The Ringer NFL Show - Your Pre-Draft Cheat Sheet for Your Cheat Sheet | The Dantasy Football Podcast (Ep. 291)

Episode Date: August 31, 2018

The Ringer’s Danny Heifetz and Danny Kelly list their “thank me later” players to target in drafts (01:30) and break down the players with the biggest gaps in ESPN and Yahoo ranks (14:00). Then the Dannies discuss players popular with sharp drafters this year (27:45) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Good news, NFL fans. Direct TV has expanded the service. If you live in an area where Direct TV service is not available or you're a student actively enrolled in a college or university, you can now get NFL Sunday ticket without a satellite. Plus, there's an exclusive student discount. To see if you are eligible, go online to nfl sundayticket. TV and stream every NFL Sunday ticket game this season

to follow your favorite team no matter where you live. Use promo code Ringer at checkout to save 15%. Packages are also available for football fans living in areas where DirecTV service is not available. This NFL season, be your own GM. Be a winning GM. Turn this season into a fistful of epic wins by joining a Yahoo! We'll be doing the Ringer Fantasy Football League later today, and that is on Yahoo, because Yahoo has spent the offseason making serious upgrades to enhance your experience.

So when you play fantasy football on Yahoo, the wins are as epic as the season is long. Yahoo Fantasy is also the only app where you can manage all of your season long and daily fantasy teams in one place. Create or join a league now at Yahoo.com slash the Ringer Fantasy Football. Welcome, welcome, welcome. To the Danycy Football Podcast, brought to you by the Ringer Podcast Network. I am your host, Danny Heifitz, along with my co-host, and co-danny, Danny Kelly. How are you doing today, D.K.?

I'm doing good, man. That intro just, it brightens my day every time to say it. I'm glad I can be your sunshine. Absolutely. We can just hop in right now because this is the final pod we're going to be doing before what I imagine is 99.9% of people will do their fantasy football drafts before Thursday. So we wanted a whole episode today that will really kind of prepare people for the final week, their final episode.

So we can kind of, want to just dive in, D.K.? Yeah, let's just do it. Let's try and hit as many people as we can here. All right. So we'll start with Thank Me Later's, which is, you know, this is about trust. These are the guys we're asking you to trust us on. You know, you can draft these guys. Thank us later. Or you could thank us now. You could thank me now. And oh my goodness, you're welcome. You're welcome. D.K., who's your first Thank Me Later guy? All right. I'm going with tight end Jack Doyle from the Colts.

Number one, I think right now, obviously last week, Eric Ebron caught a touchdown. And I think that's going to kind of, you know, make people pretty excited about Ebron and forget a little bit about the fact that Doyle is still going to be the number one guy in that offense in terms of at the tight-end position. I mean, last year he caught, I think, like, 80 passes, and that was with Jacobi Percept for most of the year. And so, you know, I think he's just kind of a sneaky guy right now. Number one, Andrew Luck trusts him, and we've seen that in the past.

Number two, the big thing that I'm actually looking at is Andrew Luck, is Adda this preseason, is average depth of target. is alarmingly low. I was looking at some numbers. This is from Ben Baldwin of the Athletic. In his first game, he threw nine passes. One traveled more than 10 yards past the line of scrimmage. It's week two.

He only threw one pass that was 15 yards downfield. In week three, only one traveled more than seven yards downfield. Basically, they're just doing dump-offs all the time. And there's been some sort of rumbling that his arm strength isn't where it needs to be or where it used to be. I just think Doyle is going to be a huge part of that often. because he's going to be that little intermediate dump-off kind of option for luck. Wow, and that's interesting because I think Ebron is, I mean, he was a first-round pick for the lines at EUNC, and then he's just always been that very physically gifted guy who hasn't really been able to combine,

whether it's the route running or just being on the same page with Stafford when he was there or even just catching the ball sometimes. And I wouldn't be surprised if those kind of intermediate stuff is definitely all taken up by Doyle. Yeah, I mean, like, Ebron, he's got upside for sure, and he had a pretty solid second half of last season, but I still think Doyle is going to be kind of like the number one option. And I think, you know, Iran's going to be like a seam guy or whatever. But I mean, Doyle's going to get a lot of volume. And I just think with the way that their offense is going to be constructed this year with kind of trying to manage Andrew Luck, get the ball out quicker and have a little bit more passing game.

I think he's going to be a beneficiary. So let's kick it over to your first guy. Who you got first? Okay. I have, this is cheating a little bit. Jags number one receiver. That is cheating. You have to pick one.

I will pick in a moment. So obviously, Marquis Lee suffered a gruesome to injury. He's going to be out for the season. And there's now pretty big vacuum. Guys who could fill that role, you know, it's Dante Moncrief, who, you know, he's going like 78th among wide receivers, 230 second overall. And they signed him to a big contract in the off season. It's guaranteed for just one year.

So he's an approved deal. There's also D.D. Westbrook, who's going like 173rd overall. But they're kind of competing for snaps. The guy, and then there's DJ Chark, who's a rookie. He's a second rounder of that. out of LSU, who is good, but I don't think he's quite ready for the show. It's hard to be a rookie receiver, especially one with Bortles. But the guy who I think is now the dude to grab in Jacksonville, who I love Keelan Cole.

