The Ringer NFL Show - The Shanahanaissance in S.F. and Points Per First Downs | The Dantasy Football Podcast (Ep. 282)

Episode Date: August 16, 2018

The Ringer’s Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly list their “thank me later” players to target in drafts (02:00) and explain why they’re intrigued by the 49ers receivers (14:30) and deterred by Jon Gruden’s comments on Jordy Nelson and Martavis Bryant (23:45). Then the Dannies are joined by editor Riley McAtee, who shreds PPR leagues and advocates for a new type of fantasy scoring system (28:45). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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to follow your favorite team no matter where you live. I did this all last year. It was magical. Use promo code ringer at checkout to save 15%. And exclusive student discounts are also available. And welcome to the Dannessy Football Podcast. My name is Danny Hyphitz, and I am joined by my co-host and co-danny in the studio. Yes.

Danny Kelly. What's happening? What's up, D.K.? I'm in L.A. You are. This is so exciting. Yes, I love it. We can actually look at each other now.

Yeah, it's nice. Although we definitely messed up the intro, even though we're staring at each. other in studio. Should we try again? No, let's just go. Let's do this. The decay behind the scenes actually moved to crush the thing where we simultaneously say the dynasty football podcast. He just was like, yeah, we can't be doing that. That's, it's too hard to nail it perfectly. Anyway, first of all, you just didn't like it. Yeah, that's also. Also rattled that Jim said that my hello sounds like that Seinfeld episode. So that was really just, it does. It sounds just like the belly button thing. Hello!

That really is in my head now. Anyway, at the end of the pod, we're going to be joined by our editor, Riley McAtee, who was behind what Bill Simmons called the most important August fantasy football column of this year. But our first segment for today, it's about trust. And trust is difficult, but we had a couple guys each that we wanted to talk about. We called them Thank Me Later, guys, which guys that we're just confident for, where they're going and what they're going to do this season. Just take them.

It's also, they're good values, too. I mean, it's not just they're going to blow everything up, but they're flying under the radar a little bit. Exactly. And at the end, as a friend Aubrey would say, right, Jim? Can we get the Drake sound drop? Jim doesn't like Drake, apparently. You could thank me now, and oh, my goodness, you're welcome.

At this point, we actually traded the sound drop in exchange. We're not allowed to say washed anymore, D. That was the trade I made. he's going to bleep out if we say washed ever again. So, anyway, do you want to start, D.K.? All right, yeah, I'll get it going. Okay. So my first guy to thank me later is to go out and get Kenny Stills, Dolphins.

Really? I think no one's excited about the Dolphins offense right now and for a pretty good reason for that, but there's just so much volume that's still available right now or that Stills can take up from, you know, Landry's gone. He had tons and tons of targets last year. You know, most of it came from the slot, but I think they're going to kind of spread the ball around a little bit more. Right now, according to Fantasy Pros, Stills is wide receiver of 48, and he's going somewhere around 119. So he's really flying under the radar. Like, people aren't too excited

about him. But like I said, there's 290 vacated targets, got that number from Road to World. His target rate has grown every year, so he's gotten better. And I think that he's one of the guys that Tannenhill is going to really trust in that offense. I think, you know, they've got Danny Amadol is new there. They've got a couple of different free agent guys that they're going to kind of try and take up some of those targets that are vacated now, but I think Stills is going to turn into kind of the go-to guy in that offense. And I don't have any faith in Devante Parker right now. That's actually, I always think about running backs, and like sometimes you have to not be afraid to take a running back and like a really unexciting backfield. Oh, yeah.

And this is almost the receiving version of it is, I think that might be the least exciting passing game. But you're right. Like there's such a wild amount of opportunity there. And he was pretty good last year anyway. I mean, he's a solid player. He's definitely, you know, got talent. He's very, very fast. Last year, he had 105 targets, in fact. He caught six touchdowns. So, I mean, it's not like he's a bad player and just you're going for volume.

I think it's a combination of he's a pretty solid player and he's going to get a ton of volume. So right now, and if you look at just like where people are taking him, it's just way too late. And so I think he's going to outplay that. I was going to say, it's kind of wild. He's hovering right around 120th overall-ish, depending where you look in PPR, which it's kind of wild. I mean, like Patrick Mahomes, who we love, but quarterback 16 and a deep quarterback year is going ahead of him. Yeah. It's kind of egregious.

