Becoming a Best Ball Bro: Do Elite Tight Ends Exist Anymore?

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Rich. Are you someone who has dreams at night?

00:00:03
Speaker 2: Like?

00:00:03
Speaker 1: Do you frequently have dreams when you're sleeping? Occasionally?

00:00:07
Speaker 2: Sometimes I try to force it. I try to think of something and then manifest the dream about it, but it never works. I've even looked into like journaling, like waking up and then writing it down. But yeah, ultimately my dreams tend to escape me.

00:00:21
Speaker 3: What about you.

00:00:22
Speaker 1: I'm a dreamer. I have dreams basically every single night, and last night I had a nightmare. Last night I dreamt that I drafted Remandra Stevenson at ADP. I'm JJ and I've been playing in best ball leagues for years. But there are people out there who play a lot more than I do, and there are people out there who have won a lot more than I have, and I want to learn from them. This season, I'll be documenting my journey of max entering Underdog's Best ball Mania contest, and I'll be doing so with guidance from some of the most successful best ball players on the planet. This is the year where things start to change. This is the year where I officially become a Best fall Bro. Welcome in to episode number three of Becoming a Best Ball Bro. I'm JJ Zachareson, joined as usual by my co host Rich Ryan Rich. What's going on, Buddy? As always?

00:01:18
Speaker 3: Man, I'm great.

00:01:19
Speaker 2: I have a Vegas trip coming up this weekend, my annual pilgrimage to the World Series of Poker, so I'm doing all the dad stuff. I had to pick up my mother in law from the airport this morning, I got to get the car service today, so a lot of dad stuff to get out of the way to get me ready in prime to head out to the desert this weekend.

00:01:40
Speaker 1: Yeah. Are you playing some poker out there?

00:01:42
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:01:42
Speaker 2: So I'm playing one of the opening events. It's called the Mystery Millions. It's a one thousand dollars buy in and it's a really fun event. So it's a bounty tournament, and people might be familiar with bounties where you knock somebody out and then you get a static prize essentially for knocking them out. The most popular and a lot of casinos is called a black chip bound because the black chips were one hundred dollars, so you get one hundred bucks if you knock somebody out, but in this tournament, they take three hundred dollars from everybody's entry, they put it into a bounty pool, and then starting on the second day, so there'll be probably a thousand players remaining. When you knock somebody out, you get a random bounty, and the bounty could be as little as one thousand dollars or as much as one million dollars, So it incentivizes you to be super aggressive, build up a lot of chicks, and then be in the position to knock out as many people as possible on day two.

00:02:35
Speaker 1: So when people say that they're going to play poker, I'm like, I play poker or I did, like, you know, like casually, like I understand poker. But is it is it just a default that you're playing Texas hold them? Is that just that? Is that what's happening at this point? Is that how people in the poker space talk about poker?

00:02:50
Speaker 2: I would say, so, Uh. There's obviously other games, Omaha variants, seven Card stud variants, but they make up a smaller percentage of the tournament's schedule. For the World Series of Poker, which is actually more inclusive of those events because they want to put on a big product for even the mixed games. But if you go to your local casino and you look to play poker, it's going to be ninety five plus percent Texas A little.

00:03:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I remember the Texas Holdham wave that hit when we were You and I were like in high school ish, like in middle school to high school.

00:03:23
Speaker 2: Like.

00:03:23
Speaker 1: It was a at least from my perspective, it was a wave.

00:03:26
Speaker 2: I was going to bring this up at some point. You seem like such the ideal person to have been caught in this wave, because the people that I've interacted with, especially in the DFS world, are people that transitioned from poker to DFS and then are probably now into best ball. So I was wondering what was the poker experience like for JJ in high school.

00:03:46
Speaker 1: My friends, if any of them listening to this right now, are probably laughing hard, because so we would like we would play poker basically every weekend. But I was the way that I approached that kind of thing was is so insanely conservative that I ended up just not really playing them. No, Like I I didn't really get into I knew poker. I start, I watched them play, i'd hang out, I'd play a little bit too at times, but then I didn't really get into it until like adult, more into adulthood, and then by that point it's not as like accessible as like, yeah, I'm going to my buddy's house this weekend. You know, you have responsibilities and such as a father, as a spouse, as opposed to in high school, what else are you doing? I mean, you're you're you're your number one. You have two priorities. You're playing System Link Halo or you're you're playing some poker and so. Uh but it's funny. I'm gonna bring this up on the show because I hope that one of my high school buddies is listening to this. The last time we all played together, I won, and uh I I I credit it to the way my brain now thinks about I've always been good at math and stuff and probability and statistics, but I I didn't apply it nearly as much as I do in my everyday life now, obviously with what I do for a living with Fantasy fo ball. But I do think that helped a lot in my thinking of like, you know that little game that we played at a bachelor party, But yeah, guys, I won the last time we played. Just remember that, don't forget.

00:05:10
Speaker 2: It's so funny that you bring up, you know, playing Halo and land parties and stuff like that. The most hands of poker that I played in my entire life were high school and college, where I knew absolutely nothing about what I was doing, statistics, probabilities, things that I should be doing. And now when I've gained so much more knowledge, like you and you're stating, now, I have so many more responsibilities, I have so many more daily activities to attend to that I don't.

00:05:35
Speaker 3: I don't.

00:05:36
Speaker 2: I just can't play as much. So it's it's it's the youth, as they say, is wasted on the young.

00:05:42
Speaker 1: That is very true. And now instead I use my spare time to do massive amounts of slow drafts over on under That's that's that is where my free time goes these that's right. Speaking of some tournaments, the Pomeranian we had that over this past week is three fifty entry max tourney that Underdog offered. And I'm a best ball bro now, so naturally I'm max. Entered. That thing filled way faster and I thought it was gonna fill.

00:06:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, you blinked, and that thing because I've been I've been watching all right, I'm almost there I'm almost gonna fire up some drafts. I gotta get this this poker weekend out of the way. But I'm definitely starting to itch last week's conversation with Pat. Really, I mean that really it was. There were so many meta concepts, and being uncomfortable is so important when it comes to something like game seventeen Week seventeen game stacking because it's so easy to target those big projected totals.

00:06:43
Speaker 3: But just like Pat said.

00:06:44
Speaker 2: Like any of these games can go over the total. So if you find yourself taking players that you believe in early in the draft and you have a natural chance to gamestack the week seventeen, you know that's the natural fit. And you just have to be okay being uncomfortable taking something like the Panthers or the Patriots, these teams that everybody is going to spend the entire summer dumping on and saying that they can't score, they're not going to be able to do it. Like, you just have to be okay being uncomfortable, And I'm ready. I'm ready to be to be uncomfortable.

00:07:16
Speaker 1: I really think that's so key with all of this. Like I talked to Hayden Winks is the guest that you guys are gonna listen to in a second. And there's one specific piece that he talked about that made me feel uncomfortable. But when you listen to it, you'll realize that really does make a lot of sense. Has to do with the tight end positions. You guys can focus in on that whenever you get there. But yeah, look, whenever I look. I talked about it last week. I'm doing way more slow drafts than fast drafts at this point because fast drafts are just difficult given the schedule being a dad waking up in the morning and you know, immediately having to get the kids ready to go to school and all that kind of stuff. But right now, so after I max entered the Pomeranian, you have the Pomeranian, the Chihuahua, the puppy, and then BBM. I'm now at ninety two slow drafts. I was over one hundred whenever the Pomeranian was maxed out. And look, I think that I will say, a lot of people, will, you know, especially like casuals who don't even know what Underdog is. Like friends of mine right that I see just hanging out over the weekend, They're like they like can't comprehend how you can possibly manage, you know, one hundred slow drafts, and I have to tell you it's pretty manageable. Like it's not nearly as rough as you think it might be because you can make a large number of picks all at once and not necessarily have to, you know, worry about just constantly picking. And then whenever you're just like hanging out, you know, at night, whenever you're really tired, kids are in bed, you can you can make even more picks. So it's really not as difficult to manage as I thought it was going to be. It's not I'll say this I've done, you know, in the past, I'd say this time of year, i'd be in like twenty slow drafts, right instead of the ninety two that I'm in. And I don't see it as that different from that, if that makes sense, Because if I'm gonna be on the app, if I'm gonna be drafting, might as well just do a few more whenever I'm making those selections. So it's really not as hard to manage. This is the one piece of becoming a best ball bro that I think might be the easiest piece is the management part the other stuff.

00:09:17
Speaker 3: You know.

00:09:17
Speaker 1: I talked to Hayden, and immediately afterwards, I'm like, I gotta draft a BBM team, And so I immediately just did a fast draft for Bestball Mania because I needed to like take some of the stuff we talked about apply it. I didn't totally apply it the way that I wanted to because I kept getting sniped at the turn. My team was okay enough if you guys want to see it, it's over on the late round Fantasy Football discord. Team is okay enough, but not you know, it wasn't like a I walked away. I also want to know if, like, when people are drafting like this and doing a lot of playing in a lot of leagues and max entering these tournaments, if they walk away from every draft feeling good. Oh you can't.

