Becoming a Best Ball Bro: Changing Approaches in August?

00:00:01
Speaker 1: Rich.

00:00:01
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've heard or not, but we don't even need to play fantasy football this year. At least, we don't need to draft any more teams because the winner of every single Fantasy Football Best Ball contest has already been determined. It's basically any team that has already drafted Jr. Cory Krossky merrit According to Commanders Camp, those are the teams that are going to be winning all the money this year. I'm JJ and last year I tried my hardest to become a best ball bro.

00:00:28
Speaker 1: I drafted over five hundred.

00:00:29
Speaker 2: Teams, I talked to some of the most successful best ball players in existence, and I admittedly had mixed results.

00:00:35
Speaker 1: So this year, I'm going to chase that title once again.

00:00:38
Speaker 2: My plan is the Max Enter Draftings Millionaire Maker, and I'm going to document all of it while talking to the brightest best ball minds on the planet.

00:00:46
Speaker 1: Last year, I didn't.

00:00:47
Speaker 2: Quite get there, But this year this is going to be the year where I officially become a best ball bro.

00:01:06
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Speaker 2: One per customer enter the Best Ball fifteen million dollars Headliner contest by nine four to twenty five to get one bonus entry twenty dollars entry for you. Required reward expires in thirty days. See terms at draftings dot com. Slash NFL Dash Best Dashball sponsored by dk Now back to the show. Welcome into another episode of becoming a Best Ball bro. I'm JJ Zacharieson, joined as always by Rich Ryan Rich.

00:02:56
Speaker 1: What's going on, buddy, JJ?

00:02:57
Speaker 3: I'm doing great.

00:02:58
Speaker 4: I can confirm to all the listeners out there and the people watching us on YouTube at Late Round FF that yes, JJ Zachariason is a real human being.

00:03:09
Speaker 3: And yes, as everybody says, JJ is way taller than you would expect.

00:03:16
Speaker 2: Wait, I thought you were way taller than than what would what were to be expected. I didn't know that I was the taller one, so So for those of you who don't know, Rich and I have been doing this show now for well over a year, obviously, and we finally got to meet I R L last week. We had a nice little brunch down in my downtown area in my town and walked around a little bit and hung out.

00:03:37
Speaker 1: And I thought the same thing about you with the height thing. I thought, you because you're I think you're taller than me. I'm like six to one. You've got to be like six two ish.

00:03:45
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, six two right on the dot. Come from a family of just trees in the Ryan uh, the Ryan lineage. But yeah, it's something about the tiny box that we're looking at. Everything's so compressed that I think just I think naturally we think everybody is is shorter than reality.

00:04:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, look, I can confirm that you have legs. I did confirm that by mating you, I RL. But yeah, man, it was a good time. It was good to hang out for a little bit. And you know, we didn't really talk best ball throughout that.

00:04:14
Speaker 3: I don't think we talked like a second.

00:04:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know that I joked about Jacory Krosky Merriott, But I do got to say I remember earlier in the off season, it was like maybe early July.

00:04:27
Speaker 1: This is definitely humble, braggy.

00:04:28
Speaker 2: But I think it's really funny because I my prospect model did not like Jacory Krosky Merrit. We don't even know what's gonna happen here. I mean, we're talking about a twenty four year old rookie who didn't have great production. I think that what we're seeing is an explosive player who in context and in comparison to what Washington has, definitely looks a lot better. Because Brian Robinson, you know, I think is more of like a plotting type, like he's fine, he's a he's fine enough to just handle a big workload. Austin Neck obviously older, you know, in age, and is more of just a one dimensional you know, receiving back. But with Krossky Merrit, you're getting that explosion. The thing is he get a combine invite and so like all of our data and stuff is not as like clean with Krossky Merrit compared to some of the other prospects. But I say all that because I was not very interested in him as a prospect, just given what we've seen hit in the past. I mean, we're really hoping for like an Alfred Morris type runout with this production profile, ironically with the same franchise, but you know, we're kind of hoping for that, which to me is fine because I did some research on day three running backs that kind of come from nowhere and emerge, and they're the ones who are productive in year one, and so much of it just has to do with the situation, and they're being really bad ambiguous backfields ahead of them, which I think we would consider Washington that just based on ADP and the running backs in front of him. So this offseason, throughout the summer, I've actually been throwing like twentieth round darts at JCM, like fairly consistently, and I'm having a conversation with David Kitchen the one day, this is like early July, and we're going through our exposure a little bit and I'm like, yeah, I got like twelve percent JCM, this might be a terrible idea, and.

00:06:12
Speaker 1: He's like, what you have won?

00:06:14
Speaker 2: Like he was just shocked because it was not a player that I had been talking about a lot, both him and Kyle Manungui. And I think this is where DraftKings having the two extra rounds really comes in handy. I don't know if I would have any exposure to these players in an eighteen round format, but in twenty rounds, it's a lot easier to just throw that dart in the extra Running back Kyle Manungu is a similar situation where like I've drafted Roshan, but I've drafted a ton of Kyle manung guy just because it's the same situation where you have these this ambiguous backfield and like guys that we think that you could hypothetically climb and beat on a depth chart. And so I've gotten Manungui too when my prospect model did not like Manunguy at all. I don't think either player, especially Manonguy, but I don't think either player really has like true RBATO upside, like legit RB two, like in the season long league that we're just like plugging in and we're confidently playing each week.

00:07:06
Speaker 1: But in a bestball environment, they can give you some usable weeks, I.

00:07:09
Speaker 4: Think, And it makes logical sense that if anybody was to pop out and have an impressive start to camp, it might be the twenty four year old rookie right that has more experience whose body type is more prepared to play in the NFL. And it also aligns with what we were talking about. We've talked about all summer with the quarterbacks going so quickly in the middle to late rounds that we are basically reserving those final rounds two receivers and running backs and running backs even more specifically, those are like the ultimate dart throws, where somebody's value can absolutely rocket based on the value presented the volume presented to them.

00:07:45
Speaker 3: Sorry, if things shake their way.

00:07:47
Speaker 2: Here's the thing, though, Jacorey Krosky Marriott was a twentieth round pick and often not even drafted, you know early on in the Milli environment, you know, in May and June and stuff, and I got a lot of exposure that way. But I said this on my live stream that I did today. This is going to be releasing on Wednesday, but I did one on Tuesday, and I talked about how Jacory Krossky Merrit got drafted at sixteen oh four in that draft, and I made comment like, that's probably one of the earliest time, Like I would imagine someone listening to this, I've seen him go even earlier, but that's one of the earliest picks that I've seen him go. But then someone made the comment and I agree with it that like sixteenth round pick for is a twentieth round pick is really not that significant of adulta in a difference. And so even though there's this steam building and this is kind of the theme of today's intro, even though there's this steam building with Jacory Krossky Merritt, I don't think it's that big of a deal right now, Like we're not at a point and we saw this with Tank Bigsby for a little bit.

00:08:43
Speaker 1: Tank Tank is.

00:08:44
Speaker 2: Finally getting into like I've seen him going like round eleven and stuff where there is a more significant opportunity cost. But there was a good two week period where the steam hit where he's getting first team reps and his ADP was only like a round round and a half higher if that, And so you were still able to draft Tank Bigsby based off of that information because there's this lag with ADP, and so I think the same thing is happening with a Jakori Krosky Merritt and a lot of these other guys that I want to talk through today who I just seem to be drafting recently and I want to give you guys kind of an update on.

00:09:15
Speaker 4: It real quick, since we spoke about tank bigsby last week. Up twenty one point one spots in ADP going at the start of the twelfth round. But again, that's a ton of stem It's still, like you said, a twelfth round pick. It's still not a ton of opportunity costs that you need to spend to draft that player.