That's a pretty fantastic late-round guy. And it's kind of funny because everyone talks about Devonte Parker, former first-rounder, you know, big guy, Red Zone Target. But he really just, he's been everybody's favorite, like, sleeper every year, I think, for the last couple years. I just finally am just done with it. And so I think Landry is going to be the guy that kind of just picks up, or sorry, Stills is going to be a. the guy that picks up Landry's, you know, slack. And so I think he's going to be a guy I'm targeting. Okay.

I'm in on that. All right. My guy, even more boring than the dolphins in Ryan Tanna Hill. Alex Smith. Oh, I think you're right on this. Alex Smith. Okay. So this is kind of one of those things.

Like, you almost have to take the names out of it and just removed your preconceived conceptions because, I mean, I think at this point most people are hopefully understanding, like, you know, he was a checkdown artist in Kansas City and stuff, and he had never been above 14th in fantasy football scoring. Yeah. And then he was fourth last year, and he became Alex Smith, became the... He was a deep ball passer last year. He was the best deep ball passer in all football by a couple different metrics.

Right. But that's just the product of the greater change they made in Kansas City's offense. That was Andy Reid came in in 2013, and at four years they just had a super conservative offense that was about field position, never always winning the turnover battle. Right. And he flipped his thing, but they flipped the whole model in 2017. And Alex Smith proved he can do that. So the takeaway shouldn't be, oh, Alex, like, Alex Smith is going to keep, he's going to regress back to where he's always been and, like, you know, the one year is an outlier.

That's not it. What Alex Smith proves is he can do what the coaches ask of him, whether that's being a checkdown game manager or like, no, he can be a deep threat. And here's the thing that really actually kind of convinced me is it's not really representative to look at his past performance with the chief. So I was looking at Jay Gruden, and it's like, well, he finished fourth. Well, Kirk Cousins finished sixth last year. and the year before that, Kirk Cousins finished fifth. Yep. And the year before that, Kirk Cousins finished ninth.

So you're talking about a quarterback who Jay Gruden's offense has been ninth, fifth, and sixth in the last three years for among fantasy scoring. Right. And then everyone in the Redskins is whispering that like, shh, Alex Smith is better than Kirk Cousins. And like, none of them will say they didn't like Kirk Cousins. Yeah, no, they're just kind of like, yeah, no, it's like, it's all those like little quotes that are a little like more biting. Just needling. Yeah, because there's training camp quotes that are like, oh man, yeah, yeah. He's great.

He does. And then there's like the pump-em-up stuff. Right. But then there's like the stuff like, wow. It's shade. This is what a real quarterback's like. You know what I mean? And it's wild to me.

He's going 20th among quarterbacks. Interesting. And we talk so much about waiting and then grabbing two guys later than Aaron Rogers in the fourth round. And to me, like Alex Smith, for me, he has to be one of those guys. I think that, yeah. Of all the candidates to crack into the top eight or so, Mahomes is like a sexier one. Mario is a sexier one. But Alex Smith is like a no-brainer.

I think that's smart. And I think a lot of it probably does kind of come down to, you know, how do they do health-wise? If that offensive line can stay healthy, they'll be okay. Obviously, they already lost Geist. And so now that potentially makes them lean on the pass a little bit more, which is good for fantasy in terms of Alex Smith. So, yeah, I like that. I hope Jordan Reed can stay healthy because that will help him a lot. Well, he won't.

I'm sorry to me and I don't like to say that. But I do think that's a smart, I think that's a smart pick, and I like that a lot. So let's move on to my second one, which is John Ross of the Bengals. Do you want to like take this back? No. This is about trust. I'm going all in. DK.

No, to me it's, again, it's about opportunity. And if you look at the Bengals at their past catching court, it's they got rid of Brandon Lafell. Lafell had, Lafell's averaged 98 targets a year in the last two years. Like, is that the quietest, almost 100 target guy in the NFL right there? That could be his like middle name. And so I think that shows, since they released him, I think that shows a lot of trust and Ross. I think he's lit up, I think training camp for preseason. Obviously, he didn't light up preseason yet, but he's, they've shown a lot of confidence in him.

