Becoming a Best Ball Bro: Differentiating for the Playoffs?

00:00:01
Speaker 1: So rich. We had the Fantasy Football Expo over the weekend.

00:00:05
Speaker 2: Drove up there with David Kitchen, had a good time, talked to a lot of folks in the fantasy football space, did my draft for the King's Classic.

00:00:14
Speaker 1: It was a great It was just a great time overall. Right.

00:00:17
Speaker 2: So Friday night, there's always a party that goes on at the Fantasy Football Expo in downtown Canton. It's this outdoor area and there's like a bar, like it's sort of inside outside bar that's there.

00:00:27
Speaker 1: And we're there.

00:00:28
Speaker 2: We're watching the Browns game, right because the Browns were on TV. We're watching shedor Sanders and I am there. I might have had a you know, a handful of white claws in me. Yeah, and the uh, all of a sudden, Kitchen turns around and he goes, hey, JJ, He's like, you will never guess who's here.

00:00:43
Speaker 1: I was like, who's here?

00:00:44
Speaker 2: And he goes, it's Harold Fannin's mom, And I said what? And so I walk over and other people were there and they're like, yeah, this guy JJ, he has this prospect model and he'll be able to talk to you about Harold and stuff. And the first thing I did again, I had some white clause in me. First thing I did embarrassingly is I looked at Harold Fannin's mom and I said, do you walk like a duck too? That was my first reaction when seeing Harold Fannin's mom. I realized, though, that I got a good read on the situation because she looks at me and she goes, who do you think taught him how to walk like that?

00:01:20
Speaker 1: Now? When he's up against the fenders, they have no idea where he's going.

00:01:25
Speaker 2: I'm jj and last year I tried my hardest to become a best ball bro.

00:01:29
Speaker 1: I drafted over five hundred teams.

00:01:30
Speaker 2: I talked to some of the most successful best ball players in existence, and I admittedly had mixed results. So this year I'm going to chase that title once again. My plan is a max Enter DraftKings millionaire maker, and I'm going to document all of it while talking to the brightest best ball.

00:01:45
Speaker 1: Minds in the planet. Last year, I.

00:01:47
Speaker 2: Didn't quite get there, But this year this is going to be the year where I officially become a best ball bro. This episode is sponsored by DraftKings. There's no better way to lock in your fantasy dominance. Early than with Best Ball on DraftKings, where you draft once and ride your roster all season long, and right now Draftings giving all customers a can't miss offer Draft one, get one and to re line up in the fifteen million dollar 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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00:03:49
Speaker 1: Welcome into another episode of Becoming a Best Ball bro.

00:03:51
Speaker 2: I'm jj Zachariesin, joined as always by Rich Ryan Rich.

00:03:55
Speaker 1: What's going on? Buddy doing great?

00:03:57
Speaker 3: Buddy. Loved seeing the preseason action this weekend. We're getting ever so close to the season. Recorded our first episode of Gurdon Gamble last night. So the autumn wind I can feel it coming.

00:04:09
Speaker 2: Jjay Yeah, yeah, I mean, like I said, we were watching some preseason football on Friday. And by the way, when I say that, I had some white claus. I'm a lightweight these days. Okay, this was not this was not many white claws that were that were flowing through me. Before talking to Harold Fan's mind, I do want to shout out the family though.

00:04:27
Speaker 1: Because other members of Harold Fanon's family were there. Awesome people.

00:04:31
Speaker 2: We had a great time chatting with them for like fifteen minutes. And you know, hopefully you guys enjoyed the little, uh little story that went along with that.

00:04:38
Speaker 3: I thought you were going to shout out white claw.

00:04:40
Speaker 1: How do they do it? Man?

00:04:41
Speaker 3: How do they get those things so delicious with such low sugar count, such low calorie count.

00:04:48
Speaker 2: It's called really chemicals, right, call chemicals is what it's really called.

00:04:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but no.

00:04:55
Speaker 2: So you know, we got to watch some of the preseason action and a lot of stuff has been going on, and so I thought today it would be a good idea for you to bring some ADP stuff to the table and we'll talk about the five biggest movers risers, not not fallers, but risers since training camp started for best ball purposes, and we'll go one by one. Technically they're six because we're just kind of combining a backfield with this. But we'll see where I'm at with my exposure. We'll see where I've been drafting that player and if I'm still drafting that player.

00:05:26
Speaker 1: So let's just go. Let's just do it.

00:05:27
Speaker 2: Let's just talk about these risers and players who have seen their ADP jump since training camp started. Rich, Who's the first one that we.

00:05:34
Speaker 1: Should get to.

00:05:35
Speaker 3: Nobody has jumped more than a fellaw who is now my neighbor's sort of them close enough to Costa Mesa where the Los Angeles Chargers train and Keenan Allen is back with the Bolts, and he jumped up from one ninety five to one thirty one. That is sixty four spots in ADP JJ. I'm very interested to hear, based on your love last week from a young receiver in the the Chargers corpse, how you're treating Keenan Allen. Now, I know you were interested pre signing, scooped up some of that value, but where are you at now that he has a team and he's rocketing up the chart.

00:06:10
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:06:10
Speaker 2: The interesting thing with KeAndre Lambert Smith is I actually don't think he's like a terrible pick still because now he's just a twentieth round pick instead of like an eighteenth, nineteenth or whatever. So like even if you were drafting KLS, you know, before the signing happened, I don't think it's that big of a deal that Keenan Allen signed. Of course, like the KLS ceiling is not necessarily you know the same, and it's definitely not. But you know, KOs was someone who is always a big play threat, someone that you're hoping could give you like two or three spiked weeks and then maybe grow into something more and that's capped. But I still think he can give you some spiked weeks this season, just given the kind of player he is and what he brings to the table. So keep that in mind with Keenan Allen. So right now, my MILLI exposure to Keenan Allen is at ten percent, so a little bit over what's expected. Obviously, when I give you guys my exposure numbers here, the average or the expected exposure would be eight point three percent.

00:07:01
Speaker 1: Just given the fact.

00:07:01
Speaker 2: That we are one of twelve in these drafts, and then obviously there's gonna be some players that the field is not drafting every single draft necessarily or didn't you know back in May and in June because the player hadn't broken out or wasn't getting hype out of camp. So keep that in mind. But right now, my MILLI exposure to Keenan Allen is ten percent. I looked at my average pick for Keenan Allen was one ninety three or has been one ninety three, and now obviously his his current ADP is closer to like one thirty to one thirty five. So you know, that's not surprising because I was drafting him before he actually signed with the signed with the team, and he ended up signing with the Chargers, which I think overall is a pretty okay spot. Like I've seen a lot of people kind of downplaying it and saying that it's not like a great place for him to go. It definitely makes Trey Harris someone that I'm not really interested in drafting.

00:07:53
Speaker 1: I still think his ADP is a little bit too high, you know.

00:07:55
Speaker 2: I I he's had some struggles in camp with his hands and catching, and you know, he was a in my opinion, if you go read the prospect guy, pretty volatile prospect, but one who had a pretty high ceiling. So I just you know, I've kind of just I kind of just came in the middle with him versus the rest of the market and just said, hey, I'm just going to be play the middle ground with Trey Harris because I could see where this can go south.

00:08:18
Speaker 1: But I also recognize that some of his advanced metrics were pretty good.

00:08:21
Speaker 2: But with Keenan Allen, I think a lot of people were just assuming that he's going to play the slot in LA and then Lad McConkie moved to the outside.

