Becoming a Best Ball Bro: An Obvious Quarterback Strategy?

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Rich. Did you have a good Fourth of July?

00:00:02
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:00:02
Speaker 3: It was great.

00:00:03
Speaker 2: Kiddo turned three on the first, had some family out here, did some grillin. It was a great, relaxing, peaceful time.

00:00:10
Speaker 3: What about you, JJ?

00:00:11
Speaker 1: It was good.

00:00:13
Speaker 4: Family went to the beach. We had a condo like an airbnb situation. Everything was great. Fourth of July was good. We got to see some fireworks, all that good stuff. But I will say we were at the end this condo and above us there was a family presumably staying and at five am every morning they I don't know what they were. They were running windsprints, I'm not exactly sure, but they would wake us up at five am every single.

00:00:40
Speaker 1: Morning on this vacation.

00:00:41
Speaker 4: And I got to say to this family, I hope on the way home from vacation you hit every single red light on the road. I'm JJ, and I've been playing in best Ball leagues for years. But there are people out there who play a lot more than I do, and there are people out there who have won a lot more.

00:00:59
Speaker 1: Than I have, and I want to learn from them.

00:01:02
Speaker 4: This season, I'll be documenting my journey of Max entering Underdog's Best Ball Mania contest and I'll be doing so with guidance from some of the most successful best ball players on the planet. This is the year where things start to change. This is the year where I officially become a best ball Bro. Welcome into another episode of Becoming a Best ball Bro. I'm JJ Zacharieson and joined as always by Rich Ryan Rich.

00:01:36
Speaker 1: We were out last week. How you been doing good?

00:01:38
Speaker 2: Yeah, nice relaxing week. Get back here in the best ball streets. We've got some ADP that I want to look at. Since changes since the start of this podcast, since episode one. I Max regged my first ever contests. Granted it was a for Max entry the Chiuahua III, but I like you well on my way to being a best ball bro with a Manx redge.

00:02:01
Speaker 3: Look at me?

00:02:02
Speaker 1: Was that? Was that a all live draft one?

00:02:05
Speaker 2: No, that wasn't one of those fast drafts, which is also excellent.

00:02:09
Speaker 3: I mean, look at you.

00:02:10
Speaker 2: Like the immediate pivot to things that people want and are thirsting for.

00:02:16
Speaker 1: No.

00:02:16
Speaker 2: I it's been tough for me with no like real work structure and time to sit and do fast drafts, to do any of these lightning fast drafts, but definitely intriguing for times where I just have like a half hour that I just want to bang one out, like I almost wish. And I think it's probably a regulatory issue or just a rules issue. I wish they could just sneak them in for BBM, because that would make getting to a substantial number draft for me a lot easier.

00:02:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's for sure.

00:02:42
Speaker 4: I did. I did some of those super fast, you know, ten second clock drafts with the Mini Schnauzer.

00:02:48
Speaker 1: I think it was whatever they took those. There's three of them.

00:02:52
Speaker 4: One was the ten second clock, one was the fifteen second, one was the twenty second. I didn't do any of the fifteen or twenty seconds, but I did probably five to ten of the of the or however many, maybe five of the ten second clock ones.

00:03:06
Speaker 1: I enjoyed it.

00:03:07
Speaker 4: I think it gives people who kind of know their stuff and understand correlation and where guys go and you know, the playoff matchups and such off the top of their head. I think it gives them a little bit of an advantage because you're able to think quickly on your feet, and you're also able to get a lot of value because people are sliding, and you know, people are making irrational decisions, they don't know what they're doing, they're panicking.

00:03:29
Speaker 1: It was it's a lot of fun.

00:03:30
Speaker 4: And trust me, I'm prepared, and I'm probably more prepared than than the majority of drafters at this point. You know, I've done about three hundred drafts so far, post draft, post NFL Draft, and even still for me, it's still like a very electrifying experience doing those those drafts with only ten second clocks.

00:03:47
Speaker 2: You've also written a damn two hundred and ten page guide which which just dropped and there's in boxes of many viewers and listeners. By the way, you can still see it on the bottom below. If you can deposit on you do, you get a free draft guide as well. Once again, I'm allowed to shill as a as a paid member.

00:04:06
Speaker 1: You cannot easier for easier for you to do it.

00:04:09
Speaker 4: To me, I always feel I feel like I know that I do it every episode, and I do it on Twitter and all this kind of stuff. I still get uncomfortable being like, hey, I put a lot of effort into this draft guide, go buy this thing.

00:04:21
Speaker 3: But I will say it's your lovelihood brother.

00:04:23
Speaker 1: I know it is my livelihood. It is my livelihood.

00:04:25
Speaker 4: But I will say, of all pieces of content that I've ever done in my life, so that you know, I've been doing fantasy football stuff for a dozen years at this point, this guide is most definitely the thing that I put the most effort, time, all of that into.

00:04:41
Speaker 1: And I hope people, I hope it reads that way.

00:04:43
Speaker 4: I hope people, uh, you know, at the end of the day they walk away and they say, Man, I'm looking at fantasy football a little bit differently now that I read this thing.

00:04:50
Speaker 2: I texted you right after a chapter. I have a tough keeper decision in my longtime high school keeper league between two players, and I read one of the chapters and I was leaning one way, and you completely sold me. So Yeah, Like JJ says, whether it be here on the pod or even in the guide itself, it's not about giving you a list of players and telling you who to pick and when to pick them. It's how to think and how to apply certain things to even a goofy keeper league that I have. I was able to apply principles that JJ laid out and they're very actionable.

00:05:20
Speaker 3: So go get the damn guys.

00:05:22
Speaker 1: Love to hear that, Love to hear that. Speaking of the guide.

00:05:25
Speaker 4: You can get some underdog takes in there as well, where I'm laying out players.

00:05:28
Speaker 1: Are target players to avoid, et cetera, et cetera.

00:05:31
Speaker 4: I got to talk about Rich this team that I draft, Like, people don't really care about teams that I'm drafting. I get it, Like, you don't care about my fantasy teams or anything like that. If you do, I am posting my best ball Mania teams almost every single one that I do in the late round Fantasy Football discord. You know, there's a few comments on each one, and we kind of you know, people were asking questions and all that kind of stuff. But there was one that I posted to Twitter, which I don't often do because I'm not trying to be that obnoxious person. I'll say this one of the things that I've noticed in the best ball streets and while becoming a best ball bro there are so many people that love to post their lineups after like five picks, right.

00:06:10
Speaker 1: It tells us nothing. It tells us absolutely nothing.

00:06:15
Speaker 4: Anyone can look good through five picks, depending on how a draft like. If it's wide receiver heavy and you're like, hey, look I got Dereck Henry in the fourth round, look how good this team is.

00:06:23
Speaker 1: Well, okay, but it's wide receiver heavy.

00:06:24
Speaker 4: Your wide receivers are probably gonna suck, right, Like, there's a reason that Derrick Henry is going in that spot. So I think it's important to look at it holistically and look at, you know, the greater picture. And so I posted this the entirety of this lineup right. I had never been in a draft. Again, I've done over three hundred if you count pre draft stuff, I've done over four hundred this year. I haven't been in a draft where value fell the way that it fell in this draft.

00:06:50
Speaker 1: I know that. I mean you've seen this lineup right, like you saw the team. It's crazy.

00:06:55
Speaker 4: Jamiir Gibbs I ended up getting at nineteenth overall when his ADP is thirteenth overall. Jamar Chase I got sixth overall when his ADP is fourth overall. But just throughout the draft, like I got nause, I'll just read you the team. Anthony Richardson and Joe Burrow are the quarterbacks. Okay, I usually don't go with that elite of a quarterback group, but Joe Burrow fell about a little over a round past ADP, and I had Jamar Chase, and so I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna go for it. Anthony Richardson. I paired with Michael Pittman, who went ten picks. Michael Pittman went ten picks after ADP. So those are my two quarterbacks running Baxter Jamier Gibbs, Naji Harris, taj Spears. Spears and Harris both went you know, five to ten picks past ADP. Jelil McLaughlin. I got around ADP, Antonio Gibson and Braylan Allen, then Jamar Chase, Malik Neighbors four picks after ADP, Michael Pittman ten spots after ADP, DeAndre Hopkins a round ADP, Ady Mitchell to get with the stack with Anthony Richardson. Dontavian Wicks. Who in what world does Dantavian wis these days? Or eighteen picks past ADP, because that's what happened.

00:08:04
Speaker 3: In you were in the one draft. You were the one draft.

00:08:06
Speaker 4: The only draft where Jontavian Wicks goes well after ADPU.

00:08:10
Speaker 1: And then Jermaine Burton.