I think he's a really good player. Can I push back for a moment? Yeah. For a guy that ran like a 4.19 or whatever at 40-yard dash, if he was not lighting up training camp, what is he on an NFL field for? And do you remember, like week 13 or whatever, when the bank was, staff was so concerned about him, they're like, you know, we might make him a cornerback. And I'm just, like, I can't think of a bigger red flag for a dude.

So. All right. Well, you're not going to thank me later because you're not taking him then. Is that what's going on? I mean, in your defense, I mean, he's going, he's completely undrafted. So he's a late round flyer. Right. I think, I just think if you, like, right now he's running as the number two receiver behind

AJ Green. And there's a lot of targets we had there. Could he get hurt or could he, you know, have? the type of rookie year that he had last year, it definitely gives you the pause. But I like Ross. I think he's a really good player. I think in this offense he's going to be, you know, they're going to give him the ball on this offense.

And like you said, right now he's wide receiver 76. Like, he's a late round flyer. Just take a flyer on him. I'm good. You asshole. I'm good. All right. My last one real quick is, this is my fantasy weakness.

Ty Montgomery on the Packers. Converted wide receiver still wears 88, which really pisses some writers off. That's a thing. I know Andy Benoit Sports Illustrated always brings us up in his columns saying how he hates the 88. He doesn't like that.

He's the, he was, so through a month, he was a running back one through September. He was playing through a wrist injury while he was in the process of being converted from wide receiver to running back, which he did in like a summer. And that's really hard. Yeah.

While playing through a broken wrist or, yeah, broken wrist. And was like the eighth best running back in football. And then he added a rib injury, which sucks because you're already going to have to, as a receiver, you're already going to face, you know, questions about toughness and durability. Right. And then you had a rib injury, which is famous, you know, it sucks to hurt your ribs. It's like a pain tolerance thing. But. And it, he actually talked this summer about how he was upset about that because he came back,

re-hurt the ribs. But what ended his season actually wasn't the ribs. It was his wrist. He had to get surgery on the wrist. And he felt that he had faced a lot of questions about his toughness and durability that was kind of unfair and then compounded by Jamal Williams and Aaron Jones. Now, those guys are very well-discussed. Aaron Jones is going around 110th-ish. So is Time Montgomery and PPR. And then Jamal Williams is actually going about 10 spots higher. Depends where you look, which is weird. But I think Time Montgomery is an unbelievable value, especially in PPR, which Riley McAteer, editor will be joining us later. to shred.

But especially in a PPR, the reason I love time Montgomery is not just that I think he might be the best running back among Jones and Williams. He had a much lower yards per carry, but the way the Packers do their offense, he's so versatile.

And he doesn't have to come off the field. A lot of times if you're betting on a running back later, you're kind of betting intrinsically, like against the other guys in the backfield. Like Kalin Belage, you're kind of betting against Kenyon Drake. Yeah. And this one, I don't see it that way.

It's kind of like Alvin Camaro doesn't have to come off when Mark Ingram comes on for the. the Saints. That's like what you want in those top flight guys is someone who doesn't matter who's on the field. They can do anything. The virtue of being a converted wide receiver running back who can do anything, run any route, and also run between the tackles way better than he should be capable of is he can always be on the field. And as a macro trend where the entire league is trending toward players who can do everything on the field, to get that in the 11th round is an unbelievable value. And I just, that's like my fantasy weakness. I wrote about Montgomery when he first

kind of converted to running back, and he's a legitimate running back. He's really actually good at running. You know, because a lot of guys is like, oh, they'll convert him because he's athletic or whatever. But he's a legitimate running back. He's got balance. He's got vision. You know, he's good.

Like you said, he's through the tackles. And so I like that. I like that a lot. So he's incredible, and I love him. Okay. So before we move on, let's take a quick break. For over 20 years, DirecTV has been the exclusive home to NFL Sunday Ticket, the only way to get every live game every Sunday.

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burrow.com slash NFL. That's B-U-R-R-O-W.com slash NFL for $75 off your order. your purchase. Burrow makes the luxury couch for real life. All right, DK. Now we're going to do intrigued or deterred because

buyer sell is just overdone. Way you already used. I don't, you know, buying the selling commitments, intrigue is something

that you can change and be fluid. And I, you know, commitment. So these are kind of a little bit more newsy type things.

