The Ringer NFL Show - Essential Strategies for Your Fantasy Football Draft I The Dantasy Football Podcast

Episode Date: August 22, 2019

Danny Kelly and Danny Heifetz break down the best ways to win in both snake and auction drafts, and spell out a few tried and true methods for finding value. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This episode of the Ringer NFL show is brought to you by CBS Sports HQ. Look, if you follow our pod, I think you know that we love analysis information. We don't love yelling at each other, throwing out hot takes, or beating the same topics into the ground. And that's how CBS Sports HQ does things too. It's a sports network that streams live 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and they're focused on bringing you the latest news, highlight stats, game previews, game reactions, fantasy advice, and gambling picks. There's no fake debates, there's no politics, no made of, up drama. It's just sports for real sports fans. The best part, you get all of this for free.

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and Lake Bardizek, are two distinct tasting vokas, born from unique terra and expert craftsmanship. Kind of like the expert craftsmanship it takes to build a winning fantasy football team. Taste the difference and enjoy Belvedere's new single-of-state rye vokkas on the rocks or in a delicious cocktail today. Belvedere is a quality choice. Drinking responsibly is too. Welcome to the Dynasty Football Podcast, brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. My name is Danny Hyphitz and I am joined by the one, the only, the legend, the hero we need, the hero we deserve, the dark night, Danny. Kelly, D.K., what is on your mind?

I'm just thinking about these XFL team names. I can't handle them. Seattle Dragons. I don't get it. I love the XFL names. Everyone's making fun of the logos. You know what? People are like, oh, you stole the dragon logo.

It's like, it's green and red. That's what dragons are, dude. Like, stop making fun of the XFL. It's like, it's great stuff. That aside, what do dragons have to do with Seattle? I don't know. You tell me. I've never heard anything related to Seattle and Dragons.

Anyway. We've done an episode already on quarterbacks, on running backs, on receivers, on tight ends. We've done our top 50. We've looked at risers and fallers since we did all those episodes. Sleepers. We did sleepers. But now we're going to zoom out a little bit. We've given you a lot of our thoughts on players.

We've tears and you can check out actually those tears on Twitter. We've tweeted those out. But now we're going to zoom out and we're going to focus on just drafts and draft strategy. There's only two weekends until the season somehow, which is incredible to say out loud. Wow. So we're going to focus on how do you approach your draft? We're going to really in depth and really, oh my God, that's 20 minutes and I don't feel prepared and everything in between. So we're going to touch on snake in auction, shallow and deep leagues and everything in the gamut.

So, DK, it's a snake draft. For one quarterback league specifically, I think the one rule that I've just come to adhere to is late round quarterback. I think J.G. Zecorison has kind of coined this and popularized it, but it's something that a lot of people use. Basically, in one quarterback leagues only, you wait until pretty late to grab a quarterback. The opportunity costs early on to grab a Mahomes, a luck, whoever any of these top-ranked guys is just too great. The value isn't there. So that is something that I definitely adhere to. And all one-quarterback leaves almost always taking a guy later than early.

And again, the basic premise here is if you feel that it's insane that Patrick Mahomes is not a good value in the first. three rounds. I don't think your issues with the strategy, but your issues with one-quarterback leagues. I highly recommend everyone to be in a two-quarterback league. I know Robert Mays hates that, but the fact is that there's just too many good quarterbacks and two-quarterback leagues are better. But if you're in a one-quarterback league, which is standard, it's better to wait. I was talking to JJ about this actually recently for my sticky stats article, which I think you should still go read at the ringer.com. Basically, what he's looking for in a late-round quarterback is upside because the way that you get the most value with a quarterback in one

quarterback leagues is sort of these outlier seasons. Last year, Patrick Mahomes was an outlier. He was a late round pick and he just went crazy. He had 50 touchdowns, another couple of touchdowns on the ground. Just incredible season. But the reason he was so... It was the best fantasy season in the history of fantasy quarterbacks ever. He had 399.8 points. He was so valuable though, because you were able to get him so late. So this year, the guys that he's looking at, the guys that I'm looking at, and Riley wrote about this at the site, Riley, my editor, Riley, Macatty. He posted about how rushing, like, upside for quarterbacks is like the new,

it's not new, but it is the way to get the most value out of those late-round quarterbacks. So Lamar Jackson is a perfect example. Right now he's QB 16, 116th overall. His floor as a rusher is incredible. and if he can kind of take the next step as a passer and break out as a pastor, he could have that kind of outstanding, outrageous, outlier season that we saw from, you know, like Cam Newton in his MVP season a couple of years ago. So, like, Jackson is one that I'm really targeted a lot later.