00:09:54
Speaker 2: You can't. When you have such a large portfolio. There's gonna be some times where, yeah, you're drafting with people that take players that you're intending to take. There's just there's a ton of variants even within drafts where no, you can't walk away from every draft that you do loving it.

00:10:09
Speaker 1: Yeah that's good. Like I I mentally need to get over that because there are things in fantasy football that I'm a perfectionist with and that's one of the things, you know, I want to feel strong and good about all these teams, But there are some teams I open it up and I just don't even want to make a pick because the team's horrible, right, Like it's just complete dead money, Like like what was I thinking when this was all going down? How is how is this the player pool that I'm staring at? It's rough? And then there's but look, there's some teams where like they look dead mid draft and if you if you can resurrect it, like I think that's sort of what the team the best ball Mania team I drafted earlier today, that's over on Discord. It's kind of dead the first like like it wasn't really well constructed the first like six or seven rounds. But I think I found a way to kind of maneuver things and make it look at least, you know, competitive in some in some way and late round.

00:10:58
Speaker 2: Discord community members will also have access to JJ's rankings, which you can upload a CSV directly to Underdog, which is obviously going to be a huge help instead of toggling back from the app to rankings and back and forth. You can get your rankings straight in there. Again, I'm allowed to shill it JJ because I'm a paid member.

00:11:16
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, I'm not going to say anything. It's a lot better for you to do it and get people excited that way. But yeah, I mean, look, I think talking to these analysts and these people who are have been in this game for a while has been really helpful to sort of change my focus around and think about things differently. Like I think last week with Karine, his stance on not picking up values if they don't fit your team build was really really key for I needed to hear that because when you're doing a lot of drafts, you naturally are like, oh, I got to gobble up ADP value whenever it falls, and sometimes you just can't. Sometimes you have Travis Kelcey and Kyle Pitts falls too far and it's like, I don't really want to go with these two elite tight ends or two top end tight ends because that's not going to fit my build very well. So you know, I'm trying to not be overly tied to ADP from that perspective, but also I'm not trying to be overly tied to ADP in general, despite being in so many drafts. You know, I think, again, it's easy to play this value game, but like when you're in the early rounds, it's just it's tougher to have a unique build when you're only drafting off of ADP. That's something that Hayden talks about later in the show too, is that whenever you you know, are in round one and round two, if you're in the eleven spot and AJ Brown is there every single time, or Garrett Wilson whoever one of those two wide receivers, and then Marvin Harrison junior slash Drake London is always the second pick with with someone in that spot. That means it's just, you know, there's just a lot of that duplication happening, and you want to differentiate in some way. So I'm trying my best. It's really hard for me as like a you know, more of like I try to use a lot of logic with my analysis. I try to be pretty processed. It's really hard for me to be like, you know what, here at the two three turn, you know, maybe a pick fourteen or fifteen, I'm going to reach a little bit and get Ebo Samuel or someone that usually goes in the late second, not doing it like overly frequently. But I am testing it out a little bit because I do think it's important. It's an easy way to differentiate.

00:13:09
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, we heard Dustin talk about on perspectives as well. Maybe you don't have to be as insane as taking one hundred percentage of person at third. Overall, you don't have to be that that strong willed when it comes to something like that. But yeah, deviating from chalk is also going to help you when you get to that five hundred person field in week seventeen as well, because you're not going to have as many duplicate players as some of your competitors, perhaps some of your stacks might be have some some difference there to make them unique in the event that and in the event that they go off instead of you know, splitting hairs when it comes down to a couple points, you're gonna have a massive advantage because you're gonna have a more unique stack compared to your competitors.

00:13:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the one place that I'm getting a little bit caught up with the whole ADP differentiation thing in the early rounds is I do wonder you know, I think that it's better to do that in tournaments that have a very short life span in terms of just you know, like like things that fill quickly, right, like we had the Pomeranian for instance. Like you know that that contest is going to fill within a week, right, and so ADP is not going to change that dramatically throughout that week. So if you do differentiate from ADP for that contest, that's probably smart because you are getting different builds than what the rest of the pool is doing and the rest of the field is doing. Whereas with Best Ball Mania, we're only you know, ten to fifteen percent through, and so by the time August hits, you know, Deebo Samuel might be an early second round pick by the time August hits. And if that's the case, I'm not saying that's going to happen, but you know, Deebo might even be traded. But you know, if that's the case, then all of a sudden, what you thought you were differentiating back then, you know, back in May and into June, really isn't that much of a differentiation. Because that's how people are just currently drafting, right in August and in July, and so I do think that I'm doing I've done that a little bit more with the other contests as opposed to Best Balmania Best ball Mania, I am being a little bit stricter with that ADP just because it's spanning. Maybe this is wrong, maybe you think I mean, I don't know, but because it's spanning so many months, feels like the proper game theory thing to do is to not necessarily straight away from ADP as much in the early rounds. But I'm definitely trying to find you know, like I think I've said this for weeks and weeks and weeks, Like I think Dontavian Wick is a huge, huge value right in general, so or like I'm just gonna gobble him up now in hopes that his ADP does rise where it's gonna be a little bit more difficult to get him. I'm trying to do that with players. For sure, there's something that we can get to in a second But with the early round guys, how much is that really gonna change in terms of like this guy is such a massive value in the second round where versus them just shifting sort of in the second round because that second round is so flat right.

00:16:05
Speaker 2: Now, Yeah, outside of injury, how violent of a change can you get in value for some of those players that the market is already deeming to have such value. Wix, by the way, up another seven point seven spots in drafts. He's up a full round since we started potting. I think you make a great point though there about the length of BBM and just how naturally ADP is going to change throughout the summer. I mean, just look this last week the drum beat for JMO when you get the coaching staff out there saying he's clearly to WR two, no one's progressed better than him, Like, we're gonna get that for so many players throughout the summer, so many injuries. So yeah, the ADP snapshot you take today and then you compare it to August is going to be completely different. So maybe deviating too much might not be the strategy just because it's going to natural deva But I think definitely separating your approach from the tournaments that fill up quickly, I mean, these things are different, right. It's like when you get the generic question about should I trade for ex player or why player? Like league formats positioning, Like all these things matter, so you know, understand the settings of whatever you're entering and tweak your approach a little bit differently. But yeah, let's get into some specific players. The WIX train is chugging along. But is there anybody else this week that you found yourself drafting a bunch of.

00:17:28
Speaker 1: JJ Yeah, I'll start with Marcuse Brown. I've realized that the fifth this is, this isn't one of those examples of like where I do think you should deviate from ADP, or where I've been deviating from ADP a little bit. Is like into the fifth round where you get some flatness in my opinion at the wide receiver position, Like is there really that big of a difference between Terry McLaurin to Jaden Reed to Marciase Brown to even some of the sixth round guys you know you're talking into like some of the Tennessee wide outs, like the two big Tennessee wide outs or you know Godwin players like that Jordan Addison, Like is there really that massive of a difference between those players? And to me, the answers probably no, right, Like, even historically, if you look at how wide receiver threes have performed. There's not like some dramatic gap between you know, a wide receiver thirty six to wide receiver forty three or something like that, Like it's it's not so worth it that you need to get the wide receiver thirty six every time. And then the other thing, too, is that I do want to get exposure to like a Patrick Mahomes type. The problem with some of these quarterbacks early is that like Mahomes will go in the fourth round and then you're stuck not necessary because they'll go late fourth oftentimes or into the fifth right and when that happens, like if you're getting him in a round five especially, you're then just not able to really stack him very easily. You're you're because you can't get you have to either force it early. It's at the three four turn with Travis Kelce and and overspend on Mahomes a little bit because I do think there is a little bit more of an opportunity cost there because you are missing out on Zey Flowers, Tank Dell, some very good wide t Higgins, George Pickens, some very good wide receivers. And then you get into the fifth and if you're in the fifth and you're taking Mahomes well, then by the time it comes back to you, you're not gonna be able to get Xavier worthy of Marquis Brown because they get drafted. So it's really Rashie Rice that you're stacking Mahomes with, and that feels pretty volatile, right, And so what I've been doing is I've been okay with a Mahomes late, like if I'm at the one oh one, one oh two type spot, you know, getting Mahomes in the late fourth and reaching a little bit there and then reaching a little bit for Marquis Brown. You know, Brown had There was a tweet by Harmon Matt Harmon, who obviously is great with wide receivers. Harmon has been steaming up Brown as the most complete wide receiver on that team right now, which I would agree with. Where you know, I've I've talked about my question marks with Rashid Rice, despite him looking very good on paper and like his yards perrout run was great, all that, I do worry a little bit about how they used him last year and him being a more complete receiver. If they used them the way they use him last year over and over again year in a year out he'll be fine from a fantasy perspective, but you obviously want, you know, a more well rounded wide receiver who can play anywhere and can do and can run any route because that allows you know, more flexibility with performance. And so I do think there's question marks there. Xavier Worthy obviously size, he's a rookie. Those types of question marks Marki's Brown is kind of the default there, who can play any position on the field at wide receiver and sort of be you know, a decent target hog. For Mahomes, I think he could see a twenty two ish percent target share, So I think he's the most attractive the more I've thought about it, the most attractive wide receiver on that team by ADP. But then also you look back at some of my season long analysis that I've done, and middle round wide receivers who are in their fifth or sixth year often break out at a pretty good clip. And so that's that's because of in my opinion, what I've seen at least, it's it's sort of this dichotomy of either still in the middle rounds despite being you know, past, like they're like they haven't become elite assets yet necessarily, but they're they're not sunk, like people are still into them to some degree because they're in the middle rounds. And so just from that, you're saying, Okay, maybe there's some talent there because they've stuck around for five or six years. But also there's a change of scenery oftentimes with those players because either their rookie contracts are up or if they had a fifty year option, you know, they're on a new team potentially after that that those five seasons and that change of scenery might help these guys too. So you know, I think that that Marquise Brown, given all that, given the game theory component and such, he's been someone that I've definitely been going after a lot this week.