Like what's happening? What are these guys doing that making us kind of like think twice or start to really get more intrigued like you said. So let's just

getting right into him. Who's your first guy that you're intrigued with? All right. So the first guy is, I'm already breaking the rules. First guys, I'm intrigued with Marquis Goodwin

and Pierre Garsohn in San Francisco. Marquis Goodwin's being drafted depending where you look, 110thish, 113thish. That's kind of crazy. Piergrosone's earlier actually, he's in like actually Chris Hogan range

at around like 64, 70, depending where you look. But this is nuts to me. This is wild. I mean, Pure Garso, first of all, they're complimentary, so they're not guys that are going to eat each other in terms of volume. Right.

Like, Pierre Gerson is a, he's older, he's 32, but he's a crisp, sharp route runner, unbelievable hands. He's led the league in receptions, and, like, he is the perfect kind of PPR option, and he's older, but, like, has had success in Kyle Shanan's offense in the past, and Marquis Goodwin is a burner, and, like, doubled all his career numbers last year, and football-wise, if you would all buy into the Shanahanissance, right? Do we have a word for this yet? I don't know.

If every smart person thinks that Kyle Shannon is like the future of football and the 49ers is going to be amazing and Jimmy GQ is like the Lord of the Bay or whatever, I don't understand how the two most logical pass catchers are being treated like like seventh round options and Marquis Goodwin's like outside the top hundred. In terms of just gambles, if you at all believe in Jimmy Garoppolo, you should be in on these receivers and it just, I don't really get it. It might be kind of one of those things where no one can decide who's going to be the number one guy. I think Goodwin's going to be... He's a better value. I think he's going to be the number of guy. I really liked him at the end of last year. He became a complete receiver.

He was not just a deep threat. I think he was their top targeted guy in the red zone at least for the second half of the year when Garapolo was in there or whatever. And he just turned into an all-around good receiver. I like him a lot. I think that's a great value. Every beat reporter, including ESPN's Nick Wagner,

keeps saying over and over that he's Garoppel's favorite target in training. I think he is their go-to guy, and that's going to be, you know, I think that if you, this, right now, his value is amazing. So we'll see if that goes out. It's glaring. Okay. What about you?

So my first guy right now, and I think that it's kind of, the rookie running back class has kind of taken some hits over the last, you know, a couple of days. Obviously, Rashad Penny broke his hand. You know, I think Sequin's a little bit banged up right now. There's some issues going on in that class, but don't, did you just say Sequin's back? He is fine. He's got a hamster. He's whee. How dare you?

All right. Well, he'll be fine. Right now I'm a little more... I'm a little more worried about Ronald Jones in Tampa Bay. I think the kind of impression I've gotten out of camp there is that he's struggling a lot, especially in third down, pass pro and just being a pass catcher. I think right now, from all the beat riders that you see, Peyton Barber is like the goat. He's their starter.

You know, there's still a long time to go. But I think if you're still kind of banking on the fact that Jones is going to be this Belkow guy who has a ton of volume this year, I think you could be disappointed. So Barber right now is running back 53. You know, he's a late round guy. And so just take a flyer on this guy. I really, I think he's got a chance to be their starter. If Jones struggles as a rookie. You know what blew my doors off this morning was I saw that I was looking at success rate on football outsiders.

and Ezekiel Elliott was two, Peyton Barber was three. Interesting. I didn't know that. That blew my doors off. I started watching Peyton Barber highlights. So, yeah, actually. I mean, he could legitimately win the starting job. I don't think that they have any, you know, it's not like they are banking on Ronald Jones to be their savior or whatever.

And he's another guy that's going borderline undrafted now, which will change if you're drafting even a week from now. But regardless, it's unlikely he'll shoot up enough that he won't be valuable. He's one of those guys that. really awesome late round. Okay. Next guy, this is less of a numbers-based thing, but Kalyn Belage got kicked out of the huddle by Ryan Tanhill, and this kind of made rounds.

