Becoming a Best Ball Bro: Does It Have to End?

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Rich September's right around the corner, man, I mean, best ball summer is basically over. Do you have any any favorite memories from the summer that we just had.

00:00:12
Speaker 2: I enjoyed a lot of the chaotic transactions to John Smith and Brian Robinson trades especially, but nothing was more entertaining than Ricky Piersall dying and then being resurrected again from the questionable tag on DraftKings.

00:00:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I definitely have one memory that will stick that.

00:00:33
Speaker 3: I'm just so pleased that it happened to me.

00:00:36
Speaker 1: Yesterday, I was in a draft and Jalen Hurts fell to the late fifth round, so I got naked Hurts and I said to myself, you know what, I'll draft Dallas Goddard ahead of ADP and get a stack. Except someone else in my league took Dallas Goddard forty spots ahead of ADP. 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.

00:01:04
Speaker 3: So this year I'm going to chase that title once again.

00:01:06
Speaker 1: My plan is a max Enter Draftings millionaire maker, and I'm going to document all of it while talking to the brightest best ball minds and the planet.

00:01:14
Speaker 3: Last year, I didn't quite get there.

00:01:16
Speaker 1: 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 Draftings, 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, get one enter 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.

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00:02:35
Speaker 3: The Crown is yours.

00:02:36
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00:02:57
Speaker 1: One per customer enter the Best Ball fifteen million dollar Headliner contest by nine to four to twenty five to get one bonus entry twenty dollars entry if 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 the finale of season two. I'm jj zacharieson joined as always by my co host Rich Ryan Rich, what's going on, Buddy.

00:03:27
Speaker 2: Doing good man? Bittersweet end to the summer means the Best Ball season is coming to a close, at least the draft season. But then that means football is right around the quarter. For your podcast feed, you start going with your natural cadence next week, so it's right there. So it is sad a little bit, but super excited for the football to account.

00:03:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, look, lots of lots of content coming.

00:03:51
Speaker 1: You know, you're gonna have five new podcasts every single episodes every single week within the podcast feed, and obviously Rich, you help a lot with the disbursement of those podcasts and helping with video content and such. I'm excited. I'm also you know, like you said, it's a little bittersweet. Where we had this summer of Best Ball drafting. We had these ebbs and flows of guys who were drafted way too low at certain points we watched their ADP's rise and vice versa, and we were on the good and bad end of that throughout the summer. I would say, but like we did last year, and like people ask for, you know, with the show, they're always saying, JJ, what's your exposure look like like, where are you guys at with how you're drafting? And just curiosity with all that. So that's how I sort of finish this year, or this is how we finished last season at least, so I figured we'd finished this season the same way. I'll go over all my exposure, talk about players that I'm higher on, lower on, just from an exposure standpoint. Also talk a little CLV and see which players I basically have the most value with. I'll go through all of that, and then you know, get out of here with some some parting thoughts and my first year max entering the Millie over on DraftKings. Technically, the numbers I'm going to share today are through one hundred and forty six drafts, because there is still this week that I'm gonna be live streaming drafts and I want to save some of them for those live streams, but I only have four left. So these numbers are more or less, you know, reflective of what my portfolio looks like. But I'm excited. I'm excited, and as I do this, I'm sure you'll have some you know, adp in sites and such with these guys. But let's just get to it. I guess let's let's let's look at quarterback first. I mean, like most seasons, I'll actually say this, overall, I have very flat exposure across the board, not really by choice, just kind of how things turned out.

00:05:39
Speaker 3: I'm even flatter than I was last year. You know.

00:05:42
Speaker 1: Part of it, I think has to do with the fact that I just I like a lot more late round players this year. I like a lot more players this year. I think the pool in general is deeper than where we were at last year. I mean thinking about this way, like last year, I was really into like Jualiel McLoughlin, right where like like those types of players that you know you could easily see the downside case for those guys.

00:06:05
Speaker 3: There's just so.

00:06:06
Speaker 1: Many more players than a player like McLaughlin out there this year, and I'm excited about that, and so I split things up a little bit more than I otherwise. What did you kind of notice the same thing as you were drafting this year?

00:06:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just felt way more comfortable at the end of drafts. And I think part of that too was what we've seen all summer with the quarterback market, all of those guys getting pushed up. It just I don't know, at the end of these drafts, instead of maybe picking off a late round quarterback like we were in the previous season, I just felt comfortable with a lot of the running back and receiver options that were out there, either filling out stacks that I had been working on or just single players that had, you know, ten pole upside in any given a week. So yeah, I'm right there with you.

00:06:51
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know.

00:06:52
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's like the rookie class was pretty good, like I thought, the wide receiver class was totally fine, even though it's not as good as last year's.

00:06:58
Speaker 3: And the running back class of.

00:07:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've been talking about the running back class since way before the draft, and even though none of these guys went to some of the smash spots like Dallas that everybody was droweling over, there's so much talent in this class. And one thing you've always looked at with pass catching. There's so much pass catching talent in this class that, yeah, we can see these guys have spike weeks on the teams that took them.