00:21:36
Speaker 2: And you could tell the Hollywood story right stuck gonna kind of compressed Greg Roman Ravens offense, and then goes to Arizona Kyler off and on with injury. It just never clicked and now he gets read Mahmes. So there's certainly a ton of upside there. When it comes to Rice, you would think that the good thing is that even if he serves a suspension, will have him when it's most value, right when it comes down to the playoffs in a lot of these underdog formats, so there is obviously some risks there, but you might get him for the most important parts. But yeah, I mean getting parts of a Mahomes Reid offense is always going to be a valuable gamble, especially when I mean they've kind of shown their hand when it comes to Sky Moore and Kadarius Tony in acquiring Brown and then of course using the draft capital on Xavier Worthy. There's another rookie, speaking of Worthy, that you've been interested in at the running back position, and it seems like he's getting steamed up generally in the market as well. The seventh highest mover this week in ADP up five point six spots. What running back is that JG.

00:22:46
Speaker 1: That would be Blake Korum. And look, this is one of those situations where like, you don't want to lean into ADP and when these guys are rising, you're just rising with them. You want to zig a little bit when others are zagging, you know, to extract as much value as possile. But at the same time, you know, I'm okay with simply moving at ADP in this case, because I don't think the ADP train hype train around Korum is necessarily going to slow down. You know, you had some reports about Kyrien Williams health and such, and there's more talk about you know, Blake Korum being drafted. Be it's it's stuff that I don't think should be a surprise necessarily. I think Kian Williams health like that stuff might be somewhat of a surprise. And I have this in the back of my head, this fear that what if, you know, August comes around and we learn when we like learn more right before the season starts, and we find out that, oh, there's a serious problem with Kien Williams that they just didn't want to tell us and lead on with because they were hopeful that something would happen over the summer.

00:23:45
Speaker 2: They have absolutely no incentive to tell us that something is seriously wrong with Karen Williams exactly exactly.

00:23:51
Speaker 1: And so my my stance right now is now, is you know, in the in the later rounds, because there's another guy who's who definitely fits this bill and I talked about him with with Winks. So this will be sort of repetitive. But in that area where you're you're in like the late thirties at RB into the early forties, and you know RB thirty nine, I think is where Korm has been at. And then like the other guy who I think is a smash right now at ADP is Zach Sharboney. The more I've thought about Charbonnet, his situation, the fact that Seattle's offense should look different this year, that's something that's a spoiler, a little teaser for later when I talked to Winks. But Sharbonay, you know, I've preached this for a while about ambiguous backfields where when you have an ambiguous backfield, this isn't like totally ambiguous, but it is ambiguous to some degree where you know it's a new coaching staff. You know this backfield, we don't know exactly how it's going to be split, and we would assume that Sharbona is going to see some work in that backfield. It's not like it's all Kenneth Walker's backfield. And when you have an ambiguous backfield, you want to look at how these guys are being projected, and if they're project is sitting at their adp okay, and then you can say to yourself, okay, if the projection is at adp okay, so let me just give you an example, Zach Sharbonay RB forty two projection RB forty one. Okay, so he's basically at ADP with his projection, but that projection assumes health to Kenneth Walker. It assumes that Kenneth Walker is the RB one in his backfield. We have to ask ourselves what happens if number one, the coach the new coaching staff doesn't want to split the backfield up the way that we think they're gonna split it up. Or number two, what happens if Kenneth Walker gets hurt? If Kenneth Walker gets hurt, Like if Kenneth Walker were out of the picture for Seattle this season, Zach Sharbone would probably be being drafted around where Kenneth Walker's being drafted right now, if not higher, Like he'd probably be in the Rashad White range right now, Like why wouldn't he be? And so to me, I think there's a lot of upside there. And then I sort of look at like this is the way that my brain has been changing a little bit with with best ball, where you know, you look at someone like Jerome Ford, who I do think has a projection, should see and by has a projection, I mean should score some fantasy points because of Nick Chubb's injury, just the ambiguity in that backfield. But if you look at how they used him last year when Nick Chubb was not in the lineup, Jerome Ford saw over a sixty percent running back rush share once last season. And so to assume that Ford has you know, Bell Cow upside, I think is foolish just given what we saw last season in that backfield, whereas Sharbonnay actually does have bell Cow upside, especially if Kenneth Walker's out just for a week or two, Like what if that week is Week seventeen where we need him the most, right, I just don't see that kind of upside with a guy like Jerome Ford, who's going to go ahead of Zach Sharboney. So that's all the same logic you could argue with Blake Koram. I think the difference with Korum is his ADP is a little bit higher than his projection, right, Like, I think it's more glaring with Sharbonnay than in his Korum. But look, the further we get closer, the closer we get to the season, you know that gap in projection between Kyron Williams and Blake Korm could shrink right, and we could we could see a situation where eventually Koram's projection is at his ADP and that's definitely sort of that break even point where you need to pounce because of that contingent upside.

00:27:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, and the market is telling you everything about what they think about this Rams offense with Pooka Nakua going so high, Cooper Cup going so high, and then obviously Karen as well, even though he is he has dropped hair like, we want shares of this Stafford McVeigh offense that's going to play a bunch indoors and we know is going to be schemed up and score a bunch of points. So yeah, to having the contingent upside at what an eight round discount right now for Blake Korm is quite valuable. You got another running back here on this list that you want to talk about middle rounds? You want to talk about the tier of running backs here? My eyes at like a cartoon character popped out of my head when I saw that he drafted this player, because you've been dumping on him a little bit this obvious season, DJO. But when you have a large portfolio. You can't have zero point zero percent of somebody. So what back did you draft that you want to talk about?

00:28:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, Look, the tier of Josh Jacobs to Rashad White is an interesting one because I think that Jay I've said this from the start, like I think Jacobs was being way over drafted, like a month ago when he was going, you know, in the third round often. But now I'm getting him in round five, like not infrequently, Like I've gotten him a couple of times in round five, which I think makes sense because I think that he should be in a tier with Isaiah Pacheco, James Cook if you want to, I actually have Rashad White over James Cook. The James Cook thing, you know, I just I don't know if his upside is really super evident. Just strange to me that he's being ranked where he's being ranked. I think that he should be just a little bit lower. But regardless Rashad White, you know, Isaiah Pacheco, those kinds of players, I think Jacob's sure belongs in there, but he's been going a lot earlier than that. But I've kind of taken a step back too, and you know, I I've liked Rashad White, I've liked Isaiah Pacheco. I still like both of them more than consensus generally does. But I do you know, I'm trying not to be super overweight with those those players necessarily because I want to be a little bit more open minded to you know, with with Rashad White being wrong about Bucky Irvings, I don't really like Bucky Irving that much as a prospect, you know. With Isaiah Pichecko, I did the study on running back prospect scores and how that might help us out and redraft. It didn't really paint a favorable picture for Pacheco. So like, once you get to that, honestly, dude, once you get past like Devon a Chin, even Devon a Chin you could argue has some wartz, right, But once you get into like where Kiren's at, it's like, Okay, what's gonna happen here? And then you get like Derrick Henry he's thirty years old, and then Josh Jacobs. You have a potential split backfield because what Matt Lafleur has done historically and Jacobs wasn't very good last year. And then Isaiah Pacheck, like you realize that the running back dead zone might start at like RB seven this year. Yeah, you know, like crazy, Yeah, that's the scary part. But I think it goes back to you know, so I actually talk about this with Hayden a little bit. It's like, you know, you have these elite tight ends, this elite tight end group. You're kind of just throwing the dart hoping that one of those guys ends up being the elite tight end this year. Just like with this running back group. I don't think all of them are gonna end up being Bell Coals in their offenses, but I do think that there's a higher chance that they become Bell Coals then maybe someone drafted, maybe even like a Kenneth Walker or an Aaron Jones or something like that, who go in the next round. But I still think the sweet spot for running backs honestly, it's just you got to kind of just lean into ADP a little bit. The sweet spot continues to be in that like Jonathan Brooks like like high end RB two, low end RB one or RB sorry, high end RB three, low end RB two range where you get the Steelers running Max. Jonathan Brooks like, there's realistically when you take a step back, and you think about it from a ceiling standpoint, there's not that huge of a difference between those kinds of players versus the fifth round guys. So I my general stance here is that like, as you're drafting round two, you'll notice is not a whole lot different than like round three and into round four at times. And then you know, once you get into round five, it's not a whole lot different than what you're gonna get into round six and round seven at times. And so you just have to play that properly. And that's why I'm okay with going back, just full circle, going back to the Marquis Brown thing. I'm okay with reaching a little bit from an ADP perspective to get better team builds and then just hope that you know, those are the stacks that end up hitting.