00:09:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and obviously, like twelfth is going to be different than like sixteenth and stuff, but like, yeah, like I said, you know, there there is a window still even if you are on top of the news, and if you are just being reactive to the news, you are going to have a window to be able to draft a handful of teams, a good amount of teams and just get right back on track with your exposure. If you are underweight on a certain player, I think that's what the key is here, right, So you know, another example of that, I'll just go through some of these players i've been drafting more, you know, this week. We'll go with some of the later round guys first, because since we're on the topic, but Braylan Allen is one who I've been drafting a little bit more of I'm not of the belief that Breece Hall is going away or is a bad pick. I think that Hall given I mean, obviously Justin Fields has had his struggles evidently in camp. But you know, Hall, to me is could easily finish number two on the team in targets this year. And I'm going to target targets at the running back position. I'm going to lean into pass catching backs because that's very sticky, it's very predictive, and those are the players who outperform ADP and expectation best. So I'm going after Breese Hall. Still, Braylan Allen has been profiles more as like a one dimensional early down guy. You know, you have this Detroit influence in New York right now where I think they see it as like a Gibbs Montgomery situation more than likely, Like that's the mindset, per se. I don't think that the backfield share will necessarily look the exact same as that. Like I think Breece being in a Gibbs role, we'll see more early down work than Gibbs did to start. You know, you know what he's seen in Detroit with a healthy Montgomery. But Braylan Allen should still be a usable like give you some spiked weeks, maybe be the seventy five percent out of one hundred percent goal line guy and seeing the goal line touches and stuff like that. And so as much as I thought he was overvalued last year by the fantasy community, where you know, he was good the first couple of weeks and then people had this like anchoring bias of Braylan Allen being a really really good running back and being better than Breese Hall and all this stuff, like every advanced metric says that Breese Hall was better. Most of them say that Breeze Hall was better than Braylon Allen. Last year. I thought Isaiah Davis one of my favorite sleepers last year, and last year's class was actually really good. But the end of the day, if the coaching staff is sitting here and saying we want Braylan Allen to be the one B or the RB two in this backfield, like we have to lean into that and normally that.

00:11:54
Speaker 1: But Allen was.

00:11:55
Speaker 2: An extremely young prospect coming in. I think he's still only twenty, right, He was twenty last year when he entered the league. A physical freak like he is insane.

00:12:05
Speaker 1: I mean he was.

00:12:05
Speaker 2: He was getting run in college at Wisconsin his freshman season as a seventeen year old, right, Like, he's not a normal prospect, and so I liked him enough as a prospect, but I do think that he's a little bit one dimensional, like I said, but I you know, if a player is gonna be twenty one years old, we can't just assume that he's already kind of flatlined and this is just who he is as a player, right, And so because of that, I'm I'm fine with kind of throwing out We know that efficiency metrics aren't super super sticky at running back anyway, So I'm fine with kind of throwing it out last season and just being like, okay, yeah, Like, I don't think he's like special per se, but I do think that we should be open minded about him improving as a player, which is why I've been drafting him more. I'm at like twelve percent Braylan Allen, So it's not even just the last week that I've been drafting him.

00:12:49
Speaker 5: More.

00:12:50
Speaker 2: You don't get to a twelve percent exposure by only drafting a player you know significantly over a one week period unless you're just drafting a lot in that one week. So yeah, I've been I've been going after him a little bit. Adp just doesn't seem to be moving that much. What do you have with his average RAPT position?

00:13:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, up eight spots week over week, but since we started doing this, he's only up six point six spots. He did get a little buzz coming out of the Green and White scrimmage where all three backs Isaiah Davis included were praised by their performance, but I think that's because JJ The best unit on this team I think is going to be the offensive line. PFF has them ranked ninth heading into the season, and from all the folks that I'm following that are the best ball knowers within the Jets community, the standout in camp this year has been Olu Fashionu and he just looks like a dude ready to be in every down mauling left tackle in this league. So if armand Membu can come up to speed on the other bookend, you have a very strong offensive line with a quarterback who's inconsistent and a pretty good defense, which means let's run the ball a ton, which that gives Montgomery corollary to Breee and Braylin makes a ton of sense.

00:14:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, one hundred percent.

00:14:01
Speaker 2: And then another player, two other guys that are kind of in this bucket of Yes, they're rising in ADP, but I'm still fine with getting them because again, a seventeenth round pick is not that much different than a twentieth round pick. KeAndre Lambert Smith is one who we've seen now in the preseason. Obviously that opening game and Canton do his thing. But the thing is like, if you go back and look at the Prospect Guide, my numbers actually kind of liked him, like he had above average marks across the board. He was someone if you read the profile that I wrote about him, he was someone who I said it would be difficult from to find the field right away because Quentin Johnston and Trey Harris and Lat McConkey are there for an eleven personnel. But what I wrote was hypothetically, KLS like fit what they would want to do with an eleven personnel package of Trey Harris, Lad McConkie and KLS because KLS can really stretch the field. Trey Harris can play that X and then you have Lad McConkie in the slot. Look, Lad can play on the outside too. He's a really good player. But I could see what they're thinking with the guy like als and he's a big play waiting to happen, Like he's really good at stretching the field. I think that's how they're gonna want to use him, you know, throughout his rookie season. Is he going to be someone that we're like that into a side from maybe a waiver wire ad or a sleeper pick in a given week throughout the season and season long. That's probably what he is, right, But that's kind of what we want in a.

00:15:26
Speaker 1: Best ball pick.

00:15:27
Speaker 2: Someone who's gonna make these splash plays, be part of a good offense. He's another player you can throw a dart at if you get Justin Herbert, he's another out with him. So you don't absolutely need Lad McConkey for those stacks. So I've been getting KLS and I'm assuming is his ADP has been up, you know, week over week and year to date and stuff.

00:15:45
Speaker 1: But at the same time, it's not going to be so significant. I would imagine.

00:15:49
Speaker 4: Still a nineteenth round pick some weeks. He's not been drafted, right, He's at least been not been part of the data so he's only up year to date seven point eight spot. And yeah, you're telling me Spike week candidate that we can pair with Justin Herbert or get into that game stack. Yeah, like we just saw the guy make some plays. Again, We're getting information, we're getting steam, and it's having a minimal impact in the later rounds.

00:16:15
Speaker 3: It is an obvious start to throw in those scenarios.

00:16:18
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:16:19
Speaker 2: And then the last one that I want to throw out there in the late rounds is Woody Marx, who I was not drafting Woody Marx really at all before the Joe mix and stuff started. But I'm not really that impressed and aggressive and going after Nick Chubb right now just based on his age, what he looked like last year. You know, we're really just going by coach speak only if we were to be targeting Nick Chubb confidently, and the coach speaks surrounding Chubb has also not been that great, which is always a red flag this time of year, whenever coach speak is negative about a player or just neutral about a player. And so I'm a little bit nervous about Chubb, but we know that Chubb historically has been one dimensional anyway as a full PPR platform, and the offensive line isn't very good in Houston, and so I have my concerns about Chubb, So naturally I'm pivoting to Woody Marx, who, again, like you have to think a lot of people weren't drafting Woody Marks in general, so it's not like the early lineups we were, you know, super exposed to Marx anyway. But if you look at his production profile, he did get that Mike Leech rest in Peace bump, you know, whenever he played under him in college a little bit. But he's still had when he transferred, he still had a pretty good receiving profile, and so I think he can play that kind of role for Houston hypothetically, and that's more attractive to me, not only because there's this ambiguity of him being a rookie and maybe he's just better than what folks thought. He also had decent enough draft capital, like better draft capital than some of the you know, the Nung Guy and Jacory Krossky Merrit types, and so there's a little bit of a potential there. But I like the idea of getting a pass catching back in this offense when the offensive line is such a mess, because I do think that Houston could be a candidate to be like top seven in the league in past rate at least neutral script pass rate because their defense is good and so I don't know what kind of game environments are necessarily going to be in, but I do think hypothetically, like you look at what this offense can do, what it can't do, and where they're deficient. I mean, the offensive line is the biggest problem. There's not gonna be much of a run game, especially without mixing. If he is banged up entering the season, they're just gonna have to throw the you know what out of the ball, and so that could benefit a player like Woody Marks.