00:07:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then and then the other like constant theme that you're going to hear on today's show is that I really liked the late fourth, into the fifth, through the sixth and into the early seventh wide receivers. And when you like players at that position, you know, the arguably the most important position, is you're drafting the most of them in best Ball. When you like a lot of players in that range, that means you're going to not get a lot of other players at other positions in that range. And so you know, you'll you'll hear some of my exposure here in a second, and that will be reflected in that. I think that's where there's the most differentiation in exposure. But I'll go through it. Let's talk quarterback first. My top five quarterbacks by exposure. Drake May is sitting at number one. This is just Milli exposure. For the record, I did other drafts as well, but I want to focus on the you know, the twenty million or the twenty dollars entry. You know, Milli contests that that we've been promoting all summer long and talking about all summer long. Drake May is my number one quarterback at seventeen percent. I do have some you know, I got him lower than where his closing you know, ADP is likely going to be, so I feel pretty good about that. Bryce Young is another one that I'm pretty high on. I'm at sixteen percent Bryce Young. That was more of a you know, late round. I need a stack kind of situation where you can get some of those pieces late, Chatavian Sanders or whomever you can get them late. I also like Bryce Young, like I think, behind a good offensive line you get Tenero McMillan. He averaged five points per game with his legs when he came back off the bench last year, and eighteen points per game in standard scoring leagues. So I like Young this year as just like a really late you know, more of like a super flex type quarterback and maybe a waiver wire guy as the season goes on. But I definitely like him in Best Ball. No one's gonna be shocked by the next one at fourteen percent is Jordan Love. I just love the Green Bay passing attack this year. I started drafting a lot more Jacobs towards the end of the season, so I didn't get, you know, the as much of that two three turn Jacobs because he did rise a little bit with all the other just stuff going on, you know, with players in that range but I like the Packers in general. I mean it's a very solid, consistent offense that we know is going to be fringe top ten if not solidly in the top ten, and touchdowns per game. They're gonna throw the ball a lot more this year, just based on regression. Jordan Love was a guy that was easy to stack with with Tucker Craft or like a Matthew Golden or Jayden Reid, and then obviously Romeo Dobbs, who was one of the easiest clicks and easiest values I think all summer. So Jordan Love at fourteen percent. Trevor Lawrence again probably not that big of a shock. He's also at fourteen percent. I got him obviously with Brian Thomas and Travis Hunter a lot, but I also got with Diamie Brown and some of the running backs and Breton Strange and going that route and really just punting and getting a late stack. And then the last one. Do I feel great about it? No, I don't feel that great about it. But it is Rich's.

00:10:14
Speaker 3: Jets Jets justin fields.

00:10:18
Speaker 1: His look, his ADP has been so strange to me all summer. Right, I'm at thirteen percent field, so he's my number five. His ADP has been so strange to me all summer because we've gone from he was like a solid I don't know, I think like an early ninth round pick or something on DraftKings, like late eighth to then going like two rounds later with like the toe injury and stuff, and then he didn't really bounce back from that. Partially, I think because the Jets offense has just looked a net all all you know, August in late July, and so people were just nervous and scared, as you, being the Jets homer among the two of us, what do you think the odds are if you were put like a percentage here, the odds that Justin Fields does not play if he's healthy.

00:11:06
Speaker 3: Basically, what are the odds that he gets benched?

00:11:09
Speaker 2: Ooh? Extremely low? I would say, yeah, like this is like a twenty percent outcome of him just getting straight up benched because of performance.

00:11:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, Because like I I've shared my thought, like I'm in a super flex draft for instance, and I drafted Justin Fields at like QB fifteen, and I don't feel, you know, like super super nervous that he's gonna get bench just because they're gonna want to get as much out to see what they have in him.

00:11:35
Speaker 3: What is the use of using.

00:11:38
Speaker 1: To Rod Taylor, you know, late in the season in my opinion, I mean, that's just that's just my opinion. I mean, obviously they can do anything, so I could easily be wrong, but I think logically it makes sense to just let Fields play as long as he's healthy.

00:11:49
Speaker 2: I think the Fields thing, it makes intuitive sense that he struggled in the preseason because he's basically just been playing drop back quarterback in preseason and in mini camps and these joint practices because that's what they want them to improve at. And we know that Justin Fields isn't the most accurate quarterback and is not a pure drop back passer, but that's what they're trying to improve upon. They're not going to put him in harm's way and have designed running plays before the lights turn on. That would be dumb, That'd be very stupid. So every read option, every run concept that they ran in the preseason was always a straight handoff, right yeah, because why would you run your quarterback in the preseason. So he's going to be he's going to be a different guy, hopefully.

00:12:34
Speaker 1: I mean, for my bags hopefully, and then I try to list notable players who I have low exposure on. And I don't love to say this because they're awesome. It's Lamar Jackson and Jaden Daniels. It's not really bout choice. It's there at four percent. I wish I was at six seven percent. Probably with them and maybe my final four teams. I'm going to force it a little bit more. You know, I'm doing a lot of like the fifty nine dollars ones right now, and I'm getting them there so I will have some exposure. But it just goes back to, you know, what's going on in that area of the draft. Typically, if I knew what I knew now back in May and June, I would have gotten way more Lamar in round three. You know, I think going elite quarterback at this point in round three is pretty viable because a lot of players just kind of fell off, and you know, there's question marks about Matthew Stafford and you know, there's just a lot of stuff going on where that Round three is like, well, we're kind of in no man's land, So I'll just take a quarterback here and just feel good about Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson.

00:13:30
Speaker 3: I wish I would have done that.

00:13:31
Speaker 1: That was the mistake, But overall the reason why I'm not I don't have crazy exposure to these guys just because I liked a lot of the late round quarterbacks. I'm going with a lot of three quarterback builds. And then the opportunity cost is still there and it still exists for those guys you know, in those early rounds. But I think in hindsight, definitely would have rather within the millie been closer to like six seven percent. With those elite guys, I think I am around I'm over eight percent with Jalen Hurts because I just liked his value. I think I'm aut like no to ten percent, and then Josh Allen, I think I'm around seven or eight percent. So I'm there with Alan. It's just Lamar and Jaden Daniels, you know, kind of slipped through the cracks a little bit. It wasn't really by choice, but I do want to be honest with where things are at with my portfolio, and that's where they're at. And then from like a CLV standpoint, I just I don't think it's like a huge deal at quarterback, where like nothing major has happened where we've seen CLV being you know, where I drafted them versus what that closing line ADP, if you will, would be. Nothing's really shifted that dramatically at quarterback for me to say like, oh, I'm getting a mass. You know, we're not seeing injuries happen or hype trains happen the same way at quarterback. So there's not really any CLB to like throw out there and to chat about. But I do want to at least note that Lamar Jackson and Jayden Daniels are lower than I anticipated in.