00:31:40
Speaker 2: And just a point of not to be stubborn, right, There's there's a point, yeah, in certain drafts, with certain builds where you're just gonna have to take a player that you might not love but might fit your stack, might fit that team. And even even Josh Jacobs can fall to a round that makes him.

00:32:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say, I will say So I talked to Hayden Winks of Underdog does amazing analysis. He did a super data heavy deep dive on best ball Mania's over the last the first four Best ball Mania's looking at optimal roster construction, how many wide receivers you should have by round seven, round et cetera, et cetera. Like really doing a deep dive, and so I talked to him about this and spoiler alert that running back range. He finds it kind of interesting based on the data, based on what we've seen, you know, throughout Best ball Mania history. So I guess, without further ado, here's my interview with mister Hayden Winks. This episode is sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. There's no better place to play best ball than that Underdog. There are leagues starting all the time, and you can choose whether you want to do a slow draft or a fast one when entering one of those leagues. And you don't just have to play Best ball Mania to play best ball at Underdog. There's a wide variety of contests to choose from. You can even check on Underdog's other games as well, like pick them right now. You can get in on the action with a deposit offer and free copy of the Late Round Draft Guide just by signing up and depositive. Just head to Underdog Fantasy dot com or download the Underdog app. When you sign up, use promo code late Round and make a deposit for a deposit offer and a free copy of the Late Round Draft Guide. That guide will then be emailed to you when it launches on July first. Again, that's promo code Late Round. Now back to the show. So, Hayden, you recently wrote an amazing article. We'll be referencing the article a lot throughout today's interview. But you looked at what sort of worked well or what's worked in general during all four years of Best ball Mania. But before we sort of dig into all of that, I just want to ask you, just generally speaking, do you think that the market, you know, the way that people are drafting, average draft is and all that good stuff. Do you think the market might sort of overemphasize some of the historical data that we're looking at because of limited samples or do you think that And I'm not saying that what you looked at was incorrect, it was absolutely what we need, like inject that content right into me, right, But do you think that there is some limitation, or do you think that like the market is just like looking at what happened last year and then just overemphasizing what's going to happen then this year.

00:34:26
Speaker 3: It depends on who you ask.

00:34:27
Speaker 4: Some people believe it's nearly useless, others think it's everything. I'm obviously somewhere in between. And my old philosophy with this is the more we zoom into things, the noisier the data is, because we are more or less working off four seasons of data here. But if we kind of zoom out, then I think some of the other principles like diminishing returns and other kind of philosophies that go into Best ball start getting even out, and I actually start.

00:34:53
Speaker 3: Believing in the data.

00:34:54
Speaker 4: And what I mean by zooming in. If we like look at, for example, which positions to draft in the first and second ram, well, in the first two years of Best ball Mania, it would have said draft running back, running back starts. And if we applied that for bestball Mania three, in Best Balmania four, then we would have lost a lot of money because the wide receiver teams then became the teams to draft in the early rounds. So if you're just trying to zoom in on which players to draft in the rounds one and two, that's where I think the small sample size, that's where I think the noise is. But if I say you should draft five or six running backs by the eighteenth round, I think all of a sudden, that sample size is growing there. And the other kind of example that I keep using is if you zoom in on the should I draft an elite tight end over the last four years, what you're zooming too far in on is Travis Kelce good or not? And rather than like, how is this position gonna be evolved once Travis Kelce is out of the prime of his career. Same thing with some of the other elite tight ends. So I want to kind of like walk this line of how like, obviously zooming in is it helpful for finding the exact strategy, But if we zoom in too close on a small sample size, you're going to be led astray way too often.

00:36:06
Speaker 1: I've kind of felt like I haven't dug into like player win rate stuff very much because this is the first year that I'm like really really digging into best ball data and talking to people like yourself, who's very very good and into this kind of stuff. But like, I feel similarly to player win rate data, where you know a lot of people say, oh, well, this player last year, you know, wan at a sixteen percent clip or whatever, so he was better than than any other typical player in his range, et cetera. But sometimes you look at that player and I've only done it at like a high level. But sometimes you'll look at it and those players are simply dictated by ADP. It seems like where like if they're you know, last season, Christian McCaffrey, let's say goes fourth overall frequent or third overall wherever he went, and then the player in the second round, who's going, yeah, third to last in the second round, and then the three the two three turn guys, they all even if they were terrible, it didn't matter because they were all attached to Christian McCaffrey in that way. Is that sim to what you're sort of saying here.

00:37:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, you see that.

00:37:02
Speaker 4: The other example with that is, let's say the wide receiver three on a team that went off didn't perform well, but the quarterback and the wide receiver one, and everyone's stacking all of a sudden that player that wasn't even in the lineup just happened to be on the same team. So there's there's too much overlap. So I think, like, because there's only four years of data, we have to be really smart with how we're applying some.

00:37:23
Speaker 3: Of the data.

00:37:24
Speaker 4: I think if you completely said it's small samples, noise, I'm not using anything, that's going to be a problem. But for me, we really have to kind of take some of the data. But also just like does this make sense, Like as a strategy, does this make sense? And then the other thing what we're seeing and we have a question about this later on. Also what's happened with ADP, Because if I'm taking the data, where all of the running backs were drafted in rounds one and two, but now those type of players are being drafted rounds three and four now, like our strategies are completely getting warped just because the prices have changed as well. So it a fun game because I think we can kind of put some guardrails on, like the general strategies, but every single year we're gonna have to see what ADP is looking like, what the player projections are looking like, and then also not just for like the player projections in the first couple of rounds, but who's available later in the rounds, Because if I think that there's a positions loaded in rounds fourteen through eighteen, well I want to save some of the roster spots for those guys later on. So it's this whole game that we have to play, and every single year is gonna be a little bit different.

00:38:29
Speaker 1: So speaking of ADP, I feel like every year, I'm sure this is true too. Every year, wide receivers just get drafted earlier and earlier in these things. This year they're going earlier than ever. But you did within that piece to get a little bit more specific about the things you talked about. In that piece, you talked about sort of the number of wide receivers that you should have rostered through X number of rounds, which I think is really really helpful for people because it gives again, it gives them that flexibility to say, Okay, I don't need to go for wide receivers to start a draft. I could to sort of hit this mark that is generally optimal, but you know I can, I can kind of stray away. Maybe I get a running back here or a tight end here, et cetera. But can you talk about sort of what that data suggests.

00:39:11
Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is exactly what I was talking about where I'm not giving you advice what to do specifically in round two, but by round seven, that's kind of like where we start seeing some of the like the positional values just kind of like drop off, Like most of the good players are drafted by round seven. Having four to five wide receivers three round seven has been optimal or nearly optimal every single year, which is probably a pretty good thing that this is going to hold up or be generally true. So four or five receivers three round seven, and the good news about that is only forty nine percent of teams had four plus wide receivers through round seven last year. So like, in terms of just like it's easy to accomplish, I'm not saying you have to go completely wide receiver heavy four or five through round seven. You have detours for elite onesies or running backs only four or five, and most teams aren't even doing this, and this has been profitable every single year. So, like, if there's one thing to take away from this podcast, four or five wide receivers by round seven. And actually, what's happened in the last couple of years, even a six wide receiver has been profitable. That was really not the case in bestball Mania one and Best ball Mania two. And now we have these like increasing wide receiver price tags. It's going to make this a little bit more complicated. But four or five wide receivers by round seven, four to six wide receivers through round ten, which like more or less like the same kind of benchmark, and then seven or eight wide receivers through the last round. And now obviously how many players you draft at each position should change based off how early you drafted them. So there's actually some teams we're all draft only six wide receivers. If I went five wide receivers in the first sixish rounds, well there's really no point. It's not a good sign if my eighth wide receiver is in the lineup, like just basically saying I made some critical mistakes. Yeah, so this is what the diminishing returns is. Just you don't want to over invent into a single position, and so basically what happens is you kind of have these guardrails and depending on how early drafted the positions, be on the low side of it. If you kind of punted off the positions, then now that's the time to draft the eighth wide receiver.

00:41:13
Speaker 1: You know. I get the question all the time about how season long translates the best ball, right, And I actually think that the general idea here is something that is pretty transferable from the stuff that I've researched in the season long versus what you're talking about here in best ball, and that early round wide receivers are you know, like, if you can hit on an early round running back, it's the best thing that you could possibly do in fantasy football, if you really, like, if you had Christian McCaffrey last year, despite the fact where he went, how many points he was scoring, made him the MVP of Fantasy football, even even though the cost to acquire was so insane. If you can get those running backs, yes, like you need those first and foremost, at least from a from a managed league season long standpoint. But the data that I found is that in the middle rounds, you know, when you get into like that six to nine ish range in a twelve team league, those middle rounds are better suited for running back than wide receiver. Generally, like we've seen those ambiguous backfields and guys kind of emerge as like RB threes turning into low end RB ones or something like that, and so like that's what this is sort of saying, is that the wide receivers that you're you that are going to be difference makers are generally going to come earlier in your draft.

