Becoming a Best Ball Bro: Should You Stack Backfields?

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hey, JJ, are you a game show guy at all?

00:00:04
Speaker 2: I like game shows. I've watched the Game Show Network quite a bit in my time. Actually, I feel like no one else watches the Game show Network, but I have. I like game shows, how about you? Yeah?

00:00:15
Speaker 1: So pretty much nightly since I was a child, I've watched Wheel of Fortune, and right as we were coming out of the pandemic, I was actually cast on the show because they were looking basically for just people in the LA area, but I was never given a call date. So with the host leaving, I just want to say, on the bottom of my heart, hat Sajack go for I'm.

00:00:37
Speaker 2: JJ, and I've been playing in best ball leagues for years. But there are people out there who play a lot more than I do, and there are people out there who have won a lot more than I have, and I want to learn from them. This season, I'll be documenting my journey of max entering Underdog's Best ball Mania contest, and I'll be doing so with guidance from some of the most successful best ball players on the planet. This is the year where things start to change. This is the year where I officially become a best ball bro Welcome into another episode of Becoming a Best Ball bro. I'm JJ zacharieson and as always I am joined I can say, as always now by my co host Rich Ryan Rich, what's going on, buddy?

00:01:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we're at the point where it's an established at always. I'm doing great wsop in the rearview, fully focused on Best Ball, fired up some drafts. But I do have to say off the top, because I am a transparent person, Pokers is a world of you have to be truthful and outright. You know, there's honor amongst thieves. So I must say last week when you brought up Homeward Bound, it was right before the show. I thought you were talking about old Yeller. So that's why I led with trauma, and I was very confused. But of course I've seen I've seen homwer Bound, and that's why I also thought your take was especially hot. I'm like, the dog died, like JJ's going.

00:02:06
Speaker 2: In on it that I gotcha that. So here's the thing, though, there is some trauma with Homeward Bound where the family is they just leave the dogs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they leave the dogs. But then the dogs are gone, right, and then there's there's this roller coaster if they think they found the dogs and then they didn't find the dog, I guess the cat too, the animals, and then you know, the animals then arrive. But even at the end of that movie spoiler alert from nineteen ninety one. But spoiler alert, I don't know when that movie was created. Uh when Shadow, they thought Shadow was not going to make it because he was the third of the three animals to kind of come over the hill into their backyard and sort of limp to his owner Peter. But yeah, man, look, I'll double down on the take. Shadows a moron, all right, I can't stand Shadow. That's the take or Shadow, poor Shadow? Speaking of poodles, Oh, look at that. I was gonna go with the segue. That's a way better segue, way better segue, even though he's a golden retriever. Speaking of poodles. Yeah, let's talk about poodles.

00:03:12
Speaker 1: The Golden Dudle is hot right now, the retriever mix. Yeah, poodle fired up. I saw you, Max entered. I entered about a half dozen. And JJ You're in all my drafts, every single one. I look, and it's just j Jer's has the one point one. He's drafting top three golden position. But I will say to keep it serious for the moment. I did see in the two that you had one point one one, you went CMC, one, you went CD. So I'm assuming, why do you make that decision? When do you pivot? Are you randomizing? Is there a weighted amount that you want to get CD at number one and not just click CMC. What's going into your thought process there?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, honestly, it just really came down to the fact that I haven't gotten many one oh two slots and I needed a little bit more CD LAMB. And I know that it's likely to sort of normalize across the summer, but I still want to force it a little bit. Not only that, but when you know, you switch things up and you get ceed LAMB one oh one instead of CMC one oh one, uh, you know you might get a slightly different build just given the players that are available and stuff. It's not gonna be that dramatic Beca's only one slot. But yeah, I did go. I did go Ceedee LAMB. I believe in one of them, or I'm assuming one of them. I don't really I didn't realize that I was in the drafts with you so I was at my parents place. They live a couple hours away in Raleigh, and uh so I was in Raleigh over the weekend and I realized that the poodle had spawned, and I was like, oh man, I got to max enter this because I'm not gonna be able to do any fast drafts because I'm away this weekend. So and I didn't know when I was going to be able to enter in general. So I just sat there for five minutes max entering slow drafts for the poodle, and it just so happened that you were also entering drafts at the exact same time that I was, evidently, and so now we're in some drafts together.

00:04:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's been knowing good. The one thing I'll say about just quickly about the CMCCD thing when it comes to game stacking week seventeen is I've found myself in spots where ADP is telling me that Auk or Debo are the pick, and I just get worried because it's going to be really hard to stack Niners Lions because those picks, those players are going at such a premium, and I understand that I'm not going to have the same amount of volume as you or others. So I am okay in those spots. I am very much just married to gto game sixteen, game seventeen game stacks because as Pat said, that's that's the one thing we can control, right, is giving correlation and giving us a chance to, you know, when those games pop, scoring the most points as possible at the most critical time. So I've found myself straying a little bit away from ADP in those spots, which I'm okay with being fragile because I don't have a portfolio to manage. If I had a portfolio, of course, I can't have just like one percent exposure to Iyu Goordba. But I'm okay personally with lower volume, being a little bit more fragile in those spots and skipping some niners in favor of more favorable game stock opportunities.