00:14:46
Speaker 2: One Yeah, I can tell you within the top one hundred and sixty picks currently on DraftKings, there is only one quarterback whose draft value has changed double digit spots during training camp, and it is justin fields down in and a half spots. So you're not gonna have variants at this position. And then overall, yeah, the year, I don't know, not good for branding, but the mid round quarterback, all of the five quarterbacks that you listed that you're above weight tenth, eleventh, twelfth, or thirteenth round picks currently on DraftKings.

00:15:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean obviously in like a season long league that's still late in a best ball environment.

00:15:23
Speaker 2: In this twenty round.

00:15:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, because it's twenty round, so it's the middle of the draft. Let's move on to running back.

00:15:28
Speaker 1: Obviously, this is going to be a little bit more interesting for people than quarterback is. And look the quarterbacks I named, Drake May, Bryce Young, Jordan Love, Trevor Lawrence justin fields aside from fields, but even fields to a degree, you're gonna see the trickle down effect of that, because you know, if I'm drafting the quarterbacks, I'm obviously drafting the pass catchers and other players from those teams. But running back, my number one exposure is only a nineteen percent.

00:15:54
Speaker 2: And it did we ever talk about this guy? Said we ever? With his name?

00:16:00
Speaker 1: I don't know the podcast well, so it's recodoubtle, it's Recodoutle. But yeah, I mean, like, I don't think that we've really gotten that deep in talking about Dowdell aside from you know, he was just one of those guys that was late that could get some work and then obviously as continued upside with an injury. But to me, you know, I'll go through I'll just I'll just say right now, notable players with lower exposure. I am only at one percent Chewba Hubbard, and I don't love that. I do wish I was more at like three or four percent, just to get a little bit more comfortable. But I just love the wide receivers in that range so much that I was just getting the falling value in that tier as opposed to going after Cuba. And I have my hesitations about Chewba Hubbard this year where I genuinely think that Dowbdell is going to see a little bit of work and then like meat drafting Dowdell, I think is much more of a best ballplayer than a season long play where I don't think it's going to be predictable, you know. I just think that there's a chance he sees like thirty percent of the team's backfield share, and if that happens, then he might have some musable weeks here and there.

00:16:59
Speaker 3: And then, oh, by the way, what if all.

00:17:01
Speaker 1: Of the stuff that I've researched about pass catching backs in the low yards per out run with Cuba Hubbard and them bringing in Rico Daltle and Trevor Etn what if that translates.

00:17:10
Speaker 3: I actually have it.

00:17:11
Speaker 1: Like like eight percent Trevor Etn too, which is not something that I'm very proud of, but we'll see what happens.

00:17:16
Speaker 2: Well, And if you're gonna fade Cuba Hubbard, you should correlate them with these clicks as well, right Like, that just makes sense. You might as well go all in draft if you're right, right.

00:17:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess there's an argument to make that you can make.

00:17:28
Speaker 1: If you say I hate this backfield, I don't want anything to do with the situation, then you just don't take any of them. Or if you say, I really like this backfield because you know, technically, like I'm overweight on both Breeze Hall and Braylan.

00:17:38
Speaker 3: Allen right now, I'm not like not by a lot.

00:17:40
Speaker 1: I mean, like Breeze, I think I'm at like nine or ten percent and Braylon Allen I'm at like twelve or thirteen percent. But you know, that's a situation where there's continent upside. I think they're gonna just be really run heavy. Is the ceiling going to be there from like a season long perspective as much? Probably not, but I think a weekly one we could see, you know, that ceiling hit and look with Carolina, I actually, and I've said this before, I think Cuba Hubbard is a pretty good candidate to match his ADP like to come through with like an RB fifteen to twenty type performance. But my issue is there's just again, wide receiver matters so much in best ball slash in a full PPR environment, and that range is just rich of There's just so many good wide receivers in that area that have league winning upside that I just didn't want to pass on them, you know, And maybe that'll be wrong.

00:18:28
Speaker 3: And this is just a stand that I'm that I've taken.

00:18:30
Speaker 1: Tuba is gonna go nuts the first front first month of the season because their.

00:18:34
Speaker 3: Schedule is really good.

00:18:35
Speaker 1: But yeah, I mean, Rico Dudel is the sort of inverse of the tube of fades, So I've gotten a lot of Rico now. By far, my biggest mistake of drafts this summer is the next Guy. And we talked about this last week as Jalen Wright. I have eighteen percent Jalen Wright, and people who just heard that, they they winced a little bit. They they you guys hopefully feel for me, because you know, right now, as every day passes, things get worse for Jalen Wright where now they're talking about like surgery, not that that's going to happen, but like the fact that that was even brought up when none of us even remotely thought that was a thing, you know, a week ago. And then obviously, you know, I'm I'm more mad at myself about the Jalen Right stuff because I, you know, leaned into some beat reporter stuff and a lot of the Jalen Right exposure for the record is from like early to mid July, so it really didn't. It didn't didn't continue at a high pace in late julyn into August. It's just I got a ton of him early on because my thought was all the Gordon versus Alexander Madison, we don't know which one is going to be, you know, the the bigger, bodied, kind of early down type, potential workhorse kind of player for that backfield. And then Alexander Madison his injury happens, and I wish I just would have been more aggressive and getting it going after Ali Gordon after that happened. Because number one, I had a lot of Jalen Wright, so I should hedge a little bit. But number two go read the prospect guide and read what I said about Ali Gordon, like I'm not even taking my own advice. It's really frustrating like that when I go back and I look back at a season and I do the things that I missed episode and sometimes I miss things that the process was fine, and I'm not really mad about it, and that hopefully that's the.

