Becoming a Best Ball Bro: Embrace the Chaos?

00:00:00
Speaker 1: JJ NFL training camps are opening.

00:00:03
Speaker 2: Players are returning in the best shape of their life. When was the last time you were in the best shape of your life?

00:00:10
Speaker 3: I mean, look, if we're talking like age adjusted, I feel pretty good right now, like the last couple of years. You know, all that field is in age adjusted wise that shape my life. I don't know, probably like college or something like that, when I was running a lot more and I could, you know, do a five k in a pretty decent time. What about you?

00:00:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, It's it's rough over here in these parts. I'll be honest. I haven't touched a weight since Keenan Allen was a freshman account.

00:00:33
Speaker 3: I'm JJ and last year I tried my hardest to become a best ball bro I drafted over five hundred teams. I talked to some of the most successful best ball players in existence, and I admittedly had mixed results. So this year I'm going to chase that title once again. My plan is a Max Center DraftKings millionaire maker, and I'm going to document all of it while talking to the brightest best ball minds on the planet. Last year I didn't quite get there, But this year this is going to be the year where I officially become a Best Ball bro. This episode is sponsored by DraftKings. There's no better way to lock in your fantasy dominance early than with Best Ball on DraftKings, where you draft once and ride your roster all season long. And right now, Draftings giving all customers I can't miss offer draft one debt one, enter a lineup in the fifteen million dollars Best Ball contest for just twenty dollars, and you'll score another Best Ball ticket to play free for a share of that fifteen million, giving you a second shot to win big. It's easy. Just draft your dream team once, no weekly management required, and let your top scorers automatically start each week across the whole season. Every breakout star, every clutch play, every touchdown will count towards your quest for a share of fifteen million dollars. I'm drafting over there all the time. It's an absolute blast. So down with the Draftings daily Fantasy app now to draft a twenty dollars Best Ball lineup to play for a share of fifteen million dollars, and get a second ticket to play free for a share of that fifteen million. That's two chances to win big. Without ever setting your lineup again. Draft one get one only on DraftKings. The Crown is yours. Gambling problem called one hundred gambler In New York call eight seven seven eight Hope end y or text hope n y to four six seven three six nine and Connecticut help is available for problem gambling call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org eighteen plus and most eligible states, but age varies by jurisdiction. Eligibility restrictions apply. Voidware prohibited. One per customer enter the Best Ball fifteen million dollars Headliner contest by nine four to twenty five to get one bonus entry twenty dollars entry for you. Required reward expires in thirty days. See terms at draftings dot com. Slash NFL dash Best Dashball sponsored by dk now Back to the show. Welcome into another episode of becoming a Best Ball bro I'm jj zacharieson, joined as always by Rich Ryan Rich. What's going on, Buddy.

00:03:07
Speaker 2: Doing great man? Hope Springs, Eternal camps are in session, guys are running around in shorts. Xavier Worthy calling a bomb Earlier today from Patrick Mahomes. I'm all the way back.

00:03:18
Speaker 3: Maybe did you did you see the the viral tweet of Dak Prescott throwing a deep ball and everyone assuming that it was a George Pickens catch. It was the first play of training camp, right, that's that's this is what the video claimed. And it was a troll job, right. It was actually Brandon Cooks from last year, and they ran in on ESPN as George Pickens.

00:03:42
Speaker 1: Amazing.

00:03:44
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's it's pretty good. It's pretty good. So like that, that kind of stuff is also happening right now, which I think is hilarious. And you know, I'm sure that someone drafted George Pickens around earlier just because of that alone, even though it wasn't even him. But yeah, man, I'm I'm super pumped. This is the time of year where, you know, things really really start to ramp up. Doing a lot more drafts. I did a pros versus Joe's draft the other day. It was a best ball format. I think that came out pretty strong. I felt good about it. Been doing these milli draft streams. Going to do one right after we record this over on the YouTube channel. So if any of you are, you know, listening to this show and you're like, how is JJ applying this? I hate whenever I talked about myself in the third person like that. You know, how am I JJ applying to this? It's just easier to communicate that idea. You can check out YouTube dot com slash at Late ROUNDFF. I'm trying to live stream every day now. I know it's very sporadic because I basically do it. I'm like, oh, I have an hour of time here, so I'm just going to fire up a live stream. We still get a lot of people jumping in and having a good time.

00:04:43
Speaker 2: That's why you just you hit the subscribe button. You get the notification push notification on mobile email as well, and you can hop in there.

00:04:49
Speaker 1: It's not that hard, guys, That's right.

00:04:51
Speaker 3: That's right. So you guys can watch this show on YouTube as well. That's YouTube dot com slash at LATEROUNDFF. It's a chill vibe, like I try to just talk about whatever. We talk football. Obviously people ask questions, but then I'm also talking, like talk a lot about like nineties nostalgia stuff and video games and.

00:05:07
Speaker 2: Your Mario golf updates, your your quests for Metal Mario.

00:05:11
Speaker 1: Did you get Metal Mario yet?

00:05:13
Speaker 4: That's I have not gotten.