00:06:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I even think that the Dallas Philly game isn't the easiest in the world to stack either, just because you know, you feel like it's a slight reach with Davonte Smith into the third. I've done it plenty, so I've experienced that. But like it's weird because pre draft, like the pre draft drafts that we were doing the big board drafts, Davante Smith was easily an early fourth round pick. Like, consistently, I was getting so many team I have so many teams, and I kept getting a back half pick. I have so many AJ Brown, Jalen Hurts, Davante Smith teams, where you can sometimes get that. Now if you get you know, especially if you get like AJ Brown a little bit earlier, like maybe a spot or two earlier than ADP and then Jalen Hurts slips, and then Davante Smith slips maybe a tiny tiny bit into that mid to late third, you can still get that, but it's a little bit more difficult because a lot of people, even when they don't get CD Lamb, they're still getting DeVante Smith in the early third at this point. So you're not getting that piece to a ceed Lamb stack that frequently or you're gonna to force it. You're never gonna get AJ Brown with Seed Lamb, obviously, it's just not gonna happen. Yeah, and then then you're really relying on the tight ends for the most part in some of these like the basically the crappy mostly the crappy Dallas running backs that might be might be values right now, we don't really know for sure. I'm still drafting them to some degree. I'm getting basically market. I'm gonna be at market with them. But yeah, I mean, like Saquon Barkley falls at times to the late second, but not that frequently. So there's just not that many stacking opportunities. Even for that game. There's more, I would say, than what you know, than the forty nine Ers Lions game. Like you're talking about, you know, like the forty nine Ers Lions stuff. You're basically hoping that you can get one bringback for like San Francisco and then stack Lions, but then you also feel really uncomfortable reaching for Sam Laporta whenever you do something like that. That's the biggest problem with Lion stacks right now is that from a projection standpoint, from an outlook standpoint, I don't see any real difference between Sam Laporta and the other elite tight ends, whether it's Travis Kelce, Mark Andrews, Trey McBride. You know, I think you can make an argument that Dalton Kincaid maybe is a little bit overvalued, but regardless, let's just throw Kincaid in there. Too. I just don't think there's that dramatic of a difference between Laporta and those guys, and we've seen a gap between them to some degree through a lot of the off season so far. So it just makes Lion stacks a little bit difficult to obtain too, unless you're really reaching, you know, for that Laporta pick.

00:08:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, tight end has obviously been a conundrum as well. Kelsey Mahomes is something I've been interested in, but like you said, it's hard to stack lions. So I've been fading Laporta the teams where I have Josh Allen. I'm like, I'm very comfortable with the naked Allen maybe grabbing Keon Coleman later. So I don't really love spending the capital on Kincaid. So tight end has been interesting as well. You put here the speaking of struggles, you're struggling with some of your marathon drafts strategy a bit difficult pick the right players definitely seems on the nose because once again, we're not worried about those sixteen and seventeen game stacks any specifics as to the marathon and what's been troubling you.

00:09:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that whenever It's funny because I feel like previous years when I've been doing Best Ball drafts, I've almost been frustrating. I think a lot of people feel the same way, because I've seen it in discord where they're like, I don't want to play a tournament format like this because I don't want to have to worry about these game stacks and stuff. Right Like, I don't want to have to memorize the week seventeen schedule and kind of be on top of my game while I'm drafting. I'd rather just get players that I like and make a team that way. If that's what you want to do, I would go to the Marathon draft, and I would draft via the Marathon draft. The problem is, I like, at now that I'm really in it, and I'm you know, schedules memorized very easily. I had it memorized last year, but now it's just like second nature. I actually, over the weekend was sitting with my brother and I was like, Hey, tell me any team, I'll tell you who they're playing in week seventeen, and we just fired off. I just fired off the schedule. And so so it's second nature and I love having that purpose. If you will while you're drafting, and it makes a lineup really come together nicely and cleanly, and you're looking at it and you're like, oh, wow, look at this correlation. Like there's there's an art form to it in terms of drafting these correlations and drafting these stacks, whereas with the marathon, when you're doing that so frequently and then you just shift focus to the marathon and all you're really doing. All I've been doing, you know, I think that there's some strategy involved in terms of like getting like division rivals because they're going to play each other twice in the season and stuff like that. But and just to reiterate that, the marathon is a format where you're just trying to score the most points across all seventeen weeks. There's no playoff, and so you know, there's definitely a different strategy involved, but the strategy is not nearly the same as the game. Theory is not nearly the same as what you're gonna get in some of these tournament in playoff formats, right, And so I've just had a hard time because I'm just stacking teams and trying to stack teams. But it's not always easy to just stack teams like it's a lot easier to say, you know, I'm gonna get Will Levis and Calvin Ridley and bring it back with Brian Thomas or something, and then maybe I'll get DeAndre Hopkins in there too, or a Tajy Spears or something like that. But when I'm not having to worry about the Brian Thomas just doesn't look as pretty. It's just not as simple and so. And not only that, but I think other drafters in marathon, that's right, that's how.