00:18:29
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it's good. I'm excited to see what Nick Kayley does in this offense. You know, Bobby Slowick, it was pretty painful.

00:18:35
Speaker 3: To watch over the last two seasons.

00:18:37
Speaker 4: So to see whatever touch that he can have coming from that McVeigh Shanahan Tree on targeting some of the backs and yeah, like you said, Bobby Marks, he's up thirty seven spots year to date, which makes you want to gasp for air. Still going in the end of the sixteenth round.

00:18:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, I'm fine if he goes much higher than that, I'm not going to be at I would say that my exposure to him has been more eighteenth round, So I do think that, like we gotta be at least a little like he's the one player that we've talked about that I'd probably be a little bit careful of getting like too too excited because like, to me, if he jumps like Jerome Ford, for instance, like I'd rather just get the secure pass catching back that we know is going to play that role that Judkins still doesn't is still not signed, like we have.

00:19:24
Speaker 1: No idea what's going on there.

00:19:26
Speaker 2: Like, I'd still probably go more for the Ford type because to me, Woody Marx is almost like Jerome Ford might be the realized version of Woody Marx, you know what I mean, Like that's the that's the seventieth seventy fifth percentile outcome for a guy like Marx would be like a Jerome Ford type role. So I would just rather go in that direction. And then two other guys I want to shout out that I've been drafting. They're not late round guys, so they don't really fall under this umbrella that we're talking about here. I've been getting a lot of Travis Hunter recently for some reason in my drafts, he's been falling more than I expected. And this was before Liam Cohen went on Rich Eisen Show. I don't know if you saw this clip or not, and he talked about Travis Hunter playing eighty percent of the offensive snaps, and so, I mean, if that happens, it's wheels up. If that, If he really were to play that much, he should be more of an early fifth round pick than an early sixth round pick.

00:20:17
Speaker 1: And that's that's not insignificant.

00:20:19
Speaker 2: So I do think right now people should be going after Travis Hunter pretty aggressively. And then the other one is Rashid Shahed. I kinda wait, maybe I was waiting a little bit with like the injury stuff to make sure that he was good to go. But there's just a lot of really good vibes with Rashid Shahed out of New Orleans, and those vibes really match up with what he's done efficiency wise. I mean, two of his three seasons in the NFL, he's been over a yards per out run rate of two, which is not very easy you know, to do obviously. I mean too that tw mark is usually the one that we're looking for for wide receivers to hit in yards per out run.

00:20:54
Speaker 1: Kellen Moore is now.

00:20:56
Speaker 2: Coaching there, and as an offensive coordinator in the NFL, he's never had no offense. It's run fewer than sixty five plays a game, which is is like three or four more plays than what we typically see from a team. So I think that not only could New Orleans just like be in some pass heavy scripts in general, but if and when that happens, they're going to also probably pick up the pace a little bit and that's going to improve the volume across the board. I've been drafting Chris Olave all summer. I'm getting more Shaheed right now. I don't know if he's really moved that much over the in the short term, but i'd imagine Shahed moved a little bit this year just based on the injury, seeming them to see the injury pretty optimistically.

00:21:35
Speaker 4: Yeah, Shahid up ten point six since we started potting, one point six week over week. And Yeah, what you're saying is when training camp started, it was basically what is Rashid Shahed doing coming off of that major injury, And it seems like there were no stepbacks so I think we can be comfortable slotting him in, you know where he should be based on the quarterback situation. I will say I feel like we and we heard it a couple of weeks ago on this show. Uh, and some of my Sharper friends people are just like really in on New Orleans.

00:22:08
Speaker 3: And I get it, especially on DraftKings.

00:22:09
Speaker 4: That is a really good break glass in case of emergency stack to grab late. But I'm starting to get the hevdvs about this Shuck rattler.

00:22:19
Speaker 1: I have not I do not have.

00:22:22
Speaker 2: I know that Davis Maddick mentioned a couple of weeks ago that and no shade to Davis, I.

00:22:26
Speaker 3: Mean Levitt Levitton Levitton.

00:22:29
Speaker 4: Uh.

00:22:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, was seemed like all over two to me.

00:22:32
Speaker 2: I've said this time and time again. My emergency one has typically been I've leaned towards the Giants more than I have the Saints. I've gotten way more Jackson Dart than Tyler Shuck. And maybe that's dumb because Shuck will have more mobility and such, But I think the stability of the job and like the chance of Dart playing this season seems greater based on draft capital and what that coaching staff needs right like they've got a short leash in New York right now, and so even if they're bad, which we all expect them to be pretty bad to start the year, they need to get some Jackson Dart going because if Jackson Dart shows something, then hypothetically they could keep their jobs another year. Right, so they need to show some sign of life, whereas New Orleans everything is completely new and fresh. So hypothetically, I'm not saying that I think Shuck probably will get run towards the end of the year. And I have thrown that dart, don't get me wrong, I just I've thrown the dart at Dart more frequently.

00:23:29
Speaker 4: And on Travis Hunter, this is almost exactly what we were just talking about getting ahead of it, because that eighty percent comment is going to go through the cycle this next week and maybe when we start to see Travis on the field in some of these preseason games. But it's not affected a yet, only up point four spots week over week. So this might be the opportunity right now, literally right now, to get out ahead of it before there's some real Hunter's team.

00:23:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that his perfect spot is like in that like the tail end of that Jalen Wattle tier I think you know, on DK, i'd be taking him over a Zay Flowers right now, where when he goes after him pretty frequently.

00:24:13
Speaker 1: You know, I love r J. Harvey and Traveon Henderson.

00:24:15
Speaker 2: So I can't confidently say it because like if you go with like like I've had so many zero RB or hero RB type builds where I've gotten you know, RJ. Harvey and Traveon Henderson, So it depends on the build. But yeah, I mean like if you go wide receiver heavy and you can afford to take a chance and take a risk with Travis Hunter, I would say do it. I think that he is someone that would be who's going to probably rise in ADP a little bit over the next week.

00:24:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, three players before Hunter right now are Wattle, Travion, and RJ.

00:24:42
Speaker 3: Harvey. As you nailed all three of those players.

00:24:45
Speaker 4: The three players right after him are Laporta, DeAndre Swift, and Debo. So I can definitely see him separating himself from that the group behind him.

00:24:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the thing, Like I think that that that's such a tear break too in my opinion and drafts, right and so like I'm confidently taking Travis Hunter over those other guys from.

00:25:03
Speaker 1: Just an upside standpoint and Stuch.

00:25:05
Speaker 2: All right, let's get to our guest today. So I had Matthew bets On. He's from the Fantasy Footballers, great analysts. He does best Ball, he does everything, really, he does best ball, DFS, sports betting, he does injury analysis because he has a physical therapy background too, so he kind of has everything covered. We talked about how he shifts his thinking in best Ball now that we're in August. We talked elite tight end, of course, because that's just an easy go to topic to talk about. We also talked about Derek Henry and Jonathan Taylor in a full PPR format. I think that was an interesting discussion and so much more so without further ado, here's my interview with Matthew Betts.