Josh Allen, who we've said this, you know, Josh Allen was the number two fantasy quarterback down the stretch run. Yeah, and he's another guy. Like, his rushing is completely different because almost all his rushing yards came on scrambles, but you can get him right now. He's QB 24. If he makes a slight jump as a passer, I mean,

that gives him a much, much better ceiling. And so, yeah, these guys are interesting. I think another guy that's really undervalied right now is Dak Prescott.

He's 134th overall in ADP. And then, you know, depending on what you think, like Kyler Murray, I think it may be a little bit high right now. He's QB12, 105th overall.

But with a disastrous, preseason game last week, his ADP is likely falling and it will continue to fall. But yeah, he is another guy that I think just has an incredible upside because of his rushing ability. Again, though, just the basic premise

that quarterback's who rush, even if they're like Josh Allen, not considered the best passer, the rushing yards give them such a higher floor that even when they have a bad week with your eyeballs, that fantasy-wise is actually pretty decent. And so they're a pretty good value

later in the drafts. Sticking with that, though, how do you approach tight ends in stake drafts this year in general? Okay, so with tight ends, since it's such a top heavy position, obviously you've got your Kelsey Ertz and Kittle way at the top. I mean, those guys are elite at their position and they're all in the top 33. Right now, Ertz is the third. His ADP is 33 overall. So you're getting those in the top three rounds at least. And then from there it becomes a much bigger question market. You know, O.J. Howard, Evan Ingram, Hunter Henry, that's kind of the next tier.

I'm a little bit less sure about those guys. They're definitely potential like high ceiling type guys. But again, the, I guess the opportunity cost of going with a running back or a receiver in that area, to me, it's been a little bit high. And so I've been generally waiting until the last round because I think you can get to the last couple rounds, I should say, late rounds. You can get guys like Jordan Reed, Greg Olson, even like Jimmy Graham, no offense, some of these guys, Chris Herndon. these guys can you can get them late in the round late in the draft and they still have a pretty good floor and ceiling potential and so that's generally what I've been doing you have to start more running backs and receivers in your league I just think it's it's better value to get those guys earlier in the draft yeah if you think of it's almost kind of like there's those top three guys of Zacherts George Kittle and Travis Kelsey they're kind of like if it's I mean to put it like in terms of basketball shots they're like wide open corner threes they're like wide open corner threes they're like they're like they're like they're like money in the bank and they're going to get you the most stuff. And then the Evan Ingrams, I hate to put Hunter Henry in them, but those guys increasing,

O.J. Howard, increasingly looking like mid-range jump shots to me. I don't like what they can give me versus what I'm going to have to cost to, like, get them. And then I'd much rather have the Mark Andrews, as you said, that later in the rounds that I hate grabbing a tight end in those 50s, 60s range, unless you really love them. And that's kind of the whole caveat to this is, if you feel a certain way about player, go get them. It's fantasy. It's all made up anyway. So if you love Hunter Henry, go get him. But if you kind of are like, oh, well, I need a tight end. So Evan Angram, then like, you know, go with your heart.

But otherwise, there's plenty of talent later. That is kind of the point is don't feel like, at least I don't, I have not felt like if I miss out on those top three guys, that as you get into the mid-rounds, I have to take a tight end because I need a tight end. I've mostly just been filling the other roster positions, you know, your receivers and running back specifically. and then just waiting until much later to grab a tight end. And you can get those guys in the late round. So that's kind of the strategy I'm taking. It's not a foolproof strategy because obviously I think Hunter Henry, for instance, has like double digit touchdown potential.

But touchdowns are such a, you know, not sticky stat. Like it's just every year it's so different. They vary so much that I'm not banking kind of on all that. I'm just kind of waiting until later to get those guys that I think you can get in like the, you know, 10th round plus or whatever. Just to clarify the sticky stat thing, and your whole article, which is amazing, there are certain stats that are noise

that don't predict future performance. And then there are certain stats that do. Rushing touchdowns or receiving touchdowns do not predict in the next year, nearly as well as receiving yards or rushing yards. Exactly, yeah. So, and then what we're-touchounds are just a fluky thing. They're a fluky event in football.