00:11:39
Speaker 1: It's gonna bring it up. Other people aren't doing the same dance. When when everyone's doing the pairs and triplets dance, there's kind of an understanding that this player might slip a little further because it doesn't align with the rest of their rosters. Obviously, you have some people that go roguean drafts and just click people and drive you insane. That happens, But I feel like in this marathon, not everybody's doing the same two step.

00:12:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly exactly, And so you know, this is one of my biggest focuses and something that I have been focusing on recently is you know, I complained in one of our first episodes, if not the first episode about the person who sniped Kirk Cousins from me when I had Drake London and Kyle Pitts. And I've been a lot less tilted over those experiences recently because I've recognized that I can build other stacks in my lineup and still have that individual stack and be fine. You know, obviously, if Pitts and London are going off, chances are Kirk Cousins is going off as well. But what happens if Pitts and London go off and then I have another stack, Jacksonville stack. Let's say Trevor Lawrence and Brian to I don't know why I keep going to Jacksonville, but Trevor Lawrence and Brian Thomas and Christian Kirk and I have them and they're going off, and then all of a sudden, I have an even better lineup because Atlanta and Jacksonville is going off that instance, and I have the Jacksonville quarterback just instead of the Atlanta one. So I'm thinking in that way, and the other thing too, to your point about and the reason I'm bringing this up is because in those in those playoff drafts where stacking matters a little bit more. Maybe stacking, just game stacking, we'll say matters a little bit more. Generally speaking, people are sharp who you're drafting with. They recognize that they're working towards their own game stacks and their own stacks in general. So if you do have London and Pits, you can definitely get a discount on Kirk Cousins, because most people are not going to go after someone like Kirk Cousins when they don't have London or Pits. And so what I've been trying to do is extract as much value as possible from those quarterbacks and not take them even at ADP. Recognize that, hey, I'm picking an eight more picks, maybe I'll pass on this quarterback even though this is his ADP right now. Extract a little bit more value out of running back or wide receiver, and then on the way back, hope that no one takes Kirk Cousins because I have London and Pits and there's no reason for them to really reach for Cousins. If they do, I'll be okay, right But in the marathon, it's just not happening that way because everyone's just taking whoever is highest on the ADP list because they're not as concerned about game stacking.

00:14:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, I find myself doing that exact thing, where when I enter the later rounds, I've got two or three quarterbacks that I'm fine with getting because they correlate with other receivers or perhaps even a tight end that I have on my roster. First draft I did was a fast draft for BBM, and at the later stages, I was like, Okay, i've got a couple of Vikings, I've got a couple of Pats, I've got a couple of Panthers. Happy with any of those three quarterbacks. Ended up getting McCarthy, which was actually a bigger stack for me because I started I think I started with one point three and I took Jefferson. I went for the gamble there, Ye Davis Matt Davis, and it might have been one point three to one point four, but yeah, I went for the for the JJ stack there because I'm I'm very intrigued in that Vikings Packers game as well. But yeah, that's been my my end game theory and all the drafts that I've done is be comfortable with taking two or three quarterbacks at the end because they're going to piece together with something that I've done previously in the draft You've got here, you're going live this week or a couple in the coming we for some yeah from BBM drafts.

00:15:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to be doing some live streams for BBM Drafts on the Late Round Fantasy Football YouTube channel, so you guys should check that out YouTube dot com slash at Late Round FF. Yeah. I mean, I'm gonna embarrass myself throughout or in front of the world as I draft these uncorrelated lineups and panic and tilt. But yeah, it'll be I'll be live. I don't know what the exact day will be each week, but I'm gonna try to get into a pretty good cadence. Right now, very very busy trying to get the Draft guide all finished up. I'm not even close to it being it's not even close to done, and I only have twenty days until this thing launches, or nineteen days by the time this episode goes out. So I'm working very very hard on the Draft Guide. I want to be live and streaming as much as possible, but it won't happen that frequently until that Draft guide's out. But it's really funny because speaking of being live and drafting, our friend Pete overs that he was drafting live yesterday and you know, doing his life I stream that he does basically each day, and I ended up just randomly joining a BBM and I saw Overzet was in the one oh one spot, and so I DMed him and then I was like, wait, I wonder if he's streaming right now, and he was streaming at that moment, So I actually drafted a BBM team on Pete's live stream when I was not the guest. I was just drafting with him, which was pretty fun. But hopefully you guys will be able to tune in and check out those live streams. Just check my Twitter account. I'll talk about it on the podcast and stuff as well. I might even be live on Wednesday. So I haven't figured out the schedule totally yet, and that's not really my nature to just kind of degaf it and just kind of go online whenever, but I'm hoping that there will be a cadence and I will be drafting live.