00:25:45
Speaker 1: All right, bets we're now in August.

00:25:48
Speaker 2: It's officially August for contests, you know, like the Millie Maker million Maker has been going on since May. Should we now be approaching our drafts any differently now that we're kind of in the home stretch, Like are you looking more for unique combos? Are you focusing on exposure a little bit differently? Like, like, are you looking at drafts differently now as you were maybe in May and June.

00:26:10
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think, I mean, I think you kind of have to write because when we were drafting in May in June, the ADP landscape was quite different. Now there's some players that still go you know, Jamarr Chase has been the one on one for forever and he will be in less something happens. But there's some players that have been kind of locked into their ADPs the entire time, and there's some that have moved a ton like Mecha Buca's flying up boards. Now we have injuries that are causing guys to fall, camp hold outs, all those things. So it's kind of a different game when you get to August compared to May with the ADP landscape. So I think you do have to shift a little bit. But I think the most impact that's had on me right now as we get more information is kind of my late round strategy as far as like rounds eighteen, nineteen twenty on DK, where you know, in May, like we have no idea, like nobody knows who's making the team, who's the RB two, all those things, and so in the first part of kind of this draft window May June. I was always more willing to take like the boring wide receiver three or you know, the tight end three that I need for my squad because I just I know they're making the team and I'm not taking a zero in May in June, which that's part of the risk of drafting that time of year. But now you know, we're starting to get clarity on like d Jay Gidden seems like he's winning the Indie RB two job, Taj Brooks seems very very likely to at least be active on game day with the Zach Moss you know, cut stuff like that. So I'm more willing to kind of take thin bets later in drafts than I was, you know, two or three months ago.

00:27:34
Speaker 2: Do you do anything with combos in the early rounds? I mean mostly like let's say that you're at the end of the first round. You know you have like the eleven spot or something like that, and you're gonna get Nico Collins with your first pick, and then you know that Bucky Irving has been a late second rounder, early third rounder throughout the entire offseason, right like, he's very rarely gone in the early parts of the second round. Is that something that you're interested in to get those combos or do you kind of sit back and you say, there's eighteen other rounds that I'm about to draft here. I don't need to find this combination and be unique in the first couple rounds and potentially be suboptimal because as we know obviously, like we're drafting these players where we're drafting them for a reason, and I'll be I'll just change things up later in the draft where there's not going to be a duplicate, you know, lineup from one team to the next, because there's twenty rounds in the draft.

00:28:25
Speaker 1: Is that something that you're worried about or do you not worry about?

00:28:28
Speaker 5: So it's funny because in theory, I think we should consider this like a DFS game in some ways. Right, there's so much game theory with best Ball, which makes it just a different game than your regular redraft league, and so having some unique combinations does seem like something we should want to do. The nice thing is draftings usually gives it to us without having to actually do anything because of I mean, it's the wild Bile West, right, like you don't even know what you're gonna get when you sit down in the room and click start draft. I mean, crazy things happen. So there's been so many times where like I'll go into it and I get the ten, eleven, twelve pick, and it's like, Okay, maybe I can get a little bit of a unique you know, like you said Nico and Bucky or Nico and Jonathan Taylor or something like that, where it's like this isn't happening super often. But then all of a sudden, you know, two round one guys will fall to the twelve and thirteenth spot and it's like, I'm not going to pass on that, right. So it's so draft dependent, But there are times where you know, if I get a slot, like three or four drafts in a row, I want to make sure that I'm not on autopilot drafting because it's very easy to do that, right, Like, everybody's got their guys they like in different pockets of the draft, and it's subconsciously or consciously we just click the button over and over again on the same guys. Yeah, so there are times where it's like, you know, most of the time in this spot, let's say Brian Thomas Junior fall to like the fourteenth spot, Like I want to make that bet a super strong profile. Obviously, it's not hard to envision a massive year two from him, but like sometimes I want to just say what if I'm wrong and take somebody else. So yeah, I will definitely kind of like check myself on that at times. But because DraftKings ADP is almost not real, you'll get cobbos that you didn't even think you were going to get and you don't even have to necessarily force it.

00:30:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've been noticing that too. I would I would totally agree, at least from my experience. How do you handle exposure? Like are you someone who is because I'm looking at my exposure right now in the Millie really don't have a ton of guys over the twenty percent mark, Like it's really not frequent, and you know, I think anyone who's listened to my content through the years, they're not like overly surprised by that. But are you someone who thinks that you should be in that thirty to forty percent range with certain players or are you relatively flat with the higher volume that you're playing?

00:30:36
Speaker 5: Yeah, this is I think person to person risk dependent obviously, Like if you feel so strongly about a certain player or a certain pocket of the draft and where players go, and you want to make that bet. I don't think that you should necessarily be afraid to make that bet, because again, this is kind of like a DFS slate, like this is one season of best Ball, and you're making bets and they should be calculated bets, and if you really believe in that, I think you should push it.

00:31:00
Speaker 6: If you think you have an edge.

00:31:01
Speaker 5: The tricky part is being able to predict the NFL season is impossible, and so you are embracing so much risk, and it can be it can pay off in a massive way or crush your entire season, depending on which way the year goes. If you make those thirty percent and forty percent you know, portfolio exposure bets. I have done that in the past and gotten completely burned. The problem is, at the same time, you can be right about certain things and it doesn't matter in Best Ball. And that's that's the frustrating and kind of hard part if you're new to this, Like last year, remember there was the whole Rishie Rice saga of you know, is he gonna get suspended or not? And he fell at times to the seventies and the eighties, and it's like I went into the season, I was like, I'm making this bet every time because it seems very clear that he is headed towards a fourth round price or a third round price. And for the first three weeks like that looked awesome, and then you got hurt and it didn't matter, right. So I have definitely cooled on being somebody that goes to the thirty percent or forty percent mark on certain guys for those reasons. I don't know if that's RESCNCY bias or what, but yeah, I think if that happens, you know you have bad variance luck or injury luck or whatever. You know, you kind of kick yourself in hindsight. So I definitely have cat my exposure. I don't think right now. I look, just before we started recording, I didn't have anybody above twenty five percent. So I'm kind of with you in that aspect.

00:32:17
Speaker 1: Do you feel more comfortable?

00:32:18
Speaker 2: And I would assume with sort of later round guys being in that like, like I would imagine your twenty five percent player is not you know, Nico or Brian Thomas. Not only is it just difficult for that to be the case, but also you don't necessarily want to invest that heavily, or do you in an early round pick.

00:32:38
Speaker 5: No, I'm with you. I mean this year, especially the first I would say, like fifteen sixteen picks. I mean sometimes Ado Brown goes twentieth. Overall, like the top twenty picks are all awesome.

00:32:48
Speaker 6: Yeah, so I'm.

00:32:49
Speaker 5: Definitely not making huge, huge stands in that part of the draft. It's it's more later on. Actually, my highest roster guide and people that know my content are going to laugh at this because it's been the last like three years in ROAs Jaellen Warren this year again, yeah, I got a lot too, But where he goes it's a strong bet that I feel, like you know, I want to make. But yes, it's easier to make those stands obviously, and I think it's probably better to make those stands later on in the draft if you think you have an edge there. But yeah, I'm not this year especially, I'm not making hard stands anywhere in the first like fifteen to twenty picks.

00:33:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's hard. Like you said, there's so many good players.

00:33:24
Speaker 2: The crazy thing is, I think every fantasy analyst has gone through this process and dilemma of looking at AJ Brown and saying, man, I love AJ Brown this year because you know they're gonna throw more. Obviously it's AJ Brown, So he's an incredibly efficient wide receiver. If he maintains the target year, he'd be a monster. And then you go to rank him and you're like, oh, I kind of understand why he's going in the pocket that he's going in because there's just so many good players going in that area.