I love Keel and Cole. He's like squirrel. He's like 6'1. He's a little under 200 pounds. But he's going like 145th overall. So he's basically, you can snag him at the very end of your draft. December of last year, during the fantasy playoffs, but this is weeks 13 to 17. 475 yards

3 touchdowns 5th in PPR among wide receivers 5th Dave Chappelle 5th 1, 2, 3, 4th He wants some people Some leagues probably

Tied Or actually beat DeAndre Hopkins By 1 yard Basically tied DeAndre Hopkins In the fantasy playoffs I love him He's fun to watch He's great with the underneath

Routes, he's great on the mesh stuff Like, you know, he can get deep But like he's actually good with Like what they've actually kind of schemed up for Bordals and like they have to do a lot of those routes that are the kind of route schemes like the aFC championship where a lot of mesh a lot of pick-ish plays are just kind of a lot of scheming guys open and he's really great with those underneath stuff but then also i also think

the jaggs are actually going to have to pass more this year they kind of last year really relied on boardles doing as little as possible their plan was like don't fuck this up for us but um as football outsiders pointed out in their almanac the jaggers were first in offensive DVUA in the first quarter. So they were the most efficient team per play in the first quarter. They were 21st after the first quarter. So in other words, they were playing with the lead a lot, and then that's why their defense was effective.

It's not just they're talented, but their game scripts was, it's not just so you have a great pass rush, but the teams are playing from behind need to pass. So it's going to be harder this year. It's unlikely the Jaggerers will have so many first quarter and first half leads. And therefore, you're going to have,

your defense won't be quite as, situationally primed to be pass rushing and they're also might not be as healthy. So they're probably going to need Bordles to throw more because Bortle through the fewest attempts he's had in season since his rookie year. So I think the Jagger was going to be throwing more. They're going to be playing from the lead

and I think Kieland Cole's going to be sick. Yeah, I like that. That's one of those situations where you got like a, you got three or four guys clump together and sometimes it's not the good bet to go with the highest ranked guy, but I think in this case you do. I think Cole kind of has separated himself

on the top of that. Moncrace is interesting, but yeah, I mean, and so is Westbrook, but yeah, I would agree with you. I like Cole a lot on this one. The other guy, you could throw in Austin's Farian Jenkins if you want, too. That's true. I love their offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett, and I think that's definitely just a thing to keep in mind for the first few weeks of the season to

see and monitor who is doing well there. But, D.K., who's your next guy? All right, we're going to go a little bit deeper on this one. Benjamin Watson of the Saints, another tight end. I'm going on all tight ends this week. I was reading an article, I can't know, some New Orleans newspaper. A player was saying he

at 37 years old is probably the most ripped player on the team still. He's just in shape. I think in that offense, tight ends have always been a big part of the passing game. I think he knows that system. He played there in 2015. He got 74 passes for 825 yards and 6 TDs that year and he was 34 years old then. And if he's still

in really good shape, I think Breeze trusts him. I think he's going to be a big part of that offense And I mean, if you look at what Breeze did last year, his touchdown percentage was 4.3%. And that was way down from, you know, basically the last 10 years before that. I think he's due for a positive aggression touchdown. So I think Watson could be a beneficiary of that. And when you look at that offense, they don't actually have like a ton of targets downfield that we've really established. So I think he could be kind of a big part of that offense.

He's right now going really late. He's, you know, tight-end 22. His average draft position is 194, so he's a late-round guy. Just take him with your last pick and see what happens. But I think he could be kind of one of those guys in a shallow tight-end group that could kind of pay dividends for you. That's a really good pick. I like that a lot. Especially because Kobe Fleener's gone.

That's fantastic, actually. Oh, God, the Flinger hype. Forget about that. Anyway. Who's your second guy? Yeah, my final guy, Geronimo Allison, on the Packers. He's going like 74th of my wide receiver. receivers, two or two overall.

I mean, you can get him undrafted, maybe on waivers after the first week. I just believe in Rogers, and people are just assuming the Packers will be back, but he's got a few things going for him. He's in line to get a lot more targets this year. You know, he's pretty much got the third receiver role behind Devante Adams and Cobb.

But really, I think, is more competitive with Cobb than it would seem. First of all, there's a, when Rogers had his like, I'm a grumpy old man and these young receivers just all suck. He singled out Geronimo, a handful of dudes as like he was doing really well before he said that.

Yeah, for them to watch. And he singled that out. And then the difference is though among everyone on the Packers roster, they're going to have like seven receivers in their depth chart, which will seem like it'll muddy it up because they have all these receivers

and they're going to have the most receivers after the cut down of 53. But Allison will have by far the most experience and have the most experience with Rogers. And the Packers have been cranking out receivers. He's like the last guy from the Ted Thompson era of like just the receiver factory. and I think that he could compete with Cobb

way more than you think. Even he could have a presence in the red zone but even if not, you know, Jimmy Graham isn't necessarily ciphering targets over the middle of the field. At least we haven't seen him do it since his knee injury in 2015. So I think Allison's getting more targets

all over the field, maybe the red zone. And then if Cobb or Adams does get hurt, I think, a wide receiver too. Yeah, Cobs been, I think, banged up a little bit with ankle or something. There was like trade rumors about Cobb earlier this week. I don't believe any of that. But at the very least, like,

I think Allison surpassing Randall Cobb by like October isn't like mind boggling. And just it's not like Rogers's third receivers have not. Again, in a weekly league, any week that they miss if Randall Cobb gets hurt for whatever reason. Allison's like a start, like a viable starter. So I love him for where he's going. I talked to a bunch of fantasy guys for a big feature I did at the ringer. And JJ Zacharyson from Numberwire told me one thing that he does for late round picks is just, you just throw a dart on a player who is going to be on a really good offense.