00:16:47
Speaker 1: We'll make sure you subscribe to this channe. If you're watching on YouTube, you get a notification when JJ is live and to look for the bat signal when he fires those up. All right, some positional talk, and then we'll get into some specific players because ambiguous backfields, it sounds like here are giving you a bit of a struggle when you're looking at the RB one at ADP, but you have a chance to maybe wait a little bit and get their running back mate a little bit later. So, JJ, how are you tackling these situations?

00:17:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's just use the Jacksonville Tennessee game as the example. So let's say early on, I get Christian Kirk and then I get Brian Thomas. You know, I'm going after a Jacksonville stack, and so I'm gonna probably try to get Trevor Lawrence later, I'm gonna want to bring it back to some degree with a Titans player. And I'm sitting in like round nine or something like that, and Tony Pollard is at the top of the list, and I have you know, he's at ADP. Basically, if I were to draft him at that point, I found myself saying, Yeah, I'm gonna draft this guy because obviously I want the correlation. But the interesting thing is, I think that the delta between Pollard and Tajy Spears Walld is closing a little bit via ADP. I've found that that gap is just unnecessary and has been unnecessary throughout the off season. The thing is, though it's weird, is that I think I'm at like twelve percent Spears right now, and I'm at like nine or ten percent Pollard. So I'm above market with these guys, mostly because I like ambiguous backfields and I think Tennessee's offense just intriguing in general. But I wish that that gap and exposure was different, because I think Spears is the better value, right Like, ideally I think that I would be like five percent. I have like a five percent delta between Spears and Pollard in terms of exposure. And so the issue that I'm running into, and maybe others are running into this as well, is when you're sitting there staring at a correlated peace, like Tony Pollard in a Jacksonville stack. You're sitting there staring at it, but you know that you want spears, but spears might be gone by your next pick or the pick after that. What do you do? And so I'm doing my best to kind of balance that out a little bit and maybe even reach slightly for spears because I do like him more as a value in general, but that's definitely been a pain point for me recently. I think that you could argue that with even like the Cincinnati backfield, like I I like Zack Moss more, it's not quite the same because I think that Spears and Pollard could be flipped realistically, Like, I think that you could draft Spears ahead of Pollard and I wouldn't even blink. I do think that Zack Moss is a more logical pick above Chase Brown, you know, in that in that Bengals backfield. But with that being said, I do think the gap should be a little bit smaller between those two players, especially in a best ball format where Chase Brown has that big playability. So you know, it's it's similar to that where let's say I get you know, some I mean, it's not really many Denver pieces, but let's say that I'm just getting a Cincinnati stack in general, and I want another Cincinnati player. You know, I ideally kind of want to wait on Chase Brown, but I'm forcing myself to just get Zack Moss because he's sitting there. And I don't mind Zach Moss either. Again, I don't feel as strongly about this Bengals back field as I do the Titans backfield. But it is a situation that I think me and a lot of others are probably running into with these drafts.

00:20:08
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's an interesting spot in the draft too. I'm just looking at current ADP right now, there's about fourteen spots between Taj Spears and Tony Pollard, and it's kind of a wide receiver dearth, right because by that point you're looking at Samuel and Lockett off the board, and by ADP the next six players seven players are non receivers exactly, So you're kind of in this like wasteland of quarterback tight end.

00:20:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's not an alternative. Whenever you're about to pick Pollard, it's like, Okay, I can wait for Spears, let me just get oh Courtland Sutton, Like this isn't really doing it for me, you know what I mean.

00:20:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to say the most annoying answer to this question, and it's it's probably draft specific, right, because if you're looking for let's say, Washington guys to pair with, if you've tick some of the Dolphins early, then yeah, then you got Jayden Daniels, right, there for the game stack. So I think it's to me, just looking at this area of the draft that is just going to be dependent on whether what other stacks that you're targeting. But yeah, it's really interesting, and I agree that taj And and Pollard, like if you pick one or the other at Pollard's a DP, it's not surprising. Uh yeah, yeah, it's just it's just a it's just a weird spot of the draft where there said there's no there's no obvious pivot.

00:21:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there's also just a lot of ambiguous backfields this year. Like I I think that James Connor is the better pick between himself and Trey Benson. But a lot of the research that I've done has shown that you generally want a rookie, younger guy in those rounds and in that area of the draft. And you know, I I I probably prefer Trey Benson at cost versus James Connor at cost, you know, at the end of the day. But there are times where I want to stack that game. I want to stack, Like let's say that I get Cooper Cup and Pokaakua early, Like I I I want to force the issue at least a little bit and so that's that's just you know, it's a it's a pain point right now.

00:22:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's like the market is responding to this concept. Yeah, and just smushing these backs together. And this is probably why you love Sharbonay so much, because he's the outlier where every other RB combo is getting smushed together and Zach Sharboney is just chilling out there in the U.

00:22:24
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:22:24
Speaker 1: In the later double digit rounds, let's get into players. I just mentioned the Miami Dolphins and Jalen Wattle is a name that you've been clicking often. But you said you gotta slow it down with Wattle.