00:33:51
Speaker 1: You know, I'm a little bit higher on Brown.

00:33:52
Speaker 2: But like it's hard to be like so massively overweight on these guys just because the alternatives are still so good.

00:33:59
Speaker 5: For sure, And I think that kind of speaks to like the strength of the market in general, just getting.

00:34:04
Speaker 6: Better year every year every year.

00:34:05
Speaker 5: Like it was easy, even just a couple of years ago, to be like, why are we taking this guy in the second round? I can't think of it a good example off the top of my head, but like, yeah, pretty easy to find fades early on now. I mean, even on DraftKings where it's a wild wild west. I think it's decently efficient in the first you know, twenty three, twenty four picks something like that. So yeah, I mean I love AJ Brown, but I also love Drake London, and I love Brock Powers and.

00:34:26
Speaker 6: You know all these guys.

00:34:26
Speaker 5: So yeah, I'm not making hard stands this year. Early on, speaking of brock Bowers.

00:34:32
Speaker 2: Last week on the show, Davis Maddock, who is not shy to be bold, but Davis Mattock, came on the show and he said that Brock Bawers is the best pick on DraftKings.

00:34:43
Speaker 1: He kind of said it. I feel like the take was sort.

00:34:45
Speaker 2: Of evolving as he spoke right like it was he was kind of creating it as he was going through talking through it.

00:34:51
Speaker 1: But do you think that he's crazy and saying that?

00:34:54
Speaker 2: And then I want to ask you if you are drafting those elite tight ends pretty heavily on DraftKings and why or why not?

00:35:00
Speaker 5: Yeah, I listened to that and it was, like you said, it kind of seemed like you like started it and I can't stop now some of those ever, Yeah, we're going.

00:35:08
Speaker 6: With this, which I respect.

00:35:11
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I think brock Bowers is an awesome pick this year because you look at I think historically we've done a pretty good job in general with like the best one or two tight ends as far as pricing because it's been Kelcey and it's kind of easy to price Kelsey generally speaking over the last you know, eight years. But in general, I think we're terrible as a fantasy community as far as like where should the tight end four to like ten go? Yeah, And last year was a great example of that, right we had like Don kincaid and Kyle Pitts for the sixty year in a row, you know, go with the top sixty pick or whatever it was. I just think right now we're still we still have like a little bit of hesitancy with brock Powers because if we if we thought this was prime Kelsey, if we thought this was going to be the next Kelsey for the next decade, wou probably a first round pick, Like that's kind of where Kelsey was going, you know historically. So I think he's a good target. I think he's an awesome pick in the second round, especially considering the peripherals of what he showed last year. You know, over two yards were out run one hundred and fifty three targets, just dominating. But also the thing with him and McBride that's I keep going back to is like if you could poke holes in the regression signals for these guys, he'd be like, maybe I want to fade this, but both guys are set up for more touchdown luck this year, so you get the volume, but also like, what if those touchdowns hit right, I mean, the bride thing everybody's talked about all summer. With the regression, Probably nobody more obvious to cash more touchdowns this year.

00:36:38
Speaker 6: But brock Bowers.

00:36:39
Speaker 5: I mean he had six total targets inside the ten yard line last year, one red zone touchdown. So if Gino is just lea average, which I think he's better than league average, and they're in the red zone more often, I mean, I just think brock Bowers could go absolutely nuclear this year. So yeah, I'm taking a bunch of brock Bowers. But as I just mentioned a little bit ago, it's so hard to make these hards with these guys because I want to draft Bucky and AJ Brown, I McConkey and all those guys. So but yes, I'm definitely trying to get overweight these two elite tight ends.

00:37:09
Speaker 2: I've had an easier time with the elite tight ends on DraftKings number one, because you get this full PPR, you know, environment you get bonuses and like, realistically, I guy like McBride or Bowers, you think about the playoffs, and this.

00:37:23
Speaker 1: Is more anecdotal and like, let but like think about those.

00:37:26
Speaker 2: That those those three weeks that you're really needing those ceilings, and like, the advantage in the edge that you can get from those guys is insane, is absurd, And I'm like the first person to say that a lot of times in fantasy football, people will overrate the edge that tight ends are giving them because of the costs that we're incurring to get those tight ends right where, yes, we're getting these tight ends in the second round or what have you, and they're very very good versus all the other tight ends. But all the other tight ends are a lot of them, you know, aside from the ones that you talked about in like the middle rounds that are usually.

00:37:56
Speaker 1: Kind of mispriced and people don't know what to do with them.

00:37:58
Speaker 2: But like you're getting the legitimate starting tight ends in round fourteen, fifteen sixteen in your home league, especially right. But the difference I think with best ball that I've at least kind of you know, as I've become a best ball bro not quite there yet, as I've gone on this journey, and I've thought about this more and more. I do think that of all positions, tight end is the one we're having.

00:38:19
Speaker 1: The waiver wire can just be so beneficial. Even McBride the year.

00:38:22
Speaker 2: That he started to break out like he was on waiver wires because people did not want to deal, like they weren't thinking about him nearly as much, and so like, I do think that having that safety net and that backbone is a lot easier to handle a late round tight end approach in a season long league, Whereas when you're in this contained environment and best ball, it's just a lot easier to just go after one of those tight ends. I want to see if you agree with that. But then also, when you get one of those tight ends, are you building a three tight end room still or are you going with more of a two tight end room.

00:38:56
Speaker 5: Yeah, So to that point, I was earlier on even when I'm taking one of these elite guys because of the May June aspect of like I don't know what's happening around eighteen nineteen twenty, Like, let me just get somebody that's definitely making the team. Sometimes that would be a tight end three. Even though I already had Bowers or McBride. I don't want all of my teams to.

00:39:14
Speaker 3: Look the same.

00:39:15
Speaker 5: So right now, you know a lot of people are drafting three, six, eight, three quarterbacks, six trunny backs, eight ay wide receivers, three tight ends. And I'm not saying that's wrong, Like I have a lot of that as well, but I don't want all my teams to be that. So right now, as some of these kind of dart throws in the later rounds become more viable, I guess is a good way to put it. I've I guess cooled a little bit on the three tight end situation with these elite tight ends at the same time, because of how crazy DraftKings can be. Sometimes I'll plan to just go with a two tight end bill and all of a sudden, you know, Breton Strange falls thirty picks past adp and you've got Charlor Lawrence. It's like, how bad could this be?

00:39:55
Speaker 3: Right?

00:39:55
Speaker 5: So it's always room dependent, But I'm not going into every draft saying no matter what th reeted ends.

00:40:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's talk about two running backs in round two that it seems like analysts and there's been analysts on this show that have said that they're not really being aggressive with them, especially on a full PPR platform, but it is Derek Henry and Jonathan Taylor. Do you think it's silly to fade them? Are you fading them or are you aggressively going after them?

00:40:21
Speaker 5: This year? I cannot tell you how much money I've wasted fading Derek.

00:40:25
Speaker 6: Henry over the year.

00:40:26
Speaker 1: Same same oh Man.

00:40:28
Speaker 5: So on the DFS and betting show that Kyle and I do. We have this kind of like running bit, but it's also not that much of a bit where it's like in DFS, if Derek Henry is popular, you just play in cash, you know, like playing cash, don't get buried by the avalanche in tournaments, fade him and hope for the best man.

00:40:45
Speaker 6: I don't know. Every year I've faited Derrick.