There's 70-ish plays per team in a football game. and there's like three or four of them end up touchdowns. How that happens is sometimes random. Sometimes the 70 yard touchdowns is a 70 yard touchdown. Sometimes it's 68 yards and then it's a two-yard score from Latavius Murray. So yeah, that's the strategy I've been taking with tight-in. I know a lot of people don't agree with that, but yeah, that's what I'm doing. So if you're waiting on quarterback in tight-end, who are you taking up top?

So that kind of gets us into two separate, I think, strategies that people use a lot. let's start off with the quote zero running back strategy. And I think this was coined by Sean Segal Lvotivos back in 2014. Which no just to Sean, but very misleading name because it does not mean have no running backs. Very misleading name. Essentially, it means zero running backs in the first three rounds. So the premises basically with the NFL, there just aren't as many high volume, high upside, like workhorse running backs. And so you go the other direction with it, you get the higher upside receivers in the early rounds and basically just hammer that position up to like five or six rounds.

So that to me is a very interesting strategy. If you're doing that strategy, you know, the running backs you go for are handcuffed type guys. So basically guys that are backing up high volume running backs. You target guys in uncertain depth charts or guys with uncertain volume share. So like the San Francisco backfield, for instance, you're going after Breda, you know, a little bit later on in the draft. Third downbacks and guys that can catch passes, obviously, this is for PPR league specifically. But basically, you're hammering the high volume receivers in the early drafts maybe tied into. And then later on, because so many running backs get injured, you just can't rely on it quite as much.

You know, go for these guys like the handcuffs and the uncertain depth charts. And that's kind of like how you go about it. the term military industrial complex was actually coined by Dwight Eisenhower. But, you know, actually, the whole phrase was military industrial congressional complex. And it's important to get the full phrase for the full meaning.

So that's why the zero running back thing, I'm serious about this. I'm serious with this. I'm serious with you going. The zero running back in the first three rounds because it's important. It implies that running backs don't matter, which I know get it hilarious

because that's a thing in the NFL right now. But actually what it's meaning is running backs are risky. That's the point. So you actually want a lot of them, later as lottery tickets. I don't like it because the way I approach it is you actually want a lot of running backs.

It's not zero. It's zero great ones. It's a lot of ones that could become good. So this is something that I think is a lot more tricky unless you're willing to kind of put in the work, not just before your draft,

but during the season because it really depends on, look, there are so many players that pop up before the draft who you don't realize and then during the season that you'll be able to find people during the year that make your team really good and then you're stacked it everywhere else.

The key, though, is it is best suited for people who are experts like Sean, who invented this, that are going to be scouring during the year. So if you're someone who's always on your waiver wire and like always on Twitter and stuff, this is a good one for you. Yeah, I mean, the waiver wire is a huge piece of it too because, like I said, you have to, you pick up guys as they get injured. It's not so much, it's not a draft straight. It's like a way of life, honestly.

Right, right. So the negative energy to this is the bizarre. world, the zero wide receiver, which this is even too much for me. But go on. D.K. So I mean, yeah, it's sort of the inverse. It's not exactly the inverse, but it basically means you grab as many high volume running backs early on and then focus on the potential value receivers later. So break out potential receivers. Curtis Samuel is a huge one right now for the zero wide receiver strategy. You know, guys, again, and uncertain depth charts or guys with, you potentially like a Cole Beasley who could get 100 targets this year in Buffalo.

His ceiling isn't very high, but his floor is a little bit higher, get you through the day. So yeah, that's kind of the invert. I mean, it's not exactly an inverse, but it's the same concept of really focusing your energy in the first three to four, five rounds of the draft on on scooping up as many, you know, kind of like high volume running backs as you can. I actually was talking to Scott Barrett from PFF about this. His strategy is not zero receiver, but it's, he calls it Belkauer bust. And basically, it's, again, it's a point of view where he's avoiding middle round running backs

who are unlikely to have high snap share, carry share, or target share. So like a Belkow back is a guy who's like a three down. You get your Zeke Elliott's, the guys who are getting all the receiving action as well, like third down action as well. So he actually posted on Twitter a example of like a draft where this bell cow or bust strategy kind of kind has worked for him in mock drafts and stuff so far. So in round one, David Johnson, round two, Dalvin Cook, round three, Leonard Fernette because he's falling, right? Round four, Antonio Brown. He's falling as well.