00:22:37
Speaker 3: I do.

00:22:38
Speaker 2: I gotta. I gotta slow down with Wattle. Like I don't like the Week seventeen game. They get Cleveland and it's a bad it's a it's a rough matchup. It could be it's just not it could be ugly at the end of the day that that Dolphins Browns game. With that being said, I think Jalen Wattle, amongst a lot of ambiguity in round two, is the best Round two pick. I talked about him in a in an email newsletter a couple of weeks ago about how maybe it was last week about how Waddle and his peripherals were better than they were in twenty twenty two versus twenty twenty three. Like he got better as a player from twenty twenty two to twenty twenty three. It's just that touchdowns weren't necessarily on his side as much. But also, you know, he wasn't able to stay healthy and that was that was an issue for him, and so a healthy Waddle. The other thing too, and this is something that I talked to with with Justin Herzig a little bit. Who's the guest today. But the other thing too is waddle does have some contingent upside, Like if Tyreek Hill goes down, Jalen Wattle could see a thirty percent target share in that offense. I don't think anyone would flinch if something like that were to happen.

00:23:43
Speaker 1: I've got a bit I'll take care too. If Tyreek Hill goes full AB.

00:23:48
Speaker 2: Yeah there you go, yeah upside yeah, yeah exactly.

00:23:51
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:23:51
Speaker 2: If Tyreek Hill goes full AV then that could happen as well. So, like I I think that Waddle is just a very very strong pick in general, and i'd I don't like to have massive exposure to early round picks because obviously you're spending more capital to get those guys, and if it goes south, then that's bad for a large percentage of your teams. But I'm not gonna lie right now. Jalen Waddle, I've got him at like twenty two percent exposure, and I need to slow down a little bit because I think that's too much for a second round pick. It's just that there's all there's so many question marks in that area that I feel when I'm in the front half of the draft, I generally feel okay with going with Jalen Waddle in round two, and he slips around three pretty often, so I like Waddle a lot.

00:24:35
Speaker 1: Right now, I appreciate the correction on that Dolphins Browns Week seventeen. I've got a Beijon team that is just at the front of my mind that I absolutely love, so I'm just waiting.

00:24:44
Speaker 3: That they changed.

00:24:46
Speaker 1: So that's why I made that mistake there. Round six receivers another spot that you're having a little bit of trouble with, and the fact that there's just a great amount of rookie receivers there with Lad McConkey, can't Coleman and Brian Thomas. But then you've got Jordan Addison, who it seemed like you were a little bearish on in your conversation last week. How are you tackling round six right now?

00:25:10
Speaker 2: JJ, Yeah, I think round six is typically a wide receiver round. You know, sometimes you'll see those Round five running backs drop into round six and even deep into round six. And I'm fine with going like Rashad White in round six and when that's the case, because that's going to happen. But when you look at round six, it's like you're choosing between rookie wide receivers. You have Lad McConkie key On Coleman, Brian Thomas, Roma Dunzay's in there as well, but then you have Jordan Addison, who I think is intriguing to a lot of people. Calvin Ridley at this point is usually falling off the board at like the five to six turns, so he's not as much of an option, and Chris Godwin's been going earlier and earlier as well. But I've taken a step back and I really wanted to analyze the round six wide outs, and I've realized that the guy I like the most is Brian Thomas. Of all of these players, you know, Calvin Ridley aside, maybe Roma Dunsay aside, because I think Donzay's really interesting from like a contingent upside standpoint and the fact that he's just such a good prospect. But Brian Thomas wasn't that much worse of a prospect according to my model compared to Roma Doonza, and I think he's in a more advantageous situation where you know, the only the biggest competition for him is Christian Kirk, whereas obviously you know Adunza is playing with a rookie quarterback with Dj Moore, with Keenan Allen. He's going to be the number three option on that team at best to start the season at least. And so I think Brian Thomas could emerge and just be a legit X for Jacksonville, right. And I'm looking at him versus Lad mccaukeey and Keyon Coleman in particular, which is usually the decision that people have to make, and Lad, to me is probably more of a floor than ceiling guy in year one, Like realistically you're looking at a decent amount of volume potentially, but there's also a chance that he plays slot for them for most or at least the front half of the season or the early parts of the season, because wide receivers just don't really that much in the Greg Roman offense, and they want him to be slot kind of get acclimated, and he's not really the guy that we want him to be right away. Its range of outcomes wise as very possible. Right key On Coleman wasn't nearly as good of a prospect in my eyes as Brian Thomas was, and Draft Capital showed that key On Coleman in obviously really really good spot in Buffalo. You know, high powered offense should be a decent amount of passing volume, Josh Allen, YadA, YadA, YadA. But you know, talent wise, I prefer Brian Thomas, and so I think situationally and talent wise when we put that together, like Brian Thomas was a ninety four point five. He had a ninety four point five score in the ZAP model, whereas Ladd and Keon Coleman, you know, we're in the high eighties in that In that model, like Brian Thomas was the better prospect. So I'm going to lean on that a little bit more. He's been something that I've been gobbling up a good bit. I'm probably at like eighteen percent, maybe seventeen percent Brian Thomas right now. I just think he's a really really good pick right now in the sixth round.