00:20:16
Speaker 3: Majority of the cases. This is one of those cases where I was.

00:20:19
Speaker 1: Just a bonehead, like I was an idiot, and I wish that it didn't happen, but that's how things have gone. And I don't have nearly enough Olli Gordon versus where I would want to be with Alli Gordon. So now I'm trying to get as much as I can in season long and in redraft. But yeah, so Jalen Wright, he's a mistake. If I can get like two to three usable weeks from him, though, I think it's gonna be fine, you know, because we're talking about a sixteenth to twentieth round pick.

00:20:44
Speaker 3: You know, it's not.

00:20:45
Speaker 1: If this is my biggest mistake, that's probably not a bad thing, you know, because like there were other other instances where I feel pretty good about my stances and such, but this one was not one of them. And I say this too when it comes to write, and I'll get to another player in a second, but I say that, you know, I was reading into beat reports a little bit too much, and I was kind of going on vibes more than anything else with Right, and that is, you know, the case to a degree. I also didn't think he was like a horrible prospect. I think he fits in this offense, and he actually did have pretty good per rush numbers last year within the offense. But the one thing that I'll say is I also did that for some other players and it works, So I don't want to dismiss that idea completely.

00:21:26
Speaker 2: I was also going to say some of the CLV hits that we're going to talk about after you talk about the guys you have lower exposure on, like these are the things that are going to happen when you have a wide portfolio, right, Like you can't have all smashes right, especially again, like you're saying before he sunk like a rock due to this injury. He was going to pick one sixty seven at the start of training camp. So this is a what late fourteenth, fifteenth round pick, right obviously not optimal if we're going to get a bunch of zeros, but this is a late round player that.

00:21:59
Speaker 3: Yeah, hurt us.

00:22:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, the next player is Jerome Ford, who's at eighteen percent. Now, I actually feel pretty good about the Ford exposure because a lot of it was was actually before anything went down with the Quinchan Judgekin. Like, I was drafting Jerome Ford when Quinchan Judkin before like we learned this horrific thing that went on, you know, off the field.

00:22:19
Speaker 3: So I was.

00:22:20
Speaker 1: Drafting forward because I saw a situation where yes, there was a three headed backfield, but there's two rookies, neither of them are necessarily reliable as pass catchers, and you're they're likely going to go with the veteran as the you know, negative game script type back. And then all of a sudden, the quinchon Judkins thing dropped, and yeah, Jerome Ford's adp rose but didn't rise that much. And now we've gone through this roller coaster because then obviously the the charges with Judkins were dropped, but he's still not on the Browns.

00:22:50
Speaker 3: He hasn't signed.

00:22:51
Speaker 1: Now there's rumors that he's going to go back to college, and you know, there's a lot of stuff going on with Judkins, which is wild and all the while, like Jerome Ford's ADP is kind of of of course it's moved, but it's been relatively static when you consider the situation, you know, like when you consider what's really been going on in Cleveland. So I'm at eighteen percent Jerome Ford. It's not a position where I'm like, he's a league winner. It's a position of you know, I got you know, he's my RB five or RB six, and maybe I had a zero RB or hero RB team and I just needed some production late in the draft. And that's something that I've learned through doing this show over the last couple of years, is that you just want production. You want guys who are giving you something during the season and down the stretch.

00:23:31
Speaker 3: I think Jerome Ford can at least be that guy.

00:23:33
Speaker 2: Jerome Ford finished last summer pick one to nineteen in Best Ball when we did the podcast last year, that was his closing ADP going into last season. We're entering this season where he's the only VET projected to get meaningful volume on that team, and he's going at pick I just had it up pick one sixty, I think right now, pick pick one fifty four. So you know, it's one of those where we know the role, we know the player, we know the pass catching ability, and yeah, despite the Quinn Shawn Judkins rollercoaster, Jerome Ford's value has not been impacted.

00:24:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, and look, this is not a negative Dylan Samson thing either. I've drafted Dylan Samson a decent bit and I think Samson's the better like redraft and season long selection because the upside is definitely more so in his, you know, court than it is Jerome Ford's.

00:24:21
Speaker 3: But you know, from a best ball perspective.

00:24:23
Speaker 1: I've just liked for it, especially in a full PPR platform like DraftKings. Another eighteen percenter is Justice Hill, and this is a very similar argument with Jerome Ford. You know, if the Ravens are in a negative game script, they are more than likely using Justice Hill, who is a good pass catching back. He's explosive and he's good in pass pro. And there was that quote earlier, It's like maybe like three or four weeks ago from Todd Monkin when he was talking about Keaton Mitchell and he was like, yeah, it's just gonna be hard for Keaton to get on the field because we have two running backs that are really good. You know, that's essentially that's not exactly what he said, but it was along those lines, and it just made me feel better about Justice Hill, to be honest with you. It just told me that he's going to play that same role that he played last year. And if that's the case, and if Baltimore sees maybe five or six negative game scripts, or even if they're not a negative game script, he could just break one and just have a big play. And so I think that he's just an easy He was just an easy click, especially with all those Jordan Love and Green Bay teams that I had as a week seventeen bring back and then the last one. I guess I have two more another eighteen percent. So my fourth eighteen percenter is Basehall Tuton. He's just the guy. I think that he has league winning upside and I like targeting that Jacksonville backfield. You guys know how I feel about Tuton. He's my favorite value of that group. Do I think that his front half of the season is going to be better than the other backs in that backfield? No, not necessarily, But do I think that he has more upside than anyone else in that backfield?

00:25:42
Speaker 3: Yes, I do.