00:08:29
Speaker 1: Now mconkie can play in the perimeter.

00:08:30
Speaker 2: I think people think that he was he's only like a you know, like a fifty to fifty slot guy, but he.

00:08:34
Speaker 1: Can play on the outside. But I'll say this about Keenan Allen.

00:08:37
Speaker 2: Last year, he had a twenty six percent target chare per game rate, which is really strong for a guy that no one cares about. Right his his yards per route run rate was actually much better on the perimeter last year than it was in the slot. And he's competing with DJ Moore and Roma Donzey last season rookie Roman donze And I know that a lot of his looks were just easier kind of you know, lower aid oubt looks. But I still think that you can draft Keenan Allen where he's going, I still think that he is not a bad value. I'll probably still get some exposure. Obviously, I've gotten a lot of my exposure. I'm one hundred and thirty somethingter MILLI drafts in and so there's only so many, you know, more drafts that I can do to get exposure to a certain player. So pretty much, no matter what happens from here on out, I'm probably going to be above that eight point three percent mark with Keenan Allen, just based on where I was drafting him before. But if look if you're going into a single entry or if you're just drafting today for the first time, I still think Keenan Allen's an okay enough get at his current ADP.

00:09:36
Speaker 3: He has the connection with Justin Herbert that he established previously as well. I'm really interested to see what this Chargers offense is going to be this year because people think of this Harbaugh run first, cram the ball. They were twelve in pass right over expectation last year per nfl Elo, so it wasn't like they were as ground and pounds as people considered them to be. And I feel like last year, their defense played above expectation and is going to take a bit of a step back this year. They've lost some personnel obviously up front with Joey Bosa traveling across country to Buffalo, so I feel like they might even have to press the issue a little bit more throwing the football this year. So, I mean, this is a meteoric rise in ADP. I think we're getting to the point where an unstacked Keenan Allen isn't a very sexy option, but at his current price end of the eleventh round, I'm definitely more interested. If he starts to creep up a little bit more, if he's starts to threaten those those single digit rounds, I think that's when I'm gonna have to yell uncle, Yeah, no, I would.

00:10:35
Speaker 2: Definitely agree there. You know, I think that if you can get him in the eleven twelve, it's fine. You know, I'm not gonna be too upset about that, but yeah, you're right if he does get like especially if he gets over like where the the cluster of quarterbacks go, you know, for instance, like I'd rather just get the quarterback and not have to worry about it.

00:10:52
Speaker 3: All right, let's talk Texans backfield once again, because it's getting it's getting real interesting. We're getting real data from the preseason as well. But Woody Marks is up fifty spots since training camp has started, currently going at the beginning of the sixteenth round. He was previously going as low as two twenty nine, now up to one eighty seven. Nick Chubb is, interestingly enough, parallel in growth at thirty five picks. So both pieces in this Houston backfield people are trying to get a piece of. And JJ, I'm interested in who you are more interested in if you're still on the Marks train as opposed to Chubb.

00:11:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I'll share my exposure right now to these players.

00:11:39
Speaker 1: Three point eight percent for Woody Marx.

00:11:41
Speaker 2: Now that also you have to keep in mind, you know, no one was not many people were drafting Woody Marks consistently, you know, earlier in the offseason. I certainly wasn't. My My average pick for him was too eight has been too eighteen, So obviously he's been You know, these guys are all risers, so you would hope that my average pick is better from a value standpoint than where we're drafting them now. Otherwise I'm simply just getting him at ADP right now, and I've hadn't drafted him at all before that, but I did, so I'm at like four percent Woody marks. You know, I don't really want to get that much higher. I don't think, like, I don't want to go nuts with Marx. I don't think that he's going to be a league winner. Just looking at his prospect profile. Now, the model didn't mind him because he did have that receiving production and but some of that subjectively was boosted by that Mike Leech rest in Peace offense, where we've seen guys historically just get crazy crazy receiving numbers as out of the backfield. Now he did transfer and he's still had pretty good receiving numbers, and I think that's the kind of role that Houston would envision him playing. I just don't know how much of an early down role he's going to have. With that being said, I would rather invest in Woody Marx for sure than Nick Chubb because I am of the belief that Chubb is likely dust Like is likely. I mean, that's a strong way to phrase it, because you know, I don't think that he's just like not going to do anything at all. I just made from a fantasy perspective. He's already been a player that has been one that counts on explosive runs and big plays to be a really good fantasy asset, and last year, coming off an injury that was not there at all.

00:13:18
Speaker 1: Last year, Nick.

00:13:19
Speaker 2: Chubb gained ten or more yards on four point nine percent of his carries. The year before that, before whenever he got him a smaller sample twenty one point four percent, He'd never been below thirteen point one percent during his entire career. Like, there were a lot of signs that he's slowed down. He's not the same running back. And for a player that relies on those big plays because he's not that much of a pass catcher, to me, that's really really scary behind one of the worst offensive lines in football. Right So you can bine all of that, and that's why my Chub exposure is only at two percent right now. My average pick for Chubb has been one to eighty seven. So I got him, you know before a lot of the stuff happened this offseason with him and his you know, his current ADP obviously is a lotigher than that. I really have not been going after Nick Chubb and drafts even knowing that, like I've been fading Joe Mixon for the most part, you know, like like I just am not really that interested in this backfield despite it being relatively ambiguous right now. I don't trust the personnel enough, and then I don't trust the bodies in front of them blocking either. So you know, I'm fine with the passing attack for Houston, but I'm not as fine with the running backs there.

00:14:27
Speaker 3: It's just bizarre how much they've kind of punted on this front unit when you need to protect CJ. Shot and keep him up right. I understand getting the weapons and double dipping in the draft, but at some point you got to protect and get some push up front to get these running backs going. So and yeah, Chubb, I mean at this point, his knees are kind of spaghetti. The guy has has gone through so much it's understandable that he's going to slow down. And we've seen the running back position. We've seen very talented guys fall off the cliff, right.

00:14:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, like Tunsel's gone and there are a lot of people that question that move. And you know, the feedback what I remember reading from like Texans beats and stuff is like, Okay, well it sucked last year, can it get any Well?

00:15:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean like it could. He's a good player, you know, And so it'll be interesting.

00:15:14
Speaker 2: Like I it's it's very very much up in the air, but I don't think that we should have confidence in it being a good offensive view offensive line.

00:15:22
Speaker 3: That is, it's almost like we hope mixing. It's almost like we hope that Texans take a real big step back, and mixing is just a dump off demon in PPR, especially in the DraftKings format where yeah, I all, I mean in betting purposes. A lot of this is pointing towards look for a for an underdog in the AFC South, because I think the Texans are being priced like a shoe in to win the division, and I'm not sure that's the case.

00:15:48
Speaker 2: The thing that's gonna be really interesting with the Texans is their defense is really good, Like they have a really good defensive unit.

00:15:55
Speaker 1: And usually when you have that built.

00:15:59
Speaker 2: Obviously, so you'd want to rely on the run game in these positive game scripts or these neutral scripts and a good offensive line.

00:16:04
Speaker 1: They just don't have that. So it's gonna be really interesting to see how that all goes down for Houston this.

00:16:08
Speaker 3: Year, the summer of Jacorey Crosskey merit continues up forty one point two spots since training camp kicked off.

00:16:19
Speaker 4: JJ.

00:16:19
Speaker 3: Where are you at on JCM? Are you still drafting in? What's your exposure?