00:27:59
Speaker 1: And you're at about Chris Godwin, the fifteenth highest mover in ADP this week, up two point seven spots. Let's stick a receiver real quick. You've been giving a lot of love to the Cardinals, a lot of love to the Cardinals rams week seventeen game stack. But there's one receiver in particular, solid year two score of eighty six that you want to show some specific love to, and that is Michael Wilson.

00:28:22
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:28:22
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people are in on Zay Jones being integral piece of some sort in that Cardinals offense, which he might be. I think that they're like he could be in their three wide sets. Greg grg could be their slock guy. But Michael Wilson to me is at least an unrealized version of Zay Jones at the very least, but he also has more upside. Like I love Dantavian Wicks. I've been talking about d'antavian Wicks since January, you know, as a bye in Dynasty. Now everyone's talking about D'antavian Wicks. His ADP. I don't think has changed that dramatically, Like it hasn't. Do you have the number?

00:28:58
Speaker 1: So he's up another two or three spots this week, he's up. He's up a full round since we started this show.

00:29:04
Speaker 2: Okay, so so, but even still like I think that he's still like gettable at where he gets drafted, Like I think that it's fine that he's up that round. I still like I wouldn't be shocked if he makes it up closer to like where the Bills wide outs go, like the Shakir and Curtis Samuel types, and maybe even like a Sutton type, Like I wouldn't be shocked, you know. Basically, jumping Dobbs is the the end result here with Wicks. I like Wicks straight up more than Dobbs right now, but regards so like I like Dontavian Wicks. Don't get me wrong, but in my year two model, which projects how well a guy's going to do in year two and year three, Michael Wilson and Dantavian Wicks have almost identical scores. And Michael Wilson's walking into a situation with a good quarterback with a general lack of competition. I would argue strongly that Dontavian Wicks has more competition in his offense than Michael Wilson, doesn't his and Wilson. So I can always tell if I'm high on a guy because I look at my rankings that I've imported and uploaded onto Underdog, and then I look at ADP and I'll see, like, I have Michael Wilson starred because I have a rams cardinal stack and I'm waiting for him to kind of pop up the draft boards. I know when to draft him, and I see his star I see him highlighted at the top of the list, but I realize it's the rankings list and they click ADP and he's like twentieth on that list. I'm like, oh yeah, I'm like I'm like I can wait even longer to get Michael Wilson. So he's someone that I've been drafting a lot because I do think the talent profile. I don't think he's gonna have a wide receiver one season. I don't think he's probably gonna be a wide receiver too ever, in fantasy football. You know, I don't even know if D'antavian Wix will be but I do think a wide receiver three type season is in his range of outcomes.

00:30:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Michael Wilson going in the opposite direction in terms of ADP. Since we started this show, he's been down three spots, three spots, two spots going in the fifteenth round. So yeah, I'm assuming discount.

00:30:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm assuming it's yeah, which is crazy though, Like I don't think that we should let a player like Zay Jones dictate a year two talent profile, you know what I mean? Like, of course, what I'm saying here is not that Jay Jones can't be ahead of Michael Wilson. What I'm saying here is is.

00:31:14
Speaker 1: We should we should be we should.

00:31:17
Speaker 2: Be certain right him, right, exactly exactly. Jay Jones is fine, Like he's the definition of a fine player, right, But Michael Wilson is a year two ascending talent if you will, hypothetically who has a decent year two score was okay enough year one, and I think could easily be better than Zay Jones. Why couldn't he be better than Zay Jones? So I'm going to lean into that and draft him accordingly.

00:31:44
Speaker 1: One more player, then we'll get to the interview. That's a player that you've been loving on throughout the process here in the summer. But it sounds like you're getting a little bit of pushback from times that you've talked with others, and that is running back Kamani the doll.

00:31:58
Speaker 2: Yeah, like it's it's strange. So, like I really liked Kamani Videll as a prospect. I then talked to Matt Waldman on late Round perspectives. He was really into videl and that kind of just did it for me where I'm like, Okay, these numbers are saying this, Waldman's saying this. Waldman had the DeAndre Swift camp. The numbers actually gave him a loose DeAndre Swift comp What if this guy at this smaller school, which is why he went day three. What if this guy is kind of like a DeAndre Swift in the way that he would accumulate points in his offense. Right, And so you know, I've seen tweets from like, you know, Davis. I'm not calling Davis out here, he's a friend of mine. He sent a tweet that said there's a non zero chance that Commani Videll is not even on the team this year, right like the it's it's He's a Day three pick. I don't think Davis's tweet is wrong by any means, which is why I'm bringing it up, so I'm not calling him out. My point, though, is I think logically Videll's still makes sense even though he's this Day three pick being drafted amongst maybe semi a stat like a Jelia McLoughlin type, or like a even Ray Davis who went ahead of him and is maybe in a slightly better situation. But I don't know if that situation is that dramatically better at the end of the day, I mean Videll right now, his biggest competition is Gus Edwards, who's twenty nine years old and doesn't catch passes. We know factually that Gus Edwards is not a pass catcher because we have a very very large sample size of him not being a pass catcher. His other competition is a guy coming off an achilles injury and JK. Dobbins who has not been able to stay healthy throughout his entire career, and he's coming off of devastating that devastating injury. Who we where we know that these running backs don't come back from very well or they haven't historically, let alone the year after it happens, Right, And so I'm looking at Videll and of course there's the downside of he's a zero, Right, there's that down and you're drafting him in like round fourteen ish.