00:25:42
Speaker 1: So that's more of the league winning type Dart. And then the last one is a player that I didn't really like as a prospect much at all, but I've drafted him in Round twenty pretty consistently. It's Kyle Mnung Guy. And the thing that made me feel better about Manung Guy is when Ben Johnson came in. Look, this is what happens with the running back position. You have to lead with coach speak at least to some degree. Right, Ben Johnson came out and he said that Manunguy is going to have production in like October or in the fall or something like that, and that told me that, Okay, his job security is at least there.

00:26:15
Speaker 3: Right.

00:26:15
Speaker 1: I know he's been banged up recently, so who knows what happens, but not someone that I'm like enamored with from a season long perspective, because I don't think the pass catching is going to be there, but I think there's a chance that he's an early down bruiser type for them and that he scores some touchdowns this year. So I got Manung Guy at seventeen percent a decent clip. I'm actually I've got more Manungui than Roshan because I was drafting Roshan a lot early and I ended up at like eleven twelve percent, which I didn't have that much, but seventeen percent manong guy kind of leaning into the offense and hoping for the best.

00:26:47
Speaker 2: Just to pivot real quick to redraft. There is no team that I am looking forward to laying my eyes on. Play football Week one, then Monday Night football, Chicago Bears. What is Ben Johnson going to do? What is this running back rotation going to be? How is the target? How are the targets going to be dispersed between all those players? Like, I'm fascinated to see it. And yeah, both Manongui and Roushawn Johnson have that questionable tag now on DraftKings and I was doing a draft this morning and they just fall like rocks. So yeah, if you're making bear stack, if you're stacking that game seventeen, I think they're both solid options because people are avoiding them like the plague right now.

00:27:26
Speaker 1: And then notable players with lower exposure. Brian Robinson him at two percent, that's on a shock that ended up working out real well. Quijohn Judkins is at one percent that ended up working well.

00:27:36
Speaker 3: Cuba.

00:27:37
Speaker 1: Like I mentioned, I'm only at one percent because the wide receivers in that range. DeAndre Swift, it's the exact same reason as Cuba, I'm at three percent. Swift that could easily come back to bite me. I don't even think he's like that bad of.

00:27:47
Speaker 3: A pick on paper.

00:27:48
Speaker 1: And then the other two, who I think are great picks, I just haven't gotten a lot of them because I like the wide receivers in the range more. It's you know, early second round wide receivers. I've gotten them over Ash and Gent So I'm only at four four percent genty and I'm only at four percent Alvin Kamara as well because of the wide receivers in that range.

00:28:05
Speaker 3: I think Kamara though, is a to me.

00:28:07
Speaker 1: Kamara is like quintessential better in season long than he would be in you know, in in best Ball. But you know, both of those guys, I'm not fading at all. It's just the way that drafts kind of came to be. And then let's talk CLV because I think this is one of the more interesting conversations to have on the show today. We'll start at the bottom. Actually, we'll start with Braylan Allen. I'm at twelve percent exposure and so. But but the reason why I'm bring him up because I've gotten really good value on him.

00:28:32
Speaker 3: There was a the market was slow to move with Braylan Allen. I noticed, like, like.

00:28:37
Speaker 1: We we were hearing pretty consistent drum beats out of New York about them using him more, that he was having a good camp and all this stuff, and you could still get him pretty late, even in like late July. So I have twelve percent exposure. He's not at that eighteen percent or whatever. But my average pick for him has been one hundred and seventy fourth overall, and right now he's what like one hundred and twenty eighth or so. So I got a lot of good value out of Rayl Allen. So obviously if he has a good season, that'll really help my overall portfolio. Trayvon Henderson something that I was into as a prospect, something that I was into, you know, as early as May when he got drafted by New England and I started doing these Millie drafts. I have thirteen percent Travion exposure. My average pick for him has been sixty three point one, So like that five to six turn I was drafting him in that five to six turn constantly, and he is currently going at the more so the three four turns. So I gained a whole round inequity there. And then the big one is ja Cory Krossky Merrit. So my average pick and go, yeah, this is kind of braggy for sure, but stun on him. Stun on him. The nature of the show my average pick. So so I'm at twelve percent exposure for Bill okay, and and by the way, a lot of early drafts he was not even being drafted, so there is a little bit of an edge that you would have in having him, you know, in those environments. But that's what I was getting him because my average pick for Jacory Krossky Marriott is two hundred and twenty seventh overall. So I was just getting him in the twentieth round, and I was getting him a lot in the twentieth round, and now he is going in the.

00:30:15
Speaker 3: Top one hundred pretty comfortably.

00:30:16
Speaker 1: So if Bill has a special season, if he has like that Alfred Morris season, there's a good chance that my MILLI teams are in pretty good shape.

00:30:26
Speaker 2: That's the one right that is a massive hit. And like I said, when you have a portfolio of this large, like, you're gonna have some misses, and it's worthwhile to have some misses when you can have some massive hits like this Bill up one hundred and thirty seven spots since training camp started. But on that, Brailen own, I want to affirm what you were saying. Up fifty two point five spots, Brailen Allen is since the started training camp.

00:30:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean yeah, it just seemed like there were some instances where people reacted really harshly, like Ali Gordon. People reacted really heavily and quickly to Allie Gordon, but they weren't doing that to guys like Alan and Jacory Krosky.

00:31:03
Speaker 3: Merritt.

00:31:04
Speaker 1: I like to move on to wide receiver. The haters are gonna hate to hear this. The haters will not enjoy when I say Roma Dunza is my number one exposed wide receiver in the Millie at nineteen percent. I think that he like, if you look at my rankings, he's only one tier below DJ Moore and they're like five spots apart. In an overall ADP. One of my bold predictions may or may not be later this week. If you subscribe to the Late Round newsletter, where I sent out the final five predictions that I did not include on the podcast. I think Romadunze could outscore DJ Moore this year, just straight up, like, I don't see why that's even that bold.