And I think we kind of can expect the Packers to have a good passing offense. Obviously, Jim and Aaron Rogers is one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL. And I like that. I think that's a smart bet because, yeah, like if Cobb gets hurt, Allison could legitimately be their number two. There's always hyperbole that comes from beatwriters. Some of the hyperbole around Allison is that he's primed to take the mantle of Nelson as the one with the most chemistry of Rogers.

I don't want to project that. But if it's true, then that's an unbelievable asset. Yeah, I like that. I think that's smart. All right. Before we move on, let's take a quick break. We want to stream NFL Sunday ticket live every Sunday.

Even if we can't get DirecTV where we live, because we want every play. Even if we don't live in a house with a satellite, because a lot of us live in apartments. We're on a college campus, but we still want to stream NFL Sunday ticket. To see if you are eligible, go online to nfl sundayticket.

TV and stream every NFL Sunday ticket game this season. to follow your favorite team no matter where you live. Use promo code ringer at checkout to save 15%. Packages also available for football fans living in areas where a DirecTV service is not available. DK, people always ask me for advice. All the time, every day, really. Usually, you know, it's what team to bet on this week.

And the truth is, I always tell them, you know, I don't know who's going to win. I'm not a sorcerer from the future. But if you think you know, you got to check out my bookie. I always tell people, always tell people to bet with my bookie. Trust me, guys, they are your best bet this season. They've been in business for years. Have great reviews online and their mobile site is easy to use.

Not to mention, they have in-game, live betting, and the most rewarding player perks in the business. Plus, for your fantasy guys out there, I think that's us. You can even bet the over-under on how many fantasy points a player will score each game. So, lay down some cash and win big today. You win, they pay. Join now and my bookie will match your deposit dollar for dollar. Use the promo code Ringer NFL when creating your account to claim up to $1,000 in free play.

That's M, Y, B, O, O, K-I-E, and don't forget to use the promo code Ringer NFL when creating your account to claim the bonus. You play, you win, you get paid. All right, D.K., for our next segment, we're going to do Intrigue, deterred, which, We're actually really excited about this week. Yeah, we're going to kind of switch it up a little bit, play around with the concept. We got a cool idea from Ringer, video producer Jackson-Safon. He stole this, I think, from RotoViz, and I don't know if they've got it for someone else. But basically, we're going to comb through the rankings of some of the various fantasy hosting sites, ESPN, Yahoo,

to see which players have kind of the biggest discrepancies in their rankings. Because when you're drafting, a lot of people just go right off of those rankings when they're trying to decide who to take next. So I think looking at those and kind of trying to figure out why some guys are ranked, higher or lower, I think could be a good way for you to find value on draft day. So what was the kind of first thing that stuck out to you about these? Yeah. And first of all, this is a really important topic because it's the only thing that's like universal is that you are affected by what you're looking at.

And most people are looking at the rankings on whatever site you're using, which is mostly ESPN or Yahoo. And the best way to ciphon value at the last minute is figuring out where those rankings have biases. The first thing I think we noticed as we started looking at this is that, ESPN is probably a little more optimistic about players returning from injuries or suspensions. There's definitely a big difference there.

That was the first thing that left out at me. So some of those guys that there's a discrepancy on, for example, I think the first one that jumped out to us, is Jerich McKinnon of the 49ers. Obviously, signs a big contract this year, and then seems like he's like the dream candidate for Kyle Shanahan. He's going to be like this do-it-all gadget in between, outside, lining up all over the field.

back for the 49ers and then suddenly he's 25th on ESPN for full PPR and then on Yahoo's full PPR rankings he's 48th. Yeah, so how do you which platform do you think is more accurate? Because I think McKinnon for a long time, like he said, he was a sexy pick.

That's definitely falling off lately. And he's dealing with a calf injury. So that's really the sticking point here. He's been injured, but there's also a couple other factors here. Matt Brita is kind of factoring in as a potential eat into his time show type of thing. And then now late, like very, very late in the process, Alfred Morris is kind of this dark horse to be the team's actual starter. Like be the, not like Belkow, but be their

first and second down guy and kind of run that offense. Obviously, he's got a lot of experience in the zone blocking scheme that Shanahan runs and he's kind of perfect for that scheme. And so, I don't know, what do you think? Are you worried about Morris kind of eating into those opportunities? I've had a galaxy brand on this. My first reaction was crap McKinnon's heart. He's ruined. my second one was, you know what, he'll be back for week one. This will actually turn into a good value. Right. Because he'll be fine and people will overreact and he'll drop.

Then the next level was yesterday on Wednesday. John Lynch basically said he confirmed a quote that was like Morris looks like the week one starter. And they asked him about that. He said exactly right. So suddenly Alfred Morris out of nowhere. Nice guy, by the way, Alfred Morris. Looks like he could actually siphon like a real role from him. So McKinnon being part of like a commitment.

of sorts would actually be a real plot twist from free agency. But it's in the realm of possibility, which is scary at 25, but well worth it, I think, at 48. I think the overarching lesson for me on this is, you know, this is an unofficial thinking later, but take Morris with your last pick if he's still there, right? Yeah. Let's move on. Who else is kind of got weird discrepancy? Edelman's going 84th on ESPN, 104th on Yahoo.