00:05:13
Speaker 3: Metal Mario yet. I've been grinding Mario Golf, and folks who have been watching that know that I've been grinding Mario Golf sixty four. That is Mario Golf sixty four, the the alpha of the Mario Golf franchise, Mario Golf sixty four. But we had conversations like that while drafting. It's a fun vibe, you know, forty five minute streams, hour long streams. Definitely definitely check that out. But Rich, we have news this week that we have to talk about. I have a lot to get off my chest with this news, so I'll just get into it. Rashi Rice, I was drafting him. I had nine percent Rice in the millie before this news dropped, which could have been worse, could have been way worse. Nine percent just a little bit more than you know, expected, So it's not that that big of a deal for me. But I also have seen a lot of and this is kind of a rant also, but I've seen a lot of the I don't know if it's cope, I don't know what it is, but there's a lot of takes out there with this Rashi Rice stuff. So I'll take a step back, Rashi Rice had a court date that was set for January. Okay, so generally the NFL will punish players after justice has been served. So they go through you know, all their their court stuff. I'm not a lawyer, clearly, and they go through all of it, and then the NFL says, Okay, this is what the law said, this is what your punishment is by the league. Here's how long you're suspended. And so with Rashi Rice for that incident that happened, I guess last well it was it like April or something like that, you know, like a well over a year ago. The idea was, oh, he's not going to go to court until January, so therefore he's probably not gonna be suspended again this year. It's probably gonna be more of a twenty twenty six thing. That was like it seemed like based on what lawyers were saying on Twitter, and look, no one should be throwing those guys under the bus, guys and gals under the bus. Similarly, we shouldn't be doing that with doctors on Twitter and stuff. Similarly, we shouldn't be doing it to you know, forecasters like myself, Like we're all trying to just use the information that we have and project based on probability. And for whatever reason, I think that the Twitter docs and even the lawyers in these cases are like, this is why you don't listen to them on too. It's like, no, this is a probability driven thing. You're not looking at how many things they've gotten right, right, You're you're only worried about the things that they got wrong. And so in this case, there was like it seemed like a ninety percent chance, if not better, that this suspension would be happening in twenty twenty six. And so Rashi Rice end up pleading guilty to some charge, right, And so now that moves up the timeline, so the NFL can say, oh, we're gonna suspend you this year, at the beginning of this year more than likely. And so now we're sitting here with this upcoming looming suspension for Rashi Rice, and the projected suspension at the moment is all over the place. You get some people saying two to three games, other people say it could be up to eight. I've kind of just been in the four to six range in the way that I've been projecting this. And you know, I sent a tweet out that this was a day after the Rashi Rice stuff went down. I sent a tweet out that said, I got Xavier Worthy just now because obviously there's a domino effect of Rashi Rice being sidelined. I got Xavier Worthy at five oh seven in this draft. This is a day after the rash Rice news happened, and Rashie Rice went at the same exact spot that he was being drafted before, at the two three turn. And then I was going to take Xavier Worthy in the fourth round, but I took Breese Hall. He just ended up falling, so then and then I just got Xavier Worthy in the fifth And I was met with a lot of responses. And I'm not like saying this to complain about social media. I'm saying this to get everyone in the same mindset and to sort of communicate where I'm at with the Rashi Rice stuff. A lot of the responses were the suspension is not that big of a deal for Rashi Rice because it's the beginning of the season, and in best Ball, we care so much more about the playoffs and the end of the season because if you think about it, there's three playoff weeks and if you want to section this season off into quarters, there's four quarters where you know, the first quarter in the first phase is that the long regular season, and then hopefully you can do well in your league and you move on, and then you move on, you move on, et cetera. Right, And so the idea is that you need way more upside at the end of the season than you do at the beginning, you know, in the larger chunk, because you were going to be competing against really good teams at that point in time in the playoffs. And so this idea that, like the Rashi Rice suspension doesn't matter because the playoff weeks are more important, is just completely lost on me. I think that's just horrific logic. If that's the logic you're using, then in my opinion, you should be unbelievably overweight on Chris Godwin, on Brandon Ayuk, on these talented wide receivers that are being pushed down because clearly they could miss some time due to their injury. Right, And maybe maybe those people are right, like maybe maybe that's the way that they are approaching best ball, But to me, you're still playing the market like me drafting nine percent Rashi Rice is still in L because now Rashi Rice is gonna be a fourth round pick. And if he's a fourth round pick, I think he should be like a four or five turn guy, and right now he's more of like a three fourth turn guy. But if he's going in the fourth round, I lost equity with that pick. I lost value in that pick by getting him at the end of the second round instead of the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fourth round. Right, So that's an L Right, just as I was a little bit underweight on Xavier Worthy, you know, for a lot of reasons I talked through in the in the late Round draft guide, I was underweight on Zavior Worthy, his adp rises. I actually oddly like Xavier Worthy now more than the market does. So I'm actually drafting him, but I'm drafting him at a disadvantage versus where I could have been drafting him two weeks ago. That's where I think this has really missed, is that. And this is where I think this this podcast series and me going through this journey of becoming a best ball bro has opened my eyes a lot of like these contest and we talked about it all the time. These contests that are from May until August. Right, you're playing the ADP game just as much as you are just playing the I'm drafting the right guys game, right, Like, that's so so important. I know that you have some ADP info too about like some of the movement and what's been going on over the last week. But that's my general take on the Rashi Rice and I like Xavier Worthy more because obviously we get more of a boost from him at the beginning of the season. But I think there's not enough discussion about like and look, I'm I have a lot of like I think there are red flags of Xavier Worthies like profile and what this could look like, a lot of variance to what this could look like in twenty twenty five. But at the same time, I also recognized he was a good prospect. He's a second year player, and he's in an offense where they're they're going to need somebody to really step up without Rashi Rice there, and if he does establish himself, that could have a good effect on Xavier Worthy himself through the end of the season, through the you know, just based on the first six games of the year, so like, this isn't just a oh yeah, you know, it's just six games where Xavier Worthy might see a bump into share and he's not the same kind of players Rashi Rice anyway, so who cares and blah blah blah blah blah. To me, this is a what if this offense really really starts to thrive with Xavier Worthy in a certain role and that role is then sticky when when Rashie Rice does come back, I think that's a very real possibility.

00:12:15
Speaker 2: Then you got to get into football shape and get back into the acumen of playing pro football. So I mean, the longer the suspension is, the more troublesome. It tends to be adp daty you reference teed up Rashi Rice. I mean, this is what you're saying. The market has spoken. He's down sixteen point six spots week over week sixteen in the month of July, and that's the entire market telling us that he should be drafted at least around and a half or close to around and a half past what he was being drafted prior to this plea deal that he made. And I'm anecdotally I'm with you. I'm not seeing this in reality. This is saying he's an early fourth round player. I'm still seeing him again anecdotally get draft that in in the third round, mid to late third round.

00:13:03
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:13:03
Speaker 2: So obviously platform wide it's happening more frequently than in the drafts that you and I are doing. But the markets has spoken on this thing. And I love the point that you brought up about those other injured players. If we are throwing caution to the wind at the beginning of the season, then it's a fair strategy to have if you are being consistent with those other players coming off of injury and entering the season with an injury.

00:13:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, and look, I understand that the response that could be like, oh, that's injury versus suspension. Well, number one Rashid Rice is also banged up, but he seemingly has been one hundred percent since like May so even like my point is is that if you're not worried about the games missed, and if you think that Godwin and Ayuk will be fine when they come back, which you know you might be sitting there saying no, but I would argue even if they aren't a hundred, even if you get ninety percent Chris Godwin when he comes back he's still a value if you're not discounting the games that he's going to miss at the start of the season, Like, if that doesn't matter to you, then you should be drafting the guys who are going to miss some time. I'm just going by that logic of like, you know what's going on with Rashid Rice right now, to your point about what we're seeing in our individual drafts. The one thing I've noticed with DraftKings the way they do their adp it is a lot more reactive than other platforms, and that like I think they the way their calculation must work is that they're look, they are weighing most recent drafts a lot more, and so that allows for the This is just I haven't This is just me speaking and not having like talk to them or like really dug into it. This is just what I seem to see. But it seems like they will weigh more recent drafts more than other platforms will, and then therefore those guys will fall a lot quicker. Like another example of that was Ricky Piersall this past week. So Ricky Piersaw, you know, by the time you listen to this, he might be off the pup list. But Ricky Piersall's place was on the pup list because of an injury that he had sustained over the off season. That was kind of a surprise to people, and Piersall fell in ADP like or at least in drafts that I've done, like I've gotten him around and a half after he typically got like pretty consistently. So like, I do think that DraftKings ADP is a lot more reactive, which is not a bad thing, but I think that that's important and us saying that anecdotally, you know, we're seeing Rashi Rice still go in the third or I still have done drafts where he's going at the two to three turn, you know, And to me, that's telling that there are a lot of people out there drafting on DraftKings that aren't super super in tune with what's going on, which means when there is news that drops for these players, it will have some sort of effect on their ADP. And that leads me to speaking about Jordan Addison, because Jordan Addison is in a similar spot where he is likely to be suspended for this DUI this season. Typically we've seen this be a three game suspension. Some others are saying that it won't be three, that it will only be two games. But regardless, let's say it's a two to three game suspension. I had a really good conversation on one of the live streams with somebody this past week who you know, he believes that Jordan Adison is still a really good value right now if he were to miss two to three games. And my point in not being overweight on ad because I don't even disagree with that take, Like I think that it's fine if you want to get Jordan Andison right now, or if you think that he's a value right now. My stance is I'm anticipating when this news drops that he is going to fall in ADP right and so if he falls inn ADP, going back to what I just talked about, I want to play the ADP game a little bit more, not only that we're into this season, into this best ball season. If Jordan Andison falls to different parts of the draft, it's a little bit different. With like middle round picks versus early round picks, you can get some more unique combos and different combos than other teams might have been getting. If he's just been going consistently at the front half because he's usually in like that, you know, late six early seven range, which means the front half of the draft is usually the ones who are taking him. If he falls half around, then all of a sudden, my Nico teams are getting and Brian Thomas teams are getting Jordan Adison, which is totally different than what the rest of the market has been doing thus far. And so the idea with Addison for me, I've drafted them a little bit, but I am waiting for this hammer to be dropped because I do think that you know, even if it's nine out of twelve teams know that Jordan Addison's gonna miss two or three games this year due to suspension, that's not enough. There's still gonna be people who are drafting them at ADP because there's going to be three or four teams per draft that just have no idea of what's going on, which tells me that once they do know what's going on, his ADP will fall.