00:31:42
Speaker 3: I've liked the Bears offense.

00:31:43
Speaker 1: I like Adunza as a high variance play, so I drafted him a lot in that range. The next one's DeVante Smith. That really shouldn't be that much of a surprise to people. He is a relatively like inconsistent player, so maybe you're not totally in love from a season long perspective. I don't care as much about that kind of thing, especially in deep formats where you're just kind of like you got like a long lineup and you're just throwing guys in your lineup and you're gonna have to take the valleys with the peaks. So it's a lot easier to draft him in those kind of you know, if you have like a one quarterback, two running back, two wide receiver, one tight end, one flex kind of league, you might not be as interested in DeVante Smith. I think Smith is a great pick, though this year the Eagles are gonna throw the ball probably one hundred and twenty plus more times than they did last year. We've seen him with really good contingent upside when aj Brown or Dallas got her go down. So I'm at eighteen percent to Bante Smith, Ricky Pearsall.

00:32:31
Speaker 3: I'll get to him.

00:32:32
Speaker 1: I'll talk about Pearsall later too. But Ricky Piersall meant eighteen percent. I bought him a lot when the pup tag went up on next to his name, because it was very clear that he was not going to like miss the season or anything like. It was just wild that he was falling to like the ninth round. So I got a lot of them there. Diami Brown is at eighteen percent. Do I feel great about this? Absolutely not. But let's see what happens. This is just goes back to the Trevor Lawrence thing. You know, I would draft Trevor Lawrence and say to myself, all right, I gotta get a stack. Later, I'll get Diami Brown. And then also I could take him standalone. I think he's gonna be using the offense, so I don't. I don't think he's gonna be a zero, and you can often get him in like the nineteenth round. So I just went that direction. And then the last one, unfortunately is Khalil Shakir. And I say unfortunately for two reasons. Number One, I did a little bit more research this offseason on the slot type guys like him and Jaden Reid, and I became more bearish about those types of players. So that's the first thing. The second thing is he got injured, right, So I'm at seventeen percent shakier. I wish I was at more like ten percent. It would make me feel a lot better. And I did not. I have negative value with him just because I was drafting him before the injury, and then obviously the injury happened and he dropped like a round round and a half. So those are my top wide receiver exposures. Notable players with lower exposure include Marvin Harrison Junior at three percent, which I mean, look, that could bite me for sure, but I am just nervous that nothing really changed that offense. And there were you know, DeVante Adams in that range. There was even like Kirn or some of the you know James Cook towards the end and now Trayveon and then George Kittle, like there were just other players I preferred more, you know, in that spot a Marion Hampton at times, and so I don't have that much. Marvin Harrison Junior three percent, DJ Moore five percent. Honestly shocked that it's at five percent, even because I'm really low on more this year. And then Terry McLaurin, I'm at five percent.

00:34:25
Speaker 3: I bought him a little.

00:34:26
Speaker 1: Bit when he was falling into the fifth, but I just think he's a big regression candidate. Now I'm even more nervous because even though he got that deal, he could start the season off a little bit slow. All right, let's talk CLV with these wide receivers. My top three values, the guys that I need to to do well this year, just based on where I drafted them. Keenan Allen is one of them. I have ten percent exposure with Keenan Allen and the average pick is one hundred and ninety third overall, and now he's going one hundred and tenth overall, So ten percent exposure with that feels pretty good. I'm mecha, Buca. I don't think anyone's shocked by this. I'm at eleven percent exposure. I got him on average at ninety second overall, which is kind of shocking to think about whenever you consider where he's at now, which is fifty second overall, So that feels really good. Then a guy I talked about, Ricky Pearsall eighteen percent exposure, the average pick for me was eighty first overall, and.

00:35:19
Speaker 3: He's now going fifty eighth overall.

00:35:21
Speaker 1: So that one to me, like, if I were to bucket running back and wide receiver and pick one guy who I think I have the most leverage on the field with, it's probably JCM. It's probably Bill at running back, and then it's probably Ricky Piarsow at wide receiver.

00:35:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, and with this Ayuk injury, with the ambiguity around Juwan Jennings in just that entire receiver room as a whole in San Francisco. I mean, the arrow is pounded pointing straight out for Ricky Pearsol to smash finger scroll. Yeah.

00:35:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's move on to tight end. Not as fun as running back and wide receiver. But I I think that the number one guy that I have from an exposure standpoint is kind of interesting because he's an early round pick.

00:36:04
Speaker 3: It's Trey McBride.

00:36:06
Speaker 1: A lot of the McBride exposure has to do with the fact that I got a decent amount of like one oh ones, one oh.

00:36:12
Speaker 3: Two's in drafts.

00:36:13
Speaker 1: But then also he was an easy click for the most part, Like he's just a he was a safe option. You know, there wasn't much of the of the up and downness to his profile versus some of the other guys that were going in that range. Like I said earlier, there was that drop off, so sometimes he would he would inch into the third round, and he was just the last guy before there was that drop off. So Trey McBride at sixteen percent, and I liked him, and his opportunity cost more than Brock, Bauers and Bowers opportunity costs. Breton Strange just going back to the Trevor Lawrence stuff, fifteen percent, Brenton Strange, Jatavian Sanders going back to the Bryce Young stuff, He's at fourteen percent, and then I have three tight ends tied at thirteen percent. THEO Johnson, who I feel great about now, Like right now it feels like THEO. Like if THEO Johnson's a top fifteen wide receiver this year, when we look back on the I don't think anyone should be like shocked. He's got a great athletic profile. You know, there's not that many like solid, solidified pass catchers in New York outside of the league neighbors, and that's something that we should always look for. And he's I mean, he's an ascending talent. So Theo Johnson I think is really intriguing. Tucker Craft is at thirteen percent as well. I've talked about him enough on the show that I don't need to bring him up anymore.