Everyone thought this was bad, and I kind of thought it was awesome. This just to me is like the most classic, like Kalin Belage has usurped Kenyon Drake for the starting job by week eight, and everyone looks around like, you know, that moment he got kicked out of the huddle. That's when he really, that was his turning point, and he changed, and that's with a moment when he rebounded, and his attitude since then has been amazing,

You love that narrative, don't you? Yeah, it's all about narrative. But, no, I think the Kenyan Drake thing kind of depends on a lot of people think his talent. He's explosive really comes down to how much volume do you think he's going to get. Kaelin Belage is talented. And I saw that and I was kind of, I didn't think it was such a negative. A lot of people seem to be very out on him after that, but I wouldn't. Well, there's, you know, there is the kind of thought that hearing bad press like that will have people kind of get scared away from him.

Exactly. And so you could probably actually get him a little bit lower now. So that's definitely interesting. I really like Kenyon Drake, but I kind of do wonder like you if he can be a whatever it is, 200-carry guy. Because we just haven't really seen him have that kind of volume. He's too risky for me at the Valley right now. He's going around 37th overall. Some people, I think Riley actually, who's coming on in a second is one of the people who will say that he is someone who could break into RB2 territory and be like a 15th pick next year.

And I just, I think there's too much fear that he had 133 carries last year. So that's pretty solid. I mean, he's a really, really explosive guy. I remember he was like super sparked up coming out of college. And I think he's a great athlete. But again, it's just a matter of how much volume do you think he can get. So I like that. And Belage has got a lot of hype in terms of his athleticism too.

And, you know, he had one, I think, big run in their preseason game. It's this simple to me. I just would rather have Kalin Belage literally on drafter. Way later. On waivers the week after my draft. then Kenyon drank 35th overall. Anyway. Right, right.

Balfins. Who else was catching your eye? And by eye, I mean, intrigued. Well, I mean, I've been kind of a Carlos Hyde stand for a while here. And so I was always, I've been wondering kind of how it's going to shake out in Cleveland. You know, obviously they signed him to a deal. And then they drafted Nick Chubb and people, I think, got really excited about Nick Chubb because he was a great college runner. And Hyde is still going ahead of Chub.

but I think if you look at Chubb's first preseason game he really kind of struggled to find any room to run he just did not have a great game it's kind of starting to make me think I like hide a little bit more because like right now you have to sort of decide who you like between the two of them did you see the light come out of Chubbs

when he didn't get recognized at the airport hard knocks he's at the airport the guy's like who are you and he's like oh yeah he played ball he's like yeah he's like oh for who but yeah no So I'm just kind of, I don't know, the whole Browns situation is definitely really volatile. People talk all the time now, not all the time, this for the week, about the Browns having multiple good quarterbacks. And people's like, oh my God, they have three really good running backs.

Yeah. Duke Johnson's awesome. But none of them have like the right role because you think Chubb and Hyde kind of cannibalize each other. Duke Johnson's ideal role is like as someone who's emotion out in the slot and it's like suddenly Jarvis Landry is getting 50 million guaranteed to do. Like they have a lot of overlapping talent, which is not something we've ever. associated with Cleveland, but... Yeah. Well, right now,

right now, Hyde is RB 34, Duke Johnson's RB 38, and Chub is RB 39. And if anyone gets hurt in that backfield, the other two guys, kind of. Yeah. So I just, I personally am just like, I like Hyde's game.

I think he's a really good player. I think he's versatile. And so I'm just kind of just keeping my eye on that situation. So he's intriguing me right now. Okay. And then moving on to deterred. Yeah. Who's your first?

Who's your guy? I got... Okay, so we talked before about the Packers, and as much as I love Time on, you know, Jamal Williams is going 10 spots ahead of Time on and Aaron Jones. Going, on average, one spot ahead of them at 94th overall, is Jordy Nelson, who I love.

Jordy is wonderful. How could you not? And how could you not love Jordy Nelson, who literally once told ESP in the magazine that he felt he was more of a farmer who played football as a hobby than the other way around? Having said that, here's a quote, I mean, obviously last season,

you know, didn't go well, he ended up being washed, which I think now gets bleeped out. If we say that, as part of the Drake deal. And Stan instead of fan, get the hell out of it. My dad's name is Stan, so like, I hate when people do that, but that's neither here nor there. Stan is my generation.

Eminem, like, that was like when I was in high school or something. Yeah, but that's like a really dark thing. Anyway, Jim's a Drake, Stan. You know Jim party with the Drake once in L.A.? I did. I went to his house. Jim, do you want to tell us about that? Yeah, I'll tell about it later.