00:17:27
Speaker 2: And with Addison, it's already challenging enough to make Lions and Viking stacks because those top end players that are getting large reception share and high production are very hard to draft because you need to be in certain draft slots. So even getting a round of relief half round of relief and getting Jordan Addison and getting another player in that round, like you said, to help those teams elsewhere, is really helpful, because Yeah, it's just I find it terribly difficult to be making these these Lions Viking stacks.

00:17:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, and like I said, I think the example I should have gone with is Zamara Saint Brown, right, who is always a back half kind of player, sometimes will go into the second but usually a back half of the first round player, which means if Addison then falls there, you know, based on this suspension, you're gonna get a lot of value, not just on Addison himself versus where other teams were drafting him, but also in that game stack. Like, I just think we're giving the market And maybe this is wrong of me, and people are listening to this and they're disagreeing with me. Totally fine, I'm becoming a best ball berro and I'm trying to take what others have told me and apply that knowledge and that logic to the current situations. Right, So I could be totally wrong here. That's the whole point of the show, is that I'm just being transparent and walking through my process and stuff. But I just have a hard time believing that the market that especially on DK where people are doing and like I was in a draft today. I did at a live stream with Connor Allen over at four for four and we did DraftKings live stream. Someone took four tight ends in the first seven rounds of the draft, right, Like, I have a hard time thinking that the market has this full complete grasp on Jordan Addison's value with a three game suspension, you know, Like I just I have a very hard time grasping that. I also think there's a chance there's at least some chance that people have no idea this is going on, and they see a three game suspension and they're like, they take it even further than it needs to go, because we know, you know, as someone who's drafting, you know, to the point, to the to the pro Rashi Rice side, to the pro Jordan Adison's side. If the suspension is happening at the beginning of the season, that's when fewer injuries have gone down, that's when there's no bye weeks, so it's not easier a lot easier to fill that roster spot and that slot when those guys are sidelined. So oftentimes we probably shouldn't bump these guys down too too much, right, And so I am still on that side, right, I'm just saying that we need to bump them down at all, right, like it needs to be shifted. But there undoubtedly are going to be people who are like, oh, he's gonna miss three games. There's no way I'm drafting him, you know. And if that's the case, and if you get a handful of those people and they're all in the front half of the draft, then all of a sudden, Jordan Edison's ADP falls. It's not that hard for it to fall. And so that's where I'm at. I think that one thing that's keeping Addison afloat a little bit, or could keep him afloat, is that that's kind of an area of the draft where things start to suck. Like, like you're already seeing Stephan Diggs rise a lot right now based on his you know, ACL news and him being healthy. I think part of that is Number one, Yes, Stephan Diggs is good, and we like Drake May and we're really bullish on New England getting better offensively this year. But I think part of it also is like, well, who is he leap frogging and who he's leap frogging is our dead zone running backs? You know, it's like Aaron Jones and maybe Caleb Johnson or maybe maybe he's not a Isaiah p. Checko better example, Like he's leapfrogging those guys that we don't really feel that great about anyway. And so that's that's that's one reason why maybe Addison doesn't doesn't fall back too too much, but I do expect some movement with him.

00:20:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say back to back right there too, late round specials and Stefan Diggs and Travis Kelce in that range, Yeah, that's very much a yuck range where it's like, do any of these guys support any of the stacks that I'm going for? Please God, because yeah, right, don't want any reason to click these guys.

00:21:12
Speaker 3: And I think that's all that. I think that's reason why I've kind of gravitated towards quarterbacks in like round nine, because even if even if they're unstacked, because there's just not much going on at running back and wide receiver after a certain range like I like, you know, if I can get to Mecca Guka, great, If I can get Darnell Mooney, great, you know, but there's just a lot of guys there that I feel like I can get their production in round thirteen and so I'm not going to reach for those kinds of players.

00:21:37
Speaker 2: I was this close to selecting three quarterbacks in Earl the other day in eight nine and ten. Yeah, it would have been a master class, but unfortunately Trev Tilaw went a couple of picks for me. I already had Travis Hunter, so I was really excited I didn't get to pull.

00:21:51
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:21:51
Speaker 3: Here, the last one that we got to talk about is punch on Judkins. So, by the way, how much has it has Addison fallen over over the last week in ADP?

00:21:58
Speaker 2: So Addison is down three and a half spots week over week, seven spots in the month of July. So there is a bit of a slide already happening. But like you said, in a more reactionary market, if there were a suspension to come down, you'd likely to see that number creator for sure.

00:22:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know. The dude I was talking to in the live stream, we made like a little side fun bet, Like I will openly, you know, say that I was wrong if he's right and whatever that kind of deal. It was fun. It was all in fun, and look, he brought some good logic to it. So I don't want to say that anyone's gonna like that. I don't think that my stance is like one hundred percent correct, but I think the over under that was set was around six spots, and I smashed the over. Like, I do think that based on where we were this past week to where Addison will be post suspension, it will be over six spots. I think it'll probably be closer to a full round to twelve is my guess.

00:22:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, which would be in line with with Rashid Rice just playing guilty. Right, Rashia guy hasn't had his suspension handed down either, and it's already in that six to seven spat round range.

00:23:02
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think a lot of people. I think a lot of people feel you know, better about Rashie Rice's projection too, Like they're they're pretty bullish on Like, there's a lot of people who are like, oh, you know, people take sides on Rashi Rice versus Avier Worthy, and you get a lot of people in both camps. But again in drafts, you only need a couple of people, a couple teams to be very high on that player for that ADP to be sustained, you know. So that's something that that we have to always keep in mind. With the running backs out of Cleveland, Quinchawn Judkins still doesn't have a deal with Cleveland, still has not signed his rookie contract, and then obviously there's the off the field stuff going on, which is horrible. But now we have to react as fantasy managers and drafters and say, Okay, what's gonna go gonna go down? Now? I wasn't really drafting Judkins to begin with because I was fearful of his receiving profile. It's a full PPR site. But then on top of that, Cleveland's likely not gonna be that good of a of a of an offense of a team this year. So how many like really favorable gamescript? Was? Was Quinjown Judkins going to see here in twenty twenty five to begin with? So that was a fear that I had with Judgins. I think I drafted him once before all this went down. That's not a brag, that's just to establish where I was at with his backfield right, So in turn, I was drafting a lot of Jerome Ford. If you guys go listen to some of the older live streams, he was always like an eighteenth nineteenth round Dart for me, because the logic was, I think in a scenario where they're in a negative game script, they'll use Jerome Ford in the role that he's played historically. He's the veteran, like, that's the kind of go to two minute drill kind of running back that they would that they would deploy. There was some coach speak about Dylan Samson lining up in the slot getting receiving work. I was kind of skeptical of that because Samson was not that much of it. Like, definitely was not a plus as a passcutcher in college, right. But he is a smaller, shiftier back that I would assume a team would want to get him into space to do some work. He's also not bad between the tackles despite being a smaller running back. He was really good in short yardage situations. So I think Dylan Samson the reason why when you look at this situation now, I think people should be smashing Dylan Samson at his current adp to get as much exposure as you can, because this Judkins stuff does not look promising and it doesn't look like it's moving at a very fast pace, right, And so if Samson assumes more of that quinch on Judkins' role and you're not spending a six to seven turn pick to get Samson like you were Judkins, that's really attractive because to me, early down work is a little bit more replaceable in the NFL than like pass catching work would be. But also, you know, I do think that if they want to deploy him more as a receiver than what I projected for him coming out, then that's a coaching decision, and maybe they do do that at the end of the day. And so to me, without Judkins in the lineup, it benefits Samson more because Samson's going to just now have a legit early down role more than likely and then have some pass catching upside, whereas Jerome Ford gets a little bit of an uptick, but I think has sort of a similar role that he was going to play anyway, which was still a valuable enough role because of the negative game scripts of Cleveland was gonna see. So in my opinion, I'm still fading Judkins. I don't know if there's a price where I would draft him, because if there's a there's unfortunately a very real chance that's like a dead spot for you this year, Like we can't just assume that things are like I think that it's there's better than not chance that he plays this year, but I don't know what that really looks like, and I don't think it's necessary enough to like be aggressive like you will with Rashid Rice, who could be that like league winning player. Right There's a totally different kind of scenario. So that's why I'm not going after Judkins that much. I think Samson is really really intriguing at like that thirteenth round price tag that you can get him at right now, so I'm leaning into that. I'm still drafting Jerome Ford, but yeah, that's where I'm at with the Cleveland backfield right now.