00:16:23
Speaker 1: Like right now?

00:16:24
Speaker 2: People are going to be shocked when they hear this exposure because it's hard to have a ton of exposure on a player that wasn't drafted in every draft, you know, like in the beginning of July, basically like from like May until that point. I'm at about thirteen percent JCM right now. My average pick for him has been two hundred and twenty seventh overall, So I was drafting him before a lot of the true hype started. His current ADP, you know, obviously much higher than that. Now he goes often like I've seen him in the sixteenth round this week already, So he's obviously steaming up and has been drafted higher and higher as each week has progressed. Now, when you look at day three running Max and I've talked about this before basically on this show and every show and on the newsletter and such. But when you look at day three running macks who are reliable with usable weeks during their rookie season. They tend to come from just bad backfields, like crappy backfields by ADP. You know, ambiguous ones players where they don't have an RB one or even an RB two ranked ahead of them by ADP. And that's exactly what we have right now with Brian Robinson and Austin Eckler on that depth chart. I talked about this with Evan Silva on the players to avoid episode because I am avoiding Brian Robinson. I did get Brian Robinson today actually in a draft because he felt to like one hundred and tenth overall. So I'm like, all right, I guess I'll get, you know, some exposure to Brian.

00:17:45
Speaker 3: They forced you to take.

00:17:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean like like like of course I'm gonna do that, right. But with that being said, like I just don't think b rob is special enough to be a league winning type player. And since the talent isn't necessarily there for him, that means that there is there's work for the taking if another player can step up and be more productive and just be better. And with Jacory Krosskey merrit or Bill, let's just call it Bill, because it's a lot easier to reference it. That's his nickname with Bill. What's really intriguing is that Brian Robinson more of a plotter type and obviously a bruiser between the tackles guy Austin Eckler is older now and is mostly just a pass catcher.

00:18:23
Speaker 1: I think he's still gonna play that role.

00:18:24
Speaker 2: Jacorey krossky Merritt is very much the most explosive running back in that backfield, which is why I think he's getting the love that he's getting out of Washington Camp, out of Commanders Camp, because they look at him and they're.

00:18:36
Speaker 1: Like, Wow, this guy.

00:18:37
Speaker 2: But it's it's in relation to Brian Robinson and aust Neckler, two guys who aren't that explosive anymore, right, And so I think that he's going to carve out a role as this season goes on, which makes me even less less bullish on Brian Robinson, which I didn't think was really possible. And then Eckler, though I think is still okay because Eckler is oddly falling as well as this has been going on. But I think that Bill is a bigger deal for Brian Robinson Thaniaz Eckler, like krossky Merrit, was not the biggest pass catcher in the world at all throughout his collegiate career, and Austin Heckler actually was good as a pass catcher last year when he got targeted, he had a really good yards prough out run rate. I still think he's going to play that role for Washington as long you know, there's been rumors in such as he like would get traded or like get cut or something like that, but as long as he on the team, as long as these are the three running backs that we're dealing with, and I'm still expecting that to be the case. So, you know, with with krossky Merritt, would I be taking him in the sixteenth round right now?

00:19:32
Speaker 1: Probably not.

00:19:33
Speaker 2: I'm also, you know, at thirteen percent exposure, So it's easy for me to sit back and say that I think that if you're in a single entry tournament that starts tomorrow, right and you don't have to worry about people having that edge and getting crossky Merrit consistently in the twentieth round, you know, back in July, I you know, I think that taking him in like the seventeenth is is defensible. When you get to the sixteenth, you're starting to get into like like like Jerome Ford falls in the sixteenth at times, and we know that he's gonna have have a pretty legit role with this quinch On Judkins stuff, So I'd have a harder time with that. And like ric o'dowdele, who I like a lot, you know in Carolina, but I do think that he's gonna carve out a role as a seventh round player. And you know a lot of people say, well, seventh round picks don't pan out very much at all. I get all of that, and I've done research on that, and I agree with that. But a lot of the players that you're drafting in around eighteen plus seventeen plus in these draftking drafts are also not going to pan out at a very high rate. Maybe you could argue that you should just get a DJ Giddens type instead of a JCM because Giddins was a better prospect. I loved Giddins as a prospect and he looks like the clear RB two in Indianapolis. So if Jonathan Taylor were to go down, then then DJ Giddens has more upside than Krossky Merritt does. But I also think that you can make the argument that if Brian Robinson were to go down, then Krossky Merritt might have comparable upside of DJ Giddens anyway, but there's more of a more room for Krossky Merritt to carve out a role naturally in his eyes offense without the injury.

00:21:01
Speaker 1: So I'd still go JACM.

00:21:03
Speaker 2: But I think that you know, I understand all that logic, and if you want to go that direction, that's fine. I wouldn't be so so overly exposed, though, just because you're not getting him in the twentieth round anymore, and he is a seventh round pick.

00:21:13
Speaker 4: Couple notes.

00:21:13
Speaker 3: I want to affirm your Austin Ecklery's down four spots since training camp open now going at the top of the fourteenth round. And I love the point that you brought up about some of these rising players and the difference between drafting them and contests that have been open since May and contests that might be opening now. And it's a very salient point that I hope you guys caught while listening, because if we're playing the ADP game across these multi month contests, it is more important to be more conscious of these risers, whereas of the contest is just starting and there isn't such a diverse ADP landscape multi month ADP landscape, it is less impactful. So it's a very good point you brought up.

00:21:54
Speaker 1: There, JJ, thank you, thank you, appreciate it.

00:21:59
Speaker 3: Let's talk running backs, because the the X the tweets were flying from from these individuals. We had you tweeted out the screenshot of we had Travis Etn apparently come up. Layman Practice did not want to speak to reporters, and Tank Bigsby gave us a stream of emojis shouts to Denny Carter, the enemy speaks kindly and carries a knife. A little bit of action from Biggsby. So yeah, I would love to hear what your thoughts are on tank Quist skyrocketed up thirty points, up thirty spots in trading camp.

00:22:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:22:39
Speaker 2: So my average pick with Bigsby has been one hundred and fifty five and he goes about thirty spots ahead. So I you know, I've gotten some some equity there and some value out of that. I have about ten percent is exposure to Bigsby. So I'm a little bit above expectation. This is the kind of player that I despise. In a managed redraft league, I would put him Jordan Mason, you know, Brian Robinson, Braylan Allen, these guys who are early down Hammers, who don't have good receiving upside or profiles. I'd put them in the same kind of buckets. I've talked about Jordan Mason on the Mailbag episodes. You know, I think that he at least has some question marks about his receiving just because of the situations.

00:23:16
Speaker 1: He's been in.

00:23:17
Speaker 2: But I just I don't think that we're gonna see Tank Bigsby be some legit pass catcher, you know, week in and week out, even if there's injuries that occur to one of the other running backs. And so that's my fear with Bigsby from a ceiling perspective, which is why at his current ADP, I'm not really drafting him like I was getting him when when the market was slow to react to what the camp news was saying, and then his ADP obviously started to rise, and then you know, then we started to see I tried to do that before his ADP was rising, and then all the while you know, like base Shall, Tuton's ADP was falling, and I'm trying to buy into that as well.

00:23:51
Speaker 1: So I've been trying.