00:08:11
Speaker 4: I got to pair up with Joe Burrow, so I have Burrow to Burton and Jamar Chase, and then at tight end, I got George Kittle about ten spots after ADP, so I had the correlation of Jamiir Gibbs and George Kittle for Week seventeen and then Jelannie Woods and Mikeasicki for the tight end correlation with the quarterbacks on the team. So the correlation is there throughout the lineup. And then the other nice part is there's a shared opponent with Indianapolis and Cincinnati in the Fantasy playoffs, which is Tennessee, and I have DeAndre Hopkins and Taj Spears in that lineup, so it really all came together. The one thing I'll say, and the one criticism I got was this should have been a two tight end build. So I got George Kittle and then I went and I got Jelannie Woods and Mike A.

00:08:56
Speaker 1: SICKI.

00:08:56
Speaker 4: A lot of people were saying, and no, maybe not maybe a handful of people we're saying that I probably should have just gone with one of those tight ends and then gotten a New York Giants wide receiver to pair with the Colt stack, like get a Slatin or a Jalen Hyatt. And I think in hindsight that's probably right. But the fact that you post something that I posted something on Twitter where thousands of people are seeing this and the biggest critique is an eighteenth round pick.

00:09:23
Speaker 3: You screwed up eight round eighteen.

00:09:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, right right, I will take that all day long. I'll take that all day long. Yeah. But yeah, it was just one of those drafts that really came together.

00:09:32
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:09:32
Speaker 2: No, I'm just pulling up round eighteen, as you said. And the only the pivot that I see there he is Jalen Hyatt, who's usually going at two twelve point seven. Obviously can't see who was drafted. If Slayton was gone by then he usually goes at the top of the eighteenth round. But yeah, I mean, flip a coin. There's obviously nice correlation there with your opponent in having a Giants. But the first it was so funny. The first thing I looked at this when I saw it, I didn't see Jamar Chase at first, and I messed. I was like, oh, you know, Burrow slipped. You know, nice job just grabbing Burton and Koseki and creating a nice little bengalstag, not knowing you had one of the best wide receivers in the entire NFL also, and that yeah, yeah.

00:10:11
Speaker 4: It was just one of those drafts that really came together. And it wasn't a draft where there was any like I mean, there were some teams in there that were doing some stupid things and suboptimal things, you know, like Lamar Jackson and Patrick Mahomes went to the same team and they were both drafted around earlier then they typically go. And then that team I believe, ended up with four quarterbacks. But it wasn't like there wasn't some malicious intent clearly or seemingly right. It wasn't someone throwing or anything like that. It was literally just some suboptimal drafters and I just fell to the right spot. I then also saw some tweets about people who say that Sunday nights seemed to be a night where this kind of thing tends to happen where you get. I don't know if it's like people are just like, oh, I'm gonna have to go to work tomorrow, I'm gonna just fiore.

00:10:55
Speaker 3: The offc want to blasted draft.

00:10:58
Speaker 4: They're just making making their life feel a little bit, you know, making themselves feel a little bit better by doing one of these drafts.

00:11:05
Speaker 1: But I don't know, man.

00:11:06
Speaker 4: I mean, I've talked about this, you know, I think that maybe Friday nights and Saturday nights are kind of interesting to do these live drafts because people are doing some of these extracurricular activities, you know, going out to bars and stuff like that and getting hammered. It's the same deal in Rocket League whenever I play on a Friday or Saturday night and I'm totally sober, and people are terrible, and I can see my rank just rise and rise and rise because they're clearly, you know, doing other things, which is fine whatever. But you know, it's a way that we can kind of take advantage of what's going on because this is a peer to peer game.

00:11:39
Speaker 1: At the end of the day.

00:11:40
Speaker 4: It's no different than if if you're playing poker and people are drunk playing poker, you can destroy those people who are drunk.

00:11:46
Speaker 2: I know European cash game pros who made a ton of money in the mid to late two thousands getting up first thing Saturday morning and grinding cash against people who would be stumbling home from the bar in America and blast away.

00:12:00
Speaker 3: That is a real thing that happened.

00:12:01
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, look, this is the atom. The bottom line, this is a peer to peer game. Is a game that we're playing other humans, and we're trying to beat other humans. Try to find every edge that you possibly can find. I don't know if there's actually anything to that we got to get, like Leoni to dig into this or something like that, because I'm not going to dig into something like that. But you know, I do think that, you know, there's at least a hypothesis as to why, you know, a weekend night might be beneficial for some of these live drafts. But at the end of the day, I did that on Sunday night. It ended up being probably the best value not probably the best value draft that I've had all summer. It's probably not gonna end up being a finalist or anything like that, but you know, on paper, it looks very very good.

00:12:44
Speaker 2: We're looking for razor thin margins in these things. With how many smart people are playing these so and any kind of any kind of edge you think you can get it's probably worthwhile in taking. Now, we've talked a lot about fast drafts here. How is your transition going? Are you slowly phasing out those slow drafts and starting to fire out more fast drafts.

00:13:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I had some regrets about joining as many all those puppies that I joined whenever I literally at one point, I think at one hundred and thirty slow drafts going at once. And it's finally, you know, whenever I get to you know, the first couple batches have ended, you know, and like I'm into the seventeenth eighteenth round and when you.

00:13:21
Speaker 1: Get that check mark that is.

00:13:22
Speaker 3: Completelyle tech market.

00:13:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, feel so good. So now I'm not as much in slow draft.

00:13:28
Speaker 5: Hell.

00:13:28
Speaker 4: What I'm really transitioning and trying to do is a couple bbms a day. So right now, and I did two of them today back to back before we started recording this. But right now my BBM count I believe is at forty five, which you know, I think we probably have a month with.

00:13:45
Speaker 1: A little change left to get this.

00:13:47
Speaker 4: Let's say forty days, right, and so you know, if I do two of them a day, that's eighty drafts.

00:13:52
Speaker 1: That'll get me at least a little bit. I'm gonna have to do.

00:13:54
Speaker 4: Three to four in some days, you know what I mean. But I you know, we've talked about this before. I've just found myself as a better drafter in these live drafts as opposed to the slow drafts. I'm just trying to get through them quickly to get to the next pick and then go to bed, whereas the fast drafts, you're just honed in.

00:14:11
Speaker 1: It's the one thing that you're working, you're thinking of.

00:14:14
Speaker 4: You know, you can do a little work on the side or do whatever on the side as well, but you're at least focused on that particular, that individual team build, and you understand the draft room a little bit better, and I want.

00:14:23
Speaker 1: To be optimal with my picks.

00:14:24
Speaker 4: I don't envision myself especially with Best Balmonia other other contests, I'll probably do some slows, but with Best Balmania, I think moving forward, I'm only going to be doing fast drafts.

00:14:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, makes a ton of sense.

00:14:36
Speaker 2: Lower buying, you're just trying to get that volume in, get those reps in, and then with BBM since there's so much more value.

00:14:42
Speaker 3: Yeah, at the top, you want to be a little more focused. All right.

00:14:45
Speaker 2: I tease some ADP changes since we first recorded on episode one. I'm gonna give you the biggest gainers and the biggest followers at each position. Over those it's been almost two months now, close to two months. So biggest gainers at quarterback is Dang Jones up ten spots. Running back Braylan Allen up twenty seven point seven spots, the number one gainer of all players.

00:15:08
Speaker 3: Yo, boy, Pop Douglas, don't forget thirty five spots.

00:15:13
Speaker 4: J j.

00:15:13
Speaker 1: Don't forget that. In the Big boards.

00:15:16
Speaker 4: I remember the first episode of the show, I was going through my exposure from the Big Board drafts, and Pop Douglas was like third or fourth on the list for me because he was going in like round seventeen, you know, basically where you know he goes like round fifteen, sixteen now or maybe even fourteen at times. But regardless, he was someone that I just kept this is. This was pre draft, before they even got Javon Baker and Jalen Polk. But look, I think that a lot of times people and Leoni really shed light to this.

00:15:43
Speaker 1: I think in the interview that I did with him, where it.

00:15:46
Speaker 4: Doesn't always like I think that people think about best ball as you got to get these like super high upside, big play receivers like a Jalen Hyatt or something like that, like you can you gotta fill your team with those guys, it's like, no, look, Pop Douglas in the right scenario, the right situation can be fine. He's a really good slot player, a twitchy slot player. He could easily lead that team and target share this year. And if that happens, then why wouldn't he have some usable weeks? Like I don't if we look back and we see, we see that Tomorroo Douglass had five or six usable weeks this year, no one should be shocked by that because he could lead that team in targets.

00:16:20
Speaker 3: All the way up to one fifty five point nine end of the thirteen.

00:16:24
Speaker 4: Even see that's honestly, I haven't gotten him that much recently, and that's that's probably why.

00:16:29
Speaker 2: Yeah, at tight end, it's Noah Fense, who is a great pair for our guy, Gino Smith. He's up fourteen spots. But I'm I'm way more interested in the fallers. And and I'll start with the non quarterbacks first. Austin Eckler down eighteen spots, Zay Jones down fifteen, and Ben Sinnott the Summer of synat is over down twenty five.

00:16:47
Speaker 3: I don't know why points six spots. Everybody loved him at the start of the song.