Obviously, this is a double whammy because he's suspended for four games. and then he's returning from an ACL injury. He's 32 years old. On the other hand, the Patriots don't have any other receivers. They have Chris Hogan, and then they have Philip Derset, who has never had more than five catches in his career,

didn't have any catches last year. And then you have Cordarelle Patterson, who was supposed to be a special teams acquisition, and then suddenly they can get fired on. I think that, here's this in a nutshell. I think that, so Brady was like 20th,

22nd, and 22nd in average pass length in 14, 15, 16. And then last year, with all these deep targets, he moved up to like six, their fifth, I believe. And then now they lose cooks. They let Danny Amandola leave in free agency. They caught Malcolm Mitchell. Eric Decker retires, all these dudes. I think they're going to return down to a much lower dink-and-dunk Ganeshunks pass game,

and they're going to rely more on James White and Rex Burkhead in the general offense. So Edelman, I see the fears of him. I could definitely see him, like, be washed. Like, he came off an ACL injury. That's scary. But at the same time, you'll be an amazing value. I think I, yeah, I think I side with ESPN a little bit on this. I think I'm kind of high on him.

You know, there's been, you know, some video of him running routes and he looks really quick. Obviously, he's played a little bit in the preseason. I think he's going to be fine. And I think the trust that Brady has with him, you know, just over the middle, he's a, you know, very reliable target for him. I don't know what's expected from Dorset. Obviously, he's kind of a factor, but he's been playing outside, too, when Edel wins in there. I just think the upside Edelman has in terms of the volume of targets he could get in that offense is good. And that makes him a good value.

Like obviously, if you can afford to stash him for a while for four weeks, he could pay off down the road. So I actually lean towards the higher ranking with ESPN on that one. I feel that. The next guy we found is interesting. Chris Thompson. It's going 73rd in ESPN, 136th on Yahoo. So Thompson was actually 10th in PPR scoring last year through 11 weeks ahead of Fournette in McAfrey, actually. And then he broke his fibula.

He got screws in his leg over the offseason. Still doesn't seem like 100% during training camp, but it seems like he'll play week one. And then generally, I mean, he just has a better pass-catching skill set. And even though they have Peterson and Rob Kelly and fit Rob Kelly, you know, got in shape. And Samaji P. Ryan, none of them really have the skill set to knock him from third down, which is where he was crushing things last year.

And then obviously Alex Smith throws to his running back. So that's 136 on the eye. He's nuts. That seems too low. I think probably somewhere in the middle is about, right, because I think there is legitimate reason to be concerned. You know, obviously, with a break like that, you can lose some of your expulsiveness to your speed and in the first year you're coming back.

And so I think there is some legitimate reason to be concerned there. By the same time, like you said, you know, Adrian Peterson's not going to play on third down. And he's small. He's 5'8. He's 190, so he's... Right. But, I mean, you... I think leg injuries are always a little more scary when guys really rely on bursts and don't have that kind of size or things.

All right, TK. A couple other guys, we saw. a discrepancy with Duke Johnson, 60th on ESPN, 130th on Yahoo, crowded backfield. But Duke Johnson was RB11 in full PPR in 2017 last year. Obviously, there's a bunch of guys, and he excels in the slot, and Jarvis Landry, other players will be in the slot now. But that's still, 130th is still really low. Yeah, I guess they're maybe low on him because of hide his potential to be sort of a three-down back. And then obviously, Nick Chubb, you know, kind of adds into the uncertainty there.

But, I mean, Johnson's got a lot of hat. Almost like a de facto slot receiver. I could see them using him, you know, in quote two running back sets, but he'll be more of just like a receiver. And so that, you know, I think that's a really interesting discrepancy. I don't know where to land on it. I think part of it might have to do with game script and if the Browns are actually better this year,

or at least more competitive, even if they still suck. He might not be getting garbage time dump off when they're just passing and no one's open. So that might be part of it, which is interesting. It feels like he's undervalued to me. Yeah. So the next guy, that big discrepte here, Jamal Williams are the Packers.

97th on ESPN 149 on Yahoo. Obviously there's like a committee thing there, but I love Ty Montgomery. So Aaron Jones said a hamstring injury in training camp. Time on hasn't missed a practice, but is still definitely second on the depth chart. And Jamal Williams has looked good. You know I love pass protection for running backs. And Joe Philbin, their offensive coordinator this year said, quote, Williams can pass protect.

There's pictures of him in camp stepping up, picking up blitz's, picture in the game last week where he can catch the ball in the flat, makes somebody miss and run with good pad level, and quote. So if he actually does cut into Tymon's third down plays and actually can be a third down back, which McCarthy suggests he could, that would be a wild thing to grab

like a starting three-downish running back, 150 spots into the draft. Man, the Packers backfield is tough. I definitely lean Williams, though, number one in that. And so it does, I mean, that's like low. I think he's kind of low on both of those even. Yeah. All right.

So another couple guys quickly. We found that another interesting, thing was Yahoo's base is 0.5 ppr, but ESPN's right now is full PPR, which we've discussed. But if you compare the full PPR rankings for both, that Yahoo definitely values receivers at a higher level than ESPN does, which we thought was interesting. So there's a couple running backs that drop. But again, this is a philosophical thing. And no one knows anything. So it's not like one's better than the other. But it's more that depending how you feel about running backs early, we found that Leonard Fournette is going 14th in ESPN and full PPR, 25th ranked on Yahoo.