00:37:21
Speaker 3: And then the last one's Tyler Higbee.

00:37:23
Speaker 1: This was more earlier on before the Matthew Stafford stuff really happened, And you know, I just I think that there's a chance to Terrence Ferguson is more of like a twenty twenty six guy, just based on his like prospect profile and stuff. And so I got Higbee as a twentieth round pick pretty frequently. Probably wish I didn't have thirteen percent, Probably wish it was more like ten percent, But you know, it's a twentieth round pick.

00:37:44
Speaker 3: Hopefully it's not that big of a deal.

00:37:46
Speaker 2: And this is emblematic of something that you and the guests have spoke about all summer of at Tight Ends. You either go elites or you wait. And that's very emblematic in the players that you just touched on. You either took bride early in this respect, or you waited and you paired guys with quarterbacks who you had previously selected just to get those stacks gone.

00:38:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, and if you look at the players with lower exposure, it plays into that even more well. First off is, John new Smith is one of them. I have one percent. John new Smith, I I don't know. I just to me, I don't think that there's an obvious candidate of which tight end. I prefer more between Pat Fryermuth and John new Smith and the Steelers offense.

00:38:23
Speaker 3: And so I haven't spent the premium to get John hu.

00:38:26
Speaker 1: Maybe that'll be wrong, but I don't know if that will really burn me, just given the offense that he's in and stuff. And then the other two are Sam Laporta and Travis Kelcey. You know, Laporta I've gotten in some of the other contests, So him being at three percent, it's you know, my overall portfolio. He's a little bit higher. But Travis Kelcey, I have not really been drafting that heavily. I'll get him when he falls, but I'm nervous. I mean he's engaged now as we learned today. No, but for real, he you know, he he basically fell within every peripheral outside of target shair last year, and now there's more competient back in that Kansas City lineup.

00:39:02
Speaker 3: I'm just nervous about Kelsey this season.

00:39:04
Speaker 1: And then when it comes to like CLV, I don't think there's really anything to note. I didn't get enough Colston Loveland and Tyler Warren that I wanted before their prices rose. Like I like them a good bit. I'm more at like six percent or seven percent or something like that. I wish I was overweight, but I do have good CLV with them, Like it's like I was getting them in like you know, round eleven and stuff whenever they were getting drafted there. And now, I mean Tyler Warren especially, he goes like late sixth at times, and it's just to me, I just I can't do that in this kind of environment.

00:39:36
Speaker 3: I can see the argument for the ceiling.

00:39:39
Speaker 1: I get all of that, but I also am a little bit worried about the opportunity cost at that point in time, and me, I don't see a really big difference between him and Tucker Craft personally, and so I'm just gonna get Craft like four or five rounds later and not have to worry about that opportunity cost. So I haven't gotten Warren at his new cost, Loveland hasn't moved as much. I'll still draft him and then Kyle Pitts another one. A little bit of value for me with Pitts, but I'm still at like six percent, so nothing like major at tight end. But I don't think there's been that much movement at tight end outside of Tyler Warren. I just I wish I would have been more aggressive with Warren earlier on.

00:40:14
Speaker 2: Those are the only two guys Loveland's sneakily up two rounds since the start of training camp, up twenty three point three spots. But yeah, Tyler Warren up thirty three spots. And again when I was doing that draft this morning, the one thing that really perplexed me is I started to see some steam for some of the colts, but not Daniel Jones. Like Daniel Jones did get the requisite steam of being named starter, but he's still going in the sixteenth and we know that quarterback is a desert after round thirteen, so still being able to get Daniel Jones in round sixteen as opposed to whatever round eighteen or nineteen previously. I was surprised to see him not steam up closer to that real back end of established starters, given the fact that I don't know how quickly they'll give the reins back to Anthony Richardson outside of an injury.

00:41:05
Speaker 3: It's a really hard situation to dissect.

00:41:07
Speaker 1: In the back of my mind, if you were to say, you got to give me an answer, give me your projection and prediction of what's going to happen with the Colts, I'd say that the more likely quarterback to start Week seventeen is Anthony.

00:41:21
Speaker 3: Richardson if I were to like throw a prediction out there.

00:41:23
Speaker 1: I'm not drafting as if that's the case per se, but I do think that there are a lot of alts and avenues where that could end up being the case. You know, like, if you go Anthony Richardson to start the year, then that means once you bention him, you're done, Like you're not going back to him ever again. At least with this you can maybe get you know, like if you're Shane Steichen and you start really poorly with Daniel Jones, you say, just give me a shot with Anthony Richardson before I get fired, And what if he shows something right and then all of a sudden you get that extra year. And I mean, for Colts fans, I hope that doesn't happen, you know, like, let's pray that doesn't happen.

00:42:02
Speaker 2: I'm so bearish on the Texans, and I think I'm kind of bearish on the Jags just because of howp and this is again, this is not for my best while, but this is just my projecting the team output into the season because the Jags offensive line is so bad that like I think the Colts winning this division with Daniel Doones isn't that insane.

00:42:20
Speaker 1: It's not because it's not a great division. So like, yeah, I could see that happening for sure. My thing though, is that, like you know, there's these outs of if they underperform. I think Stichen's probably got the shortest leash in the league right now, or at least one of them, right and and so you know, if that happens, they're gonna you would think they would want to see what they have in Anthony Richardson before or at least like showcase him a little bit and.

00:42:43
Speaker 2: Get his only eject button at that point is look, Anthony Richardson. I made him an average quarterback, like that's the only option he would have.