00:16:51
Speaker 4: I don't know why he was going where he was going at that, Like I didn't draft him, like at all.

00:16:56
Speaker 1: I still don't really draft him.

00:16:58
Speaker 4: But you know, maybe it's it's the looking at last season and the rookie tight ends and how well they performed.

00:17:03
Speaker 1: You know, Brock Bowers I'm trying to get a little bit more of.

00:17:06
Speaker 4: But you know, Senate, it's just like I never you know, I thought he was a fine prospect, maybe a bit an above average prospect, don't get me wrong, but it was just weird, like he probably wasn't gonna be probably won't be the number two option in that offense more than likely, right, And they still have Zach Ertz too, I mean, like it's not like he's the the locked in alone tight end one on the team.

00:17:29
Speaker 2: Quarterback where it gets interesting, So we got JJ McCarthy down twenty five point nine spots, which makes sense with the Sam Darnold buzz coming out of Minnesota.

00:17:37
Speaker 3: But then Joe Burrow, c J.

00:17:39
Speaker 2: Stroud, and Caleb Williams are all down more than a round. People do not want if they don't have stacks for these quarterbacks, they are not touching these players with a thirty five foot pole.

00:17:53
Speaker 4: Jabe, Yeah, yeah, I mean that's what this comes down to, right, is that all of those quarterbacks. I mean, look, the JJ McCarthy thing is one hundredercent driven by Sam Darnold and all the stuff that's coming out with that.

00:18:02
Speaker 1: But nothing's really gone on with Burrow.

00:18:04
Speaker 4: If anything, we've we've heard more optimism about like the injury and stuff like that. And then CJ. Stroud, nothing's gone on with Caleb Williams. Nothing's gone on with But all three of those quarterbacks have very stackable players. You know that we're attaching them to right, and so you'll often see if you get two of them, Let's say, like if you get Jamar Chase and T. Higgins And I actually talk about this in the interview today, but if you get T. Higgins and Jamar Chase, if you have both of them, you can squeeze out a lot of value from Joe Burrow, Like there's no reason to reach for Burrow. And if someone gets Burrow again, we've talked about this, you gotta just be okay with it.

00:18:38
Speaker 1: Tilt a little bit, but you got to move on. But like CJ.

00:18:41
Speaker 4: Stroud, same Neil, Like like, if you've done twenty plus drafts, you've seen one of these.

00:18:47
Speaker 1: Guys slide at some point.

00:18:49
Speaker 4: I saw Caleb Williams in a draft that I was doing actually drafted Keenan Allen, and I was hoping that I could get the value out of Williams but didn't. But regardless, I saw him drop a lot too. It really just comes down to those guys being stackable, and I think teams realizing that they can own the room a little bit because the rest of the teams in that league aren't going to draft a naked Burrow or a naked Stroud.

00:19:09
Speaker 1: With that being said, Rich, I do think.

00:19:12
Speaker 4: That we're about to see a rise in quarterback ADP in general, because we're going to see more casual players jump in. And when we see more casual players jump in, we're gonna see more. I don't even think they're necessarily gonna draft quarterbacks earlier. They might, but I think it's gonna be we see more unpredictability, and when there's more unpredictability, we're gonna say to ourselves.

00:19:37
Speaker 1: I don't know what this crazy dude is gonna do.

00:19:39
Speaker 4: When I have Drake London and Kyle Pitts, and I really want Kirk Cousins, and I could maybe squeeze out another round. I might just get Cousins right now, because this team, who has a completely uncorrelated lineup, who is doing crazy things throughout this draft, this team might end up just drafting Kirk Cousins.

00:19:58
Speaker 2: And sometimes it's even good to like does the user name have a badge next to it?

00:20:01
Speaker 3: Right?

00:20:02
Speaker 2: If the user name has a badge next to it, that person is probably looking more at correlation. They already took a quarterback. They probably won't double up on quarterback. These assumptions can be made. But yeah, I and this is we've said this a lot. When there's uncertainty in the market, that drives value, but it's also going to drive in Santaray.

00:20:19
Speaker 1: Yeah right right.

00:20:20
Speaker 4: Like it can drive, it can drive the opposite direction too. The one thing I will say is that while you're drafting, like if you're at the ten or eleven spot or something like that, you know at one of the ends, right or like the three or four or something like that, where you can kind of play the board a little bit based on what the teams after you are going to be doing. Take a look at those teams while you're drafting, and don't just look at the positions that they draft. But what I've been doing is I look at how correlated and how smart the lineup looks. Right Like, if they have a naked party and it's round fourteen, then I know that that person is going to be doing some crazy stuff moving forward or throughout the draft. You can you can even tell earlier on in that draft, but that can really help you out in getting someone of an advantage because you know, then, okay, I might have to reach maybe half a round to get this quarterback to complete this stack, as opposed to really squeezing it out.

00:21:08
Speaker 1: Because I know that these teams are going to be rational about it.

00:21:10
Speaker 2: Let's get into some focuses. You talked about Rock Bowers. You're really interested right now in that in Djoku Bowers, maybe even Ingram ferguson tier. We've talked a ton about elite tight end, but let's talk about some more middle to late round tight ends.

00:21:25
Speaker 5: Yeah.

00:21:25
Speaker 4: Look, this is something I talk about with our guest today a little bit because he is a proponent of this tier.

00:21:31
Speaker 1: I think more than most are.

00:21:33
Speaker 4: I just have an issue in getting the tier because I am drafting elite tight end, you know, guys in the fourth to sixth round fairly frequently, and so when I get that, then I'm like, Okay, I don't really need to double up and get one of these other tight ends in the ninth or tenth round. I will sometimes I will say, like there are times where if I feel good about my build and how things are going, I'll get a Bowers and perim with a McBride or something like that and just get you know, kind of a powerhouse situation going there, where you know you might be able to get a flex out of them some weeks, but also you're you're hurting the rest of the room, so you're helping yourself be able to potentially move on, you know, into the playoffs. But yeah, I mean, I think it really comes down to the fact that I've been going after the elite guys a lot, and then once I get into those rounds, I'm not drafting those players that much. And then also if I don't get an elite player, you know, I'm I'm just looking at running backs a lot in that range because it's sort of that ambiguous part of the draft where the you know, the zero RB backs really sit and lie, so I'm forcing myself to get more, especially in Joku. I think in Joku is the one that I was just underweight on, like I had enough Ingram because I've been building so many Tennessee and Jacksonville stacks.

00:22:41
Speaker 1: But in Djoku I was probably only a couple of days ago.

00:22:45
Speaker 4: I was probably only at like three or four percent at most in Joku when I probably want to be around like six ish, just based on how much elite tight.

00:22:53
Speaker 1: End I'm getting.

00:22:53
Speaker 4: And then I don't you know, I don't mind getting like three late round tight ends, but then and then Bowers too, I want to be at or a little bit above market, I think with brock Bauers this year at the end of the day.

00:23:03
Speaker 2: So bully ten ends has been really interesting. I've seen a lot of people talking about this on Twitter, and it's interesting to me because it gives you the biggest leg up, I think on the ends of the tournament, because by taking a second tight end, like you just said, you take it away from the pool with which you're competing against for the start of the season, and then at the end you're likely to see teams with fewer I would assume bully tight end builds, which gives you a uniqueness to your team once you hit that five hundred player field towards the end. It's like in DFS when you go tight end flex it's extremely unique. It also saves you a bunch of money. So I think it's interesting.

00:23:41
Speaker 3: I'm not all the way there.

00:23:43
Speaker 2: I personally, I've not been able to pull the trigger even though it's been interesting, but I definitely understand the thought process.

00:23:49
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, I think that bully tight end. I haven't done it with like Kincaid Kelsey right, or like Laporta Pits or anything like that.

00:23:58
Speaker 1: I think that's, you know, just anecdotally.

00:24:01
Speaker 4: Definitely haven't done a ton of research on it, although I know others have and have said that the win rates aren't necessarily like amazing. I could be wrong though by saying that, But regardless, I feel really uncomfortable doing that. Right, But when the opportunity cost is a tenth or even sometimes eleventh round pick, when these guys fall for that second tight end, when you know that that group and that cluster still has you know, like brock Bauer still has top six tight end upside, like there' he's that good of a prospect like he's an unbelievably I feel like it's been lost because of the destination and where he landed. And look, I was not into that at all because I think that a team like the Raiders who took Rock Bouers, when they have so many other needs and they already have Michael Mayer, I don't feel confident that they're going to use him properly, right Like, I don't think that's irrational to think that way. But if we're looking solely at ceiling, which is kind of what we're trying to do, is look at that upper range of outcomes for these players in best ball winning a tournament, you have to be able to see that range with Brock Bowers. Maybe I won't get as much Bowers in like a managed season long league, depending on where his ADP falls. I don't really know, so don't think that that's a take, But I do think that he does make sense in this kind of format, and I don't mind pairing him with Ingram, especially like an Ingram. Bowers actually did that in a BBM before this stream, But even like a McBride, like I said, I think that you can get away with doing something like that.