He drops far. That's a far drop. It's a big drop. Well, McCaffrey is a similar thing. 18th on ESPN 37th to full PPR on Yahoo. So that's just, again, it's more about floors and, I mean, there's a philosophy to rankings and how it should be. Farnett's interesting because he, there's been rumblings he could actually play more on third down.

Yeah, they want to, they've been talking about that a lot lately. If Leonard Furnett's suddenly catching a bunch of balls on third down, that would be, I mean, he could easily be the number one running back this year. So that's wild to me. that he'd be going 25th. McCaffrey 37th also seems, I mean, he went around there last year as a rookie and then outplayed that.

So I would say higher than that on both fronts, but at the same time, it's interesting. I'm maybe a little bit higher on Fournette than a lot of people, though. Not necessarily in P-Barr. It was just in general. I was looking at some numbers last year, for last year,

and I actually predicted Fournette would end up with the most rushing touchdowns in the NFL this year because, so looking at the Jaguars, offense last year. They led the NFL and rush attempts inside the opponent's five yard lines. They had 27 of those. But Chris Ivory managed to swipe nine of those away from

4-NAT. So I mean, Fornett, he ended up with 12 rushes from inside the 5. He got seven touchdowns out of that. But now that Ivory's gone, obviously, there's other guys in that backfield. T.J. Yeldon might be the guy to kind of snipe him. But I think that they're going to give Fournett more of those opportunities

inside the 5-yard line. And we could see him like double. Don't ever give me T.J. Yeldon. the worst player I've ever owned in fantasy. No dude, I'm sure he's a wonderful guy, but he's the most frustrating person. Don't even, I hate, oh. I really, so, anyway. Bottom line is, you know, they got Andrew Norrell.

Their offensive line is still going to be good. They're just going to lean on that offense, or that run game. And I just think, even if you don't think Fournet can catch as many paths, I still think this touchdown upside is huge. And so, yeah, I like Fournette a lot. And then real quick, in the actual reverse, actually, guys where Yahoo is much higher on people,

tight ends in general. ESPN definitely devalues tight ends a lot more than Yahoo does, which was interesting. They have ESPN is Jimmy Graham at 75th. Yahoo at 47. This is again full PPR. And then similar, Travis Kelsey, 31st on ESPN, 16th on Yahoo, which is, that's a huge difference. So again, I think a lot of that has to do with targets and floors for receptions in the PPR leagues. But that's really interesting. And I'm kind of curious where you feel about that. Well, separate the two players. Jimmy Graham, you know, we've talked about him before. He's kind of a polarizing guy. I do think he's got a lot of, I still think he can be a double-digit touchdown player. I mean, there's a lot of, you know, targets to go around in that Green Bay offense.

But I just think Graham with Aaron Rogers is just going to be a really good connection. And so I like Graham. I probably lean with Yahoo on this one. And Kelsey, he's a bit of a mystery as well just because we don't know what that offense is going to look like with Patrick Mahomes under center. So maybe that's part of why he's dropping a little bit. But yeah, I mean, it's an interesting discrepancy. What do you make of the Kelsey thing? I agree with you.

The Kelsey thing I think about the Mahomes thing, which is I love Mahomes on paper, but the hype has taken all the value out of him. And suddenly we're just assuming that he's going to be great. But like no one's talking about the downside of the last time he threw a touchdown pass in a football game was in November of 2016 versus like Baylor. So, I mean, it's really underestimating what Alex Smith actually did there. So that's crazy for me. But I think the point we're saying here is that if you're trying to do some last minute, get some value, if you're on Yahoo, maybe look at some ESPN rankings and you can get an idea. If you're doing a draft in ESPN, you can look at the Yahoo rankings, see who's falling relative. And then, you know, really kind of that's one of the best easy ways you can kind of draw value out at the last second of your draft.

Yeah. All right. Before we move on, let's take a quick break. If you love to score amazing deals at incredible hotels, you'll love Hotel Tonight. Hotel Tonight partners with hotels to help them sell their. are unsold rooms, helping you find sweet deals at cool, top-rated hotels. Hotel Tonight shows you the best deals at hotels you actually want to stay at. No more scrolling through endless list of choices.

Paradox of Choice is a real thing, man. Even though their names Hotel Tonight, they're not just for last-minute bookings. You can book in advance, perfect for planners and procrastinators alike. I'm in the latter category. Hotel Tonight is perfect for spontaneous weekend getaways, staycations, three-day weekends, road trips, business bookings, and more. it's so easy to use. Book hotels in 10 seconds, just three taps and a swipe.

There's even the HD perks program where the more your book, the better the deals get. I have my cousin's wedding coming up in October, and I'm probably going to need to use hotel tonight, but very excited.

I haven't gotten my flight yet, but don't have to worry about the hotel. Get the Hotel Tonight app now to start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels. That's Hotel Tonight, the only booking app you need. All right, D.K.,

for our last segment, I'm really excited about this. This was a great idea. And basically what we're doing here is stealing a little bit from the Against All Odds podcast. What's going on, buddy? We're basically riding the sharps. And this is like a popular concept in the gambling world, which you look at a line and you're like, all right, well, who are the people who are doing this literally all day and the most invested?