00:42:24
Speaker 3: Right?

00:42:24
Speaker 1: Is that is that? Do you think, like that's what the data is telling you, is that you can hit on later round running backs better than you can hit on later round wide receivers.

00:42:33
Speaker 3: I do think that that is true.

00:42:35
Speaker 4: And I think the bigger part is that the if you look at the Spike weeks, which is like, all right, has a wide receiver pick your kind of baseline scoring twenty half PPR points, like eighty percent of them. Of the wide receivers that are doing that on a week to week basis, they're being drafted in the top thirty six, like very rarely, like Puka, you'll get a Pukah, you'll get a tank Dell, You'll get guys I'll go on some stretches which will help.

00:42:59
Speaker 3: But the guys that.

00:43:00
Speaker 4: Are consistently putting up the top end scores are the wide receivers that are drafted early on. So that does not mean you have to have five great guys like that. You can have two, like let's say you had Justin Jefferson and then Cooper cup bounces back this year in the round three to four. Those can be your two guys that are gonna be giving me all the spike weeks and then you need the rest of the guys to kind of put up fifteen points twenty points here and there. But I do think that there is a little bit something too that like people, I think underestimate how consistently good the best wide receivers are. And that's kind of where I'm kind of leaning towards this year is maybe I don't need the sixth good.

00:43:34
Speaker 3: Wide receiver decent wide receiver.

00:43:36
Speaker 4: I think right now, with the wide receiver prices going up, I'm going to draft four decent ones. But I'm going to really bank that those guys are really good and historically the top wide receivers. If you get those guys right, those guys very rarely is it six points twenty four points. A lot of the times it's like twenty four points, fourteen points, right, twenty five points, thirteen points and guess what thirteen points fourteen points is good enough to being your best ball starting lineup. So I think that's kind of my takeaway this year. With wide street prices going up, I'm not drafting as many good ones. I still want to hit that four wide receivers through round seven, but I'm not going to draft the six wide receiver with the prices up. I probably not even draft the fifth wide receiver with the prices up. I just seem the guys that I drafted up top to really kind of hit my lineup every single time.

00:44:21
Speaker 1: Do you think, then, with these wide receiver prices the way that they are, what you just talked about at wide receiver, do you think there's any merit to sort of zigging while everyone's zagging. And what I mean by that is not a hero RB type build or anything like that where you're just getting one and then you're surrounding that player with a bunch of wide receivers. I mean, you know, like we had robust RB strategies, you know, years and years ago when we were doing like MFL tens and such. But even like the transition to underdog and people playing on underdog more and more, you still saw it, especially, you know whenever you know, four or so years ago in best ball Mania really started happening. Do you think that there's any merit to going with a robust RB approach this season because we're seeing the market shift in such a wide receiver heavy way.

00:45:05
Speaker 4: The big difference with robust RB is that back in twenty twenty, when the running backs were being drafted to early and the wide receiver prices were like more like fair, I guess uh, you had to go running back, running back, running back, and then you hit your wide receivers. Now a robust RB team is like, all right, drafted justin Jefferson. Now I have a chan I drafted Waddle and now I'm drafting Pachecko and Josh Jacobs. We're getting like three running backs, but they're kind of like rounds two, five, and six, where like that's like more just balanced, Like very rarely are you going to see a team on underdog go like running back, running back, running back starts And I would not recommend that. I think it's okay to go running back, running back, but you have to really catch up with wide receivers very quickly after that. But I am drafting three running backs three, round seven, round eight more this year than I was previously, just because in my opinion that you talk about, there's that kind of like at a certain point, like right now, round four five, it is kind of where I feel it where the wide receivers, Like it's like, man, do I like Jayden Reid, But do I really want to draft Jden Reid in the fifth round right now? When like other guys like James Cook as a Pacheco or like kind of right there next to him. I don't know if I want to be doing that. So I've been kind of finding more tie breakers at the running back spot just based off the productions. But it's not the old days where like I'm drafting a kind of fringy RB one versus an elite wide receiver one, Like everyone's drafting a wide receiver in round one, and then we get into like the harder decisions in round two right now.

00:46:32
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's the opportunity cost right Like the opportunity cost equation just shifts dramatically, and the things that I've looked at from a season long perspective historically has shown that, like it's very clean, but like RB twelve ish range. So when you're only looking within the position, that's usually where I see the drop off occur. Like just given the ADP sources that I've looked at and so like, like before the RB twelve is going, like you said in twenty twenty, I would assume end of like round two into round three, right, and then now you get Rashad White falling into the sixth at times where people are going these super wide receiver heavy and then obviously getting an elite tight end kind of approach, and it makes it a little bit easier to just go with those players, even if you did get one of those anchors earlier on. So I think, like to your point, it's not really like an extreme zig while everyone's zagging, but it's still a semi way to differentiate, you know, a little bit. You also did a lot of work at the tight end position. I've been on record. I talked about this with Kaaran last week. I've said this on the show already in the past, but I think that the way people approach tight end might end up making or breaking some seasons this season, just because you know, we've seen, like you said, was Travis Kelsey good or not this year with these with these earlier round tight end approaches, we've seen that, but this year we don't have that kind of tight end. The earliest tight end is Sam Laporto, who I think probably doesn't belong necessarily in his like own tier where he gets drafted. I feel like the Laporta thing is a little bit of a stack force type situation, you know, with a Saint Brown and like getting one of the San Francisco wide receivers. But regardless, you know, even if you like Sam Laporta tight end one in his own tier, I mean, he's still going late third into early fourth oftentimes. And so we're getting this like this, this drop and tight end, the elite tight ends and where they're going. What do you think that means for twenty twenty four and whether or not going with an elite tight end is really the way, because I know that you've talked a lot about going in the opposite direction in these drafts too. HM.

00:48:32
Speaker 4: So the reason why there's not a first or second round tight end where we've been drafting Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews at times is because those guys just aren't in the primes of their career. Like if you just did projections. They just would not project as well this year as they did previously. So to me, I don't want to say, oh, well, even the tight end one is typically the twelfth overall pick and now he's a thirtieth overall pick, so I must draft them. I think we're looking at Sam Laporta. He does not project as well as prime Travis Kelsey, prime Prime Tony Gonzalz.

00:49:03
Speaker 3: You named the player. He's a good player. He could do that.

00:49:06
Speaker 4: I'm not ruling that out, but it's not as bankable as the prime guy. So I don't think that's like the way I want to look at this. I want to like really stick with the player projections for this upcoming season because it goes back to the first question, is there is no historical data telling me is an elite onesie player good or not? Because the sample size literally is just is Travis Kelsey the Mark Andrew's good or are they bad?

00:49:25
Speaker 3: And that varies.

00:49:26
Speaker 4: Depending on the season just because it's such a small sample. So what's actually happened is the rest of the elite tight ends, like let's say tight end four, tight End five, Tighten six, those guys are actually up a full round and I think it's just because the wide the wide receivers are up, the elite tight ends are up, and the running backs are down, like not exaggerating, like two full rounds from where they were two years ago. It's like that the running back twenty two is now being drafted two full rounds versus where they were just two years ago. So that means that the tight ends are getting pushed up. So like a player like Dalton Can, who could end up being Sam Laporta of this last season, something like that, he's now being drafted to me, like pretty close to where his ceiling more or less is, and like this like kind of we're extending the definition of elite tight end. Kyle Pitts is one, George Kittle's one. Typically the tight end four, five, six, seven are not being drafted as early as they are now, So it's kind of weird dynamic of I don't even know who's an elite tight end anymore, Like it doesn't feel like anybody truly is to me, But the running back price is right next to these tight ends. A lot of the time, I'm kind of clicking them instead, like I want Isaiah Pacheco instead of the Sam Laporta or that I do like Mark Andrews who goes way later.

00:50:39
Speaker 3: But I don't think.

00:50:41
Speaker 4: That there's like a true elite tight end right now, which is fine, it's hard to be prime Travis Kelcey, But I don't think that's an excuse to say I'm drafted Sam Laporta in round three, like you said.

00:50:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting because the research that I've done historically has shown that like middle round tight ends, if you would call it that, like the guys who are draft like after a tight end three usually you know, in that like tight end four to tight end ten range, those guys have been historically horrific bets of fantasy football. Like yes, like like every data point has shown because that's like where like for instance, like like even like Greg Olsen when he would step in and be that dude, and but he was more of a floor play than a ceiling play for years, you know, Like that's the problem that you often run into. I think that we're in a position now, and maybe you disagree with this, We're in a position now where I think maybe one or two of those guys have will will end up emerging and being like giving you some sort of like like like favorable win rate or something like that, right, like like whether it's McBride and Kelsey or whether it's Andrews. Like I like Andrews a lot too, But then I do think that you could run into like a kincaid or if things go south with Pitts. I'm not saying that I think that's the way things are gonna go, but like they could end up sinking your team, like it could be a because the opportunity cost is still fairly significant in that range, And so would you agree that the darts to throw would still be those guys versus So maybe my question should be this, would you go with a throw a dart at one of those guys or just wait, wait, wait and get three of them late, like like like fairly late or like to me, I now picture like the middle tight ends as like the Fergusons of the world, you know what I mean, like the like is he really gonna win you a league? Probably not. He's literally just sitting there because of stacks, you.