00:25:22
Speaker 2: That double mid late round is always nice too, because you're like kind of worried, kind of worried, kind of worry of then you go boom boom, and you're like, Okay, I'm set it tight end.

00:25:29
Speaker 3: I don't even have to think about it. You know.

00:25:32
Speaker 2: The first thing I did this morning when I dug into ADP is I wanted to look at DeVante Adams and Jacoby Myers, because, like Bowers, I just feel like there's so much Vegas hate in all of these drafts that I'm doing Anecdotally, I'm seeing DeVante and Jacoby go like half round, full round later than ADP. But the ADP hasn't budged much a week over a week. But I'm I'm assuming a slide is going to come just because I don't know, I just feel like, like you said, people are pretty cold on this Vegas team. Week fifteen, Week sixteen, starting to look at those games tacks. You talked about it in the value draft that you had looking for common opponents throughout the playoffs, not just in week seventeen. What other matchups? What are the things you're looking at in week fifteen, Week sixteen.

00:26:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there's that one like triumvirate if you will, of Minnesota, Green Bay, and Seattle, I think are the three teams where they play each other, all three of them play in Chicago.

00:26:26
Speaker 1: There's the four.

00:26:27
Speaker 4: I guess there's four teams that you could literally Seattle gets green Bay, Minnesota, and Chicago, and then Chicago gets Minnesota, Detroit, Seattle, and then green Bay gets Seattle, New Orleans, Minnesota likes. There's just a very very good correlation there. And then I don't know if I said Minnesota, but they get Chicago.

00:26:43
Speaker 1: Seattle, Green Bay. But yeah, it's just a very very good correlation there.

00:26:47
Speaker 4: If you're starting to build and compile teams, it's a very easy go to. But you know, I have seen to be attracted a lot towards Jacksonville, Tennessee in that Week seventeen game. But while I'm doing that, all I'm doing is I have a sheet where I'm looking at week fifteen, week sixteen matchups.

00:27:03
Speaker 1: I don't have those memorized. I only have Week seventeen memorized.

00:27:06
Speaker 3: And together yet.

00:27:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, you know, I don't think that's gonna happen, but you know, I'm looking at sort of what the you know, as I'm drafting and I'm seeing value drop and stuff, like, I'm not that concerned, or I should say, I'm not overly concerned about getting correlation through the first four or five rounds of my draft.

00:27:27
Speaker 1: Would I ideally like it? Sure?

00:27:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, like I'm gonna if I get Marvin Harrison junior, you know, hopefully I could get Cooper Cup or something like that. Right Like, that's that's great, But I'm not going to force the issue that much because I want to extract a lot of value in those early rounds and kind of get a differentiated portfolio and such. And so when I see that, and when I do that, then once I get into a round five, round six, round seven, that's when I'm really starting to think more about correlation. And as I'm building that core, those team stacks, I'm naturally just looking at what I did in the first four rounds or so to sort of say, Okay, I can go with this guy instead of this guy because I drafted Keenan Allen in the fifth or something like that. Right Like, it's it's a way of sort of making your decision for you that week fifteen, Week sixteen, those game stacks and I think it's, you know, a way that obviously can bring a little bit more upside too to your lineup.

00:28:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's definitely a great tiebreaker. All right, let's get into some specific player takes. We talked about David and Joku about a bit there. You can you can add afe you want to. But the next player on the list you brought up Titans Jags briefly, there is the man who puts mayonnaise in his coffee, Will Evis.

00:28:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, it's crazy. I look back at the Puppy and now DeAndre Hopkins. So I talked about a couple weeks ago on the show. Hopkins is now one of my highest roster players, partially because I just kept drafting him in the Puppy and naturally because I got at the time I was drafting Hopkins, and in those slow drafts I was doing in the Puppy, I was only in like round nine or so of most of those drafts. Now those drafts have concluded, and I've realized that, oh I got a lot of Will Levis too, because I caught Hopkins and I wanted to pair him, you know, with his quarterback. But you know, Levis is someone who I talk about as a target as a late round dart throw in the Late Round Draft Guide. He's my highest exposed quarterback right now. It's only at twelve percent. To be fair, I don't have massive exposure to any individual quarterback, but he is at twelve percent, so it's higher, maybe thirteen percent. He had a crazy, crazy average up the target last year. Obviously we know he is a big arm. Brian Callahan's now in Tennessee. Even before Joe Burrow, he was the OC for Cincinnati for a year and that year they were an incredibly past heavy offense. I think that this is part of his DNA. And look at everything Tennessee did during the offseason. You know, the running back that they add to tandem with Tajy Spears is a dual threat, you know, backfield mate and Tony Pollard. They go out and they sign Calvin Ridley. They're doing things to make this a more dynamic, pass friendly offen. They get Tyler, They're they're doing things to make this some more friendly, pass heavy offense. And so bring that all together, you got strong, strong weapons and Hopkins and Ridley Boyd as fine as a slot, you know, Chicka Konqua is not a bad tight end, pass catching tight end, that is. And so you know, and you have you have two good running backs in that backfield. I just think it's kind of coming together for Will Levis to outplay his ADP, which is not budged a ton like it's he's still QB twenty four. I think that, you know, you could argue him over a Gino, you could argue him over a Baker when he'll go around later than those guys. And if you lock in Ridley and Hopkins in the right and round five in round six, then you're almost definitely gonna be able to get let Levis past ADP.

00:30:45
Speaker 2: Every time I see at the top of my q anybody from this Jags Titans game, I'm immediately interested in it. You know me too, and the running backs. The only person that I'm not super exposed to is is he, just because I prefer taking a more elite running back than someone going that high. But everybody else from this game, I am so comfortable clicking. And then yeah, Levis is just such a natural fit. You don't have to invest much. You get an easy.

00:31:14
Speaker 3: Stack out of it.

00:31:14
Speaker 2: We talked about this way back in episode one the Patriots, the Titans. The Panthers are just your great break glass in case of emergency stack that you can just put together towards the end of the draft. And then Marshawn Lloyd, Josh Jacobs going all the way in the fifth round, Marshall Lloyd all the way in the twelfth getting a seventh throw on discount on somebody with great upside.

00:31:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that the market is still kind of wrong about how this backfield is going to play out. Like I don't mind Jacobs at times in the fifth, especially if I get Justin Jefferson in the first and I want, you know, that's when I start again start thinking about more about game stacks and such. In week seventeen, so I'll get Josh Jacobs because Minnesota plays Green Bay. But you know, I just think that people are understating, you know, Matt Lafleur's love for a split backfield. You know, we saw him split in Tennessee with Derek Henry and Dion Lewis. You know, Henry wasn't totally Derrick Henry yet at that point in time, but even still, Dion Lewis was also horrid that season. And so and then we've seen it throughout his time in Green Bay, right with with Aaron Jones, you know, Jamal Williams and Aaron Jones and aj Dillon, et cetera, et cetera.

00:32:27
Speaker 1: I was also listening to Establish the Run.

00:32:29
Speaker 4: I don't listen to a ton of podcasts, but at times i'll throw on some, and ETR is an easy one to go to with my buddies over there with Silva and Adam Levitan, and they were talking about some reports in this backfield, and and Silva had made mention that when they got rid of Aaron Jones, or sorry, when they when they when they got Josh Jacobs, it sounded like Lafleur thought that they were also going to be keeping Aaron Jones in that in that backfield. And then they got rid of Aaron Jones. And now you know, obvious it's Josh Jacobs quote unquote backfield. But look at what they did next. What they did was they went to the NFL Draft spent a Day two pick on Marshawn Lloyd, who you know, I didn't love Marshon Lloyd as a prospect, but he did. And I even wrote about this. He's a really really good change of pace player. Like he's a great tandem back in my opinion, and then those kinds of players in a one week, two week sample, if someone gets hurt, they could be fine and they could be a workhorse in that small you know, I think if Josh Jacobs got hurt in week three, then they might want to do something about the running back position because it is a contending team. But you know, Josh Jacobs gets hurt in like week fourteen or week thirteen, and they need Marshon Lloyd for a few weeks. I think he could carry the word the load and be solid. I mean, he's a really really dynamic guy. I think he's more athletic immediately and more dynamic than Josh Jacobs is. And I do think that all of this just plays into the idea that Lafleur wants a split backfield to some degree.

00:33:57
Speaker 1: So I have marsh On Lloyd.

00:33:59
Speaker 4: I think I'm at like sixty or seventeen percent Marshaon Lloyd through through my draft so far. I don't think that's going to reach like twenty percent where like I'm at with like Zach Sharboney right now.

00:34:08
Speaker 1: But I do think that he's a very very good value.

00:34:11
Speaker 2: Still Sharp is another play player in that triumphant.

00:34:15
Speaker 3: It's all those teams.

00:34:16
Speaker 2: I feel like we've talked about every week for becoming bestball boll So happy to have exposure in all them.

00:34:22
Speaker 4: All.