All right, next episode. That's a cliffhanger. Okay. I don't have to tell you guys that Jordan Nelson didn't have a good season, but let me tell you what John Gruden said about bringing him in, which was weird and controversial

to replace him with Michael Crabtree. Quote, from ESPN's Dan Graziano. Quote, Gruden told me veteran Jordan Nelson's brought in, in part to help Amari Cooper elevate his game. It seems clear that Gruden and the Raider coaches want to lean on Cooper

as a star of the passing game and work off that. Literally John Gruden is like, I like Jordan, I can't do the Gruden voice, but I like that Jordan Nelson and like is just, I want to give him a role. model because Amari Cooper

needs one. Basically intrinsically saying didn't think had good role models to look at to be professionals and that's why Jordan Nelson's there and combine that with his lack I can't think of a more untouchable person at that space

than Jordan Nelson. So you're down on Nelson though in a fantasy realm? Yeah because I think he's just I want him to be good and I want Jordy Nelson to succeed beyond his Packers days but like I think his knees I don't think he's quite the same player he won.

He's going down, obviously, in terms of quarterback, and he's being projected that'll have some base layer of volume, and I kind of think of it more. He's there to be a professional and kind of establish the culture Gruden wants, which usually you do with your third string tight end. And that's usually, you know, coach bring there, and they bring their long snapper, and they bring their special teams guys that.

And he's up. He actually is up there in ADP. It's too high. It's too high. And it's because he's a really cool name that used to go 15th overall. And that's purely it. Next, deterred. He's not like a hot.

name, but I'm just looking at his ADP right now, and I'm like, this is kind of ridiculous, but Terrell Pryor, he, I don't think, I'm sorry. I just, it's so funny to me, like, Terrell Pryor, I was really stoked on Terrell Prior after he had a thousand yards with Browns last year. He obviously did not have a great year last year, and then he signed on with the Jets, and he's kind of a wild card. It just seems like everybody hates him. He's underrated on pace for the weirdest career of anyone in recent,

Maybe in any sport because you're talking about a guy who had the traditional Kenny play quarterback Actually switches to wide receiver is incredible like Immediately like 16 months after he made the switch. He's like a thousand yard guy amazing Messes up his contract situation plays on a prove it deal breaks his foot and then suddenly everyone in the he leaves Washington and the Redskins players Literally are talking about like they said four months ago when we do joint practices he's gonna catch an elbow to the ribs and then these fights break out and people are like, oh, why are all the fights breaking out? It's because they hate Terrell Pryor. Well, his own coach doesn't seem to like him either.

Here's the thing. I firmly believe that my fantasy team needs locker room chemistry, and I cannot bring Terrell Pryor. I don't know how he's going to interact with the other players on my team. And, like, I can't, it's not just about picking players, D.K. This is like something I always talk about. You can't just, you need a team. You need a fantasy team that loves each other.

12 Pryor will disrupt that. That's not me, but I'm just looking at the 80s. Like the guys that he's getting picked above right now and I'm I'm way I would I would way rather take like a Dante Pettis or a Mike Wallace like those guys actually have what I can see it a robot I don't even know if Pryor is gonna make the team at this point It's gonna be interesting so he's the guy that I'm just like I'm out on that Yeah, that's I'm with you there last one John Gruden because like well I'm on radio's receivers John Gruden called Martavis the white tiger

Okay And what I do with a labyrinth An elaborate quote for Jaguarine, I used to go to Bush Gardens in Tampa. We called Joey Galloway, the white tiger in Tampa. You go to Bush Gardens, they got a white tiger. 13 times. I went to Bush Gardens. The white tiger was always in his cage.

Well, the white tiger came out to all. Bryant came out. There's like a pause, and he's like, I don't know if you get that analogy. But sometimes he comes out to play, and sometimes he doesn't. It's good to see him because when he's really special, he's like the white tiger. Oh, my gosh. First of all, did you know that was my nickname in college? Yeah, okay.

I can see that. I was, yeah, a Tigray Blanco. But yeah, out on the White Tiger this year, in on Mark Cooper. All right, fair enough. Anyway. So, before we move on to the next segment, let's take a quick break.