00:26:49
Speaker 2: Judkins down twenty two spots, Samson up twenty four spots, so the market is aligned with you there. It's getting to the point where, man, if I'm not stacking the Brown Steelers game, it's really hard as someone who's going to have a finite number of shots at some of these contests like this game has the lowest total in Week seventeen at forty and a half points.

00:27:14
Speaker 3: That's right, It's.

00:27:16
Speaker 2: It's really hard for me to hover my valve over over any of these running backs and click draft.

00:27:21
Speaker 3: The other thing with with the Browns. You know I've mentioned this before, but like Jerry Judy, I'm lower than the market on in season long, and I'm even lower on Judy in best Ball than I am in season long because we don't know who to stack him with. We have no idea right now what quarterback is going to be the quarterback in the most important weeks of the season, and so it's really really different. Like we feel pretty confident, I would say about thirty to thirty one of the NFL teams out there, like who's going, even the Giants. I feel pretty confident that Jackson Dart will be starting during the playoff weeks this year. Maybe I'm wrong, you know, maybe Russ really surprises and they play really well. But you know what we feel confident that is there are like four different choices for Cleveland right now as to who their starter could be. And so when you don't have that flexibility with stacking, it should bump a dude down at least a little bit, Like if you're if you're contemplating Jacoby Myers or Jerry Judy. You know, I like Jacoby Myers just straight up more, I think. But regardless, like I'm gonna just draft Jacoby Myers, especially because it gives me another out later on in the draft with Gino Smith, you know, just to get another player to stack. So I do think that that goes a little bit unnoticed. I'm just I'm having a really hard time with the Browns. Even David and Joku, who I've loved historically have had as a player to target in the draft guide and you know, have talked him up. There's some bad trends about middle round tight ends like him who are in bad offenses. The only guy that's really smashed has been Brock Bauers, and he's generational, you know, over the last ten years. So even in JOKU, I've he's the one guy I've sprinkled in the most probably but I'm only probably out like four percent in Joku, just because this Cleveland team is just so frightening.

00:28:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, Jamis was God such a good fit for in Djoku. Just somebody is gonna hit that back foot and just throw it as hard as he can at eighty five and let him let's try to make a play. And yeah this if there's one thing that I think we talked about this previously that we're looking forward to hopefully getting some clarity on here in July with Camp's in session, is some clarity as to who the Browns quarterback will be this season.

00:29:21
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I should. I should shout out Cedric Tillman too. I've drafted a little bit of Tilman just because of price, and he gave us some ceiling games last year before he got hurt. So I do think that that Tilman's okay. I just have a really hard time with Judy at the end of the day. But anyway, let's get to our guests. Adam Levitan. You guys know him from Established the Run. Used to work at Rohtal World and DraftKings as well. So I back to back shows with a DK Prokes. We'd Kitchen on last week and now we have Levitan on this week. I really like My conversation with him is a lot of fun. Always always good to chop it up with Adam. But we talked about the benefit of softer draft rooms, which you often get with DK. There's like one or two teams just doing some wild, wild things, and I think it's only going to become.

00:30:02
Speaker 4: More and more.

00:30:03
Speaker 3: You know, we're gonna see it more and more as we get into to August, people wanting to draft. I already had some casual fantasy football playing friends message me and say what's the best platform to play best ball? And I'm like, go to DraftKings. So like, if that's the demographic that's joining, no offense to him, you know, to my buddy. But yeah, we're in good shape. But we talked about the benefit of softer draft rooms, the looming suspensions. We have more discussion about what we just talked about with Rashid Rice and Jordan Addison, and Adam talks through his process and how he sort of looks at those situations. We talked early around tight ends, his favorite stacks, lots of stuff. So, without further ado, here is the interview with mister Adam Leveton. All right, levittand DraftKings is sort of more like wild West than other platforms. Like this is my first year of like really going hard over on DraftKings. Seems like people stray away from eighty more often do you find that to be more beneficial for the ball knowers or just more tilting for the ball knowers?

00:31:08
Speaker 4: Oh, come on, dude, it's beneficial.

00:31:10
Speaker 5: I cannot take one of my most tilty experiences going on Twitter and seeing people complain that their opponents were playing bad. Where do these people think that EV is generated from? I mean, we know actually where the EV is generated from. We have data on it. ADP value generates EV. Understanding draft capital buckets generates EV. Stacking generates EV. Having strong rankings and or player takes. You know what generates the most E though other people making mistakes, people playing bad, people taking two quarterbacks in the first five rounds. People taking guys around plus ahead of ADP. So let's say I'm setting up some stack. You know, I have Burrow and I'm sorry, I have Chase and t and someone takes Burrow before I get to them. That is, it takes Burrow way ahead of our rank. That is not a bad thing for me. That is, it's a good thing. I'm gonna be fine. I'm gonna find other stacks. I'm gonna create some backdoor stacks. I'm still gonna be fine with Chase and t there's so much chaos increased that that happens in the NFL regular season. Just because somebody took Burrow ten spots ahead of ADP does not ruin my draft and forced me to go on Twitter complain about it.

00:32:16
Speaker 3: In fact, going back to the poker.

00:32:18
Speaker 5: Days, I would take care to the hallway and throwing to murder them if they start tapping the tank from telling opponents how bad they're playing. So, no, this is a ridiculous thing that's going on. I'm glad you gave me this platform to get this off my chest.

00:32:29
Speaker 3: I'm glad to hear it. It's definitely been something that I have noticed more and more this year, especially as like I feel like people feel like they deserve certain players if they start a stack a certain way, you know, like especially the Burrough stuff. And I talked about this with Kitchen last week. By the way, folks a fellow DK pro going from Kitchen to Adam here, but talking to Kitchen last week, it almost feels like people like think they deserve Joe Burrow when they push it, even if they don't get them at the four or five turn, Like when they push it to six at the turn, like, oh, why is someone draft because that's far past ADP. Right, Like, there's a difference between tilting when it's like you have Puka and DeVante Adams and Matthew Stafford goes in round seven. Yeah, it's frustrating whatever, But like you said, it's a minus ev move for that drafter. But if you're like, try to push Matthew Stafford past ADP, what's the expectation here, Like, the expectation should be that the dude's going to be drafted, especially whenever you're you know, going in, you're drafting amongst people who probably aren't as hardcore as you are about.