00:34:22
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, let's kick it on over to James.

00:34:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, let's talk about let's let's talk about this interview.

00:34:26
Speaker 4: So I talked to James Brimacombe, who is a high volume best ball player. You know, I think that he approaches the game a little bit differently than some of the other guests that I've had on the show, which is great. I think that, you know, obviously I do late round perspectives, so people get other perspectives from people. I kind of feel similarly with becoming a Best ball bro I'm trying to absorb all this information from these people who have been playing high volume for years and years and not just been playing, but high volume playing, and that's what James does. So we talked about why he's kind of a different player than others within the space and others that you might have listened to on this show. We talked about some of his highest exposed players, which I think a couple of them are kind of shocking that people will be surprised to hear. But there's a lot more. I mean it's a great conversation. I think you guys will enjoy it. So without further ado, let's talk to James. This episode is sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. There's no better place to play best ball than that Underdog. There are leagues starting all the time, and you can choose whether you want to do a slow draft or a fast one when entering one of those leagues. And you don't just have to play best ball Mania to play best ball at Underdog.

00:35:30
Speaker 1: There's a wide variety of contests to choose from.

00:35:33
Speaker 4: You can even check out Underdog's other games as well, like pick them right now. You can get in on the action with a deposit offer and free copy of the Late Round Draft Guide just by signing up and depositive. Just head to Underdog Fantasy dot com or download the Underdog appt When you sign up, use promo code late Round and make a deposit for a deposit offer and a free copy of the Late Round Draft Guide. Again, that's promo code Late Round. Now back to the show. So, James, something that you said to me when we were sort of planning out this interview was that you're not the typical best ball drafter and that you seem to zag more than sort of the rest of the community than the rest of the community.

00:36:14
Speaker 1: Can you expand on that idea a little bit and talk about what you mean by that.

00:36:18
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like best Ball I've been playing for probably since it started the MFL ten kind of days, and I think just like we were seeing the explosion of content right like everyone there's content creators now everywhere. That best Ball is the thing that's where you want to be in the space. So with that comes like a lot of like similar ideas, similar takes, like just follow the leader kind of thing, which isn't which isn't a bad thing, because I think a lot of that's backed up by a lot of data as well, Like people are diving into that and showing great metrics and different angles of what works and what doesn't in these big tournaments. But at the same time, like we have eighteen rounds in these underdog drafts and these tournament drafts, and like I like to draft hunters of these teams. After you draft one hundred teams, you probably know this too. Every team feels exactly the same, Like it's just it's just on repeat. So like, if I feel like that, I'm assuming the eleven other drafters in my draft room are feeling that as well. So like I don't try to be too extreme, like I focus more on the roster construction as a whole rather than you know, like I should take wide receiver, wide receiver, wide receiver to start, like I think I can switch that up and then maybe go six receivers after that or things like that. So I'm looking at different angles there to get me a little bit off script. And at the same time, it's like bestball is supposed to be fun, So for me, those drafts are the most fun when I'm just a little bit different, even if it's like one pick or two picks, how you how you normally win the draft, and especially in those first rounds, Like I think all those picks are pretty pretty decent.

00:38:06
Speaker 4: So yeah, I think I think that you bring up a good point though with the content in the way that I mean, Look, I'm guilty obviously doing becoming a best Ball bro and doing the series of doing more best ball content and such. But you know, if you know, I've talked to Mike Leoni from Established the Run I've talked to a lot of these data driven, you know, data heavy analysts who are looking at previous historic, you know, best ball Mania contests, let's say, and I think that it's not even on them, it's not even on the analyst who is sort of forcing this optimal roster construction and this optimal way to draft. I think it's more so they're seeing it from the And I even talked to Leoni about this. You know, he's seeing it from the standpoint of probability. But it's really important from a message from a messaging standpoint to allow people to understand that this is just what we've seen and this is sort of the optimal way that it's worked in the past, and you know, you're probably going to have a better chance it's to win if you go with this sort of approach, if you go you know, have have four wide receivers through seven rounds, et cetera, et cetera. But I think it's really really important for people to understand that there's a massive gray area, which is I think is what you're really getting to here.

00:39:14
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think I think similarly, yeah, exactly like that. And Leoni is like the best at the diving into the data, right, So like I do, I listen to every I listen to everything out there, and I appreciate everyone's hard work and all their insights, and honestly, like, I'm drafting the way a lot of people are saying, but I'm just not doing one hundred percent of my drafts, so maybe fifty percent of my drafts, I'm doing it that way, and then I'm kind of going off script a little bit on the other one. It depends like what your budget is and what you want to do, or if you just want to go all in on a certain strategy, that's fine too, And I think, yeah, there's little edges there, the data showed it, and I think you're going to get to a good spot either way.

00:39:55
Speaker 1: So yeah, it makes total sense.

00:39:57
Speaker 4: So regarding some of these strategies, one of them obviously is stacking within your builds. And I think as July and August hits, and we get folks kind of entering the best ball arena, if you will, who haven't been drafting in May and June, who are probably a little bit more casual. Maybe we'll only do twenty drafts this season, We're probably going to see a lot of people that aren't stacking as much just because they don't necessarily understand the correlation aspect of things. You know, I've gotten people, you know, I'm sure you get people who send screenshots of their teams and they say, hey, how's this team look?

00:40:29
Speaker 1: And then you look at it and there's no stack at all.

00:40:31
Speaker 4: You know, the quarterbacks are completely you know, there's no pass catcher that's correlated with those quarterbacks. But to you, how important is stacking to your builds? And that's not just you know, same team stacking. That's also you know, in these playoff contests like Best ball Mania, how much are you focused on week seventeen game stacks and even Week fifteen and week sixteen game stacks.

00:40:51
Speaker 5: No, that's a great question. So yeah, I think that's like if you need a best ball, that's kind of like the one on one of Best Wall, Right, it's like stacking, right, you just want a QB with a pass catcher or whatever, like that's the most basic way you can go. But I think I even gave a lot of pushback that early on, like I was just more I come from a football guys background, so it's always value based drafting, you know, like I really look for value all the time, and you know, hey, I can get this quarterback that fallows thirty spots, Like that's the way I used to be more focused on. And I think that's more like total points. We're looking at total points week to week, accumulative scoring kind of formats, but in these bestball tournaments, they're they're totally opposite, so you have to kind of think a lot outside the box. But they Yeah, the last like three years, I got kind of more on into the stacking and that's and I think that came more with I played a lot of playoff basketball and you basically had to have a whole team stack. So that part of the game actually helped my regular season part where I just like my mind focused more on, hey, I want I want these good Often is I want this team that I feel like, you know they're going to be by the time week fourteen comes around, they're actually going to be a good team. So I'm looking more at like what a team value is to me, what players are on that team, and kind of what like value where I can get those players, Like if I can, like right now like Dallas and San fran I feel like I can get like those qbs pretty late and like probably the best offense passing offenses out there too, So things like that, I'm looking at Week seventeen stuff like I'm still not one hundred percent on board with that, but I get it. But I think that's more I don't draft a single team at a time, like I'm drafting like three, four or five teams fast drafts out of time because I just want to get the volume. That's more important to me. But I think if I was just doing Best Ball manias and one at a time and just had an hour just to focus and do all the things sitting on a computer, then I yeah, I would, I would look at the seventeen thing. But at the time, I just I just don't have time to do that. And I think naturally, if you're stacking and just stacking QB and pass catchers, like you're going to fall into those stacks anyway, Like anytime, I just like I don't have a Week seventeen memorized, it's probably bad on me. And like I get I'm trying to get to get to that point. It's like I'm still learning as a bestball player. But in my focus, I think would be more Week sixteen if I had to, I've played the best ball Mania. I've played it ever since it opened. This is the fifth year and I've probably put in four hundred entries in that thing over the last four years, and I have zero teams in the finals, you know. So so I mean those numbers aren't great, but to me, that tells me week sixteen I'm doing something wrong. Like I've had a lot of teams just sitting in Week sixteen and you know they don't advance out. But get I get all the moneies in Week seventeen, and I get like all the analysis everyone, but I just want to get a team there.

00:44:01
Speaker 4: So yeah, no, no, it makes sense, especially now there's a flight or payout structure in Week seventeen, you know, in the in the finals, and so it makes sense that you just kind of want to be in the dance and hope variances on your side and you're able to obviously get first. But even if you don't get first, it's not as bad as it has been historically. And the one thing that you pointed out that I think is really important in that I've noticed too, is that when you naturally just team stack, you do find yourself, oh, oh, I'm game stack and even realize that I have a correlation now in week fifteen, and then I have one in week sixteen. I did that the other day with a Tennessee lineup, and that like I had like Indianapolis and Cincinnati, I think they had a shared opponent, and I didn't even realize that while it was going on, and it just kind of ended up being that way. And so I think that's one thing to also remember is that there's only thirty two teams, right, It's not like we have like one hundred and fifty teams that we're trying to piece together these puzzles. There's going to be some shared opponent, There's gonna be some common opponents, and there's naturally going to be you know, some overlap there whenever you make these these team stacks.