Round five, AJ Green. So this is kind of the idea where you scoop up as many belcal backs early on as you can and then get the receivers that are falling. later on in the draft. Specifically, he's just avoiding the Derek Henry's or the guys that are going to be in timeshares, guys that are not going to get any receiving action and things like that. So I just think all these strategies

are really interesting going. I don't necessarily follow any one of these specifically every draft, but I do think it is very interesting kind of like to weigh the value of each one. With these, I think late round quarterback is something that has ingrained in me and like is almost foundational.

Like I genuinely am going to be the person in the draft. It doesn't mean never take it. It's just that the other nine or 11 people in your draft are probably going to take them first. The tight end one, it's like it either happens or it doesn't. You take Kittal or Kelsey Earth or you don't. And then, well, here I am. Do I take a middle range of one? And then I end up just waiting.

I'll be honest. I don't love zero RB or zero wide receiver. I just end up, I'm just the middle. I just, you thread the middle between all these ideas, which is you just take the value that comes to you. And ultimately, the thing that to me matters the most in snake drafts is make your own if you have the time. We have our tears, but the process itself of making tears

actually makes you think about, oh, clustering these players into here's like where I'm comfortable with, oh, wow, wait, this person's gonna start for me, no way. And then you have your tears in front of you

and the clock's ticking down and if you were able to have that sheet and you're like, oh, there's two running backs left that I want to put them flex, but there's like eight receivers I'd be happy with. Then it helps you clarify

to do the running back. That to me is the most helpful way to do it necessarily. then sticking to one strategy. So again, with all of this and everything we've said and we'll continue to say this episode, it's like the Pirates of the Caribbean quote.

There's no rules. It's more like guidelines. You know, it's all guidelines. Yeah. So do you just go generally just value-based or do you ever actually just go in and just like, hey, I'm just not drafting a receiver to the fourth round?

Because I think you got to stay flexible. I generally don't go into drafts with like the zero RB or zero-r-re receiver mentality. I will say like I have done a couple dynasty drafts this summer and I've really hammered receivers on that. But that's kind of a whole different thing just because receivers have longer careers and that's injury prone. But when it comes to redraft, I don't like adhere to like either of those religions necessarily. I'm with you. I kind of just.

You're agnostic. I see how it goes and how the draft is going and kind of just play it by ear. but I think this year I'm actually going to try that with a few drafts because they just kind of want to play around with it see if I end up liking it a lot more than what I've been doing. I laughed when you said that Zero running back is kind of like religion, but it kind of can be. There's believers and non-believers.

So, yeah. So, I mean, that's a pretty nerdy breakdown of some nerdy stuff. I'm going to go into some, if you've maybe like you have like a day or maybe an hour or 10 minutes before your draft, I'm going to go over the just bang, like here's what you can do in 10. minutes. So, but before that, let's take a quick break. We've all made some bad choices in life. I know I have. I drafted Levyon Bell in the Ringer Fantasy League last year. But this is not about me, it's about you. Don't let playing fantasy football on a platform other than Yahoo be one of them.

Be the ringleader of your friends and start a league on Yahoo. You know your buddies. They're still out there making bad choices, but you can make better choices and choose Yahoo for your fantasy football league. It's the best app for commissioners rated number one by the FSGA. Step up and sign up with Yahoo! Camish, your friends will thank you. Start a league today on Yahoo Fantasy Football. And while we're here, everyone knows about the risks of driving drunk. You could get in a crash. People could get hurt or killed.

But here are some surprising statistics. Almost 29 people in the United States die every day in alcohol-impaired vehicle crashes. That's one person every 50 minutes. Even though drunk driving fatalities have fallen by a third in the last three decades, drunk driving crashes still claim more than 10,000 lives each year. Drunk driving can have a big impact on your wallet too. You could get arrested and incur huge illegal expenses. You could possibly even lose your job.

So what can you do to prevent drunk driving? Plan a safe ride home before you start drinking. Designate a sober driver or call a taxi. If someone you know has been drinking, take their keys and arrange for them to get a sober ride home. 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 boldly. All right, DK, you come home from work one day.

Your friend calls you're like, what's up? And they're like, it's your fantasy draft. We've paused the draft. We're waiting for you. And you're like, I thought that was tomorrow. And they're like, no, you're an idiot. This is why none of us came to your bachelor party. You're like, oh my God, this is too real.