00:33:29
Speaker 5: There's so many other things you can do. Let's say someone snipes Burrow from me. Okay, I can take naked Justin Fields at one hundred overall and it's not that big a deal. Especially on draftings where I think correlation, especially if you're playing the twenty dollars, I do not think correlation is as important as it is on something like Underdog, where the touchdowns start stacking up. You can get something like ten catches from t Higgins and Burrow not have that great a game. Justin Fields could outscore Burrow in Week seventeen and t Higginson can still have a really good game there. So on draftings specifically, I really don't worry about the stacking stuff as much. Of course, I'm trying to stack. I'm trying to get three stack quarterbacks at all times, but I don't worry about as much. And God forbid, I would never make fun of someone or complain about someone playing bad.

00:34:10
Speaker 3: My got Yeah, that is just the worst. It is pretty crazy with there being two extra rounds on DraftKings. Does that change the way that you're approaching drafts or is it more so you know, just just allowing that flexibility to have deeper stacks and such.

00:34:23
Speaker 5: Well, first I would say it's better for us, right, And like, if you're listening to this, if you listen to any of our stuff, like it's better for us. You need to know, like I had already taken a couple Elijah Royo shares before this Noah fan thing, and I just feel like the smartest man in the history of the world. Now, I never would have been able to do that if there wasn't twenty rounds, right, So I think it's an edge to people that understand Oh no, ah fan might get cut or whatever. But yeah, I think it's important to think through what the current best and it's always changing, but what's the current best round nineteen and round twenty values. I don't think it's that quarterback, right They're all gone. It's twenty rounds. I want three quarterbacks on most bills, actually, mostly because to advance in the play in the three playoff weeks, you want to give yourself the ability with three unique stacks hitting at different times. Right, But anyway, like even Anthony Richardson and Tyler Shuck and Rogers, all those guys are gone by round nineteen and twenty, So it's not quarterback. It's not really wide receiver. I don't think I do take some two to at well. I take some Ady Mitchell, I take some Leak Washington. But you know, even guys like Dante Thornton and Darius Slayton, like those guys are usually gone by round nineteen and twenty. So really, what I'm thinking through right now, what are the best picks in nineteen and twenty it's running back and tight end, And therefore I'm more willing to leave draft capital for nineteen and twenty. There Jarkes Hunter, DJ Giddens, Brishard Smith, Keaton Mitchell. I've taken trevoriy Ten, I've taken Sean Tucker, and then at tight end, you know, if I get caught, it's not ideal. I think it's better totally punt tight end on underdog where TD luck means everything on DraftKings, I don't love it, but if I have to, Jatavian sand Tyler Higbee, Noah Gray, Juwan Johnson, Theo Johnson, rookies like Keith Ferguson Fann and like, you can add a third or even fourth tight end in round nineteen and twenty on DraftKings that I you wouldn't do in an eighteen round draft. So yeah, to me, that's the adjustment that I make. If it's close for me in round fourteen between say a quarterback or tight end, I'm like, you know what, man, I'm making quarterback here, and if I have to in round nineteen or twenty, I'll get some tight end that I can at least live with.

00:36:28
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent. I told that's been my experience too. I mean, like a guy like Tyler Higbee, like, are we gonna be shocked if you have like seventy five eighty targets this year. I don't think that would be like that crazy and you're not able to get that, you know, like you said, a wide receiver, it's more difficult, it's at least more volatile, Like we know that those guys have roles, so and then a lot of those like day three rookie backs just seem to be like easy. You know, what if something happens in camp or what if like Trevor Etn for instance, had decent draft capital and we're just kind of assuming that he's behind Rico Daudle and won't get much run. Well, what if that changes? I think that's the that's the vibe that I've got, that I've that I've noticed and gotten with with these nine round nineteen Round twenty picks, is that like the opportunity cost realistically, what are the chances that those guys are going to give you something to begin with? Right, and so let's throw the dart of the guys who can actually give you something or.

00:37:15
Speaker 4: Some upside exactly.

00:37:16
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:37:16
Speaker 5: I mean when I the first year when I won on dk Isaiah likely was a huge Round twenty pick, huge part of my week seventeen team, and then two years ago, all my best teams, all the success that I had was because I was taking a little bit, not a lot, a little bit of Puka and Kyroen in rounds nineteen and twenty, and like, do not throw away those picks at all, Like concentrate, make good picks, find guys that can have some upside for you late in the season.

00:37:42
Speaker 3: Something I have to talk to you about because people are going to be asking and wondering, and you guys obviously do a lot of detailed work with your projections and stuff and your rankings and whatnot. We have these looming suspensions, right We have Rashid Rice the news drops last week. You know his court date forget about that happening in January. You know he pleads guilty. So now we're expecting a suspension coming for him. Jordan Addison, we're expecting a suspension coming for him. You know quinch On Judkins he doesn't even have a contract right now, so who knows what's gonna happen with Judkins? How are you handling that sort of situation? So obviously these guys follow in ADP and their ADP shifts, but is in a situation where you blanket and you say, I'm going to play this conservatively. Is it a case by case thing? How are you how do you approach these suspensions that that are sort of looming right now.

00:38:25
Speaker 5: So, first of all, from projection standpoint, we can dock a guy, you know, by however many games we want in the projection that'll flow through to rankings. It's more complicated than that because I don't want to dock Rashi Rice for missing weeks one through four as much as I would if he was missing weeks eleven through fourteen. And so we try to reflect that and the rankings the best we can. And I would be trying to think through that one thing that you see with the Rashi Rice stuff, ADP is taking a long time to creator here because people are still auto drafting, they're missing picks, some people don't know he's about to be suspended on DraftKings or whatever, and so his ADP it's gonna take a long time to get to where I would take him, which I think is somewhere in the fifties I think is right for Rashi Rice roughly. Just generally on these guys, though, I would say understand the team that you're building. I cannot take all rookie wide receivers. I cannot take all rookie wide receivers with suspended guys. You know, these are guys that are like gonna underperform early and hopefully overperform late.

00:39:24
Speaker 4: I can't have an entire team of that.

00:39:25
Speaker 5: So I think as people start to like get advanced more and more in best ball, it's not just thinking through the individual player and their range outcomes on this team. How many guys do I have that are likely to perform well early in the season vers late? How many fragile guys do I have in terms of their floor? And I'm always trying to like balance. Hey, I'll take some Jacobe Myers here with some Matthew Golden or something like that. Yes, something boring and steady, with something that also has a big chance to hit late. And so I think about that with the suspended guys too. If I have a solid team, maybe a boring ish team, all right, give me some Rashi Rice in the mix.

00:39:58
Speaker 3: You know.

00:39:58
Speaker 5: Maybe I'll even take Jordan Edison, you know, ahead of ADP or something like that, because I don't care about his two game suspension early in the year.

00:40:05
Speaker 3: So I would encourage people to think through their team.

00:40:08
Speaker 4: As a whole. The Junkins one, though, I haven't taken him, not once. Yeah, not once.

00:40:12
Speaker 5: I'm just like really worried about that, and I don't think it's that great of a spot anyway. So I've just been totally out on Junkins.