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Now we are joined by the ringers white tiger. Riley McAtee. Hello. Thanks for having me on. Yeah. So Riley is both of our editors, which we were actually going to have a Danny only guest policy. We made an exception because Riley manages all the Danys at the Ringer. That's true. I feel like, well,

two of the three Danes. We have a lot of Danes here. That's true. It's a Danny's Central company. I feel like you guys have to have an exception for guests, though. Otherwise, what are you going to do? Only Danes? we're going to run out real fast we'll figure it out as we go but we had to have Riley here

because Riley is after jerseys which is his main NFL obsession fantasy football scoring officiado yeah I'm done for my fashion sense and you actually

you actually came up with I like noble like I think the best idea I've heard in fantasy probably like five years well other like other people have floated out the idea of point per first down, but it hasn't really caught on. It's like a very nerdy kind of staty thing, but it stemmed from, there's a conversation about PPR versus standard

scoring. I've never liked PPR. I feel like you're just awarding a guy for a reception, but when a player catches a pass, he gets points based on the yards that he gets. So if you give him points just for the reception alone, you're creating this extremely arbitrary, wonky metric to try and bring balance and bring more points into it. That doesn't make sense to me. So you don't like when guys get a swing pass or whatever, a screen pass and don't get any yards and they still get points. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. As you pointed out in the piece you wrote for great website, the ringer.com. Well, a great website. Yeah. But you can catch a pass behind the line of scrimmage, lose yards, and get points.

which is ridiculous. And Bill Simmons on his pod this week had a whole, when he had Matthew Barry on, had a whole rant against PPR where I didn't know there were crotchy old men who played fantasy in the late 1980s. I didn't know there were people that didn't like PPR, like until I met Riley. Yeah. Well, it doesn't make any sense. No, so it's a very convincing argument and it was trying to bridge the gap between when you see, we were watching fantasy football or starting real football, tracking fantasy and you're like,

how do you get 20 receptions or whatever? And that doesn't count for anything. And then PPR was introduced, and now it's kind of swung the other way, and that you're suddenly third in ten, and you're rooting for your running back to catch a swing pass for two yards. That is, yeah. So explain now why first downs is a better thing to reward. So it fixes most of the issues that people have in standard scoring.

It increases just points overall, which people think is more fun. I don't really buy that more scoring is inherently more fun, but it changes it. It changes the strategy a little. and you know it evens out the running back why receiver tight end positions with quarterback scoring so it's not just like hey who has the best quarterback each week

or it also evens that out with touchdowns it's not like hey if your guys scored the most touchdowns because there just aren't that many other points to be gotten in standard scoring and those are the things that PPR tries to address it's part of the reason that PPR has become really popular

but with PPPFD you're going to introduce a bunch of points because guys get first downs The difference is, unlike a reception, a first down is actually valuable in real football. And that's what we should try for. It's almost like success rate a little bit, yeah. That's the reason I fundamentally think that this is fantastic because you should be rooting for what happened, what actually matters in the game. And if it's third in 10, you should want to get a first down.

If your player gets the first down, you should be rooting for that, not your player to get the ball at the line of scrimmage or whatever, and you really are bridging the gap between what actually matters. So who are some of the players that have? have gone unheralded in fantasy so far, but are the higher risers in terms of getting first downs? And who falls? Well, like, when I actually ran the numbers,

it wasn't so heavily correlated with the guys who got the most first downs rose a bunch. Like, the guys who got the most first downs were guys like Leveon Bell and Todd Gurley. All right, they're already at the top of standard. They're already at the top of PPR. So they're going to be drafted first in all formats. It was the guys like, like, J. J. J.I.E. last year

just didn't score a touchdown with the Dolphins. Didn't score a touchdown until he was. traded to the Eagles. Oh yeah. But he rises up a bunch in PPFD scoring because he was still gaining first downs. And it kind of evens out the gap basically between his lack of touchdowns, but his actual on-field value. His value, yeah. And like, fantasy is always going to be bullshit, basically. I mean, we know that Todd Gurley and Levyon Bell are not the most valuable players in the NFL. Like, if we were actually drafting on like, advanced as value, yeah, the first 12 picks would be quarterbacks, but

it shouldn't be so wild that somebody like a Jordan Howard goes from being a top 15 player to being like a fourth round pick but that's what happens when you get PPR. First of all, we don't have any PPR stand, we're blocking out the word stands right, that's getting bleeped. So we don't have a huge

PPR fans here, so I'll make a devil's advocate. You want to... I'm all about PPR. I will say though, I read Riley's article and I was like, hey, this actually sounds kind of cool. So quick devil's advocate argument. You are basically saying that first downs are more representative of the overall game and what matters. Let me say, what if instead for the 21st century and perhaps for all of football's existence, it has been trending toward not the forward pass or all these things, but more points.