00:23:52
Speaker 2: I've basically been trying to like get Jags running backs in most of my drafts that I do, and so you know, I'm I'm above market on Tuton as well. He's still my favorite, Like late season Hammer Basehall Tutin. He showed up a little bit in that preseason game. Now, granted it was later in the game and it's not the same dudes that he's gonna be facing Slash playing with, but I still think that that Tutan has the skill set to be like the guy who emerges out of this backfield to be really fantasy viable. And Etn's fine too, But with TENK Bigsby, he has sixteen targets in two years in the league.

00:24:27
Speaker 1: He's a poor yards.

00:24:27
Speaker 2: Perrout run rate, so I'm not expecting them to use him a lot more as a pass catcher. I'm mostly fading at this point, especially with how things went with base Shall Tutin. I would expect Bigsby's ADP to fall a little bit, but when guys rise the way they do, it's a lot harder for them to kind of go back down and fall just because you're gonna need a lot of drafts, you know, like just thinking about this mathematically, when a guy's like one hundred and eightieth overall, or in Bigsby's case, let's just say one hundred and sixtieth overall, where he's going before you could get just like a handful of people drafting him like eightieth overall. It'll rise all, but it's going to be a lot more difficult from the fall because you can only go so far down, and he will only go so far down in these drafts to fall back down. So I'm anticipating myself not really drafting Tank Bigsby from here on out.

00:25:13
Speaker 3: Let's talk about another guy who I think we both love, but I think we both agree is approaching very difficult to draft territory, and that is wide receiver. I Mecha Egbuka went in doubt draft to receiver from the Ohio State University. Everybody in camp is just saying that this guy is the dude from Baker Mayfield to the other receivers on the team. You pair that with the Chris Godwin second ankle surgery that happened earlier in the summer, and you get an absolute explosion in ADP from the rookie JJ.

00:25:45
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:25:45
Speaker 2: I mean, look, if you look at the Late Round Prospect Guide, he was an elite producer alongside Travis Hunter, alongside Tedero McMillan, and also Luther Burden ended up finding himself in the elite producer category as well as the second pick, which does not happen very frequently. But I've talked about that many times on the show about how the model probably inflated Luther Burton a little bit. But I still like Luthor Burdon a lot too. But I love him at ag Buka. He was a really really solid prospect. One of his comps was Chris Godwin in the Prospect Model. Robert Woods was another one. But my problem is that he's gonna start Approachinger. He's already inching towards that Jalen Watt Like I was in a draft today.

00:26:25
Speaker 1: Someone took him over Jalen Waddle, and I just can't necessarily do that.

00:26:29
Speaker 2: Calvin Ridley, I'm taking over Egbuka after that, Like, if you want to take Egbuka over, you know, Jacoby Myers or Romadounza. I'm not going to totally fault you, but I do think that it's gotten to the point where a lot of this like upside is sort of priced in. So like I'm at over eleven percent of Buca, but a lot of that is.

00:26:47
Speaker 1: From earlier in the off season for the Millie.

00:26:50
Speaker 2: My average pick for him was ninety second overall, and now he's like an early sixth round pick, So you know, it's like thirty basically thirty spots in overall ADP for me and getting Aguca. And it's unfortunate because if I, you know, if I let's say I have fifteen drafts left in the Millie and I don't draft much Atgbuka, then that eleven to twelve percent number is going to fall to like nine to ten to maybe low ten percentage, you know, like like ten point five percent or like ten percent.

00:27:18
Speaker 1: And I want to.

00:27:19
Speaker 2: Be really over exposed to Agbuca. I really do, because I love him right now. That's why I was drafting him so much. That's why he's a target and the late round draft guy. But it feels like he might end up just being more of the managed season, long home league type guy that you go after because he's the kind of archetype that will go later in your home league and in season long drafts in general.

00:27:37
Speaker 1: Like he's just he's.

00:27:39
Speaker 2: Someone that best ball bros and gals just and siss should I call him sisses?

00:27:44
Speaker 1: Is that bros and sisses.

00:27:46
Speaker 2: They just they will love this kind of player, and so they they'll you know, he climbs an ADP and then the next person says, oh, I really want to it. Just his ADP just continuously climbs, whereas we're likely not going to see that nearly as much in a managed league. So get your Agbuka exposure. I wouldn't I wouldn't get him much higher than where he's going now. I wouldn't get him at all high. Like this is the max I think that you should be able to, Like you should be drafting him, but try to get as much as you possibly can, you know, in your manage leagues and stuff where his price is going to be cheaper.

00:28:13
Speaker 3: Very interested to see what happens with Bucky Irving as well. Speaking of Tampa Bay off of the Rashad White injury this weekend, Obviously the biggest bump is going to be with Sean Tucker if there is going to be one, because Bucky Irving's already going at twenty two, so how high can you really go? But Bucks an offense that I think a lot of people are interested in, and a lot of moving chess pieces because of the ambiguity of the Goblin injury and now they Wereshad White injury. So it's gonna be a very interesting month when it comes to assessing these Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

00:28:43
Speaker 2: For sure, I feel good about I sent a tweet last month that said that I was drafting a lot of Sean Tucker. I didn't know if it was me being a Best Ball bro or me being an absolute idiot and my my twentieth round Shan Tucker turning into a nineteenth round Seawan Tucker.

00:28:58
Speaker 1: Let's go, baby, let's go get you get a round of equity. Then all right, let's move on to the guest.

00:29:02
Speaker 2: Todd Burrows is the guest also known as Todd from PA on Twitter. You guys have seen him on on the in the Twitter streets and in a lot of Best Ball drofts. He's been a Best Ball analyst for a very very long time. We talked about how he's fixing last year's mistakes that he made. That's a great conversation Week seventeen, stacking the importance of bye weeks so much more so.

00:29:25
Speaker 1: Without further ado, here is my interview with Todd.

00:29:34
Speaker 2: All Right, Todd, last year was kind of a difficult Best Ball season for some analysts. You know, teams seem to have been built for maximizing the playoff weeks, and it might have come at the expense of advance rates a little bit. And so I want to ask you, because you've been really transparent about your success and your failures and just kind of you know, going through and talking through it with folks, why do you think that is, Like, why do you think you know that happened last year? And what are some of the things that you're doing this year to sort of help balance advance rates and optimal playoff roster construction.

00:30:08
Speaker 4: Yeah, So basically, one of the really fun things about Best Ball is that every year people overreact to the information from the year before and they and then you unwrapped start unwrapping the present as it were Week one, Right, and last year I did something I had never done before, which was I gave up a good bit I decided to not worry as much about advance rate trying to get that lucky team. And it was based on the fact that I had had good success every other year, but my teams just would get eliminated week fifteen, Week sixteen. So I went too far the other way and I overstimulated my teams. I went heavy zero running back. Now does that make heavy zero running back a bad strategy? I don't think it does, but I just happened to do it. In the year, every running back stayed healthy and the two older running backs that I faded, you know, I did a lot of hero running back teams with Bijon and brest Hall. I really felt like those guys had the chance to end up doing what Barkley and Henry did. And I kind of just faded the older running backs or the guys who came off injury, and that really dinged my advance rate. A combination of the fact that in general, running backs didn't get hurt like they normally do, and that the running backs that I faded also turned out to be the best plays on the board, so that really hurt my advance rate. I still got, you know, a team into the FFPC. Fine, well, of course it made it there with zero quarterbacks healthy for the last week, but it wouldn't have mattered my team. It didn't have a great last week. I got a few teams into the finals on underdog. I didn't play much on DraftKings last year, but I ended up losing seven thousand dollars, so that was not fun. Yeah, so that is when you kind of re evaluate every year. You have to re evalue, evaluate your process. You have to judge it versus your own heart, and you need to also judge it versus how everyone else is interpreting what happened last year. So for me, I've come up with this new strategy that I've been pretty excited about.