00:45:07
Speaker 5: Yeah, no, for sure. And that's the way I felt like every draft, maybe like ten percent of my drafts I don't fall into like a week sixteen seventeen game stack. But yeah, most times you're automatically just fallen into that.

00:45:19
Speaker 1: Right right in some way.

00:45:21
Speaker 4: So as we know, there these these drafts over an underdog are very very wide receiver heavy. That leaves a lot of RB two's, you know, most of the RB three sort of in the middle round range. Let's just call those like the round eight to round ten range. I've asked this question to others, but I think it's an important one because this is where a lot of people are starting to get at least there you know, RB two, RB three, but even you know, if you go zero RB, this is where you would get your RB one. And my question to you is are there any running backs in that range that really stick out or are you just kind of getting equal exposure to a lot of those guys?

00:45:54
Speaker 5: Yeah, there is is it's more of a I always draft for more. Yeah, I said value, you right, So I'm looking for those ADP values, But at the same time, I'm looking for in running backs volume opportunity. You know, they look good on the depth chart. This team might be ascending, but people think they're a garbage kind of team. So so yeah, definitely names stick out to me there like Hermande, Stevenson, Swift, Connor Pollard, Singletary, like all these guys are just going to get volume and yeah, and people people don't love them because maybe there's a guy beside them on the in the backfield, and that's fine. Like if I miss on Pollard, I go Spears, you know. So, So to me, it's not about like I just have to have this player in that range. But there's like six or seven of those running backs that I do really like. It's more based on I just think they're going to get crazy volume. So if I can get two or three of those kind of running backs and only say one or two of them hit out of two or three, I'm fine with that. And I understand, like that's how NFL works, that's how fantasy works. Like you're not going to be able to hit one hundred percent on all your picks.

00:46:59
Speaker 1: At the quarterback position.

00:47:00
Speaker 4: Is there a specific way that you're attacking that position, because to me, it looks pretty efficient this year the way that drafters are picking quarterbacks and such. I mean, I think that you can make certainly make arguments about like where these guys go, but I just mean in the order that they're being drafted, at least you can see the logic.

00:47:17
Speaker 1: It makes some sense.

00:47:18
Speaker 4: You mentioned some guys in Dak and brock Purty that you seem to be a little overweight on, but how are you attacking quarterback this year?

00:47:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was actually looking at my percentage owned in this position. I feel like I'm pretty low actually on Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts, and Lamar Jackson. I feel like they're a tier of their own, right, those three, Like if you want them, you got to pay for them. I guess Lamar maybe slips like a round on those two either too, And I kind of like that value, probably more so with him, So maybe I'm fading Alan and Hurts a little more than Lamar. But then from there, like I feel like I try to in most of my drafts, I'm trying to go running back, receiver, and the pretty heavy in those first six seven rounds probably you know, six out of seven of those picks will be from running back or receiver. Yeah, and that and then that's when QB starts hitting. But yeah, like my top I was looking at my top on players, uh for QB, like Trevor Lawrence, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, Caleb Williams, Rock Purdy, Dak Prescott, and Jordan Love like those are my main kind of targets. It's mainly because of the price. It's mainly because maybe people are a little bit out on them what they did last year, and maybe they don't have the running ability. So it's a lot of people, Uh are you want the rushing ability right, Like, that's what's breaking tournaments, That's that's what's going to give you these huge spike weeks. But I'm looking more for like value and the QB position, And maybe they had a bad year so you're getting a little bit of value there, and they're still in a good offense. They can still break out, and they're super talented. Like and I guess there's like some worries on Joe Burrow, like maybe some injury stuff, but I just feel like, yeah, I don't know, he's he's probably my top three QB right now, And I just yeah, is he so easy to stack? Higgins right right?

00:49:19
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:49:19
Speaker 4: And the other thing, he's one of those quarterbacks that you can really squeeze value out of, you know, if you if you want to play a game of Chicken a little bit with other drafters, like if you did get Chase and Higgins especially, but even if you just get one of those two, if you know that the other team, who let's say you get chased the other team was Higgins if they have good quarterbacks already, or if they passed on him and they're at a part of the draft where you know, you can extract some of that value people see. I mean, Burrow is one of those quarterbacks oddly because it just it's Joe Burrow. You know, He's one of those quarterbacks. It just seems to fall a lot in these drafts, Like I got him in one recently, a good round and a half after ADP and it's not really that uncommon for him.

00:49:57
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it's the mobility aspect.

00:50:00
Speaker 4: Of things and people you know, leaning in on that a little bit more, or if it really is uh, you know, the injury. But I definitely, you know, I've seen that happen with with Burrow in particular.

00:50:10
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just think he's a crazy value right now. Like I feel like he's still superstar and he's got surrounded by superstar players. In the Running Game, there's like some question marks there, so uh, same same with Little why I love Prescott because I feel like Dallas Running Game there's so many question marks, So I'm just like loading up on those guys. I just feel like, uh, like Trevor Lawrence a lot too. I just feel like there's a comeback season coming. Every runs down on him. He's super valued at value. Get him as your QB two, no problem. He's easy to stack, Like all these guys are pretty easy to stack, and they're on decent offenses. So I don't I mean, maybe you say Justin Herbert and like, yeah, people don't don't want that offense at all, But I don't know, I kind of like it.

00:50:57
Speaker 1: I like it.

00:50:58
Speaker 5: He keeps sliding, and I'm I think, keep taking on them as my QB two.

00:51:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I mean, look, it's Justin Herbert. We've obviously seen what he can do from a ceiling perspective, and I think with Herbert what I've kind of come to the conclusion with I don't think he's someone that I'm going to be like massively massively overweight on, but I'm definitely not gonna be underweight. I think it's one of those situations where we're making assumptions about the offense, like you said, where we're assuming that this Greg Roman offense is going to be pretty run heavy, which I think is a proper assumption to make, But when that's already baked into price and baked into the market. Then that creates an opportunity for you to draft that player because we know that it could go the opposite direction, and maybe they are a little bit more pass heavy than what we expect. It's not like Justin Herbert is the kind of quarterback that we've seen with Greg Roman through the years. You know, he had Kaepernick and to Rod Taylor and Lamar Jackson, Like this is not the same kind of archtype. So there is a chance that they're a little bit more pass heavy than we expect. So I like that that Herbert called too. Speaking of exposures, you were tweeting them out a little bit last week, and I notice that a top your exposures list, your number one player might might have changed since then, to be fair, but that number one player was Cortland Sutton, and I think some people might be surprised by that because he's not a very sexy pick. Like it's you know, we know what we kind of have with Courtland Sutton. You know, he's shown off that he could be, you know, a solid fantasy asset, but maybe not like a massively high ceiling fantasy asset across the season, at least obviously weekly spikes can happen for almost anyone. He's got this rookie quarterback, but you know he's got a situation all by himself. So what is it that makes you attracted to drafting Sutton?

00:52:39
Speaker 5: I mean, I think I just think Judy's gone from there. It was always like last year, We're always like, hey, is it Sutton or Judy? You know a lot of people are going Judy over him, and then Sutton has like one do you have like ten touchdowns or something? Yeah, with Russell Wilson, I get, like, now the pushbacks, like, hey, Russell Wilson's not there, Who's who's gonna float these touchdowns into him? But I get that part of it, But it's more of yeah, just like a price point for Sutton and where I can get him as my wide receiver four or five and that can still go pretty heavy running back as well. Like that. That's to me, that's just like crazy best ball value where I don't have to worry when I start Courtland Sutton. He's just like always there and maybe he starts every other week and that's fine and that he's doing his job, but like hopefully he comes alive in the playoffs. You know, and and he's had spike weeks, He's had like multiple touchdown games. So I just I just feel like people are taking like Jamison Williams and guys over him. It's like, I don't know, I feel like Sutton should be like there with Deontay Johnson kind of range. So I feel like there's a lot of value there still, and you find that value when there's uncertainty on teams. So the Broncos are rookie qbs. They've been bad for a couple of years. You know, they traded away their other wide receiver and this, and Sutton's like, I think he wants a new contract. So there's like a lot of like what if with that situation, and I feel like that's why you're getting a pretty good price. So I'm just, yeah, he is my highest zoned. I think I'm twenty five percent on him until a lot of people. Twenty five percent is not a lot, you know, like that they have. They probably have like ten players twenty five percent, So to me, I'm just gonna keep staying around that level. As price goes up, I'll probably drop them down and I'm happy with around twenty percent at the end of the year when everything's all said and done on sudden.

00:54:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you are your exposures relatively flat? You know?

00:54:33
Speaker 4: I've noticed my like my highest rostered right now. I think I have like Charbonne as one of my highest ones, and he's like at like twenty one or twenty two percent. Like it's not it's not very I mean maybe that's just like an ADP hunting kind of mentality, right, But is that sort of where where you're like, you're you're rarely getting guys over the twenty five percent mark?