00:40:17
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's where I was at too. I'm like, look, he might not be that much of a pass catcher just given as his collegiate profile. And my model wasn't like totally totally in love with him. It was fine with him, but it wasn't like, oh, this guy's must have and like a true bell cow. And then you add on the layer on top a horrific offense or potentially horrific offense given the quarterback situation, negative game scripts is even gonna be on the field right, Like, there's just a lot of red flags whenever Travon Henderson and r. J. Harvey are being drafted right above him, you know, in these drafts. So it was just like difficult to go after him. So I'm in the same boat where I think I had like one one MILLI draft that I had, I had drafted Judkins, and now I'm just like, what's really the point. I'll throw some darts at like Ford and Samson at this point, but it's it's difficult to go after Judkins. You mentioned the quarterbacks a little bit in your answer earlier, and how you know if you're in round thirteen fourteen and you're between a quarterback and a tight end, you'll just go quarterback because you know, you know that you won't be able to get a starter later as easily. It feels like we're in this really weird cycle on DK where these QB two's just keep rising and they just they're like like there's not a big difference necessarily between like the true mid to low end qb ones like you know, Bo Nicks and Justin Fields and Kyler Murray or whomever. And then like literally a round and a half later, people are taking like CJ. Stroud, right, So how are you handling quarterback right now? Are you reaching or just drafting? I guess I should say that fields range and then kind of just seeing where the where things fall are you, you know, pushing it a little bit with these guys like how are you approaching the position?

00:41:47
Speaker 5: Yeah, so quarterbacks are going to go faster than people think because there is a limited number of them. There's a finite number of them. I can come up with hundreds of running backs you could take late, you know, hundreds of wide receivers and tight ends whatever that you can take Darthur's on that doesn't exist a quarterbacks. So they just keep getting pushed up because people are like, oh, Adam said, we need to get three. I better start pushing it up so that I make sure that I get three. And the dynamic that JJ's referring to is certainly scary, right. I like JJ McCarthy, Drake May, Jordan love Herbert, I like Stroud a little bit right, Prescott, Caleb Perdy.

00:42:28
Speaker 4: I've been living in that range.

00:42:30
Speaker 5: To your point, though, I'm thinking through it more from like a stack perspective, Like I get a lot of these guys as part of front door stacks, and I know with the Bears, I can always get back door stacks with Loveland and Burden and stuff like that. I can always get back door stacks with Jordan Love too, with Romeo Dobbs Craft, something like that, etc. But I haven't thought through it enough probably that from a raw quarterback projection perspective, they're going too close to guys that I really like, Like you mentioned Dak, I think Bonnicks is going a little bit too high for me, But yeah, you know, Dak, Purty, mix Fields, McCarthy, those are probably my favorites in that range, And yeah they are probably going too close to the Stroud guys. But like you're making a lot of teams, I just want exposure to a lot of different quarterbacks, and so I'm pretty flats my quarterback exposure through there.

00:43:17
Speaker 3: It seems like just from a best ball perspective, like strictly best ball, you know, season long. Obviously it's a little bit different, but like last year is my first year really max entering. This year, I'm max entering again and playing a lot, and it just is a natural like flattened exposure at the position. If you're stacking right. I have a strong opinion about Baker Mayfield and Jared Goff in season long, Like I think they're both avoids, Like just doesn't make much sense to go after them. But if I'm drafting Mike Evans and I'm drafting you know, I guess I Mechamuka would go after Baker. But you know, if I'm putting together a lion stack, I'm naturally gonna just draft those dudes because I still want that spiked week. So do you think that's the main reason we see that flat exposure at quarterback at the end.

00:43:56
Speaker 1: Of the day.

00:43:57
Speaker 4: Probably, Yeah, probably for sure.

00:43:59
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I I mean, like we do have just like on a raw basis, you know, we have Baker well behind his ADP.

00:44:06
Speaker 4: We have Caleb a bit above his ADP.

00:44:08
Speaker 5: We have knicks behind his aps, like we have stands on these guys. But like you said, you know, I'm more willing to be in line with ADP if I already have the stacking partners, and that's how you get that really flat dynamic.

00:44:19
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:44:19
Speaker 5: I do think quarterbacks like a more interesting discussion for season long right now than it is for best ball.

00:44:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent. All right. So, with this being a full PPR platform, do you find yourself going with more zero RB builds wide receiver heavy builds than you would on like an underdog or are you still cause like the market doesn't necessarily suggest you do that. So it's a really weird situation to be in where on one hand, you're like, yeah, I should be going more wide receiver heavy because the wide receiver's probably gonna hit the flex more. But then at the same time, like ADP wise, it's not any different. So how do you approach that sort of dichotomy?

00:44:53
Speaker 5: Yeah, to me, it is a macro question, right do you think? And I'm actually curious your take, JJ, do you think last year's running back outcomes were an outlier? And by running back outcomes I mean health sustaining at an outlier rate, you know, leading to six guys with three hundred plus carries, thirteen guys with two hudred and fifty plus cares and then also just a general shift of NFL philosophy.

00:45:15
Speaker 4: Towards the run. Only nine teams.

00:45:17
Speaker 5: Last year had a positive pr OWE. If you think that was an outlier, this is in incredible year on DraftKings, specifically in my opinion, to go hero RB or zero RB. If you think that this is the trend in the NFL. Everybody's gonna start running the ball a ton more now than you're gonna get your teeth kicked in like I did last year, playing a very heavy zero and hero RB strategy on drafting. So I have more thoughts, but I'm curious if you think last year was outlier with the running back stuff or not, I do.

00:45:44
Speaker 3: Especially the RB two range. The RB ones really didn't perform, and I mean like top six guys, you know, top seven guys whatever, They didn't really outperform like the historical top seven running backs we've seen. It was really in that RB two range, Like those guys were like three, like like solid points per game ahead of what we'd seen from like RB fifteen, RB sixteen, And a lot of that, in my opinion, comes down to the fact that they stayed healthy. We know that factually, like we can measure that through games played they stayed healthier. And when those running backs stay healthy, that means backup running backs aren't stepping in because we know, like yes, we know that handcuffing running back is much easier to do than handcuffing wide receiver, let's say, just because we know that those guys will be getting more work when they step in and it's an easier position to just step in play. And so you know, we can we can look at a backup running back and say you're gonna be more valuable and more viable with an injury than a backup wide receiver would because it's not as talent driven as it is at wide receiver. With that being said, they're probably gonna see what like seventy to eighty percent of what the starter would see. And so when you get more injuries at the running back position from those RB twos, let's say even the RB ones. But I'm just saying, like how they finish like those RB twos, when you get more of those injuries, that means that that production is going to be like eighty percent of what we saw last year as opposed to the one hundred percent that we saw because all these dudes just ended up staying healthy. I do have a hard time, though, and this is what I want to throw back to you. I have a really hard time on DK sometimes falling behind and feeling because like if the if it's it's not like you said, it's not like quarterback and that there is a finite number of players, right. But trust me, I do more hero RB than I do, you know, going like like two RB stars or anything like that. But I'm still going to RB starts at times because of the way the market dictates things and because wide receivers will still often fall because of people drafting running backs a little bit higher. So how how do you adjust to that?

00:47:29
Speaker 5: What you're describing is why I started playing best ball on DraftKings more than anywhere else, you know, three years ago, because the ADP of wide receivers was lower, was you know, worse than on Underdog, which was half PPR when no bonuses the wide receiver. DraftKings scoring is so so lean towards wide receiver, and so we would get wide receivers later on DraftKings that I could on Undrug. I thought that was the biggest edge that you could find. Now last it hurt me really badly because I was passing on Josh Jacobs and James Connor and Alvin Kamara in favor of like wide receiver twos that I knew weren't like the best wide receiver in the world, and like I was like consciously doing that.

00:48:12
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, what are these idiots doing?