And where's that money going? And we're going to kind of do the same thing for that this week. And we're going to look at where are the people who have the skin in the game for fantasy? where are the discrepancies between them and the kind of normal pool of average draft position? Yeah, this is something I kind of heard from a couple different guys

when I was doing the big fantasy feature from last week. Which was an amazing article in everyone should read. It's how fantasy football experts find value in a post sleeper world really well reported. It's awesome.

Go to the ringer.com, great website. Thank you for that plug. Yeah, so basically the idea is with some of the more generic ADP lists that you can find out there, they're calling from mock drafts drafts where guys are leaving potentially in the eighth round and you kind of just letting the rest you know letting it auto draft the rest of the way so you kind of lose some i don't know if accuracy

is the right word reliability in terms of the actual value of some guys in the middle and late rounds and so what you want to do is look at some of the the paid to play best ball league adp list so basically these are guys that have skin in the game they're putting bets down they're not going to leave halfway through and and generally speaking you know if you're betting on on fantasy football you probably spend a little bit more time thinking about it and researching. And also, I think it also reflects more people who are more invested in keeping up with the news in case someone tweaks an ankle, a training chip, whatever. Those kind of leagues are much more plugged in and that's really just, it's a much more accurate

reflection of what your lead will look like. I mean, it's basically, you know, to use the sharp turn, it's just a little bit sharper ADP. And so, and that's average draft position for guys. And so what we want to do is look at where the sharp ADP lists differ from some of the more generic ones that you can find. And a couple players had pretty big discrepancies that we think are, that's definitely intriguing.

And so the first guy that came to mind is Sony Michelle from New England. You know, we saw in the Best Ball ADTP list that we were looking at, he was 61st versus 90th in the generic one. And so obviously it looks like the sharps are a little bit higher on Michelle than maybe the general public is. I think it's probably has to do with the knee injury, but, you know, there's no guarantee that he's going to be out for very long. So I think what do you think of that discrepancy?

Do you buy into the idea that Michelle is going to come in and take over that backfield? So for the first couple months after the draft, the way I looked at Sony Michelle was he had fumbling problems in college. There's obviously no worse way to get just your ass planted on the bench than fumbling for Belichick. That's what happened to Mike Gillisley. And I was like, look, this is a rookie. And imagine he's not going to waste Tom Brady's final season, like, competing for a Super Bowl maybe with like a fumbling running back. And the more I thought about it, I was like, you know what, there's this myth where Patriots don't trust a running back and they don't give one guy the rock. But that's not been true since, I mean, Garrett Blunt did it in 15, 16, and he just led the team.

And last year we saw D.N. Lewis get it. And they do trust someone. And So New Michelle is really good. And Burkhead and James White are going to be out there catching passes and stuff. But, like, they can be on the same field. And I've actually really warmed up to the idea that Sonya Michelle could be really, really good as, like, they're true. running back. Right. And I mean, like right now you can get him pretty late. I think we saw on ESPN, he's 96th right now in PPR. He's 137th on Yahoo. And you see the sharps are taking him at 61.

That kind of, that means something. And so I think. And again, it's a weekly game. And it's hard to know the Patriots running backs are the first seven weeks of the season. But like, it's kind of clear midway through. There's so much value to be had if you have the lead back in the Patriots offense, right? And so, you know, they're just going to score a lot of touchdowns. They're going to get a lot of such as they always produce a lot on the ground. And so, yeah, I mean, I think Michelle, to me, I became a lot more intrigued with him after kind of looking at this discrepancy. And, you know, as a mid-round kind of guy,

you could be a very interesting gamble to take. Yeah. The next guy, which I was surprised to say, this is an interesting one. Nelson Aguilar, in the paid leagues that we saw going 89th. And then generically, we looked at 102nd. second, which that was interesting. I think it immediately caught my bias, which was, I still can't shake the idea that Nelson Aguilar is this horrific bust from the 2016 season who can't run routes and can't catch and had confidence issues. And then it was pretty good last season.

And that's definitely still in my mind. And it seems like that might be actually a value that they're seeing. Yeah, I mean, it's like, it's almost like just name value here, name recognition, because you're right. There was a point where I think Eagles fans were talking about how he should be cut and things like that before last year. Obviously, he came out of nowhere and really emerged as a dangerous slot receiver. And I was looking at some numbers. I wrote a couple of weeks ago about how the passing game is happening more over the middle of the field. And Carson Wentz threw 60% of his passes last year to slot receivers.

And he was fifth in the NFL and DVOA on those throws. So he's a very efficient passer over the middle field who likes to target that area. And so, I mean, Aguilar is going to be a big part of that passing offense. And, you know, whether it's Foles or, you know, for a few weeks and then Wendst takes over, whatever, but I think Agalore is still a guy who is being dragged down a little bit, just by his name, just by the fact that over his first couple seasons, you know, he just did not, he just struggled. He was, I guess, a bust, really. And so I think there's definitely value we had there, especially too with Alshan Jeffrey injured, you know, could kind of up his potential early on.