00:54:52
Speaker 1: Because I've seen other best ball bros.

00:54:54
Speaker 4: You know, Like I know that Davis Maddick in particular this year is going like really hard with his stand is right, So he's got guys that are in.

00:55:01
Speaker 1: The mid to high thirties pretty frequently.

00:55:04
Speaker 4: But are you more so in that like twenty to twenty five percent range is like your maximum exposure for a player?

00:55:09
Speaker 5: Yeah, I probably play it way too safe than a lot of people. So yeah, like that's where I'm at. Like over the years, I've got burned too many times and it doesn't matter like if it's an early pick or a late pick, like say here eighteenth round pick, and you're just like forty percent on a player, like it could just be like a zero right from week two you know on right, So I like learned those lessons a lot, Like injuries are going to happen, Like you're eighteen eighteen man rosters, you really have to construct them in a way to kind of almost foresee injuries, right like you like, okay, two of my running back, two or three my running backs are going to be done by week ten, you know, And that's a lot how I build the same with receiver, Like yeah, maybe Ston, you know, maybe he's done by week five, but he was my wide receiver you know, four or five on a team, So it's not going to completely kill me off. So and I think maybe the first round or two you have to be a little bit more careful on your ownerships there. You don't want to be too high. You don't want to miss out on there's so many star players. You don't want to take one star player to only miss out on the guy that was going ADP right beside him, you know.

00:56:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:56:19
Speaker 4: Yeah, speaking of the early rounds, another guy that you're high on from an exposure standpoint is Sakuon Barkley.

00:56:25
Speaker 1: I feel like he's been.

00:56:27
Speaker 4: Probably the most controversial, you know, top two or three round guy this year because number one plays the running back position obviously, so if you play running back and you're getting drafted early, people are gonna yell at that pick. But then number two, you know, he's going to a situation in Philly where you have Jalen Hurts mobile quarterback, you have the potential for the push push, and I think people are a little bit turned off by that. I'm sort of in the middle, so you're not gonna offend me by any sort of answer here. But are you what are you seeing out of Barkley And why is he I don't know if he's still your number two guy, but why is he, you know, up there with in terms of exposure.

00:57:04
Speaker 5: I mean, yeah, I am. I mean obviously I'm an Eagles like fanatic or whatever. But it's not even about that, Like I don't even I have like three percent Jalen Hurts, right, So I so to me, it's more like, hey, I as a fan, as a football fan, I'm just kind of seeing maybe the trend is like Hurts is gonna run a little less. Let's see, he looked like garbage last year. The end of the year to be honest, Like watching all those games for the Eagles fan like Jalen Hurts was just beat up. They have so much money, Like I just don't think they can do it again, Like I don't. I don't think they can just run them. I get like it's almost automatic. But do we need to do that week five, six, seven, eight nine, Like I don't think so. So you bring all this money to Berkley. We know what he is in the past, like he hasn't been on a good team in a long time, Like he probably didn't sign that contract with Philly just to you know, get sniped on every Touchdow. So I just feel like it's more of a gut feeling that one. I feel like the community is looking for, you know. Najie Harris was the guy last year, Like let's just like he's awful, he's the worst, you know, and yeah, like this year, yeah it's Barkley, Like I feel I feel like we need somebody to plan our flag on, like who's going to be the failure this year? And yeah, yeah, look, look like Harris was decent last year and now all those haters are back on them, you know.

00:58:28
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know.

00:58:30
Speaker 5: I don't see the hate for Barkley as much. I get like, I don't know, like, who are you taking a chan over him? I guess they're Kyn Williams. Like, I just think he's a pretty good value there at the two three turn, and I'll just keep scooping it up and like, I think he could be justifiable like a first round pick.

00:58:52
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:58:53
Speaker 4: Yeah, Look, I think there's a lot of ambiguity in round two in general, right, Like like people were acting like, uh, you know, some of these wider are locked in and they're gonna be great picks at the end of the day.

00:59:03
Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of question marks there.

00:59:06
Speaker 4: And when Barkley, like you said, when Barkley falls and you're in like the two spot and you've got Cede Lamb and you're thinking about if you are thinking about week seventeen and the correlation there, then all of a sudden you're like, it's it's it's very easy to go Barkley's way and have that anchor at running back throughout the rest of your build.

00:59:23
Speaker 1: And you know, to your.

00:59:23
Speaker 4: Point, like the Eagles haven't made an investment like this at running back.

00:59:29
Speaker 1: You know, during sort of this era, if you will.

00:59:31
Speaker 4: I mean, they've always kind of had like pieces that they would kind of put together and have this like committee type backfield arrangement, and the fact that they went out they got Saquon. I'm you know, the more that I've thought about this, the more I think there might just be a little bit too much overthinking of this situation where like, we have arguably the most dynamic, best running back prospect and I understand he's not in year one anymore, but arguably one of the best running back prospects of the last two decades.

01:00:00
Speaker 1: And you're on in an offense that.

01:00:02
Speaker 4: Should be strong, probably projected top ten at least top ten, maybe even top five, And you know, you're you're worried about understandably, so you're worried about what could happen at the goal line, you know, with this guy. But there's some variance there, man, you know, there's I don't think that we can just assume that things just go the same way that it's gone the last couple of years.

01:00:23
Speaker 1: Is that sort of the way that you're you're viewing all of this too.

01:00:25
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's that's the way I'm looking at it. But I but I also get like he is my second highest own and it is around two three pick. Yeah, So like I'm a little nervous there. Maybe I'm I'm missing out on some other guys and maybe I should dial it down a little bit, you know, and stay around maybe the fifteen percent range or twelve percent, you know. Like, But to me, I just I don't know, Like right now, it just feels good. It feels right if he gets closer to the first round and then maybe I dial it back then I've been trying to like bump like Jonathan Taylor ahead of him now, So.

01:00:58
Speaker 4: That's what I was going to ask you are you are you higher on Saquon than Taylor, because again taking a step back, the more I've thought about this, it's like, okay, mobile quarterback could steal looks at the goal line similarly, but Saquon's a proven pass catcher.

01:01:11
Speaker 1: Like Saquon at least has has has.

01:01:13
Speaker 4: That in his arsenal, and he's shown us that he can be a dynamic pass catcher. Jonathan Taylor's been fine, but it's not like he's been, you know, a fifteen to twenty percent target chair player at all throughout his career. Is that, and I think that we would probably project the Eagles be better than the Colts from a from an offensive standpoint. So are you leaning Barkley over Taylor? And now you're just kind of trying to squeeze Taylor in there a little bit more.

01:01:34
Speaker 5: That's basically what I'm doing. So like, yeah, if I was on the clock and I was in only one draft all year, yeah, I would probably take Barkley over Taylor. But now that I have, you know, maybe only eight percent Taylor and twenty percent Barkley. I'm just trying to like level it out some. But I do agree like the Eagles what they have a J Brown, they have you know, Devonte Smith, and I guess they have got her as like a third option, but like I feel like Barkley might be the third receiver there, Like they've never had like that third receiver, and I feel like that's like something that I get. Like Hurts doesn't really throw the running backs as much or whatnot, but maybe they line them out more outside too sometimes. Yeah, and he is he is a third receiver.

01:02:17
Speaker 4: So yeah, look, I think he's going to see a double digit percentage target chair, which which is usually the number that you want these guys to get to at a baseline, especially earlier around guys, and I think the ceiling is still there for him to hit like a fifteen percent target chair. And so you know, I'm glad that you had tweeted that because you know, my exposure to him, I actually had more Barkley And this is bad because his ADP was higher, But I had more Barkley in pre draft best ball, you know, in like the big board and stuff like that. And then I started to like get talked out of it a little bit, And now I think I got to just kind of force it a little bit more because of everything that we're talking about here. I mean, there's there's reasons where these narratives that we build in our minds about how things are going to go down, Like we talked about early, you can't just assume that things are going to go a certain way, you know, with like justin Herbert, Yes, that's the most likely outcome, but it's not the outcome, Right, there's still an outcome here where you know, they don't use Jalen Hurts the same way at the goal line where Barkley is a ten plus touchdown player, and I don't think it would shock if we look back on the season. This is another thing I try to do, another exercise I try to do. If we look back on the season we see Saquon Barkley as a top five running back, are we going to be surprised by that?

01:03:25
Speaker 1: Yeah?

01:03:26
Speaker 5: That's I do that in myself a lot, And yeah, I feel the same way, Like I feel like, yeah, Bjan Breise, McCaffrey and Taylor and Barkley, Like those are the guys that stand out to me, like looking out the top of the board, and I get like, there's some guys on the outside there that could bump to but I don't know just the offense he's in, the division he's in, just the opportunities that are ahead for him.

01:03:49
Speaker 1: So yeah, makes sense.