00:33:55
Speaker 1: And why that's why he's going in round fourteen though, right and at risk is built into his his ADP.

00:34:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. I think this is the thing though, where like I've listened to a lot of Best Ball bros. And even talked to you know, these guys when interviewing them, and you know, the sentiment is we should be trying to get points at every round of our draft, and there is you do run that risk that Videll is a zero. But I also think that he's one of those bets where he could get steamed up into round ten pretty easily if things like break his way even moderately, you know, over the summer. Where Like the thing with Videll which is intriguing for me, is we want pass catchers in fantasy football. The team right now doesn't have a pass catcher and Videll's bread and butter is pass protection, which is exactly what we are always concerned about with rookie running backs, and he has that. He has the thing that we're looking for. He's, at the very least to me, he's a good change of pace back in that offense. And if you're a change of pace back, you could find the field and maybe become something a little bit bigger in an offense that lacks alternatives at running backs. So to me, I'm still drafting Videll. I'm even still drafting Tyrone Tracy a little bit later, where you know, Eric Gray is getting a lot of steam. But I'm going back to the evaluation piece where the stuff that I'm looking at says that these guys are good pass catchers, They're explosive, and they bring something to the table that these other running backs aren't bringing to the table. And Tyrone Tracy's case, it's two backs who don't have a good sized speed combo at all and aren't necessarily great pass catchers. Tyrone Tracy is a great pass catcher and has that explosiveness Commani Videll pass catcher has that explosiveness. You know, Gus Edwards will be the goal line back shore. But I just don't see why Vydell shouldn't be in the conversation with some of the other backs that go in that range. And for the record, I like the other backs that go in that range thankfully, because it's brought down my COMMANI videll exposure. And I'm not drafting him in every freaking draft because I like the other backs there too.

00:35:58
Speaker 1: You don't I have seventy percent exposure. Yeah, I just can't get past Greg Roman and Jim Harbor want to cram the ball. Okay, they don't care that they have just Nervers the quarterback. Yeah, they want to cram the ball as much as possible. And this is an ambiguous backfield with somebody who profiles very well in that role. Yeah, he can't get.

00:36:18
Speaker 2: Past that same same look. He's an undersized guy. But I do think that we could be looking at a DeAndre Swift type player from the standpoint of not him being that good of a prospect, or not him even being that good of a player, but from the same point of how he accumulates points right a lot through the air, maybe at most one hundred to one hundred and fifty rushes on the ground if things go his way, not necessarily even in year one. I'm just saying career wise, but like, there's nothing wrong with that fantasy football, Like there's there's such strong correlation between pass catching running backs and success, not just in full PPR but half PPR leagues too. So definitely I'm still in on Cammanie Videll. Maybe when I play this back in August, I'll sound like an absolute moron, but I'm having a hard time, you know, logically and rationally just saying no, I'm gonna fade him because he might be a zero. I think that the risk reward is at least there.

00:37:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's round fourteen. Let's shoot for some upside. JJ, you got another champ?

00:37:19
Speaker 2: I do?

00:37:20
Speaker 3: I do?

00:37:20
Speaker 2: We have another Best ball Mania champ who joined the show, Justin Herzig.

00:37:25
Speaker 3: He is.

00:37:27
Speaker 2: A winner of Best ball Mania. He does work for our friends over at Establish the Run. With Justin, I talked about the ambiguity of round two, which I sort of alluded to earlier when talking about Jalen Waddle. We talked about zero RB his favorite zero RB backs tons. More So, without further ado, let's talk to Justin Herzig. This episode is sponsored by Underdog Fantasy. There's no better place to play best ball than at Underdog. There are leagues starting all the time, and you can choose whether you want to do a slow draft or as one when entering one of those leagues. And you don't just have to play best ball Mania to play best ball at Underdog. There's a wide variety of contests to choose from. You can even check out Underdog's other games as well, like pick them right now. You can get in on the action with a deposit offer and free copy of the Late Round Draft Guide just by signing up and depositive. Just head to Underdog Fantasy dot com or download the Underdog app. When you sign up, use promo code late Round and make a deposit for a deposit offer and a free copy of the Late Round Draft Guide. That guide will then be emailed to you when it launches on July first. Again, that's promo code Late Round. Now back to the show. So, justin before we started recording, I had asked you sort of where you are at with Bestball Mania, and I asked you strictly from a selfish perspective, because I'm trying to sort of pace myself and understand like where others are at. You know, I've talked to other folks like Liam Murphy, who is already like fifth he drafts in by the time, you know, June basically hit. But then I asked you that and you gave me an answer that was kind of surprising. So can you share that answer with the folks listening.