And then you have to draft. You're like, wow, I have 15 minutes. That was weirdly specific. Not that it's ever happened to me. But it's so like those things that are like underneath articles on sometimes in the internet, like here's one weird trick to, Like, lower your blood pressure. This is one weird trick to dominate your draft.

It's like the most basic premise about drafting when you have, you're using an internet site like ESPN or Yahoo or CBS or wherever you draft your fantasy team. Everyone else is draft, especially with snake drafts. Everyone drafting is influenced by the raking in front of them. It is psychologically impossible to not be influenced by what you're looking at no matter how much you know. It will change. Especially when, yeah, especially when.

there's like a quick timer on your draft. You have a minute. God, who am I going to? Look, seriously, the same process that gives Daryl Beville and Pete Carroll 40 seconds to decide to run or pass into at the goal line of the Super Bowl. Why did you have to bring that up? Because I mean it. I didn't mean to just stab you in the guy.

I guess you caught a stray right now. That was my bad. But seriously, it's like the same thing that no matter how much you're prepared, the 40-second timer, it affects you and how you're thinking. If you're looking at a chart, it matters. So that is what you can use to your advantage. if you're drafting on ESPN or Yahoo, CBS, wherever, if you know that that will be affecting everyone else in your league,

the simplest thing you can do is pull up another tab with another website's rankings, or you could use fantasy pros, which aggregates from a bunch of consensus rankings from around. But I highly recommend it because there are certain sites that are, there are certain players, sorry, that have huge disparities. It's not going to help you for everyone, but certain players.

So I'm just going to give you an idea. I'm going to run through a couple players. that ESPN is way lower on than Yahoo. And by lower, I mean ranked later in the drafts. Nick Chub on Yahoo is the number four running back. On ESPN, he's the number 22 running back. He's the number four running back? He's risen, yeah.

That's pretty, that's interesting. Okay. Damien Williams on the Chiefs, 24th on Yahoo. He's 44th on ESPN. Marlon Mack on the Colts. He's 21st on Yahoo. He's 34th on ESPN. So if you're drafting on ESPN, you know that somewhere in between there, maybe there's some value there.

Or if you're on Yahoo, maybe that's too early for you. Now, flipping it, there are some players, Yahoo is way lower on than ESPN. Todd Gurley, is number 14 on ESPN. He's number 35 on Yahoo. Leonard Fournette, number 24 in ESPN. He's number 39 on Yahoo. James White, number 71 on Yahoo, but he's number 57 on ESPN. Sammy Watkins is 97th on Yahoo, but he's 55th on ESPN.

So pulling up the difference there that can really help, oh, wait, wait, this person's, you know what I mean? And obviously you're throwing in what you think in there too, but it's really helpful to have other sources because at the very least, you're not a part of the group think anymore so that you can find value. There's also a couple structural differences. Yahoo just, and again, this is an important insight at rankings. There are no rankings that are perfect. And ultimately, they're reflecting the values, I mean, it's still sensibly to say, but beliefs and philosophies of the people at the company. So, for example, that sounds really esoteric, but I mean it. Yahoo values backup tight ends and ESPN does not.

That is a reflection of the beliefs of the people ranking. ESPN ranks their tight ends in a way that they don't really think you should be drafting a backup tight end, it seems. Yahoo does. That's just how they did it. So Yahoo is, here's a couple of people. Yahoo's 30 spots higher on Eric Ebron than ESPN. They are 33 spots higher on Mark Andrews, 35 spots higher in Austin Hooper, 63 spots higher on Kyle Rudolph. I don't that to me doesn't say anything about those individuals it's just they structurally believe you should not have a backup tight end to as strongly NSPN as Yahoo and that's just one example of if you do or do not believe that you can get a real value over everyone else in your draft by knowing the difference there's similar disparities on handcuffs especially for guys like jalen samuels Tony Pollard Alexander Madison guys that are you know he's samuels is backing up James Connor Pollard obviously might replace zika Elliott

Alexander Madison's the rookie would replace Dalvin Cook presumably if Cook got hurt. It's very hard to rank like a handcuff that's very valuable to one person more than it is others, but those people have big disparities too. So if you are just drafting in 10 minutes, the best thing you can do is pull up a tab of another site or two that you trust and look at both. The other thing I was going to say is even if you have time to plan for it, this is another really effective way to get an edge on your league mates. And what I've been doing is just going in and building a spreadsheet based on, you know, ADP, consensus ADP.