Because people like scoring and people like points. And you know what? Fantasy football is the same thing. And if Antonio Brown has 10 catches for 100 yards and two touchdowns, he could have 22 points. You know what's better than 22 points? 32 points. And you know what? It's random and arbitrary, but it makes me feel good.

And I turn on the news or I turn on anything. And you know what? Nothing makes me feel good anymore. But my fantasy football team can make me feel good and why must you fight against more points, Riley? Why do you hate happiness? Does more points make it more fun? I mean, like, in that case, let's just give out points for everything.

Let's do a point per participation. That was the ringer league last year. We'll do the participation fantasy football league. Everyone gets a trophy at the end, too. and also your team scores a thousand points a game. By the way, in the ringerly... Are you like a Bill Mole? Yeah, that's right.

By the way, I think in the ringer league, we get points for explosive, like 40-yard plus play. The ringer league last year was a travesty because you had 0.75 PBR, which, like, I can't even imagine. Like, it's like, oh, my guy.

I hope he was, Sean was drunk when he made that, the thing. It was wild. My quick pitch is that, in addition to that, if we are going to mirror it, that I think we're... If quarterback is actually as deep as everyone says, that's ridiculous. if quarterback's the most

position, most important position in all sports. And everyone's like, oh, wait on it. There's so many good ones. At some point, it should become two quarterbacks.

You're like standard? Superflex or whatever. I'd almost rather make 18 leagues with bigger rosters and two quarterbacks standard if people aren't okay with 10. But like, it's so crazy to me that everyone's like

wait on quarterback. If there are 25 quarterbacks that could start for you on a fantasy team in a given week, there should be two quarterbacks for every game. Because it's stupid that like every,

the only universal fantasy advice this year is don't take Aaron Rogers in the 30s. That's dumb. And that is so far from how value should work. I disagree with that. I like Aaron Rogers a lot this year. I think he's great. Riley likes to be contrary. I'm not even trawling. I actually like Aaron Rogers. I'm using a key prom.

Like I will say that that's the thing. The one kind of counter argument to PPFD is that it doesn't really balance out receivers and running backs the way that PPR does. So the top of your draft, you're not going to be debating Levion Bell versus Antonio Brown the way that you might in PPR. But

my counter argument to that is if you care about positional balance between running backs and wide receivers then every person should be playing two two QB leagues because it's the exact thing it's like our best quarterback is going in the third maybe the fourth round

it's crazy okay so we have like a minute or two left so quickly we have to plot how do we make the ringer fantasy football league this year a PPFD league with two QBs well that's going to be hard but we only have a week so how do we

how do we like infiltrate I think you're going to have to take out Sean Yu and buy him some beers. I think you could kill him. Oh, no, no. We can't take him out. Jesus Christ, it's just fantasy. No, no, no, no, no.

Go get a marty in him and be like, hey, have you read the Rainier.com recently? Yeah, I love that. Or we could take him out. He's my owner of fantasy baseball. I've wanted to take him out all the years. You kill him. Here's the one downside.

Then, Danny, you're going to have to be commissioner. You're going to have to run the last. Like the elder one and Harry Potter. I'm not getting in Mallory's like crosshairs. She can just keep, you know, hating Sean and we'll all be okay. That's the worst job at this company. Yeah. Fancy football commissioner, by far the worst.

It's harrowing to think about. Yeah. Don't sign up for that. On that, okay, so we'll figure out a coup and or a way to get him drunk and we'll change our own rules. But, yeah, I think that's all we got. So, yeah. Thank you, everyone for listening. D.K. thanks.

Riley, thank you for stopping by. Thanks for having me. Jim, thanks for... Wrap it up. Thank you, guys. See you next week. Thank you. I'm just looking at his ADP right now, and I'm like, this is kind of ridiculous,

but Terrell Pryor. I don't think... I'm sorry. It's so funny to me, like, Terrell Pryor. I'm sorry. That blew my doors off.