00:32:45
Speaker 2: What can you can you speak on that strategy a little bit and how you're I'm assuming that it's a because last year I had some struggle, Like my playoff success rate.

00:32:55
Speaker 1: Was better than the norm, right, I didn't want to. I didn't. I didn't take any down.

00:32:59
Speaker 2: I'm just saying that when my teams got in the playoffs, like of the teams that got there, you know, for instance, my advance rate to get in was lower, but then my my team's advanced at just as good, if not higher of a rate, you know, versus the other teams that I got right. But I think but I think that comes down to what you're saying is the roster construction.

00:33:21
Speaker 1: And like the zero RB type builds.

00:33:22
Speaker 2: I went pretty heavy zero RB last year and so but but I too felt the same way where it wasn't a successful season, which is why I'm doing season two of becoming a Best Ball bro And it was one where now this year I'm looking and I'm saying, Okay, where can I switch things up? And how can I not be so monotonous with the way that I'm drafting? So how are you switching things up to make sure that that doesn't happen again.

00:33:47
Speaker 4: Well, there's a couple things that I think we have to realize, and the main one is that these games have become like dfs. Right when we used to play MFL tens, you could grind them and you could just eke out a profit just by being good. Right, they were regular season contests. There are still regular season contests out there. Drafters does It Underdog has some that are you know, season long contests. But I like the new version of Best Ball. But one thing you have to realize is it's set up for most people to lose every year, right, because it's so dependent on getting to week seventeen and then having a good lineup. So I was on with Mark Garcia. We did this thing at high low FF on Twitter. Very smart guy works for one week season, and you know, he said, you know, look from a game theory perspective, my deep study of it, the two things that are most important to your ev are week seventeen and advance rate. Right, okay, And that kind of got me going. You know how it is when you get information when you do a podcast, and then you kind of mull it and it informs your thoughts on how you want to adapt your own strategy. And it kind of tied into what I was already thinking, which was I was too aggressive last year. Yes, while any strategy can work, you know, and there's nothing wrong with being a heavy zero running back, there's a very good chance that that strategy could hurt your advance rates. And ultimately that might not matter because what we play, and this is my main epiphany, this is a three part game, and most analysts only talk about one part of that game. So we'll get to my overall strategy because it's a three part strategy, right that takes into the fact that advance rate is important while not being everything. It's not something you know, it's funny in the Spike week discord we always laugh about you know the guys Week one. You know, I got a forty percent advance rate. Okay, that's great, But really we want to build teams that have a chance to be We want to go get to Week seventeen and have the ability to be a little bit different. Some people want to be very different. I'm not in that. I'm not in that boat. But basically the main thing my strategy that's different is I'm putting a lot more thought into make sure that I'm not bleeding advance rate while I'm waiting for chaos to happen, right, And that's another thing that we talk about in the Spike week discord. A lot chaos, right, Injuries is chaos. People that we didn't expect getting opportunities. That's chaos, right, So you want to be prepared for chaos, especially with up running backs and rookies who have a chance to come on late in the season. But that's kind of become pot steaks along with Week seventeen stuff, right, that's become for smart people, that's become pot steaks. They're still not done as much as it probably should be, and you can overdo it. But what I'm doing is I'm building so that like at running back and like last year, I would maybe take a hero running back build and I take one in the first or the second, and I wouldn't take one again till like the twelfth round. I'm more making sure that I've got two or three guys in each running back room who can get me points. Again, Chaos can happen, one team might not work, but based on what we know now, and that's all we can base it on, I want to I don't want to be bleeding points in my running back room while I'm still while still adding enough good backup running backs who you know, the Isaac Grndo types, the jail and Right types, the Will Shipley types, that if you get that injury to the key guy ahead of you, now you've supercharged your team. But I don't want to be two hundred points behind week five, because even if you get chaos then it might not be enough.

00:38:27
Speaker 2: Has this trickled into player exposure for you as well? Are you now, because it seems like you're trying to play it. You're trying to play it smarter, of course, but you're trying to not get as high variance with your lineups.

00:38:40
Speaker 4: Let's say it's more about like a mixed drink, but one enough alcohol in each drink that I can get I can get a buzz, but I don't want to have so much alcohol that after three drinks I'm ready to go home and it's eight thirty.

00:38:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, right right, So.

00:38:59
Speaker 4: It's about no blending my teams. But to answer your question, I am a firm believer in not going nuts with exposure. I honestly think most people who do that are rookies who've never lost a lot of money. Yeah, you know, everyone, it's easy to be brave on Twitter with your forty to fifty percent ownership on nine guys and if you hit it, and you might, right, you might, But there is nothing worse than having a week one injury to a first round guy and you have thirty percent of that guy. One thing people don't realize is that success in advancing. The best advance rates every year are on early round picks. It is the most volatile. If you know like the year Christian McCaffrey got hurt that Tyreek was going right next to him. Well, that supercharged Tyreek's you know, because you just killed that team next to you that you know, it's like a seesaw if you get that early injury to you know. So I tend to stay right around fifteen percent max on guys in the first two rounds, twenty five percent through round like ten twelve, and then I'm willing to be if there's somebody I really like late, I'm willing to go thirty thirty five percent.

00:40:25
Speaker 2: Oh that's good to hear, because that's usually my The way that I've approached things to is that it's it's really hard for me, especially in this year's landscape where literally like the smallest things can make you say, all right, well, I'm not gonna get Poognaku at one to eight right now because the Matthew Stafford thing that's going on, or I'm or or maybe I'll I'll back off the league neighbors a little bit because of this foot whatever the case may be. Just because there's so many good players that are getting drafted in the.

00:40:50
Speaker 4: First round, first round I've ever seen.

00:40:52
Speaker 2: Ever, right, and so like, to me, there's just no reason to be massively overweight on these players when the opportunity cost is so sick significant because the other guys around them are just so good.

00:41:03
Speaker 1: So it's about.

00:41:04
Speaker 4: How and who you're building with and mixing your combinations with those early guys while still taking a stand. Right to me, fifteen percent on a first round tack right two x, and that means I'm going to have some guys at three four percent, right, I mean to me on an early pick that.

00:41:25
Speaker 1: Is aggressive, right, right, exactly.

00:41:27
Speaker 4: Other people it's not. And to each his own. But I always like to say everyone's a hero until it's the year that you get the injuries to you know, your forty percent and then all of a sudden. I can't tell you how many guys who argued with me on Twitter over the years who later say this year, I'm really cutting back my exposures and I'm like, yeah, yeah, okay.

00:41:50
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. So you mentioned the importance of Week seventeen.

00:41:54
Speaker 2: You know, we're talking to Mark about this and talking about how you know, there's these like sections of the season, how important, Like when you talk about Week seventeen, is it a situation where you're aggressively going after players who you think are in good Week seventeen matchups. And then on top of that, are you and when I talk about like optimizing for Week seventeen or is it the positions that you're taking the type of positions right, because you're taking backup running backs and the attrition of the season and making sure that they're healthy. And then the last thing I want to ask to bring this all together is do you think the community in general is overemphasizing, underemphasizing, or correctly emphasizing week seventeen game stacking.

00:42:33
Speaker 1: That's something that I think a lot of.

00:42:35
Speaker 2: Listeners of this show who are maybe not full blown best ball bros, but are getting into it and such, they still don't quite understand how heavily they should be making these week seventeen game stacks. So talk about Week seventeen and how you kind of approach and think about that week.