Another couple of guys, sharps are high on. First, Pierre Garsohn, who's going 88th in best ball ADP, 109th at the generic one we looked at. We've talked about Garcone. Basically, you know, I don't think we need to elaborate too much, but basically 49ers' offense, if you believe in the Shanahan-Hanna-Sense,

Garcone and Marquis Goodwin, excuse me, are both really good values. But the other one that we looked at, which I think is very near and dear to your heart, which I was intrigued by. Tyler Lockett. Yeah. This guy, this is another kind of polarizing one

because the Seahawks receiver core is definitely really up in the air right now. I mean, obviously Doug Baldwin is the lead guy, but it just came out that he's going to be like 80 or 85% this year because of a knee injury. They're going to have to really manage that. Does that make him a smaller piece of the puzzle in terms of their passing offense? This year, it could. So the deal with Lockett is when he was a rookie early on in his career, he looked really, really good. Like he was running away from guys downfield.

He was a really dangerous deep threat. He's a really good returner. But he broke his leg in like, I think it was his tibia and his fibia. and last year he struggled to kind of get back to full speed. There was even some next-gen stats that showed he wasn't, he wasn't as fast as he was the year before when he was, you know, pre-injury. And so from all reports, it sounds like he's really back to full speed, which could make him a bigger factor in the Seahawks offense.

And then the other thing is they just paid him. Yeah, I just, more than $10 million a year, which is kind of shocking. $20 million guaranteed for a three-year extension, which they let Paul Richardson go, Washington and I like Paul Richardson's better. So it's interesting, but I think the Seahawks are going to have to throw, throw, and they're going to be behind a lot. And I think he's fantastic for where he's going right now. I like Lockett a lot.

I think he's a really good. I think people are probably not realizing how good he was early in his career before he got hurt. And so that's probably coloring a little bit of the analysis. But, I mean, again, it is kind of a, it's a crowded area. And, you know, they obviously got Brandon Marshall, Doug Baldwin, John Brown's there. David Moore has looked really good in the preseason. So there's all these guys that you kind of have to contend with in that offense.

But I think he's got a chance to carve kind of that number two rollout. And so it could be a good value right now. I think the sharps are kind of on that. Okay. And then, all right, a couple guys that the sharps are lower on than everyone else. Jimmy Graham going 65th in the paid best ball ADP we looked at versus he's going about 52nd in generic ADP. We've talked about Graham a good bit.

We're talking about a little bit earlier. But yeah, it comes down to will he, I mean, he led the league in red zone targets. And also, I think he's just a really sexy name and people know him. I think, I think that there's some value probably being overinflated. There's enough risk with what his targets will look like that it's not really no longer built into his value. Yeah, I think the general gist is that the general public or whatever is overvaluing him based on the fact that, like you said, he led the NFL in red zone targets and in targets inside the 10-yard line or five-yard line or whatever. It might not happen like that again this year.

And so there's sort of this thought that it could, he could be in, you know, he could be due for a regression. And so that's definitely interesting. The other two guys, funny enough that we'll go through real quick. We talked about these guys last week, I believe. And Michael Gallup and Peyton Barber, both are lower per the Sharps, 170 on the best ball ADP versus 134 on the, on the general public one, Peyton Barber, the same deal, 128th in best ball, average draft position versus 78 in the public leagues. Now, so the Barber thing I think is really interesting because he's basically become the clear-cut starter there in terms of their running back in their backfield,

but at the same time, their run game has been really bad lately. And I think that the idea is like even if he is the starter, there's still not a whole lot of value there. That's, yeah, I think it's a combination of being a stayaway backfield. A lot of people think they're just going to suck. And they might just at one point just give the job to Rojo and just be like, look, he's going to be a backer of the future. So it's not going to be a lot of positive game scripts for him probably either if they're behind a lot. And so, yeah, I definitely see that.

His name has picked up a lot of steam lately. And with Gallup, I think his ADP has shot up because if you Google Fantasy Sleepers, like, last minute before you draft, he's like the top of every list right now. I think that's part of it. like he just actually got super hyped up in the last like 10 days or so. So buyer beware on those. I think obviously we were, you know, high on him as kind of late round sleepers,

but just don't... There's no longer a late round sleeper. The idea is like don't reach too much on these guys. There's a lot of late round receivers. I mean, we've talked about Geronimo Alison. We've talked about Michael Gallup, you know, Keel and Cole now. Like, there's a lot of guys,

but I mean, I'm definitely less comfortable having to grab Michael Gallup at like the 12th round or whatever than like just, you know, my last pick and it depends. So another guy, this one's interesting. Carson Wentz going, around a hundredth in the paid leagues we looked at

85th among the generic public. I think this is just people being a little more plugged into the injury stuff. There's like a real toss-up about whether. I mean, so the Eagles have the first game of the season, which is Thursday against the Falcons, it's Thursday night,

and there's a conspiracy corner where Wentz is going to start. That's been the plan. They haven't always had. They haven't really announced a views, you know, open, been cleared for practice, but he's been in 11-11, so he probably has,

but they've closed off some of the drills and they don't want people seeing, but should you have your franchise quarterback be playing? And there's a holdback, and Folses just looked awful. Foleses look terrible. I don't know if any Super Bowl MVP has actually had a preseason, drop him in the eyes of a fan base so much.

And even Philly fans look around, like, oh, that might have been a fluke run. Like it's wild, actually, as the Eagles fans, slowly be like, holy crap, this guy sucks. So Doug Peterson said they'd announce it on Friday. But regardless, Wenz might not be healthy and might not be as mobile, you know. And also, I think the really underlooked part of this

is it's like his third season. It's not like he's not Aaron Rogers. He's not Stafford. He's not a quarterback who can just skip training camp because been there, done that. He's not someone who can just step in and do it. Like those reps still really matter. Like he's still in his rookie contract.