00:52:28
Speaker 3: Know what I mean.

00:52:29
Speaker 4: So like door Chidney, costs is way down. I round like a lot, but it really is. Yeah, So last year I was only late round tight end and like what I mean late round tight end, I wasn't mean like round fourteen, seventeen, and eighteen, Like those are my three tight ends because this is the position that has the most week to week volatility. It's the position that is most tied to touchdowns, which we are extremely bad at predicting. And we don't need a floor in basketball. We're only taking your best guy or best player of that position every single week. So I would just say I have three late round tight ends. Hopefully one of them scores a touchdown this week, and if they don't, that's all right, because it's also the position that separates the least, like an elite running back and elite wide receiver are completely lapping the flex position versus like even when Travis Kelce, like sometimes he goes for thirty five, that's insane, But a lot of the Travis Kelceys, like Spike weeks are like twenty two points, which are still only like above replacement fourteen points. Like a really good justin Jefferson week is like thirty seven points, and the wide receiver thirty six on that week is still scoring like ten points. It's like it's a larger gap. But last year was just the perfect sweet spot. We had so many young tight ends in there to me, Mark Andrews, Travis Kelce, those type of guys. George Kittle, I was less scared about, just because they're kind of going like this on a per game basis right now. They're missing more time, those type of things, and there's also like more target competition and other reasons why. But we had, like Sam Laporte, I thought Luke Musgrave had a chance. Jake Ferguson was going the last round basically for a while there in the early parts of Best Ball Mania. Attach to Dak Prescott. So last year was lights out. This year I'm struggling compared to last year to find late round titands. So what I'm doing is like what you said, Jake Ferguson, you're my tight end one, and then in the last two rounds, I'm still drafting a tight end. And that's part of the conversation is even though the late round tight ends don't project very well, the really late round running backs, the really late round wide receivers, they project even worse. Like we right now, early on it's May twenty eighth, right now, we don't have the answers of NFL team's RB twos. We don't have the answers who's going to be out there in three wide receiver sets. We need training camp reports kind of solidify that. So right now I want the guy that I know is just going to be on the field that tight end and pick me up some points in round sixteen, seventeen eighteen, and then late later on in August, when I have a more crystal clear picture who's actually the RB two, who's actually the wide receiver three, then the tight ends and the running back prices are the projected points kind of even out. So for right now, I am drafting like two late round time tight ends, but this year instead of like my first high end being in round fourteen, now it's probably David and Joku a following Mark Andrew's maybe a stacked version of one of the elite tight ends, but typically it's like Jake Ferguson or Pat Firemouth plus like two absolute scrubs.

00:55:17
Speaker 1: Friarmuth to me, seems like one of the best bargains at tight end, Like he's the one where if I don't get a tight end early and I'm not able to get like in that in Djoku range or something like that, just like have some stability. It's like, I'm like, I feel like friar Mouth could easily just finish in that same tier as those guys, you know what you're talking about. The thing that I keep thinking about is like it's almost a psychological problem, where like when you go with three late round tight ends on paper, they suck right Like on paper, it feels so uncomfortable, But you have to keep in mind what you're saying in that the range that you really need, like like the ceiling that these tight ends need to hit in a given week is not very high. It's not super super significant, and so even if they do bust in a given week, you're not dead, right, Whereas if that happens at other positions, you are kind of dead because there's a lot bigger of a gap there and more points you'd be hypothetically giving up. So it makes makes a lot of sense. Do you ever do you ever go with four tight ends in these things? Or are you are you strictly a three tight end guy?

00:56:14
Speaker 4: So historically two and three tight end teams have been like optimal, And it really just depends how arely drafting your first guy et cetera. Four tight end teams have been pretty close to that, but I would have to like really look at it. I'm sure that's like okay, rounds fifteen, sixteen, seventeen eighteen, it was like the last four, and you do need one of those guys to break out most likely. Now, we have had some random breakouts, like Darren Waller at one point was a late round pick and then he finished what top five ye on the year.

00:56:42
Speaker 3: Jake Ferguson was this close to.

00:56:45
Speaker 4: Being like a top four or five tight end if you had got a little bit luckier in the touchdown department. So we do get some like random breakouts sometimes as well. But I do think this year just doesn't look as good. Yeah, just because we have like five tight ends last year that we're gonna get on the field immediately, and we only needed one or two of them.

00:57:05
Speaker 3: To break out, and that's exactly what we had.

00:57:07
Speaker 1: Let's start quarterback. Are you an advocate in these things of a late round quarterback strategy or are you an elite guy? And then kind of just get some secondary quarterback that no one really cares about as the QB too.

00:57:21
Speaker 4: I want an elite quarterback we're very good at projecting the elite quarterbacks. And also, you absolutely tanked the late round quarterback strategy because we can't buy a guy that can use his legs pass round eight now, so you kind of ruined that for us. But yeah, it's fine. I like Anthy Richardson, Jalen Hurts, Josh Allen. I've been a big proponent of elite quarterbacks. We're pretty dang good at projecting those guys versus some of the other positions. And then the other thing. I have this metric Fantasy points over replacement, like using the best balls scoring format on an underdog. In every single year, the quarterbacks rank higher than where they are in ADP every single year by a full round or two. So I'm not sure if we fully grasp like how much half PPR helps out the quarterbacks because there's just less points going over to tight ends, running backs and wide receivers. Quarterbacks don't catch passes obviously, so they're a little bit more valuable in half PPR than in full PPR. I maybe that's the reason why they're not getting drafted as high. But like I want Anthony Richardson, I want Kyler Murray, I want the guys that could use their legs and also play on like fast paced offenses, have good wide receivers, etc.

00:58:35
Speaker 3: Like that.

00:58:36
Speaker 4: So typically I have eight elite quarterback then it's based off the stack, like the other positions I need. If I'm going to go two quarterbacks or three quarterbacks, when I'm gonna draft that second and third quarterback. But very rarely am I going like, all right, it's justin Herbert this year, who's like quarterback sixteen? And then like Drake Mae and bow next, like that team is not enough just because we've gone so good at like who the top twelve quarterbacks are going to be every year?

00:59:03
Speaker 1: Yeah? Look you say that it's me? Who did that? I say it's Lamar Jackson. I think things really switched when when Lamar had his MVP season and he was a late round quarterback, you know, like QB twelve or so with an ADP. That following year was when people really started to shift their focus to mobile quarterbacks more. I've written about that for years, and I actually remember writing about it after his his MVP season being like, what's going to change? The late round quarterback strategy is literally the market, right, Like that's all this is it's not based on like anything else other than how people draft. And people started to shift their focus and realize, oh, if I get a mobile guy late, yeah I should draft that. But then obviously that just drives up costs. I think right now, the latest mobile guy seems like Jayden Daniels, like like a guy who could like potentially break fantasy. But then there's a lot of iffness to approach to a rookie quarterback and a profile like that, right So, like, I think the real line seems to be Kyler, which is why Kyler to me is like the one the quarterbacks I've just been going to so frequently because you know he's the last in his tier hypothetically, and so you can just kind of go and attack that. But it makes sense. Are you let me if you get like a Josh Allen, are you? Are you ever getting three quarterbacks in a situation like that? Or like, are you? Because I've drafted a team I'm trying to learn here, I'm trying to get better here. I've drafted teams of Josh Allen and Bryce Young and okay and said I'm gonna roll with this. Let's yeah, let's let's hope that that's enough. Do you think that's enough?

01:00:30
Speaker 4: I think it is, Like that's a totally viable strategy. I think early in the off season, because we don't have the wide receiver, three, running back.

01:00:39
Speaker 3: Two all sorted out.

01:00:40
Speaker 4: I do like the super late round quarterbacks, Like to me, Bo Nicks is going undrafted or around eighteen he's probably gonna start seventeen games. Are you sure the wide receiver you're drafting in the eighteenth round is even going to be on the field, because.

01:00:53
Speaker 3: I'm not sure. Definitely not so.

01:00:54
Speaker 4: I think at at some point early in the off season going with a third quarterback with Josh Allen, I wouldn't wreck commend it like very often, But if it's Josh Allen and then literally Bryce Young and Bo Nicks, I think that's okay. Later on the off season I might disagree with that. But the earliest you should be drafting your quarterback too, historically has been round eight to nine, which is kind of the breaking point of when the rest of these positions fall off. That was the year when I think it was Matthew Stafford and Tom Brady were kind of like the quarterback tennish right in that range around eight, nine to ten, and if you had both of those two guys, you absolutely crush in Best Ball. But usually you don't want to go Josh Allen with Anthony Ridge and that's too much draft capital. You can go Josh Allen with Jaden Daniels if you want to. At that point, you definitely have to call it quits.

01:01:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, right makes sense. And yeah, I mean, look, there's gonna be some pocket passer that has some unsustainable touchdown rate like a Brock Purty or something last year where they just come through and they are values and they end up working out. It's just a matter of playing probability and knowing that the ceiling is still coming from the guys with the with the mobility.