00:48:14
Speaker 5: And then Josh Jacobs and James Connor and Alvin Kamara and Derrick Henry and Saiquon Barkley and all these other guys just shove it right down my throat, right, so I understand the bet that I'm making here again this year. And yes, you answer your question more directly I am willing to get behind at running back again this year on DraftKings, specifically in favor of elite tight end and elite wide receivers. Like I think those are what you need to win on DraftKings, those guys hitting in a big way and then betting on chaos and running back and so you know, I could pull up my exposures right now, but I have tons of the RB two of the backup rbs. I have tons of, Like here are RB with like maybe one running back in the first five rounds, one running back in the first six rounds yea, and not worry about running back again until like rounds ten through fifteen. It's a risky bet, but I understand the bet that I'm making and the prices that we get on this is better than last year because of what happened last year. Like JJ said, people are now actually taking running backs really high on DraftKings. So yeah, it's complicated, and like you can hedge across sites, you know, an underdog will take way more running back early. But yeah, that's the bet I'm making on draftings, at least for this year. Yeah, no, it makes a lot of sense.

00:49:28
Speaker 3: The ironic thing about this though, too, is that pass catching running backs that have like a more locked in role. I think the easiest example of this is like Justice Hill, right, where the Ravens are going to see what five to seven negative game scripts this year probably, and in those environments, maybe Justice Hill gives us three to four usable weeks just based on the fact that he'll be on the field, right, And like in a half PPR environment, that's not nearly as usable, right, whereas the beauty of best balls that we're not having to predict those game scripts. Like in season long, we got to say, oh, I'm going to start Justice Hill this week. Well, well, you know, Baltimore Coag just lay an egg against a bad team and then all of a sudden, there in a negative game script against like the Titans or something, and you're like, how did this happen? And you're not starting Justice Hill. So I do think that like the weird part about this discussion too, and why I do like Hero RB a lot number one, because we know that elite running backs are very very obviously beneficial in fantasy like regardless, but like you're only going to get those guys generally in the very very early rounds. Hence here areb but there are a lot of like just the satellite back Austin Ecklers of the world that are just like sitting there that aren't sexy at all, that like will more than likely give you some usability, you know, while things develop while guys get hurt and while some of these rookies start to emerge a little bit right, like like that that I think also gets missed a little bit in this discussion.

00:50:45
Speaker 5: Sure, and there's also you know, some backup running backs are going to smash if there's injuries. So like I have a ton of Algier, right, I have decent amount of Garndo. I have a ton of Rashad White. Yeah, I have a decent amount of Trade Benson, little Ray Davis. You know, like all these guys that are like one injury away from pretty good roles that did not hit at all last year.

00:51:07
Speaker 4: But these guys are so cheap now that I have plenty of them this year.

00:51:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent with you, all right. So if you're not drafting with any running backs early, as I mean, you're in on elite tight ends or are you out on elite tight ends?

00:51:18
Speaker 5: Yeah, So we run a little bit conservative in our season long projections, and we still have Trey McBride for one hundred and twenty eight point one targets. We still have Brock Bowers for one hundred and thirty four targets. For reference, we only have Puka Nakua for one thirty nine point nine, Brian Thomas Junior for one thirty one, et cetera, and so in full PPR. On DraftKings, the separation that you get with someone that can rack up ten catches at the tight end position is just absurd, Like Brock Bauers going ten catches for ninety yards and zero touchdowns on DraftKings just smashes the baseline tight end expectation on underdog. I've just like, man, I'll take three tight ends late and I hope one of them gets a touchdown, and.

00:51:58
Speaker 4: It can't be that far off of the elite tight ends.

00:52:01
Speaker 5: So yeah, I think I think Bowers McBride specifically on the volume stuff, are much better on draftings than anywhere else, and I do take them there. The other thing is Titan panic can set in and like we get a bunch of overdrafted ones. Like yeah, I think Kelsey goes too high on DraftKings. That's seventy eight. I think Mark Andrews, given his volume concerns, goes too high at one oh two. Tyler Warren I like, but he goes really high. Tucker Kraft likely, I like them all, but man, they go really really high. Whereas I think Bowers and McBride are fairly priced, and so if you look at the tight end position as a whole, I do think Bowers and McBride are really good picks on DraftKings.

00:52:38
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, I'm with you. But McBride especially because there's a shift in like opportunity costs where he goes right. At least with Bowers he'll fall past like those really elite wide receivers, and that's where it's like obvious to go after Browers, you know. But with McBride, he's never in that range. You're taking McBride over like t Higgins or something, and you feel a lot better about doing that as opposed to to where Bowers goes. And then what you said about those like mid range tight end ones, I mean even in season long, like if you look at ADP. I did a study on this couple weeks ago, and you know, not very creatively, just called it the tight end dead zone. I hate the phrasing of the term, but like tight end seven to tight end eighteen, historically there's literally been zero correlation with how they've performed. So there's really no reason to reach for a lot of those guys. You know, sprinkling some exposure, that's fine, but like there's really no reason to be overweight on a lot of those players. So I'm with you, lock Step, you know with that take, Are there any stacks over on DK that you've been gravitating towards?

00:53:30
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can.

00:53:31
Speaker 5: We have done the best bog score thing we can see who we've like stacked most. My most is the Cowboys. I just expect them to be very passed heavy. And I know, like you're the king of this stuff, JJ, but you know, when guys have bad touchdown rates at the quarterback position as a pocket passer, that's like the most likely thing to regress. Same as you know, I'm sure you'd say why you're fading Baker or GoF is just absolutely outrageous touchdown rates last year that are going to regress. And so these pocket passers that fit well on draft, like if Dak hits in a big way, it's going to hit through lamb Ferguson Pickens, and so I really like Cowboys stacks here. I have a lot of Chiefs, you know, speaking of touchdown rates, I think Chiefs are gonna get back on track for Mahomes being an elite, elite touchdown thrower once again. First for Shi Rice, I thought was too cheap, then he got expensive, then Worthy was too cheap house so like Hollywood, So that was a good one.

00:54:24
Speaker 4: The Bears one I mentioned is just like emergencies.

00:54:26
Speaker 5: You know, I get in trouble and I know that if I take Caleb, I can get Loveland and Burden really really cheap. I don't feel that comfortable with DJ Moore or Swift, and I think Rome is okay, But I get into the Bears back door stuff a lot. I mentioned Packers. I'm curious what you think about this one, but I did not think the Packers intended to be so run heavy last season. They get the Jordan Love injury and then just kind of like give up trying to throw the ball. To me, that's not their game, man. They should be throwing way more. And so I have a decent amount of Packers stacks.

00:54:55
Speaker 3: Also, Yeah, I actually I have a regression show that will be out by the time this is out, so people have already heard that. But the Packers are part of that show where last year their pass rate was a lot lower. Like under Matt Lafleur, they're typically in like the fifty six percent range or something like that. Last year they were like forty eight percent, and teams that are in the forty six to fifty percent range since twenty eleven, the only five of the thirty six ended up in decreasing their pass rate the following year, So a ton of them just throw the ball more. And honestly, like, the Packers are a team. I hate to use this as an excuse, but in my opinion, it's a better and best ball type team, right where like we don't know if there's going to be a true dude who emerges out of that wide receiver group, or if Tucker Craft does or what have you, but their ADP is going to probably be pretty consistent from best Ball to season long when I would argue they're more valuable in best ball just because of the predictability aspect. Right, So, Like, like you said, there's a lot of backdoor stuff that you can do with Jordan Love two. Where you get Love, you can get Tucker Craft, you can get Romeo Dobbs. Do you guys have Romeo Dobbs like way ahead of ADP? Because my stuff is just really like Dobbs. This offs and it's scary because he's such a bore pick Like it's not a fun dude to be overweight on. But it's really hard for me to not draft Dobs often, especially when I'm going to that Packers direction.