00:42:50
Speaker 4: Sure, it's a loaded question because I want to get into the three part thing, but I'll answer it according to the way you asked it for now. So basically, I went a little overboard last year, right because I was adapting to the fact that I know I wasn't having playoff success, and I think I Wiley Coyote did a little too much. You know, Wiley's running on the road. He's running on the road and then all of a sudden there's no road right and he's going to fall and break his neck at the bottom of the canyon. That's how I was with Week seventeen last year. But if you go back a couple of years, where if you had Rashad Penny in round thirteen and I'm on Ross Saint Brown, that mini game stack, you couldn't live without that Week seventeen. So I'm what the difference in my approach this year is, I'm far less likely to chase it than I was last year. I'm less likely to take a player I think isn't the best player to make, but it's a great tiebreaker, and that's how I look at it. And I think you do especially want to try and have a bringback for your quarterbacks in Week seventeen, not every if you make five hundred teams, am I going to have fifty? That you know? But if I can manage it, I'm going to do it. But it's not an overriding thing that you know you want to end up over the canyon with no ground under your feet.

00:44:28
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, makes makes sense.

00:44:30
Speaker 2: And then do you think that the like like the types of players, going back to your sort of three step process, do you think the type of players that you're drafting like are you are you aiming for a specific archetype of running back and is running like we've talked about running back a lot here, is running back the position that you think really differentiates one team to the next when looking at regular season and regular season advance raid versus the playoff weeks because we know running back step in, they get a big workload and they can be back that do that, whereas it's a little bit more difficult at wide receiver. Is that the logic behind why you sort of emphasize the running back position a little bit more when sort of.

00:45:07
Speaker 4: I really don't. It's just that what we ended up talking about. What I used is an example. Each position group needs a certain amount of weight, right, I want I don't want to be so weak at any position group that I'm bleeding points.

00:45:25
Speaker 1: Got it all year?

00:45:27
Speaker 4: Okay, some people are willing to go onesies and at the onesie positions, and that's not me. Yeah, I want a I want again. All right, So here's where we'll go into the three part. You need to advance. You need to have a strategy for Week seventeen, but you gotta get there, right there's week fifteen and week sixteen. So what I have spent a lot of time this year on is something I'm calling tricking the pods. Okay, and the first thing you have to understand is that there is a tremendous amount of luck in getting to week seventeen. But you want to put yourself in position. So I want to advance a good number of teams this year. My week fifteen sixteen strategy is not about how to get through those weeks, but to make it that the teams that get through there are unique for week seventeen. So how what do I mean by tricking the pods in week fifteen and sixteen. I'll give you a couple examples. If the backup running back, Let's say I have a jail and hurt stack and I take will Shipley on that team, I target the backup running back with the starting quarterback. Right now, some people might think, well, why would you do that? You know they're not really going to go off. At the same time, exactly. I mean, maybe they could, like will Shipley. If Barkley gets hurt, he could give you ten twelve points on a week when jail And Hurts throws for five touchdowns and he's the guy you need. But the way I've tricked the pod is the following week, the one that didn't go off nuts the week before, is going to be very low owned. So I've tricked the pod. Now I have a you know that's in that example. There might be in week sixteen Jailen Hurts aj Brown go absolutely nuclear. Well, I want maybe Dallas Goddard on that team, and I want Will Shipley on that team because now I don't need jail And Hurts. I've got another quarterback. He might be forty percent owned in week seventeen because he just had that week that you had to have in week sixteen, but Will Shipley might only be two percent owned, three percent owned. Another way that you could trick the pods is something I've talked about for years. It's called stackcuffing. It's putting two running backs from the same team on the same lineup. Now, will I handcuff my stud early running back with his backup? No, that's not stack cuffing. Stackcuffing is the perfect stackcuff this year for me is Tony Pollard and Tajy Spears because both of them have eightyp's that are later and both of them should be able to pay off their ADP. And you don't know which week it's going to be. A powered week is Spears week. But one thing you do know, if one of them goes down, the other one's going to get an eighty percent workload and have the value of about eighty percent. But in tricking, that's just statcuffing, but trick the way that tricks Podd is what happens if Poward goes absolutely nuclear week sixteen, he's the guy you gotta have, and on the last play he pulls a hammy. Right, Well, there's gonna be almost no Taje Spear teams in the finals. So my strategy is to make great teams that advance. Realize that I need luck in week fifteen and sixteen, but try and make it so that my teams that get to Week seventeen not only have correlation, but they have kind of like a secret ingredient.

00:49:39
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:49:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is super interesting because I think that the way a lot of us think about stacking.

00:49:45
Speaker 1: Team stacking is obviously you get the weekly upside, right if he throws it.

00:49:49
Speaker 2: If a quarterback throws a touchdown to the wide receiver the tight end, and you're getting double the points.

00:49:53
Speaker 1: But then you're getting the season long.

00:49:54
Speaker 2: Upside of if that's the offense that does well this year and outpaces ADP, then the whole entire offense will outpace ADP if the quarter you know, if if Drake May goes nuts this year, chances are all new England players will also, you know, beat ADP expectation. But I love what you're talking about here because I get questions frequently from people of how many players should I be stacking and how many you know, how many wide receivers, YadA, YadA, YadA, And obviously that's going to be a draft by draft kind of thing, and the.

00:50:23
Speaker 4: Quarterback you can answer that if you want.

00:50:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I would love to be cause I think what you're saying here.

00:50:27
Speaker 2: What's so important is the idea that having that extra player, that extra stacking partner, is so key in these important weeks for when that one player goes off the next week. If people didn't do that, you know, the the AJ Brown Dallas Goddard example. If they didn't get Goddard, then they're relying on the AJ Brown uh stack and and uh and relationship with with Jalen Hurts and connection to go off that next week. But you have Dallas Goddard, so you know that you have that differentiator. So how I'll ask you how many how many stacking partners do you usually go with with your your typical quarterback.

00:51:05
Speaker 4: Well, it's like any other discussion. It's not only about numbers. It's about how you do it r right, It's about how you paint that painting. So historically, if you take Jamar Chase and T Higgins with Joe Burrow in general, that doesn't work out that well for that team, right, because you've put so much value and they tend not to go off at the same time. What So the first and second option I'll rarely have on the same team. I'll do it some. If I'm going to build fifty Joe Burrow teams, I'm going to have two or three, four or five ones with T Higgins. But in general, I'm more thinking of, you know, for that AJ Brown thing. So there's two different things you get to week seventeen, and again you got to think about what got is going to get most people to Week seventeen, especially on Underdog where you know Baseball Mania, it's eighteen or sixteen teams in a pod. You know. If that you know, maybe there's a week where there isn't a guy, but oftentimes there's that one guy who drags a ton of teams to the next week, you know. I So, now you're in Week seventeen, and let's say AJ Brown and it Hurts again just go absolutely nuclear. Right, Well, there's gonna be a ton of you haven't really separated enough from the.

00:52:43
Speaker 1: Field, right, right, because it.