00:40:47
Speaker 5: Henry at cost and he just comes back and does it again. And on a full PPR site. It is tough, right because obviously we know the pass catching is highly unlikely to be there. We've got years of data on that. He was the RB four last year in points game. It took three hundred and twenty five carries and eighteen total touchdowns to do that it's coming off the board at RB six, So he's the guy and that goes kind of in the you know, pick thirteen ish range. He's a guy I'm definitely underweight on. But if he falls to like the sixteenth or seventeenth pick or something like that, I'm happy to kind.

00:41:19
Speaker 6: Of get a little bit of exposure there.

00:41:21
Speaker 5: But I definitely don't want to just chase what happened last year and assume it will happen again this year. So that's my like caveat, you know, cowardy, cowardly take of saying I'll take him when he falls, but I'm not taking him at ADP. Jonathan Taylor is more of a tough sell for me because, like the Ravens are one of the best teams in football right the Colts. There's so many ways of this go. I could see Jonathan Taylor having an outlier rushing season because we've seen it before, but you think about the added pieces and kind of added elements this year, You've got the whole like Richardson situation at quarterback, stealing goal line work. Tyler Warren could mix in for some of that. He did that at Penn State. He could have some goal line touches. You could have a situation where this team is just flat out bad and all of a sudden, we're asking about Shane Stikeen's job in Week eight. I don't know how likely it is, but like kind of has to happen this year. So I think there's way more fragility in the Jonathan Taylor price tag relative to Derek Henry because we were talking about one of the teams in Baltimore that still has one of the highest average steam totals in the league and the highest win totals, and Jonathan Taylor goes, you know, four picks later or five picks later, whatever it is. So I'm not like xing out Taylor, but he's one guy that I will certainly be well underweight the field.

00:42:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm with you with Derrick Henry, it's so scary to not draft him like I'm trying to be. I'm trying to be in like the six percent range with Derek Henry this year.

00:42:42
Speaker 4: Yeah.

00:42:43
Speaker 2: And part of it too is Baltimore. The way that they scored touchdowns last year did come through the air more frequently than what was expected, right, And so if that regresses a little bit and they run for more touchdowns. You know, we'll say, yeah, maybe Lamar Jackson gets some of those, but like Dereck Henry could have like an absurd touchdown.

00:43:01
Speaker 1: Related season, right and like that's the scary part.

00:43:03
Speaker 2: But I'm with you, Like with Jonathan Taylor, Like I like, straight up, are you are you Chase Brown over Jonathan Taylor right now?

00:43:12
Speaker 6: I think so? Yeah, yeah, I think so.

00:43:14
Speaker 1: I am. I'm I'm Chase Brown over Jonathan Taylor.

00:43:17
Speaker 2: For the fact that I think that at the very least you can use a tie breaker of Anthony Richardson and the fact that Richardson's getting hyped up and we've seen him. Taylor last year had like a sub five percent target share with Anthony Richardson. That's frightening, you know, on a full PPR platform like that. We know, I try not to like fade players who I know can have nuclear weeks, you know, like we know that Jonathan Taylor can can do that. But we're obviously trying to make just general bets based off of, you know, what is likely to happen in playing probability and stuff. I'm with you, though with Taylor, it's it's a harder click to make one thing I will say with him, it seems like he does go in that pocket where it's after, like the opportunity cost is now strong, right because it's after like those elite wide receivers and stuff. So it's a little bit easier to get him because of that. And I'm still getting some but I actually think the Anthony Richardson thing could like be a huge detriment at the end of the day, just based off of what we saw last season. So are there any like top three round running backs other than those two that you're kind of on more of the fade side than the target side.

00:44:23
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's two that are the biggest fades from you right now. One is Kiren, which I don't think is an unpopular opinion from other analysts, Like we've all kind of done this with Kyle, you know, for a couple of years where it's like how good is he? Actually does it even matter because Sean McVay loves him. But at the same time, you know, thirty second overall for running back, who's really not going to be involved much in the passing game. And also, you know, if you think Cooper Cup is done and DeVonta Adams still has it, that's one more guy in the offense is going to see the football now, Matthew Stafford injury concerns are by the day getting more and more more and more real. I should say, so Kyrien is guy I really haven't taken much at ADP. There are random drafts for Hope fall into the forties and it's like, okay, maybe I'll take a share here or there, but I haven't taken much Kira. And the other guy is James Cook, who I think is probably going to be falling here a decent amount of this holdout or holding I guess continues. But you know, we talked about regression in a positive way for McBride and Bowers. What James Cook did last year was just unreal. So if you bet against that and you say, okay, maybe he scores eight or nine touchdowns and not sixteen or whatever, it was like, clearly there's room for this to come down. And then the other issue with James Cook that I have is just that I've done some studies and kind of looking at like players that do hold out and how does it affect them, And it depends on when they report, Like remember we had that Saquan year with like the Giants. He came back like a week into camp. Last year, you had Ceee Lamb hold out until basically the week before the season, and you know he got off to a slow start. He's talked about that. So I just think you have regression going to hit James Cook in the face. Also the holdout. Also, the cost is more than it was last year. So at that price at the ADP, I'm willing to bet against that. So James Cook is another guy I have almost none of on draftings, which is kind of scary because I always I love the archetype of how he plays and how he scores Fantasy points. But when he used to be, you know, a six round pick in the year before that, like an eighth round pick, it's just a different, different, you know, bet than what we're making here at like fortieth.

00:46:25
Speaker 1: Overall, Yeah, makes a ton of sense.

00:46:27
Speaker 2: And the Kyen stuff, I think the easiest way to describe Kyroen is that his workloads is so fragile, right, Like, if he sees even like a ten percent drop in running back rush, are that dramatically changes his outlook. It's just that he's been at its peak, at his workload peak, and maybe he maintains that. But I think that's smart just from a probability standpoint and just in general in the way that like the ebbs and flows of football to sort of bet against, you know, Kien Williams continuing to see the workload that he saw last year. Now, one question speaking of fading players. One question question that I've asked on perspectives and on becoming a best ball bro And it's more out of my own curiosity because I think it's a really interesting part in the draft where you have this like group of wide receiver let's just say wide receiver twenty to wide receiver forty, right, like maybe like late fourth round, like into the late fourth round on DK through round seven or round you know, into round eight. There's a lot of wide receivers that people are drafting and choosing from. But are there any wide receivers in that range, because, like you said, seems like the market's pretty efficient overall. Are there any wide outs that you're just like not getting behind at all and you don't understand their ADP in that range?

00:47:35
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:47:35
Speaker 5: One guy that's particularly tough right now for me is DK Metcalf. He's currently coming off the board at wide receiver twenty two, which in a full PPR setting in Arthur smith offense, is just kind of one of those like I don't I think we'll have some big games. Don't get me wrong, but I don't see a world where he's getting to this kind of like routinely eight catches, nine catches type of situation. And you go back and kind of look at what and I know it was different situations, a different personnel and all those things, but like looking at what George Pickens did last year, looking at what Drake London did in that frustrating year with Atlanta and Arthur Smith, like those guys are averaging like seven and a half targets per game Neltzman draft kit. We have seven point eight targets per game right now for gk Metcalf. Let's assume that that's right, eight targets a game, nine targets a game, and he's catching four or five balls a week like on a full PPR site. The efficiency is going to have to be there for that to be the thing that buries you. And don't get me wrong, like I said, he'll have some big weeks, but how good is Aaron Rodgers anymore? I don't know, Like, I mean, he supported some huge games from Devon to Adams last year and Garret Wilson at times. But like, just thinking about this Pittsburgh team, like, doesn't it feel like they are so excited to win every game, you know, seventeen to fourteen every week?