He's young. And I think that the worst assumption you can make is that even if he's healthy, he'll step right back to where he is. I mean, he had that unbelievable completion rate and accuracy on third down. Like that stuff isn't an accident. You know what I mean?

Like that's practice. That's timing. That's all this stuff. Yeah. And now he's all these reps. doesn't have, that is more disheartening to me than even if he does come back healthy, is that he just hasn't practiced with these dudes since November. Well, I mean, the upside is at one point last year, he was like an MVP candidate.

He was one of the top fantasy scores, obviously, but there's tons of risk around him right now. The injury, like you said, all the misreps and just, you know, general regression possibility type of thing. And so I think that's kind of why we're seeing the sharps are maybe a little bit low on that. The one last guy that we're going to talk about is rookie running back Kerryon Johnson right now. He's going about 20 spots lower in the sharp ADP. And so I think that that's definitely really interesting because early on he was a very,

I think, hyped name, you know, just in general, like before the preseason got kicked off. But now we're seeing there's kind of a lot. There's just a jumble in that backfill. We don't really know exactly who's going to merge. Word out of Detroit is Amir Abdullah might not even make the team. And that week four of the preseason is really important for him. So he, I mean, well, that might be announced by the time this. goes live, but that would be stunning.

But, I mean, he really hasn't done much. And then, Legerat Blunt's going to, so that would be in Johnson's favorite, but Blunt's going to be the goal line back. I mean, Patricia brought him in from New England and obviously led the league in touchdowns in 2016 and then wasn't very much of a factor in 2017. But if he's getting the goal line touches for Detroit, and Detroit actually has a much better line in years past, obviously they like never, they haven't had a hundred guard rusher since, you know, I was in grade school.

The 80s. But, like, Ligarie. Airblon could be really sneaky if he actually does get all these goal-line touches, and so the lines become a power team up front. But also, Johnson's value, are you going to bet on the lines reversing like four years of history? And if he's not getting the goal line touches, that's hard to do, especially when theoretics still going to be on a third down. Right, right.

Yeah, man, it's just an unclear time share, and I think it's, it makes him a little bit more risky. He's looked good. He's looked solid, but like you said, there's just, there's a jumble of guys. The roles are unclear, and it makes sense. sense that he's dropped a little bit. The upside, I think, has been baked in to where he's going. He's going 60th overall. I mean, Royce Freeman, I guess, has jumped up a lot, but he's much closer to Royce Freeman, whose value is, like, a lot more solidified than what Johnson's role is going to be. Right. So those are the sharp values. Those are the differences. Best of luck to everyone in

their drafts, and I think you had one final note you wanted to send people off with. Yeah, I mean, basically the other thing that just is just kind of the, to circle around and talk about the Sharp's ADP type thing is Pat Thorman at PFF told me one of the best ways to just get value in your draft is to just print out one of these ADP lists from the best ball leagues that you pay for and bring it to your draft, start crossing guys off as they go, you know, as they go off the board. And then when guys start falling, that's when you start picking those guys. That's when you can get the best value. And, you know, there's just kind of the thought that the more value you have on their team is just going to help you win more games. And so I think that's a really, really interesting way to go, and I'm going to be trying that this year.

Oh, you are? That's good to know. I might have to snipe you later. And I will reiterate my advice, which is nobody knows anything. And if you're between two players and you really are on the fence, just take the one that will make you smile more. That's really, like, that's the best advice I could. Just, yeah.

Minimized risk is always talked about. I think of it as minimize, like, staying up at night. and thinking about it and heartburn and maximize people who just make you happy. Absolutely. So, Jim, I think we have some breaking news. We will be doing a three-person league. Well, it's just everyone on the Danysea Football Podcasts.

It'll be the official football league of the Danysea Football Podcast with the three of us. So I guess someone's going to have to have a buy every week. But it's going to separate the men from the boys. Everyone's kind of trending toward deeper leagues and 20 teams and all these big rosters. We're going to have a three-team league. We're going to do the draft.

We're going to put our teams online. It's going to be crazy. It's going to be awesome. How are we even going to do this? It's going to be great. We're going to have three conferences. And then we're going to, yeah. So I'm excited.

Possibly. Yeah, okay. Okay. Teams are going to be good. Real good. I thought there was actually real breaking news for a minute there and I got excited. That is real breaking news. This is a huge deal.

This is a huge deal. All right. Best of luck to everyone. Everyone in their drafts. Yeah. D.K., football. Real football is upon us. I cannot believe it's back.

It's crazy. This is amazing. All right. We're going to be transitioning to a different format, which we'll have some details on later, but we're going to be shifting to kind of in-season mode. But this has been fun, D.K., and I'm excited for the year to start.

Good pre-season, man. Good pre-season. All right. And we're going to start up our three-team league. So we'll have our names for it by next week. All right. Thank you, everyone. And I'll see you next week.

If you love to score amazing deals at incredible hotels, you'll love Hotel Tonight. Hotel Tonight partners with hotels to help them sell their unsold rooms, helping you find sweet deals at cool, top-rated hotels. Even though their name's Hotel Tonight, you can also book in advance for spontaneous weekend getaways, staycations, three-day weekends, road trips, business bookings, and more.

It's easy, book hotels in 10 seconds in just three taps and a swipe. Get the Hotel Tonight app now to start scoring amazing deals at incredible hotels. That's Hotel Tonight, the only one. booking app you need.