00:52:45
Speaker 4: Might be a twenty percent you know, Hurts might be forty percent owned in the final AJ Brown might be thirty percent, but Hurts, AJ Brown and Goddard might only be five percent owned, right, And maybe it's AJ Brown the following week who just has an okay week and Goddard goes nuclear. But if you've ever played DFS and you have a team that's you know, you're going down the stretch and you're trying to take something down. Having that extra piece in that game, there's a comfort level to it. Yeah, it's just a matter of again, I won't, you know, take Dallas Goddard around early just to make that happen. But if he's standing there at ADP and I can add him as another piece, I will. And then the other way you can do it is like I said, the Will Shipley example, find that rookie or that backup running back. You know, if you're doing Patrick Mahomes, you know, taking a brochard Smith or a jail in Royals at the end, taking that one extra dart throw so that you've got that one more answer for that stack than most of your competition. That's the way I'm thinking of it. I'm not saying it's one hundred percent right. It might not be. Yes, every year we unwrap the present and it's a different answer.

00:54:12
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:54:12
Speaker 2: But I love thinking about it this way because you know, our late round picks are not going to be giving us many usable weeks to begin with, right like there, we know that inherently just based on hit rates from late round guys, obviously we want them to hit right. I'm just saying generally speaking, But where I think the leverage that you're speaking of here can really come into play is that if those usable weeks that they dope.

00:54:36
Speaker 1: You know, let's say that they give.

00:54:37
Speaker 2: You three of them or four of them or something like that. If it hits at the right time, that's your way of differentiating, right. So you you might be sitting on Jalen Royals, right, and we're hoping that Jalen Royals can give us production to start the front half of the season with with Rashid Rice sideline, But you're also sitting with Jalen Royals hoping for that week to hit later in the season when maybe you don't have the same type of advanced for that individual player that you know is being drafted late.

00:55:03
Speaker 1: So it makes a lot of sense.

00:55:04
Speaker 4: Yeah, And the other thing that my real big focus where I think I made a mistake. I'm pretty good at watching tape, right, but I think I invested too much in who I liked and not enough in who had an opportunity. So last year I really didn't like Bucky Irving that much. You know, pro scouts get him wrong, I'm going to get them wrong. But what I overlooked was the fact that Rashad White was a known quantity. He wasn't a good running back, right, So that was a bit I mean, I did get some bucky at the end, and a lot of the teams that made it to the finals for me were bucky irving teams. I'm spending a lot more time this year making sure that my player takes aren't driving me off the cliff and that I'm overlooking opportunity. And I also like to combine floor and ceilings, so you know, if I have a draft, did a team recently with aj Brown, Jamison Williams, just a bunch of real guys that we think of as spiky. So at the end, instead of taking of royals, you know, one of those guys that I'm you know, a Thornton I took my last round pick was jail and Cocher. Not an exciting guy, but that guy who I think balanced that wide receiver room on that team that helped hopefully could get me to the playoffs. And he's still got enough talent that maybe he ends up being the answer too.

00:56:47
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, but it's.

00:56:48
Speaker 4: Just less you don't think of it that way. Yeah, you know, I'll mix an ad you know, on teams where I have a lot of high you know, guys who you know tend to average fifteen to twenty yards a catch, you know, I'm more likely to add an Adam feel into a team like that than I am a team where I've got you know, two or three ze Flowers types. Yeah, right, in that case, I'm trying to add a little night to a glisserin to the back end of that wide receiver room.

00:57:18
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:57:18
Speaker 2: I mean, I've done the same thing even with you, because you know DraftKings, you get twenty rounds, you're gonna get even deeper players in round twenty. And if I have like a Kansas City Denver thing going, I look at the twentieth round wide house for Denver and you're looking at Devon Vley and Troy Franklin right where Valay is very much likely to play their slot role, higher floor, more than likely Franklin's going to be the volatile you know, up and down. So I've based that decision usually off of do I need the floor, do I need the ceiling.

00:57:48
Speaker 4: I've got probably twelve percent Franklin and three percent Vle Yeah.

00:57:53
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I yeah, no, I don't.

00:57:55
Speaker 2: I don't have a I don't have a problem with anyone going one way or the other one.

00:57:57
Speaker 4: No, no, But your overall I think is one hundred percent correct. Yeah, you know, I don't want to you know, let my player take take away from the point you were trying to make, which I think is the you know, and again you know you don't want to wear four condoms when you're drafting. Sure, right, these two There is some truth to the guys on the internet who love to talk about how aggressive they are. There there is some truth to that. Right, you don't want to play too conservatively, but you also don't want to have a team that's just all guys who are boom or bus. I mean, that's just the way I play. And you know, I'm comfortable with my decision.

00:58:44
Speaker 2: It's a season long's same thing in season long, right where you're when you're managing a league, you tell also think about the predictability of these players, right whenever you're going into a given week, and how how comfortable you're going to be you're going to be starting them based on and and that predictability comes in many forms. It's not just how they score points, but it's also you know, what's the overall talent profile this player, like a you know, Travis Hunter. The example I use my guide this year was Travis Hunter versus Courtland Sutton, Like we know what Cortland Sutton is. We have a comfortability with Courtland Sutton. Travis Hunter has a more volatile profile, but we don't know what that upside and ambiguity looks like. Right, So there could be more, there could be less. But it's about weighing all those things and understanding those things as opposed just to just looking at that one projected number that folks like the draft off of. That's obviously more of a season long thing. In the way that people approach season long is that they're just looking at that one projected number as opposed to how we're getting to that number, How are we actually accumulating, you know, how's this player accumulating the statistics that he's accumulating.

00:59:47
Speaker 1: It goes a long way to have that balanced approach.

00:59:49
Speaker 4: I look at season long very differently, where I am willing to just yolo it in the later round because I can make up for it with.

01:00:00
Speaker 1: Waivers exactly right, exactly.

01:00:02
Speaker 4: I'm much less likely to want to take a zero in best Ball than I am in season long with my draft picks. That being said, again, it's about it's not whether you take I mean, I have way more Hunter than I do Sutton in that example, I like Ridley in that range like somebody else might like Sutton. Sure, And you know, if I have three wide receivers in the first four rounds and Hunters sitting there in the fifth man, that is that is an amazing, amazing.

01:00:34
Speaker 1: Exactly thing easy click.

01:00:37
Speaker 4: You know. So again, it's it's all about thinking about your team as you're building it, and the kind of team that you're building, and making sure that you're going to put enough nitroglycerin in it that you have that kind of upside that can take you to the top of a seven hundred thousand man tournament while realizing you're not playing against seven hundred thousand people. You're playing against twelve followed by sixteen, followed by sixteen, followed by six seven hundred.

01:01:10
Speaker 2: One question that I got So, I was at the Fantasy Football Expo this past weekend and someone came up to me and they were like, man, love the Becoming a Best ball bro series. The one question that I want you to ask somebody is how they handle by weeks. And I realized that this offseason, I haven't really talked about bye weeks at all, and so I'm curious, like, how important are bye weeks to you in terms of being over exposed to certain weeks? And you know, obviously the ones positions where you don't have as many of them that you're drafting, you know, making sure there's no overlap?

01:01:38
Speaker 1: Are you always making sure?

01:01:41
Speaker 2: Are you okay with taking a zero during a bye week at tight end or something, let's say, Or you know which direction do you really go in?

01:01:47
Speaker 4: Well? I wrote an article about ten years ago about MFL tens, and one of the things I stressed was bye weeks right, not wanting to take a zero. But that was a game where one team basically got all the money. Right. Second place was ten bucks, right, first place was ninety bucks, right or one hundred bucks.

01:02:10
Speaker 1: It was a big.