01:03:51
Speaker 4: One thing I did notice with those exposure tweets was your elite tight end, like the top six, top seven guys. However, you to define elite this year because it's not really the same as it was in years past, But they're not really in your top fifteen to twenty, you know, exposed players. Is that due to them being too pricey in your mind? Or is it just spreading things out when you do go earlier around tight end, like you just have a lot of them, but they're you know, not necessarily you know, in that like fifteen to twenty percent range. Are there any in particular that you're targeting in that range or are you just going with a late round tight end approach.

01:04:26
Speaker 5: Yeah, like tight ends like my nemesis over the years, Like I don't understand how to do this in best. Well, it's a tight end position, so I try. I try every angle of tight end. So I'll try some elite tight end, So I'm fine with that, and I try some like three or four late tight ends. But actually, like my my favorite spot this year and it's I've heard a lot of people say they don't actually like this this year is like the middle tight ends. So like Nadjoku, Goddard Kittle, Friar Muth comment, like even Pitts and Evan Ingram, like those are the guys that I'm actually in bowers, Like those are the guys I've actually probably like around ten percent plus on and I'm trying to mix and match two of those guys and then I don't have to draft anymore. So it's not like an elite tight end. But say, like I get like a you know, like an ingram and a daughter. You know, like I'm fine with those two tight ends and riding into the sunset and hopefully in the tournament's like in the tournament weeks, like one of those guys hits a spike week.

01:05:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I get.

01:05:29
Speaker 5: I get why people want the like elite tight ends. It's mainly for the tournament structure. It's mainly for those playoff weeks where the big money is. But even like last year, we saw like Juwan Johnson was like the guy you needed in week seventeen, you know. So yeah, so yeah, I'm mixing late tight ends. Like sometimes I won't draft a tight ends around like fifteen, and then I'll just do fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, like four tight ends, and you know, I'm hoping to get my five six tight end points each week and in the playoff, so I'm hoping to you know, get double digit number there.

01:06:03
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:06:04
Speaker 4: I think it's really important because because I was realizing that a lot of my season long philosophies translate I often see myself in my season long philosophies translating to best ball, and it's not a good thing all the time. Right, like, it's not the same game. You have to understand that it's not the same game. And historically, from like a season long points per game perspective, going big or not going at all at tight end has been sort of like the winning strategy through the years, right, like just get a Kelsey getting Andrews or just wait and But the difference is you can play the waiver wire.

01:06:39
Speaker 1: The differences.

01:06:39
Speaker 4: You can do things throughout the season to make your tight end room better, whereas you can't do that in best ball obviously. And what I noticed literally like a week and a half ago, was that my mentality was so heavily skewed towards that direction that my exposure to an Ndjoku, my exposure to a Goddard into a Bours. They were maybe not Bowers as much, but in Djoku and Goddard in particular, we're just way too low.

01:07:05
Speaker 1: And so I started to like really.

01:07:07
Speaker 4: Force the issue a little bit more because I think you're right where you know, I almost see tight end like quarterback, where there's just these pockets, right, there's these areas where you can really attack it as long as you're understanding, like you said, that you can get you know, two of those low end tight end ones like an in Djoku and Bowers and even things out or if you go with an early round tight end like a McBride or whatever, you only need one late or something like that, and you're really balancing the tight end position overall.

01:07:33
Speaker 5: Yeah. No, And I feel like it's more a construction thing for me because I do like to kind of go running backs earlier than a lot of people, like even if it's one or two guys like in the early rounds. So for that, like most of the field right now is going like elite tight end, So for me, you have to invest, well, you have to sacrifice somewhere, Like you can't have a perfect roster, You're going to have to sacrifice one of your positions. And I feel like the onesie positions are the way to do it. Cute like you said, QB and tight end very similar, and that's kind of where I'm trying to feel like more of the middle pockets of those positions and I'm trying to fill it with two and I'm trying to make that too be kind of like equivalent to an elite So still that way I can build out my receiver room and my running backs earlier, and it's just part of a construction game, like I play in my head. But I don't always do it that way. Like sometimes I like, you know, sometimes I'll take like dalonkin Kid and like fourth round just for fun if I can get them with Allen the three four turn, you know, like I'll try to push those elite tight ends when I can stack them. That's usually the only only time I'll take them.

01:08:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, makes a lot of sense.

01:08:43
Speaker 4: Last question for you, do you have any favorite because people ask this all the time when they're in round seventeen, round eighteen, but do you do you have any final round picks that you seem to consistently be targeting this year?

01:08:56
Speaker 5: I think it comes back to like construction again, I say, like I wait at tight end, and there's always like a starting tight end there in the last round, so that's a good one. But specific players I really like at the end. I think Roshawn Johnson is one of my favorites this year. Like I don't know, I don't know why he's like falling so much or he's like a seventeentheh eighteenth round pick now, like nobody wants them, Like I guess they're in on Khalil Herbert And like I said, I like Swift too, and I'm fine with that, But I just feel like Johnson, Yeah, we don't know what he is quite yet, and he looked decent to me last year, so I don't mind him. Who's like I think Bryce Young and Sanders a tight end there. I think that's a fun like last round two round stack, like John OUs Smith. I like Jalen Tolbert. I think he gives you a piece of the Cowboys. Like I said, I don't trust their running game, so I feel like there could be something there. Estimate running back in Denver, I like even if you want to wait at QB like Boone in Like Denver is super easy to stack with all those Late Lake guys, but like as far as like those aren't really deep sleepers. They're all guys getting drafted and like around seventeen eighteen, But like some of the deeper sleepers, I think like at Perry's fun Noah Brown, Trey Palmer, Josh Reynolds, and running backs are hard to find, like the Late Lake guys that nobody's on, but like a name that everyone hates, Alexander Madison I think it's fun.

01:10:30
Speaker 1: Just I'm with you, man. I've been drafting Madison too. Yeah.

01:10:33
Speaker 5: Yeah, I just feel like he's a fun like eighteenth round six running back. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not sold on Samir White and I'm not. I just feel like the Raiders, like they're not very talented and maybe Zamir just gets thrown out there and just gets beat up so bad and they're one and eight and Alexander Madison just finishes up the season, you know, for one and eighteen.

01:10:55
Speaker 3: Yeah.

01:10:55
Speaker 4: Look, it's look, we're talking eighteenth round picture, man. I mean, this is what it's all like. We're high on Alexander Madison. Yeah. There was a report too that I saw yesterday about the Raiders potentially adding to that running back room, you know, throughout the summer, and you know, maybe that happens, maybe that doesn't, but I think that just kind of speaks to the volatility and the fragility of that backfield. And anytime there's a backfield like that, I'm willing to just throw a dart at the you know, eighteenth round piece of that backfield.

01:11:22
Speaker 5: No for sure, and especially if it's like a team that's not projected to be a really well team, right, Like, if they just have a running back room, that's just not great, like the Giants too, Like I can't understand the Giants running back room right now. So I think those guys, if you want to take Gray or if you want to take Tracy or whatever, like, I think they're super viable in tournament structured teams.

01:11:44
Speaker 4: So yeah, Tracy's actually one of my highest exposed players right now because I think he has big playability. He's a good pass catcher. I mean, he played wide receiver in college for a good four years. And that team if you look at Singletary, and I think Singletary is like a solid play but like Gray and Singletary, neither of them are like overly explosive players, right and Tracy kind of has that element to his game that they lack elsewhere.

01:12:09
Speaker 5: No, I think that's a great play, especially they're a bad team and they're losing by the end of the year. They're just they're gonna throw Tracy out there. They don't care about Singletary, they don't need Singletary out there. They want to see what they have in Tracy. So yeah, I like exactly, I like that, tell yourself a story that's kind of how you got to play the Best Ball Game.

01:12:25
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, James, Man, it was it was great to chat with you and chop it up a little bit. I think people are definitely gonna take some good stuff away from this this show, in this episode, can you let everyone know where they can find you?

01:12:37
Speaker 5: Usually just share most of my stuff out on Twitter, So just at James birmacombe.

01:12:42
Speaker 4: Yeah.

01:12:42
Speaker 5: Anytime I have like some insights, I'll scare, I'll share some screenshots whatnot. And I'm drafting a lot of the Besketball teams Underdog, I'm on drafters sometimes and draft Kings not very often, so and then all those lobbies. But yeah, and when the puppy comes out, I'll be in those streets. And yeah, I just I have any questions. My dms are always open, happy to share any Bestball insights. You want me to look at your roster or whatever, and yeah, we all we all learn and grow together. So that's why you're about best Well.

01:13:14
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I love I love what you do on Twitter too. You're just completely transparent about who you're drafting, why you're doing it. You know, there's no it's it's fine if you're right, it's fine if you're wrong because you're, like you said, you know you're you're learning with everyone as well, so it's a definitely a great great follow obviously, you guys can find me on Twitter at late Round QB. Make sure you check out the Late Round Draft guide over on lateround dot com.

01:13:36
Speaker 1: There's a nice underdog promo for that. You guys can get it

01:13:38
Speaker 4: For free with promo code late Round, but otherwise everyone, thank you for tuning in.