You can get these on fantasy pros or best ball ADP, which is generally speaking, you know, players, a little bit sharper players who have some skin in the game when you're playing best ball. You're making, you know, you're betting it. And so you're putting your money where your mouth is. And so best ball to clarify is it's kind of like, imagine if the mock draft you did sat for the whole year and then you didn't. And it just automatically slot it in. It optimizes your lineup. Yeah. So after everyone finishes their week, it then takes your highest score, assumes you've played the best possible lineup.

So people generally play for people who have high upside weeks. So this is something where Sean Jackson is a better play than he is in regular fantasy because it's retroactively making your lineup best. But people do a lot of leagues, so there's a lot of data about, we know a lot more about best ball leagues because people do a lot of them. Sorry, continue. So I was just going to say, like, these ADP lists are, they generally can be a little bit sharper,

or I guess more reliable maybe than some of these other websites rankings, which are like you said, are at times based on opinions rather than just the market itself. And so that's another way where you can just go down your spreadsheet. I just do this. I delete the guys that have been chosen. And then you can kind of like just see, you can find guys that should be like if they're falling,

you can get them later, you get them really good value on them. whatever. To me, that's like a little bit better way than just looking straight on the rankings of whatever site you're drafting on. I almost never do that, actually. I usually create those spreadsheets and kind of just go down based on whatever you feel is the most accurate ranking, ADP, or find an analyst you trust and go by his rankings or something like that. So that's kind of like what I've been doing to get an edge. And you can use the ringers ranking on the ringer.com. We have standard NPPR rankings. So you can check that out. Absolutely. And yeah, just coming back to

that what you said, but tears. I just think tears are always the best because they clarify your thinking. It changes the way you look at the draft too, I think, and can give you a better, bigger picture vision of what to do. So yeah, for sure. The human mind, best processes, information and clusters. Fact. All right, DK., on to auction draft strategy. I'm just going to start this off with, like, if you've never done an auction, I encourage you to try it. It's better. It's just a better thing. It's capitalism from scratch, with any of the problematic origins. It's like a perfect, beautiful allocation.

It's free because it's annoying that in snake drafts, it's really just people. It's kind of cookie cutter teams with cookie cutter talent. And as you go through a snake draft, it's kind of not hard to have a bad team, but teams are, there's not much difference in them.

What's cool that auction is, it's almost like the difference between the NFL and college football. You see such different styles of football in college because there's such a bigger diversity because they have different constraints. and the reason isn't the same. But, you know, Navy does not run a similar offense to Wisconsin

does not say like Baylor or Oklahoma. The same thing with auction, it's like, it's really wild when the first thing that happens in your draft is someone pays half of their budget or two-thirds of their budget because they want Christian McCaffrey and Alvin Kamara back-to-back. And that's just how they started, and they will figure out the rest of their team with like $20. And then other people just don't have any good play.

And it's wild. It's crazy. But it's really cool to have someone be like, nope, I want... everyone on the chiefs, and I will figure out my other 12 players. So I really encourage you to go for it. But if you're already in an auction draft or considering it, there's a couple basic strategies and just good rules of thumb that are really good.

First up, I mean, just stars in scrubs, right, D.K.? Yeah, I mean, I think that's everybody that I've talked to says this is the best strategy for auction drafts. I mean, it basically says don't try and get like 10 value guys. you have to spend money on your stars and then once you've spent money on three or four guys that you think are going to be the foundation pieces of your team, then you can kind of start looking for those value players. But in other words,

don't be afraid to spend like 50 bucks on Christian McCaffrey, like you said. So that is the basic strategy that I think is most effective for people. I think ringer boss Bill Simmons would just say that if you're not doing snake is really if you're afraid, people who are afraid of the people who do snake. I believe that's, Bill has made himself very clear on that. The cool thing about auction is you can, I mean, assuming it's not a keeper league, you can literally get any player you want.

So, like if you can plan out beforehand, I'm going to get these three guys, and you can, in theory, go get them. Yeah, and actually, yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because that is the one sentence pitch. You can't get anyone you want in a snake draft. That's silly. No, if you're picking six in a snake draft, you have no shot at Kamara. It's fantasy football.