00:48:50
Speaker 6: Like that is the Steeler way.

00:48:52
Speaker 5: And yes, the target share will be there, but that's the tricky part, right, Like what is thirty percent of a target share in an offense? It's going to be probably bottom five if we're conservative, bottom ten and pass times per game, So I just I lean other players at that spot with Metcalf where I think the upside is exciting, but at the same time, the target volume in full PPR is just so important.

00:49:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good, good call out, interesting call out for sure. Are there any stacks that you've been going after pretty frequently overrun draftings?

00:49:22
Speaker 6: Yeah, so this one.

00:49:23
Speaker 5: It's tough recently with some of the news, but the Niners are one that I was pretty big on early in the process, where all these guys were so cheap, and you know, like you've done a lot of the research on the ambiguous situations, there's nothing ambiguous about the running back room, but who knows at wide receiver, And so I was taking shots on Piersall and Jennings, but now Jennings has the calf issue, and you know, Pierceaull missed a little bit of time.

00:49:46
Speaker 6: He's back. But I still want to buy into.

00:49:48
Speaker 5: The Niners for sure, because of the strength of schedule and obviously party being efficient and the defense could really struggle. So I'm still I'm still in on San Francisco, but I'm closely monitoring injury situations with that, with that room and that team. I like the Vikings quite a bit. Those are guys that are, generally speaking outside of Jefferson, pretty cheap. You get the Dome, one of the best offensive lines in the league. I'm a JJ McCarthy believer, and honestly, I would follow Kevin O'Connell into a burning building at this point with what he's done with quarterbacks.

00:50:18
Speaker 1: Great, great for fantasy.

00:50:19
Speaker 5: We love it so And you've got the ambiguous running back room kind of right with Jones and Mason. And I'm just kind of mixing and matching different types of Viking stacks across my one fifty set and hoping for the best. And then the other one that I'm really into is the Packers passing team. Yeah again ambiguous, like some people think it's Jaden Reid, some people love Matthew Golden. I don't really know. Nobody wants to draft from Yo Dobbs. And then you kind of have Tucker Craft in this like he's tough, right because I think generally speaking, he's probably a little overpriced. But at the same time, what if he is just that good and what we saw last year is kind of who he is as a player, and he emerges as like a legit top one or two options in this passing room. So yeah, I mean, what did Josh Jacobs He had like a rushing touchdown in eight weeks to close the season in a row or something like that. So if you just think things bounce back towards Jordan Love a little bit, I think he could bring a lot of his teammates along for the ride, and all of those guys except for Josh Shacops are super cheap.

00:51:18
Speaker 1: I love the Packers call out.

00:51:19
Speaker 2: I mean I love all three teams you just called out, but the Packers one has just been bizarre to me in a way where like a lot of times, Jordan Love just ends up being sort of the falling pocket passer in these drafts, which is weird too because you have multiple like outs for him to get drafted and stacked with Jayden Reid and Matthew Golden and it seems like those managers just like aren't eager to get love all the time. And then like you said, Romeo Dobbs is always just really really cheap on. DK's one of my highest drafted players. Same Tucker Craft is, like you said, like crazy regression coming on, like the yak per catch perspective from that perspective, but also only had like a fifteen percent target chair last year. The Packers are bound to throw a ton more this year than they did last year. If you look at you know, Matt Lafleur's history with them, and how much the and really what we see from pass rates that are in that like forty eight percent range where they were at last year and how they look the following season, you know, things are looking good, I think for the for the Packers passing attack.

00:52:14
Speaker 1: So I'm with you.

00:52:15
Speaker 2: I think sprinkling in both Read and Golden is like seems like everyone like you need to take a stance on like one of those guys. I think like I probably lean more Golden from the perspective of like what that looks like in home leagues and stuff, because people are more risk averse with with rookies even though they shouldn't be. So you know, I'll say Golden's the better value or what have you. But you know, do you have like a lean between those two that you're more aggressively going after.

00:52:42
Speaker 1: Is it more of like a fifty to fifty thing for you.

00:52:45
Speaker 5: Yeah, honestly, it's more fifty to fifty, you know. I deep down I feel like Matthew Golden is not going to work.

00:52:52
Speaker 6: But yeah, we don't know.

00:52:53
Speaker 5: Nobody knows, right, Like NFL gets stuff wrong all the time. We get stuff wrong all the time. I'm not a pro. NFL evaluated and all these things, but like, analytically speaking, Matthew Golden is one of the worst Round one profiles we've seen in a very long time. So I wouldn't be surprised if he fails. At the same time, I don't want to fade a first round wide receiver who the NFL was so high on, Like everybody's like, just turn on the tape, man, Yeah, the tape Yeah. Meanwhile, I'm here, We're looking at spreadsheets. We're like, if the tape is so good, where are the numbers? But I don't know, so what if he's awesome? So I don't want to fade that, especially when he's not, you know, going in the fifth round or something where it's very very affordable, like pick ninety or something. Right, and then Jayden Reid, you know, the two wide receiver set thing is super frustrating. And of course they had their what they had like their family night scrimmage on Friday night, and he ran zero routes two wide receiver sets. Somebody made a point to track that and tweet out that Michael Hartman had more more snaps in two wide receiver sets than Jade Reid. I'm not tilted about that at all. But I really thought going into the off season, I was like, what if this is the year that they actually put him in two wide receiver sets because you have the uncertainty of the few of Romeo Dobs not under contract next year. At what point did the packers say enough with the Dontavian Wicks stuff, right, Like we all think he's good, but like you got to catch the ball man at some point coaches get frustrated with that Christian Watson late season ACL tear. So it kind of seems to me like maybe the Seeds were parting to read to have that early on in camp. Seems like not the case. But if we think they're forcingto more dropbacks, then he'll be on the field in the slot in those three ARTI supersets, and he's going to give us a ton of I think Spike Week potential. And if you remember last year, the hype after his rookie year was out of control. He was going in like you know, the fifth early sixth round, and now maybe the pendulum has swung back too far. So I don't know where the truth is on on Reed. I just know he's talented and capable of big plays, and I'm betting on the Packers, so I'm just throwing my hands up and saying I'll take both these guys when there, when they're on the board.

00:54:50
Speaker 1: Yeah. Reed also feels like more of the best ball pick.

00:54:54
Speaker 2: If I'm being honest, where it's like, yeah, you know, like like with Golden you can at least tell a story from a season long managed league perspective of like, hey, if he hits, he's going to really really hit, whereas with Jayden Reid, let's just say that like there's a ninety percent chance that he's just going to stay in the same kind of role. Well, even in that role, like he's still going to have spiked, Like he's an unbelievably efficient player and really good with the ball in his hands. So it's like he could still give you something in that environment, but it might not be as predictable, and so therefore it's just easier to click that name as sort of a safer bet with those spiked weeks in a best ball environment? Are there any offenses that you're that you're avoiding generally in bast ball right now?

00:55:31
Speaker 5: So what I'm about to say is I'm going to lose all credibility and this is going to be great, But this is this is my caveat where it's like best ball, especially in these large field Loto style contests. This is a game that we're playing, right and so you have to think about some of the game theory elements and this pass off SA's in. Kyle and I did a bunch of research just kind of looking at like what players need to do at certain ADPs in Best Ball from a team level perspective, and what we found is basically like when NFL offenses have you know, three, four or five pieces going in the first like sixty to seventy picks, it's really tough for those guys to all payoff ADP And right now the Lions, except for Jared Goff, are all insanely expensive. And don't hear I'm not saying I'm drafting Lions, but I'm not taking like three of these guys or four of these guys in the same team because what they have to do is beaten. They have to be the best offensive football again. But at the same time, we know that they're probably not going to be with just the natural regression coming for this team. You know, they played a ton of their games indoors last year. They played more outdoor this year. Of course, Ben Johnson has gone, Jared Goff's touchdown rate is due to come down. All of the things right, the defense was injured from spot one to eleven across the board. If anybody's watched like the Netflix documentary and stuff like, there's a Dan Campbell pre Thursday at football game against the Packers where he's like Listen, we have to win this game on offense.