01:02:12
Speaker 4: Big difference. I've come full circle. I don't even look at buys. So here's why. Let's the biggest example is quarterback. Right, And let's say I'm giving up twenty points because I've got two quarterbacks, and I only build a lot of two quarterback teams this year. I'm actually doing your old strategy. Yeah, you know, two guys within that window, right, your old strategy late round QB. It's not quite late round QB like it used to be. But the key part of your strategy that I understood back in the day was getting two within the window, right, that eight to fifteen range. If you get two of those, you're good. That's kind of how I'm building most of my teams this year. So let's say I get a zero, Well, I'm going to get some of that back. Most likely? How am I going to get some of that back? I'm going to get some of that back because now I have two shots two other weeks at a higher score. Right, So I'm going to guess that I get half of that back. So I've bled ten points. If I bled ten points, I now advance two teams, right, not just one, but two teams advance. And it doesn't matter if you're first or second, right, you get just you move forward just as much. So if you look at it, a lot of times second and third place are very close and first place isn't right like they'll be one hundred and fifty points that it doesn't matter. So I'm less concerned. I've made up about half of those points. And if I advance, now I have a combination of two quarterbacks. Because most people don't feel comfortable with those two buys. I have a unique combination to get through the luck weeks, and I have a unique combination for the last week if I get there. And not to mention the fact that I took those two guys because they were the best guys for my team.

01:04:31
Speaker 1: That was the optimal pick. That was the.

01:04:33
Speaker 4: Optimal guy I had. I took Michael Pennix as my second quarterback because I had Atlanta with you know, I had Mooney with kyn Williams. Right. It wasn't the best but it but it was the best second stack I could make at that time. I'm not going to worry about ten points in that situation. I just I'm just not with two teams advanced saying the chance of me missing out because I did a bye week, I'm willing to forego for the chance of being unique.

01:05:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, going forward.

01:05:10
Speaker 2: I would imagine too, that it's even more so at tight end where they just don't score as many points, right like like like, Realistically, if you miss out on a tight end, even on DraftKings where it's full PPR, you might only be missing out on you know, a lot of there's gonna be a lot of three tight end bills, but you still might be missing out on like six points that week, like realistly, So it's really.

01:05:30
Speaker 4: Find that's what kills me. Yeah, that's what kills that team.

01:05:34
Speaker 1: Yeah.

01:05:34
Speaker 2: But again, you're making the point about differentiation, which is something that you you know, it has been very consistent in all of these conversations, and it's so unbelievably important that you're getting those unique combos because you know the market is going to be especially like.

01:05:48
Speaker 4: Not going crazy to get them and give it someone two rounds. You know, you have people and I'm not saying you never pull up players if there's a flat zone in ADP, you know, like I've been pulling George Pickens up lately, I've been pulling Jamison Williams up into that you know thirdd end of the third you know, end of the third round, beginning of the fourth very flat there.

01:06:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a dead spot. It's a dead spot.

01:06:13
Speaker 4: I will pull people up, but I'm not going to pull people up over people I like more when I still might get them if I wait, just so I can say that I'm being different.

01:06:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, it makes a ton of sense. Okay, I have two more questions.

01:06:28
Speaker 2: I want to ask you so right now, it's a preseason coach speak is in full force. You know, we got beat writers saying different things every single day. Are you someone that dramatically changes your player stances based on preseason reps and what the media is saying about a player or or do you not care? Like how do you dissect coach speak?

01:06:47
Speaker 4: Well, like anything else, it's an individual basis, right, we have to put our thinking caps on, and you have to compare it to how enthusiastic the crowd is about it. Because every year there's that one or two guys who gets steamed up Wiley Coyote over the canyon, and you gotta know when to just say, all right, I'm gonna let this one go. And it's staying on top of your emotions. Like I didn't like that Washington backup that much, Jakorsky something better, but I really like the Red Redskins commander backfield. You know, historically the air raid can have some really big weeks for running backs. Remember if you remember what Kenyan Drake did in Arizonia those couple weeks. So he's gone up, but he's only in the fifteenth round. So am I really giving up much? That I didn't take him in the twentieth and I'm getting him now in the fifteenth, nun. But if he starts going in the twelfth for the eleventh, I'll just say, Okay, I missed it. I missed it, so I'm willing to like I'm paying. I'm pretty heavy drafting Samson right now. He's moved up, but I think there's still enough juice there where I'm getting a floor ceiling combo. That's great. Ye, I'll just worry that other people got a better deal, you know. Again, a couple more rounds and I'll look for someone else. I'll just say, you know, I really really try and avoid being wiley coyote.

01:08:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, makes sense. All right. Last question for you, who are some of your go to stacks this year?

01:08:32
Speaker 4: Well, my highest owned quarterback is just In Fields, and I really don't care whether I stack him. Yeah right, Drake may is one of my favorites. I really don't, you know. I take him with Hunter Henry a lot. That's a nice safe backstack. I'll take him some with Diggs. Let me look up some of my I really like Michael Pennix with Drake Lundon, I think that's just so cheap. I think that that is just a you know, that's one that could feed families. Possibly Dack with Pickens, Dack with Lamb, Trevor Lawrence with Hunter, and Brian Thomas. Again, what do all these have in common their later quarterbacks with you know, And one of the sneaky ones that I've been building in, especially on twenty rounds is Malik neighbors with either Russ or some people will take Dart, some people will take Russ. Could be either, right, you know, in a twenty round tournament, having Russ, even if he plays only the first eight games, that could be the difference between advancing and then what if Dark comes in and he gets hurt and now week seventeen, Russ is a quarterback again, so I do take Dart in eighteen. Sometimes if I take Russ in an eighteen round, it's in a two quarterback build. I'm basically saying, in this team Russ, the Giants are good. Russ is good, and they're in the playoffs and he plays the whole season. So again you have to think through what scenario do you need for this lineup to be good? And if you're building five teams out of five hundred. You might say a lot of guys will say, oh, I hate Russ. Russ is done. I build five teams out of five hundred with my first round, pick the guy who could break fantasy. And you're telling me you want zero Russ.

01:10:40
Speaker 1: Right right right, So that's.

01:10:42
Speaker 4: A little bit overkill and the kind of thing I try and avoid. JJ.

01:10:47
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it, Todd. This is great.

01:10:49
Speaker 2: People are definitely gonna get something from this conversation.

01:10:52
Speaker 1: And the knowledgy just dropped.

01:10:53
Speaker 2: Let everyone know they can find you, what you're doing in the fantasy space, all that good stuff.

01:10:57
Speaker 4: I still do my Run to Daylight podcast. I'm not as active as I used to be. I'll be doing about four or five more of those. I'm at Best Ball NFL on Twitter, and I've been doing this a while and you know, if someone asks the question, I answer a question and I'm really glad you invited me on.

01:11:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, this was great.

01:11:19
Speaker 2: Did when did you officially move away from the Todd from PA It's.

01:11:23
Speaker 4: Still my name right right, but it's not my handle about about two years ago.

01:11:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember you switching it. I just couldn't remember when it was.

01:11:31
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean the reason I did. That was because I used to call into Russ Tucker. I'm serious, and I was Todd from PA. So when I joined Twitter, I'm like, all right, you know, maybe someone will know.

01:11:44
Speaker 2: Me right right right? Yeah, I love it as usual. You guys can check out my stuff over on lateround dot com. Draft guides available for sale. Make sure you're subscribed to this podcast and the YouTube channel. YouTube channel is at YouTube dot com, slash at late round FF.

01:11:58
Speaker 1: Otherwise, everyone, thanks for tuning in