01:02:01
Speaker 4: What is interesting about Best Ball though, and how like we haven't talked about stacking that much. Stacking is like just as important as the roster construction all that stuff. You're not stacking, you're definitely behind the eight ball.

01:02:12
Speaker 3: In best Ball.

01:02:13
Speaker 4: If you can find the pocket quarterback that has outlier season, now you're dragging up more players like the dual threat quarterbacks. You're only dragging up one player like Anthony Richardson. If you missed out on Michael Pittman, and you just want to draft Ady Mitchell or Joshdowns to pick your poison. There, you don't have to draft three of them. Well, right now, Matthew Stafford. If you went Cooper cup and to Marcus Robinson and Kolby Parkinson and Matthew Stafford turns into the forty quarter or forty touchdown quarterback, well, all of a sudden, now you've raised three or four of the players that you drafted to. So it's like kind of this catch twenty two where in redraft you just want the dual threat guide no matter what. In besketball, and the perfect team was the Tom Brady year back with Tampa Bay where he brought up Gronk ab Ever, Chris Goddon, everybody was going crazy just because you went an outlier touchdowns season.

01:03:01
Speaker 3: It's just harder to reject.

01:03:02
Speaker 1: That's very interesting. That's a very very good point. I remember Mike Leoni to a study on stacking in season long, like maybe like five years ago, and I always would reference it because it was just this idea of like like you shouldn't necessarily do it, like from a season long perspective, the benefit in doing it isn't necessarily the weekly output. It is obviously from the from a standpoint in best ball, like, you want that ceiling, and you do in season long you still want the ceiling. But there's this other benefit that's arguably just as good. Is that if that quarterback ends up going off and having a crazy season, he's bringing, as you're saying, bringing the rest of his pass catchers up with him. I think one example is like when Alex Smith had a big season before, like the Patrick Mahomes takeover and stuff, It's like, yeah, the other guys in that offense all outperformed ADP because Alex Smith did. That's that's how important the quarterback position is. So one topic that that does get brought up a lot is how far to stray away from average draft position. I know that you've done work on this for years and sort of looking at like like, you know, if a guy's getting drafted fiftieth overall on average and you end up taking him fortieth overall, you know, is that a suboptimal thing? Or are you differentiating properly?

01:04:10
Speaker 3: Is it?

01:04:10
Speaker 1: Like at what costs? Like, like, does it matter if you're reaching for guys frequently? Or should we should we do that or should we really stick to the ADP plan.

01:04:22
Speaker 4: Unfortunately, it's very bad. I want to go full yolo. It's fun to do it if you have one team on best ball and you want to let it rip, go for it.

01:04:31
Speaker 3: But the data is very.

01:04:33
Speaker 4: Clear, like the more you reach, the wors your team is, and it's like staggering. In fact, the teams that on average draft their players after ADP are the best teams just straight up. If you just every single time just took the best player available more or less and made sure you're stacking and got the roster construction. But if you took the guy that slid fourteen spots after ADP, I mean historically that has just been a lights out pick.

01:04:57
Speaker 3: So there are times when you can reach.

01:05:00
Speaker 4: We can kind of get to those if we want to, for like kind of like owner ownership overlap and at goal. Yeah, there's there's some ways to do that. So like in the second round. What in the first second round, like let's say you pick you have like the tenth spot, the player that when we talked about with the CMC example earlier in the show, the tenth overall player in the fourteenth overall player and adp are drafted on the same teams all the time, especially if they're the same position. Because if you're if you're a heavy wide receiver guy and you have the tenth pick, or you're drafting AJ Brown every single time, and then every single time you're also drafting Drake London. If you want to switch things up, what I like to do is in the early second round, reach for somebody that's on the other side of the draft board. So instead of drafting Drake London fourteenth overall, let's go over to to twenty second overall and draft Devon Chien because very rarely you're going to get a player Ad Brown and Devon h Haan on the same team because they're on the opposite sides of the board. Now, this strategy is more benefit once we get August, because we've seen ninety percent of the basketball teams have been drafted. Now I know for sure that this is going to be a very unique build. So there's some reasons why in the early round two I like to reach, especially because round two this year it feels like nobody should be a.

01:06:15
Speaker 3: Second round pick.

01:06:15
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're all round pick, yes, Like you can't make a good argument that this player should be in the second round for any of these guys, So to me, just draft whoever, and I would rather just take the smaller ownership overlap between the rounds one, round two, and then the second time I like to reach is when I'm on the clock in the one seventies and one eighties and then the one nineties, So call it round fifteen through seventeen. Well, what happens is once you get to about like one hundred and eighty fifth overall and ADP, all of a sudden, those players aren't drafted one hundred percent of the time. If you draft somebody with an ADP of two twelve, they're being drafted fifteen percent of the time. Well, historically, those guys aren't that much worse of a bet than the guys with an ADP of one to eighty. So you're basically saying these guys are projected for the same but one of the players is drafted one hundred percent of the time and the other guy is projected twenty percent of the time.

01:07:09
Speaker 3: Well, of course you want to take the.

01:07:11
Speaker 4: Ownership advantage, just like we do with dfs, So I often take a player two hundredth and ADP with my one hundred and seventy third overall pick.

01:07:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, is there is there like a sweet spot, Like I'm assuming you can go too far on the ADP list and if you get past like two fifty, it's like this guy is just dead to begin with.

01:07:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, so uh, it's just based off like how ADP is calculated. They're not drafted. They they don't get like a two fifty ADP. They're still just like it's na you get drafted to sixteen. So like the players that have an ADP of two fifteen point something, which means they're drafted one percent of the time five percent of the time, those guys suck.

01:07:53
Speaker 3: Always.

01:07:54
Speaker 4: If you think that you got this guy right, guess what you didn't. Yeah, they're gonna be bad. So kind of my rule is if it's a two fourteen ADP, okay, like if you have a chance there. If it's a two fifteen point three, guess what, it's not time to go there. So yeah, the sweet spot to me is like a tight end that has an ADP of two twelve. All right, I'm on a clock with one hundred and eightieth overall instead of drafting the guy that's being drafted on hundred percent of the time, give me the guy with a two twelve ADP and you're that's just based off the drafted rate.

01:08:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's it's nice to hear that though, too, because towards the end of your draft, like rounds fifteen, round sixteen, you're often in this place where you're like, oh, man, I got to like complete this stack or I got to find something to say, and if you reach a little bit there, you're saying that mathematically, it's not that big of a deal. But also from a roster construction standpoint, it's a good idea to do it too, because you obviously want the stacks and such. So that's that's definitely good to hear.

01:08:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, real quick, Yeah, real quick.

01:08:51
Speaker 4: I have seen people say like, oh, double digits round like it's one hundred and twentieth overall ADP, doesn't matter, I'm reaching no matter what, Like that's still too really for me. We got to get deeper into the draft. I'm talking about round let's say round fifteen to be a little lenient. But I see people like, oh, it's like one hundred and overall, Like I'm just gonna grab my guys, Like, no, that's too early.

01:09:09
Speaker 3: You think you're smarter than you are.

01:09:11
Speaker 4: And the other thing is fifty percent of the time you're going to be able to get the guy that.

01:09:15
Speaker 3: You like after his ADP ADP.

01:09:18
Speaker 4: If you look at the histogram of it, it's just like, all right, half the time it's early and then half the time it's late. So you can still get your guys sometimes after ADP, which I mean, that's the way to do it. So typically I'm not reaching on guys four picks ahead of ADP's fine, but like if you're constantly doing that, then that's bad.

01:09:38
Speaker 1: It's really good to know, all right, last question for you, if you could choose the best value right now just in drafts at each position, give me the four guys that you would be choosing.

01:09:47
Speaker 4: I love Isaiah Pacheco and I don't even like Isaiah Pachecko for running backs, Like in particular, I thought like coming in he was pretty pretty raw, and over the last couple of years he just earned more trust and there's just like nobody else, like there's no Jerick McKinnon to steal passing work, and what we saw last year, including the Super Bowl run, he was on the field a ton and he was catching passes all of a sudden, and this team is going.

01:10:13
Speaker 3: To be so good.

01:10:14
Speaker 4: I think there's the Chiefs are gonna score way more points just because they can throw the ball downfield, and that's going to open things up. But I do think that people are sleeping on like what Isaiah Pacheco could be, Like he can be a twenty touch guy per game on the best offense in the league. Like typically that's not a fourth or fifth round pick, and that's where he's going right now. So that's kind of like one of the detours we're talking about, Like, all right, I need to have four wide receivers. I only get so many detours in the first seven rounds. Like Isaiah Pacheck's going to be one of my detays. I know that you are a Pacheco guy, like coming out from the job, and he's gotten better, like just based on the tape last couple of years.