You should have the chance to get anyone. So you sketched out a little loose budget just as a guideline. Well, I think it's a good idea to sketch out a outline of a budget. Not that's similar that. I mean, it's ideal. Like real life, it's ideal to set a budget. Not always great. But again, definitely something's a guideline.

$10,000 on candles. But so, for example, like, I'll go in a draft. And again, all the principles we said in the first half of the episode of not having running backs at the top or not having receivers or waiting on quarterbacks, those same principles all apply, but instead of investing one of your top picks, which is your most valuable, now it's just investing with money.

So suddenly not picking running back high or quarterbacks high in this just becomes not spending a lot of money on them. So if I go into an auction with $200 in a budget, I won't spend more than $4 on my two quarterbacks or one quarterback. And if some people will just be like, I'm not spending more than $1 on one guy.

And then the other $199 are for this. And if you're like, all right, $1 on a quarterback, one on a kicker, one on a defense, I'll do three or four for a tight end, and then you have $193 for your running backs and receivers. And then you're like, oh, well, how do I want to split that? Now, you don't have to do exactly, but you're like, oh, well, maybe I do want to spend $100 on McCaffrey and Sequin,

and then I'll have my other $90 to get some running back, and then all of my receivers. And if you just kind of, what's fun about auction, and the reason is if you're planning for an auction, it gets your imagination going because you're like, oh, shit, I can get anyone. This is like a puzzle. it's really fun.

Build the funest team. That's like, Mays does that every season, so you can, in theory, do that. Well, not quite,

but you can build the foundation. Three or four guys are the most fun. Look, you could get Michael Thomas, DeAndre Hopkins, and Julio Jones, and then throw in Drew Brees for $150 and just be like,

I'm going to figure out the rest of my team. It's fun. Just a bunch of waiver pickups, yeah. In terms, I mean, it's a silly thing to say, but with an auction,

it's just, again, I think go for values because there's a lot of times that people just fall asleep. And ultimately, like, the actual auction values on websites are generally pretty accurate because there's a lot of algorithms that are going into it that figured it out. But sometimes people just the other nine or 11 people in your draft room just fall asleep and the clock's ticking. And there's just so much just goes for too little.

So that's the key is one. You've got to be paying attention, which is honestly the hardest part because sometimes they go two hours and you can't actually let go. So how do you get your league makes liquored up. Yes. That helps to. Not kidding. My most important league is a league with my brother and his friends. And the best team I maybe have ever had in fantasy was because they were doing an auction.

I was somewhere, I was in college and they were all hammered. And someone started off by paying $100 for Jimmy Graham out of $200. And I was like, wow, this is great. So then what do you do in those situations or every auction, honestly? You just want to get money off the board because people, again, like real life, people spend money when they have it. So you want to nominate people. You don't want. So if you know someone in your league loves a player,

someone in your league is obsessed with Mahomes and will do anything for them, nominate Mahomes first. Let everyone bid him up. If you know someone in your league is a huge Patriots fan, screw it, throw Josh Gordon out before Christian McCaffrey, throw Josh Gordon in the first round of nominations and let him get bid up from like $3 to like $15.

And then throughout hyped guys you don't want. Maybe you don't believe at all in Sequin this year, or you don't want him at least. Throughout Saquant, like you want to get money off the board because patience is a virtue, because the most basic thing of once everyone else has filled out things and is now suddenly debating, that's how you can maybe get an $8 discount, and then those $8 can become Sony Michelle, and then you win your league. I'm going to say, I agree with you generally on that, but one of the biggest mistakes I think I've made in auction drafts is letting other people like bid each other up, and then all the best players are gone all of a sudden. So you have to go in with a few targets in mind.

That's true. And you also have to be, it's weird because I'm saying patience as a virtue, but at the same time, you also can't be afraid to pull the trigger on talent. A really good rule of thumb. We keep throwing up Matthew Barryisms. This is another rule from ESPN that it's, in auction drafts so often what you do is like, you're like, oh, I don't want to spend four extra dollars on Sequin Barclay. And then an hour and a half later, you end up having to spend four extra dollars to get Peyton Barber. And it's, I cannot stress this enough. the extra dollar or two is always better spent on like elite talent than anything else. And like there's a reason that those guys are worth a quarter your budget. Don't worry if it's like 26 and a half percent of your budget instead of 25. It's generally worth it. Yeah, exactly. But also not a bad idea to lock up your,

their backups for a dollar. And then another just random note in auction drafts that can be good. This is a really huge one in baseball, a little less on football, but still matters. have money late because it's nice to get those values, but you also just, it's as the way auction drafts work is, you know, you can have that like, it won't let you spend beyond, you have to have a dollar per position,

you have still have to fill. Right. So a lot of times what happens is people get real close to, oh, I have nine spots to fill in $9, four spots to fill in $4. Or like, you know, four spots to fill in $8. If you can be one of those people who have five spots and $40 left, it's almost like it becomes the waiver wire.

