor, Robert Woods,

all three of them, good values. But the overarching thing, wherever you draft your fantasy football, draft wherever site you use it on, CBS, carrier pigeon, whatever you do, the way you stand out is not looking at the same stuff everyone else in your league is looking. Don't be subject to group think.

On anchor. If you could do it, which is really hard, you should just have your draft up on a computer screen and literally never look at it. Like just have a piece of paper with your rankings, cross it out by hand. Every time you see that somebody gets pick. And don't even look at who's available. Only look on your piece of paper at who's available

and go off that. Yeah, that's the thing that takes the most discipline. Yes. He's actually following those. I think I love it when, I think Silva always talks about this is like, you know, actually, actually living your rankings. Really hard. Sometimes when you're like, when you're like, it's like a New Year's resolution. Yeah, when we each have our rankings, if you actually went off those rankings, it'd be really kind of interesting to see how they pan out. Because sometimes you'll be like, I got this guy ranked here, but I really don't. don't want to take him here. You know what I mean? It's just it's an interesting sort of psychological.

Yeah, because then when everybody else in the league goes, Yikes, T.Y. Hilton? Really? Like, God, am I an idiot? Yeah. It's scary, but if you have strong roots, you can grow tall. Like a redwood. Nice. Wow. Yes. We are all redwoods today.

Or Robert Woods today. Either way, you're going to be good. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Craig. Thank you to everyone for listening. Thank you, Daniel Connaman for telling us about anchoring. It's great stuff. Check it out. And we'll see you guys next week.