01:10:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, look, he's far better than I ever thought that he was going to be. It was more so just a market game for me, where like things just really aligned from a prospect score and his cop one of his comps with Damian Williams for me, and like it all just kind of came together to formulate, like, yeah, let's draft him relentless in the fourth round of rookie drafts. I didn't think this was gonna happen, but yeah, I mean it's it's a good it's a good call. I've I've loved Pachecko as well. You know, in these early drafts. The only thing that scared me is I did a last week, did an episode on my prospect model and how we can maybe leverage prospect scores for redraft purposes instead of just dynasty purposes. And players who had poor prospect scores regardless of their age that were then drafted in the top twenty four at running back had really really bad hit rates. They didn't exceed ADP expectation at a very good rate. But I'm okay with saying that, Like, I think Pachecko's just mispressed. I think that's more of like a Kyrien Williams thing potentially, as opposed to like a Pachecko thing, just because I do think objectively, Pachecko's situation just is totally different than what you're looking at in a typical guy who has the low prospects. It was really fragile you know that that's really why that data says what it does. But I've written Pacheco up as a player to target as well, so.

01:11:57
Speaker 3: I'm very yeah.

01:11:59
Speaker 4: I mean just ins by the Chiefs, like just right right wide receiver. I love George Pickens. He's kind of like in that same kind of range. And if I've had a detour early on at running back, this is I need to draft one of these guys that actually has a ceiling, and to me, George Pickens has that ceiling. Now, the Steelers are not going to be good on offense, but the good news is there's nobody else to throw the ball to. We like Pat Fryermith on the show, but like Pat Fryemouth hasn't shown like that crazy of an ability yet.

01:12:25
Speaker 3: So like, if George Pickens is as good as what I think.

01:12:27
Speaker 4: He can be and coming in as a prospect, I know the numbers weren't weren't very very great, but there was definitely a huge ceiling to attach and I think that this offense is gonna be perfect, very much better in best Ball just because you used down the field all the time. But I think that George Pickens, like if we refresh next year, and he's the wide receiver twelve and ADP that would not be totally shocking. I think a lot of the players that are kind of drafted around them have more or less been like kind of solved, Like we know what Christian Kirk and those type of guys are going to provide you. George Pickens at least has a chance to like boom. He's like all of a sudden eighty yards per game type of guy, and already last year, like I know, it was a couple of big plays, but he already had sixty seven yards per game, fifty seventh overall player, and Fantasy points over a placement per game. And that was with Deantay Johnson and that was with probably a worst quarterback situation that we're getting this year. So a young player going to his third season, So I think that he's going to be one of the better wide receiver picks.

01:13:20
Speaker 1: I love that call. The other thing too, is that you know, you mentioned that the Steelers are likely going to be a bad offense, but seems like that's just a general market accepted idea, right where what if they're actually a little bit better. I mean, Arthur Smith had some success in Tennessee running an offense, and you know, I think that you could at least look at this more favorably, Like if the way I always think about it is if you put this player in a good situation, like if George Pickens with this type of target shair projection, we're in a better just a good situation with a very stable, good quarterback. He'd easily be in that second round, like like he'd be in that discussion at least, you know, as like the next like why would he be so totally different than like a Drake London or something, you know what I mean?

01:14:03
Speaker 3: Completely agree?

01:14:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I like that call out for quarterbacks.

01:14:07
Speaker 3: I'll give two.

01:14:09
Speaker 4: Anthony Richins is my favorite elite quarterback and like he used to be in the seventh or eight round pick we have to pay like a legit fifth round pick for him. But he was number one in fantasy points per drop back last year. I thought he was a better player than most people thought coming out as a college guy. Just talking about like playing NFL football, like not even the fantasy version that we're playing. We've seen San Steichen make things work with Gardner Minshew, who I do not think is a good quarterback.

01:14:34
Speaker 3: They also play with pace.

01:14:35
Speaker 4: They've also added a field stretcher and Ady Mitchell, who I think is gonna be very inconsistent, but he at least hasn't some upside in ways that I don't think that Alec Pearce has. So Anthony Richards is my favorite, like elite quarterback. And then for like the talking about like, uh oh, I need a second quarterback or I just need a stacking partner. Gino Smith to me is an a tight spot. Well, we've seen Geno Smith be like a fringe quarterback. One yeah, man all Red and Ryan Grubb. Go watch a Husky game. All they do is they passed the ball on every single early down. And not only are they passing it, they're passing it twenty yards down field constantly. Well, guess what not a bad strategy when you have dk Metcalf, Tyler Lockett. And then I went back and rewatched. JSN wasn't blowing me away athletically, but his ball tracking ability downfield was to me one of his best traits as a rookie, and they just didn't do that enough with Shane Waldron. If we can get JSN working downfield, just to take care of that kind of trait that I saw on tape, all of a sudden, Genasmith can be just ripping the ball up and down the yard. And I also think that the coaching staff that they have are there, it's gonna be pretty modern. Like I know, it's a defensive minded head coach, but it comes from the Ravens. He's a young guy. I think they're gonna be a little bit more modern and not like the classic Pete Carroll slow paced, kind of more balanced offense. I would not be surprised if this immediately turns into like the top ten team in neutral pass rate and then on top of that the eight dot.

01:15:56
Speaker 3: It's gonna be really high.

01:15:57
Speaker 1: Dude, I love hearing this. I felt like Seattle. I mean, maybe not metcalf as much just because he goes probably where he generally should probably go, but like you know, JSN where he goes. I did again going back to the prospects score stuff like the wide receiver stuff that I did that that dropped on Tuesday. That stuff pointed to JSN actually being a pretty good value where he's going right now. I think the running backs are good values right now, like Sharbona, for instance, is being drafted at his projection right, like, like when you have the contingent upside on top of that, it just seems like it's a smash. And then Geno being QB twenty three, there's there are there are ways to get exposure to that offense throughout your draft. You know, you might not be able to stack them late because it's like no offense, and you know they have their three wide receivers and that's probably the three wide receivers that are gonna see, you know, the most target chair in their offenses. But like, man, I feel like Seattle just in general is an undervalued offense right now.

01:16:50
Speaker 4: I think Geno Smith's such a value versus where his projection is that I'm okay if you want to draft Geno Smith without one of the top three wide receivers and you're just like, this is just purely based off of I just need points. I'm okay with that. You don't have to stack every single quarterback every single time. Obviously it's better. But if it's Gina Smith or some other quarterback that we didn't feel less confident about, just draft Geno Smith, like this guy can absolutely put it on him. And also number one and completion percentage over expected since twenty twenty one.

01:17:17
Speaker 3: Like he's actually good. So moving on to the tight ends.

01:17:22
Speaker 4: No offense my most drafted tight end just because like I just need a tight end usually, and I have a lot of Geno Smith and it just makes too much sense. But early guys, I like Jake Ferguson last year, second in this tackles force six and yards after the catch per reception, seventh in targets, eighth and yards ninth in reception. Sounds like a tight end one. Well, he scored negative four touchdowns over expected, and then guess what happens immediately if we go to the NFL playoffs. Immediately what happens in the NFL playoffs three touchdowns?

01:17:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't work.

01:17:52
Speaker 4: There's a regression right there. And I've also kind of noticed players that do well in the NFL playoffs. Like everyone just takes the regular season data and like that's the data that existed.

01:18:03
Speaker 3: Well, the NFL.

01:18:04
Speaker 4: Playoff data is usually pretty important, So I like to kind of use that kind of average everything out. So I think Jake Ferguson's a good option. They're going to pass the ball a ton still and then Colby Parkinson is my deep, deep, deep deep sleeper. We're getting close to the two point two fifteen point three ADP here. He's still in the two fourteen range, but he got two years fifteen million dollars practically guaranteed. He's a great stacking partner with Matthew Stafford. I drafted him to Marcus Robinson, so he's kind of like a backdoor stack with the Rams. And Colby park is a huge target, was fairly productive at Stanford, was always in a rotation with Will Disley and Noah Fan but he gave him a starter level money and I've seen Matthew Stafford obviously have three touchdown games. I think Colby Parkins's like six seven, so a couple of those go to him. That's all we need, all.

01:18:54
Speaker 1: Right, So we need to draft Colby Parkinson so that his ADP goes goes well above that two fifteen mark week you feel confident about him throughout the summer. Hayden, that was awesome, man. I think everyone's going to really love hearing all that that amazing information that you just shared. Let everyone know where they can find you.

01:19:11
Speaker 4: On Hayden Winks on Twitter. And then Josh Norris and I. We have the Underdog Football Show. You can find our stuff over on YouTube there. So we're doing some bestball stuff. Some player takes stuff, so not everything super in the details like this. Sometimes we just say this player is good, so we kind of try to balance that that stuff out as well. So yeah, thanks for having me. Always appreciate it and also your stuff, the best ball stuff. It's been so cool to see you flip the switch and talk basketball.

01:19:37
Speaker 1: We love da Yeah, yeah, man, I appreciate that. It's been It's been a blast learning so far and trying to get better at this game. As usual. You can find me on Twitter at Late Round QB. All my stuff over on lateround dot com. Make sure that you go and you pre order the Draft Guide, which you can find over on lateround dot com. But if you don't want to just pre order it, you can always sign up over at Underdog, make a deposit, use promo code Late Round, and with that you'll get a deposit offer and a free Late Round Draft Guy which will hit your email inbox on July first when that thing drops. But on behalf of Hayden and myself. Thanks for tuning in