00:56:54
Speaker 6: Yeah, going forward and fourth down every.

00:56:56
Speaker 1: Time, every time, every time.

00:56:57
Speaker 5: It was awesome for fantasy. But if the defense is just healthier or just you know, better than they were last year, it's really it's gonna be so tough, I think for all these guys to pay it off. That said, I'm drafting all of them just across different teams. I'm not taking them all together as a stack, if that makes sense. So lines are tough. And the same thing's true with the Bengals, which is scary to say. But right now, I mean Chase Brown's I don't know if he is already, but he's gonna be a second round pick sooner than later. Obviously, Chase goes first overall, t is at the two three turn, and Burrow is somewhere around pick fifty ish depending on your room. Like man, they have to just they have to be as good as they were last year, and the defense has to be terrible again, and.

00:57:38
Speaker 6: They might be.

00:57:39
Speaker 5: But last year, if you guys recall, we had the Jamar Chase holdout situation, So there were times where we could get Jamar Chase like eighth overall, seventh, overall and t Higgins, you know, he was still kind of in the same zone, but nobody knew who the back running back was, so we had Zach Masson Chase Brown going way way later. And because of the like down year from the year before the CAF issue that Burrow had, Burrow was pushed down to like the seventies eighties an adp. So if we just think that we're going to like copy and paste last year, the prices last year were so different. So yeah, same thing as the Lions. Like I obviously see the path where this team is incredible, sure, but the ADPs for these teams there's no room for air. They have to be perfect basically for this to pay off. So I have an underweight Bengal stacks and Lion stacks, which is just not something I really want to say publicly, but but there it is.

00:58:27
Speaker 2: No, I think the logic is definitely there, And I've had a really hard time with the Lions in particular, where like, not only do they not always align super super well, just like in the draft for you to stack them right, like if you get like am and Ross Saint Brown, you know, Jamison Williams usually on the other side, of the board, you know, closer to that four or five turn, and then you know, Sam Laporta is usually more of like the the early six and around there, and so it's not as easy to like stack them in that way. But I think that what you're basically saying is that if you were to just get these guys on a team where they're being drafted right now, chances are there's gonna be one or two of them not living up to the hype pretty easily, right like. And I think that making those individual bets makes a lot of sense where you're like where you're saying, Okay, if I get Laporta here, then that means that Jamo is the one who's who's the odd man out right, or getting if I'm getting Omori, if I'm not getting Amaras Saint Brown, but I get Laporta and Jamison Williams, and maybe Amaras Saint Brown's.

00:59:21
Speaker 1: The one who you know is the odd man out.

00:59:23
Speaker 2: So it makes total sense, I think to go with that angle and that perspective. Cost at the end of the day is everything. That's what matters most Before I let you go any late round dart throws that you think people should be looking at and they should be uh, they should be throwing themselves.

00:59:37
Speaker 5: Man, these these players, It's so funny. Every year you get to this part, You're like, I feel good about these picks. And then obviously we know a lot of these guys aren't gonna work. But at running back, I've taken a decent amount of Taj Brooks, TJ Giddens I mentioned already. I've mixed in some Trevori Tien recently more than I thought I would. Jarquis Hunter, I know, is a guy that you've kind of highlighted in your prospect profile stuff. Looking at him, like, if we think Kiren's workload is shaky, maybe Hunter makes sense. I had more Sean Tucker than I care to admit.

01:00:04
Speaker 6: That's Kyle's fault.

01:00:05
Speaker 5: And then at wide receiver, like I've kind of mixed into Parker Washington on Jaguars teams. I like Jordan Whittington a little bit in round twenty my fear and this this obviously looks worse as Stafford is more injured, but like, if Stafford is healthy is the caveat Like I feel like if Devonte Orpuka happened to miss time, I think two two years row would probably stay the same in like the downfield wide receiver three type setting, and I think Whittington has the ability to kind of be like the backup to those guys is kind of how I'm playing it. So if I if I think there's one guy that could be like a huge hit late to.

01:00:39
Speaker 6: Me, it's him.

01:00:40
Speaker 5: He's actually pretty decent in some of the proroute numbers last year it was. And then one guy that I don't understand why I'm taking what I am is Noah Brown with Washington, where you know there's there's playing time potential for him. And we saw jayde Daniels give some usable weeks to guys like old Meadia Zakias and you know, these kind of guys were like, he's not the sexiest click in the world. So maybe it's what you need. Like if you're shooting for the moon with your twenty round pick, then that's not your pick. But if you need just kind of like a safe this guy's making the team. He'll run routes, all those sort of things. I've been taking to around. It's probably because I'm taking a ton of cowboys and for like that you know Week seventeen component. But yeah, those are the guys I've been clicking the most in Round eighteen, nineteen twenty. There's absolutely no way those guys don't hit.

01:01:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, I like, like, I like those names a lot, but Jordan Whittington won. I actually brought him up on a live stream maybe like three or four weeks ago as and I had him in the queue and people were like yelling at me. I'm like, no, I totally agree with like the idea that if one of those guys goes down, Whittington can play slot pretty well. And you know, he's a converted running backs, has good yak ability, had a really good yards bro out run rate last year. You know, I think two two is the guy that you would want, that you would prefer over him, but he often goes earlier. And it's also a way to differentiate, right, because Whittington goes undrafted, Like how many how many drafts do you think Whitnington gets drafted in?

01:02:03
Speaker 1: Is it sub five percent at this point?

01:02:06
Speaker 5: Oh Man, so DK released their data like that June. I don't know if there's been an update since then, but I can't imagine it's more than like thirty percent.

01:02:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say it might even be like, I don't really see him going like at all whenever I'm whenever I'm drafting, So be interesting to see how how often he's actually getting drafted.

01:02:26
Speaker 1: I mean even.

01:02:26
Speaker 2: Like, like my my go to in the late rounds has been like Devon Veley because I apparently, like, you know, twenty seven year old year two wide receivers. But it's just one of those things where there's a lot of players like that that have and Noah Brown you could even throw in the same kind of bucket of like it's the same kind of logic where players who could have just natural roles on their team and get you some production, have obviously some contingent upside, but they're not getting drafted in nearly every draft. That's a huge edge from from just a roster ship perspective. So I like those calls a lot. This was great, man. I think people are gonna really dig it. Let everyone know what you're working on, where they can find you all that good stuff.

01:03:07
Speaker 6: Yeah, for sure.

01:03:07
Speaker 5: Everything that I do is with the Fantasy Footballers. So I host the Dynasty podcast and then as well the DFS and Betting podcast. Right now, basically it is injury updates every single day, in the Ultimate Draft Kit, so you can edd in there check that out.

01:03:19
Speaker 6: It seems like.

01:03:20
Speaker 5: Everybody has a groin injury this year, so I don't know what's going on, but tons of injuries and there's unfortunately going to be more. So all that in the Ultimate Draftkit with the Fantasy Footballers awesome.

01:03:29
Speaker 2: You can get all of my work over on lateround dot com. Make sure you're checking out the Draft Guide, make sure you're subscribed to the show. Make sure you're checking out the Patreon. We actually announced a new little perk for the Patreon, so go check that out over on lateround dot com. Otherwise, everyone, thanks for tuning in.