00:56:07
Speaker 5: We're at one forty overall on draft kings on Romeo Dobbs. ADP is one sixty six point three. Like normally players come to us, you know, like if we have a guy twenty five spots out of ADP. Yeah, enough people are using our stuff that it comes up. Romeo Dobs don't come to us at all. No one wants Romeo Dobbs. So he's been in that like one sixty six, one sixty eight range. I will say, you know, you can cut the best ball better in best ball stuff a few ways. I do think guys like Dobbs, Jakobe Myers, they get like a bad rap in best ball because people think they have no ceiling.

00:56:35
Speaker 3: You need usable weeks man.

00:56:37
Speaker 5: Yes, you need usable weeks, and so I think, you know, those guys can be fine in best Ball, also the boring ones.

00:56:43
Speaker 3: It's also kind of bs in a way too. I don't know if you agree with this or not, but do you think that we just overstate our ability to predict the high ceiling stuff Like Romeo Dobbs had a crazy stretch in the playoffs a couple of years ago where he was scoring touchdowns, He's a good red zone threat, all that kind of stuff. Like, do you think that there's a lot of that going on with the discussions?

00:57:01
Speaker 5: Of course, of course, it's like, you know, somebody misses a tackle and Joey Myers goes for eighty hours. They're like, see, I told you Jaoey Myers had a ceiling. Like, you know, it's like people have people have no idea what's going to happen. Yeah, of course, right right, just give me, give me the targets and we'll figure it out from there.

00:57:15
Speaker 3: Yeah, one hundred percent. All right, let's just talk about some individual player takes. Are there players that you seem to be avoiding on DK in the single digit round?

00:57:24
Speaker 4: Uh?

00:57:24
Speaker 3: God?

00:57:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, you mentioned that third round where you know you can get McBride, you get the quarterbacks. Sometimes I have zero Marvin Harrison, haven't clicked him once.

00:57:33
Speaker 4: It scares me.

00:57:34
Speaker 3: Attom too, man, it's scary.

00:57:36
Speaker 5: It scares me a little bit. It's just with the same staff coming back. Yeah, I'm not like convinced that they'll change the way they used him last year. And I also didn't even think he was like that good last year outside of that Rams game the first half or whatever. Made some crazy plays, maybe a more controversial one. I have very little Mike Evans.

00:57:54
Speaker 3: You lose your.

00:57:55
Speaker 5: Offensive coordinator again, you bring Chris Godwin back. I think you bring Chris I went back for Week one. You add a Mecca ag Buka, and then you get Mike Evans just to me, so much better in touchdown heavy formats, like he was put on Earth to score touchdowns. And so if you think Baker's going to regress in touchdown rate and they get a new ofention coordinator into the mix, and they added Buca and god Wins back, it's just it's tough for me in the reception category for Mike Evans. And then another one that's scary that I've been thinking about lately. But they know fan thing is I have stone cold zero Cooper Cup. I just keep going back to the Cooper Cup was like pel mcvay's best man, Like it's like they love this guy, Matthew Stafford like hangs out with him, he has breakfast with him all the time. And then Cooper Cup's like, yeah, they didn't even like reach out to me about coming back, Like they were just like, you know what, we're done. That's scary to me when the guys who know you best and love you just decided you're done. You can go to a division rival. So those are three receivers that I have very very little of. Certainly always scared, but hey man, got to make a stand somewhere.

00:58:58
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I'm with you on each of them. The Marvin Harrison one probably scares me the most, but I'm with you that, Like it's just really hard, Like I like Devontae Adams more than Marvin Harrison, so like it's just really difficult for me to go, you know, in that direction.

00:59:12
Speaker 4: When what about what about JSN versus?

00:59:15
Speaker 3: I have JSN ahead of Marvin, Yeah, but.

00:59:16
Speaker 5: Definitely on definitely on DraftKings where like JSN catch is worth a lot, yeah.

00:59:20
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And I'm like, I, talent level wise, are we like? I think that we would say we don't know right now if one's better than the other. And I think environmentally like JSN could easily walk into a twenty five percent target year next year, Oh for sure. So who are the guys? Last question? Who are the guys that you're drafting a lot that we need this year?

00:59:37
Speaker 4: Yeah?

00:59:38
Speaker 5: I have the most guy I've clicked the most times so far this year. I've already done something ridiculous like eighty drafts or something. The guy that I've clicked most is George Pickens. Price is starting to come up now, but I have I would chase him up the board a little bit here.

00:59:54
Speaker 4: People don't seem to want.

00:59:54
Speaker 5: To draft Saquon, So I take Saquon as high as two, but sometimes he gets to me at like five, and so I end up with a lot of saque I don't normally like getting super overweight round one guys. I trust me, guys, I'm well aware of how many touches Saquon Barkley had last year. You guys hopefully know my take on running back injuries, which is every running back projected for two hundred plus touches, is likely to get hurt this year, is a favorite to get hurt this year. So yes, is Saquon likely to get there? Of course, I can say about every running back who had two hundred and fifty plus touches. So yeah, I have a lot of Saquon and Pickens early in the middle rounds Worthy and a Lave. I just thought when Rashi Rice was steaming up and a Lave was going down, that was just not enough respect on Xavier Worthying what he was able to do in the second half of last season really in all areas of the field. And I want to bet on Mahomes this year and a lave just if he stays healthy and if Tyler Schuck is even like remotely capable. The per route stuff on a lave is so striking. I just have to take a lave when he's there at like sixty five seventy overall, So I have a ton of a Lave and then also I have a ton of Shahet also, so what could go wrong? You know, a ton of a ton of two Saints wide receivers with with Tyler Shuck.

01:01:10
Speaker 3: The Saguon Barkley discussion is really important. I actually sent a newsletter about this last week where I looked at, you know, touch totals and how they differed from one year to the next. And I think that humans just like want to put a narrative around it and say that it's injury based. And maybe there's something small to that, because there is like like if they had over three hundred touches like their games played the following season, but like we're not talking about like hundreds of running backs here, right, there's like twenty four or something in this bucket. I think mostly it's just it's really freaking hard to maintain three hundred plus carries year over year, of course, right, Like it's just a difficult thing to to just generally do. So we just naturally see them lose a couple carries per game, you know, as they as they go from one high volume season to the next, of.

01:01:50
Speaker 5: Course, of course. And yeah, I mean the Eagles offensive line is going to be dominant again. They're going to score a ton of touchdowns again. It's like it's it's really hard. I think, for sake, one's gonna really in his yards per carry, I'm sure, but he's still gonna smash, you know, in my opinion.

01:02:04
Speaker 3: So yeah, love it, man, love it. Thanks so much for joining. Let everyone know where they can find you and what you guys are doing over at ETR. Yeah, you can.

01:02:11
Speaker 5: Find all of our stuff for best ball and anything else fantasy related on establishthrun dot com. If you're watching I don't know if you're watching this on YouTube or pod only, but if you are watching on YouTube, we have a bunch of free stuff on our YouTube channel as well.

01:02:25
Speaker 4: You can just search establish their run.

01:02:27
Speaker 3: Yeah, definitely check them out. They're all they're all pals of mine. Check out their tools. You know, there's a lot of stuff too. Like we've talked about this plenty in the past that like there's just natural overlap of like stuff that I'm not doing that you guys are doing and vice versa. So definitely check them out. As always, guys, check out lateround dot com. Check out the draft guide available for sale right now. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast, check out the YouTube channel, all that good stuff. Otherwise, thanks for tuning in.