00:42:50
Speaker 1: And if Anthony Richardson is the dude down the stretch, that's not good for the pass catchers on.

00:42:54
Speaker 3: That team from a fantasy perspective.

00:42:55
Speaker 1: So you know, that's where I also just have in the back of my mind how this could go with Indy. Obviously can go the other way. And maybe you're right that, not to say that that was your prediction, but you know, maybe what you said comes to fruition where they are more competitive and because it is a weaker division. But we'll see, it'll be it'll be one of the teams that we are definitely pretty pretty interested in.

00:43:16
Speaker 3: All Right, some final thoughts, some parting thoughts.

00:43:19
Speaker 1: I just came with four things that I wanted to just say before we close this thing up. Number One, I kind of mentioned this, I wish I went a little bit heavier on the elite quarterbacks, especially in that third round range. Number two, I think that I have to come to grips and be okay with some late round convictions.

00:43:36
Speaker 3: Not paying off.

00:43:37
Speaker 1: If I'm going to get the payoff and others, right, I can't sit here and be like, oh no, Jalen Wright, but then sit with such great exposure to Jacory Krosky.

00:43:47
Speaker 2: Merit.

00:43:48
Speaker 1: I think that anyone in my position would probably just rather take this, you know, would would take the you know, instead of just being like six percent Jaalen right and you know, five percent JCM, he'd probably you want to be twelve percent JACM at those prices with an eighteen percent Jalen Wright and then hope that Bill ends up just.

00:44:08
Speaker 3: Being that guy, you know. So I need to you know, I need to at.

00:44:11
Speaker 1: Least be like real with myself and try to try to be level headed that this is just what happens with late round picks. I probably do wish, though that this is number three, that I had a little bit more conviction with my plays. But like I said, I do think that this is a really good like Sleepers year, and a good year for just value across the single like the later single digit rounds at wide receiver and stuff.

00:44:32
Speaker 3: So I'm not shocked that my exposure looks the way that it does.

00:44:35
Speaker 1: And then the final thought is here are the teams that are probably gonna help my bags the most. It's the Patriots, It's the Packers, the Jags, the Panthers, and the forty nine ers. I think those teams, if they end up doing well and outperforming expectation, things will be good for the best ball portfolio this season. Do you have any parting thoughts, Rich, like things that pop into mind about the season for you the summer, what you learned and because for folks who don't know, Rich is doing all the editing of the show as well, and so he listens very carefully to all of the episodes and also gets a very up close look at all the guests faces as he edits those videos.

00:45:15
Speaker 2: Very much so, one of my favorite points as you wrap it up, is, I don't know. I think we are kind of primed for a little bit of an offensive uptick this year across the league. You brought it up on your Bowl predictions this morning or hitting the feed yesterday for people about quarterback play and the amount of quarterbacks that are going to hit a threshold of points, and with guys like Ben Johnson ascending to head coaches at other teams and teams adapting to we've seen a couple of years of this too high shell stuff, right, So I think that offensives are primed better than ever to punish these teams that are playing too deep and then create opportunities for explosives. I mean, that's what the line have been doing, unbelievably what everyone thinks of them as at the same time a ground and pound team with Gibson Montgomery, but they also create all these explosive passing plays, right, which incongruences is really hard to wrap your head around because it's really hard to do both at the same time. So I don't know. Yeah, I'm with the Packers being lackluster last year. Lafleur is going to be back at it. I just think that you're onto something with scoring being up around the league, which then obviously trickles down value to some of the later round guys because they can contribute as well. If a lot of these offenses are taking steps forward.

00:46:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, just got to hope that quarterbacks can stay healthy, right, Like, as long as they stay health, it's.

00:46:40
Speaker 2: Really it, man. Yeah, because like you see these quarterback transactions these last couple of days of guys getting cut. Can you Pickett going for a fifth round fick. It's like there is such a dearth of quality backup quarterback and I get it's the hardest position to play in sports. So yeah, fingers crossed, let's keep these guys healthy and keep the points up.

00:46:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So no guests this week, So Rich, tell everyone where they can find you, what you're doing during the season, because I know you got some stuff going on, you know, all that good stuff.

00:47:06
Speaker 2: First and foremost late run ff across all social channels. As JJ said, those vertical videos. You can think of me typing away and editing in premiere as those guys get posted. But yeah, grid Iron Gamble this week, we're looking at week one and looking at scenarios. What are we looking for to go on that We've had months of predictions and thinking, but what specifically can change our opinions on these teams for week one and then from there on out. Every week we are entering a one thousand dollars Circus Sports million card, five picks against the spread, our attempt to try to win one million dollars.

00:47:45
Speaker 3: Where can people find that.

00:47:48
Speaker 2: Grid Iron Gamble across all platforms one word on social and then just grid on Gamble podcasts, YouTube, wherever you guys get your stuff perfect.

00:47:59
Speaker 1: All my stuff is lateround dot com. Make sure you are purchasing the Draft Guide. One more update for the Draft Guide and then and then we're good because cuts are happening and trades are happening and all that stuff. But the Draft Guide is still for sale. The Prospect Guide is only nine ninety nine right now. If you guys want to learn some of these prospects and see what I had to say, you know about like an Olie Gordon and such back in May, make.

00:48:21
Speaker 3: Sure you subscribe to this podcast.

00:48:23
Speaker 1: Make sure you subscribe to the YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash at Late roundaff. Otherwise, everyone, thanks for a great season. Thanks for listening and giving us feedback. And it was just a joy.

00:48:37
Speaker 3: It was just a.

00:48:37
Speaker 1: Really fun season and a really fun series to do once again. We hope that we get to do it again next year. I'm sure we'll do a recap episode like we did last season. What we'll do one at the end of this year. But we really really appreciate it. It's been a blast.

00:48:52
Speaker 3: Thanks for tuning in.