And you can just, you have so much more money than everyone else. You can pick the five best players. You can pick off guys for really good value like that late. Because people just didn't allocate their money. And then there's like this rubber band effect where before that they get the capital to like get players back, you just have a real, you can kind of hoard all the value to yourself if you're the last one to spend. But it's like threading the needle. And then it's hard.

It's really hard. Auction drafting is is a whole different bogg. Spending money is hard. you don't have and the other thing is you don't want to have too much money late either that's true yeah it's all like it's a complete waste so yeah it's just it's really difficult but it's also really fun um but yeah basically go for stars and scrubs get it get a few of your guys yep i completely agree uh after the draft i this is just a random note i usually drop my kicker and just pick up a running back in an uncertain backfield um whether it's because of injury or jobs so like gus edwards or justice hill and the ravens who i love a random person for example like juff Justin Jackson, third string running back on the Chargers.

Melvin Gordon says it'll hold out into the season. I don't think he will, but hey, if he says he will, who knows?

If Austin Echler tweaks his knee, who's Melvin Gordon's backup, if Echler tweaks his knee between now and the start of the season, there's still 15 days or so,

then you have the Chargers starting running back because you cut, you know, Robbie Gold. And Robbie Gold's a good kicker, but the off chance

that it works out is, I usually think it's worth it. Oh, yeah. That's absolutely. and or just don't do a league with kickers. I've come to love kickers because kickers are, no, kickers are anarchy. And we all need a little anarchy.

While we're on that note, actually, a couple notes, if you guys haven't settled the format for your league, or not guys, everyone. But if you haven't settled the format for your league, obviously try an auction if we suggest. The other one that I really want to hammer is don't do waivers during the year. if you take one thing away from this podcast, seriously, don't do waivers in free agency because it's crazy. Bill loves to talk about how, like, when he started doing fantasy football, they would add up the box scores in the newspaper and then mail the results and you would find out on Thursday if you won your week.

And then you'd have to mail back who you wanted to pick up. That's what waivers are for. They're for that. So then the internet's introduced and it's like, oh, yeah, there will be a waiver on a way. Wednesday and then anyone can pick up anyone after that. It was literally before the computer, never mind smartphones. Like waivers and the idea that after the waiver goes through, you can just pick up

anyone is not designed for the smartphone era, never mind Adam Schaefter just tweeting news. And it's not fair that the person who happens to be on their phone or computer or the first person sees that Adam Schaefter tweeted that the Browns traded Carlos high to the Jaguars last year. Well, that person just picks up Nick Chub and boom, they won your lead because of that. Most websites have called Free Agent Auction Budget. it. It's like an auction to free agency. You have $100 across the whole year. You can have

zero dollar bid. So if you run into money, you can still pick up players. And it's an auction. So if suddenly, oh, it's a superstar running back goes down and you want a bid on his backup. Suddenly it goes to the person who wants him most. So you're not punished for being a good team. And if you start one and oh, you can't just not get a running back week one. And then it's suddenly fair. It makes sense. And you again, you have to think about who do you want and the people who value the players most get them. It's way better. And it's way better than And it's actually fair. And it's better than just whoever's on their screen being rewarded.

Yeah. And it's a little bit more strategy too because, you know, do you use all your auction budget on this one player? Or do you just kind of let other people do that? Yeah, I like it. Any last notes? PPR is for cowards. Two points per first down. No, I love PPR.

Standard leagues are stupid. That's my pitch. You millennial generation. You just need more points, more push notifications, more dopamine. It's all right. It's one day, D.K. you'll get there. D.K.,

the real secret is that there are no rules. That's when you'll be free. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Jim. I wish all of the people drafting, luck in the wars to come. We'll see you on the other side. Thank you.