00:39:10
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I've probably done about one thousand or so drafts, but I've only done one Best ball Menium, And so the drafts that I've really been focusing on right now are the ones that are more time box that they're going to close, and the information kind of gap from now to August it doesn't exist because the contest is already closed for me personally. I'm not saying this is the right strategy for everyone, but I think that you know, hey, I live and breathe this stuff. I'm in a daily basis. I think my ability to kind of read through the noise see what the important news is that comes down in July and August when we actually have the training camps, when we see who's running with the ones, when we see the potential use of stuff, That's where I feel I have a greater edge to actually kind of pull on the right levers to be drafting in that time period. And then also when we think about things like combinatorial ownership, when we think about players that aren't drafted, knowing that, hey, I've got the entire best ball Mania already seventy eighty percent has been done, and we know where players stand, we know who hasn't been drafted, where they've been drafted. That's where I think I have a greater edge in the August time period. Now I understand I'm giving up some so like for example, Rashie Rice, he's been you know, doing drafted in that kind of seventh round area. If he ends up with no suspension, he's back to that second round or third rounder, And yeah, I probably lost substantial edge to people who are doing that. Or if you get another injury situation where I think it was what the cam Akers where Darryl Henderson moves all the way up, Like, there's definitely downsides than not drafting this early. But for me and the way that I kind of play the levers that I can pull, I think I have more edge come August time periods. So specifically for basketball manage, some of the larger contests I care the most about. I backload those as much as possible.

00:40:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, it makes a lot of sense. You know, I think that a lot of people are probably going to be thinking that way, you know when it because of what happened last season with you know, Puka and Aakua tank Dell where I think this time of year people probably weren't as on those guys.

00:40:58
Speaker 3: Uh.

00:40:59
Speaker 2: But then obviously we see, we get training camp reports, we get different things going on in July and into August, and folks were more into them as a result of that. And I would guess this is this is strictly non analytical, but I would guess that there were way more Pukuinakua teams drafted in July and August last year than there were in May and June. But yeah, I mean, like the beauty with Best Ball and with Underdog in particular, is that like it's not like the games and the contest that we're playing and dealing with are all summer long content, Like not every single one is spanning four months like Best ball Mania. Like you said, you've still drafted a thousand teams so far. There's plenty of other contests that you can choose from and and sort of get into without having to worry about, you know, the four month information news dump as you are with Best Ball Mania, let me ask you some other questions that that's while looking at this landscape, this Best ball landscape right now, to me, the second round is really really interesting because it feels like, you know, last year, maybe even the year before, it seemed like there were some pretty solid, obvious picks in that range. This year, I think it's just a little bit more up in the air. And so my question to you, I've I've heard others on the show talk about this when when asked, But my question to you is, has that forced you to sort of differentiate the way that you're looking at your first round pick to your second round pick, you know, and not going with just chalk right and not just going with, Hey, I got I got Jamiir Gibbs in round one. Now I'm gonna get Drake London in round two. Has it forced you to look at maybe going with Jamior Gibbs and then maybe Nico Collins, who's usually more of a mid to second round pick.

00:42:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it's a lot of validity to this, But for me, Now is not the right time to employ it. If we're talking about a contest like Bestball, I mean, and it's gonna last all summer, because come August or for turn, you know turnaments that are timebox, they're closing soon. That's when I'm using it, and so previously, if it's timebox, I'll do it. Otherwise I'm waiting till August because consider you give one the Gibbs Nico at the one two turn. If you that because you want to get unique, what if reports come out that you know positive about Digs, they're positive about Tank, and now Nico drops to the end of the third. Now people are getting that same combo that you thought was going to be unique, but they're still getting it, and they're getting that extra player, that extra Marvin Harrison, they're extra Drinke London in the second round. So come August, when we know when the ADP has looked like all over the summer, that's when we can be more confident in kind of the reaches to get that unique combinatorial ownership. And then on the other hand, rather at this time, I'm focusing more on kind of like, hey, are there a unique or game stacks that I can get that we may not be able to get later on. So an example would be a j Brown DeVante Smith Jalen Hurts. That'd be the first round, third round, fourth round. You can get those right now. It feels chalky because a lot of people are doing it, But who's to say that when we get to July and August that combo is still going to be available. Maybe Jalen Ordavante move up and now what we thought was choky now ends up. It was only shocking for maybe thirty percent of the BBMS, and it's pretty to get later on, or people have to reach and do that in the first, second, and third round to get it. So that's where I'm kind of letting the draft from where we are the meta of it right now, and I'd say, hey, now is where you'd focus on that unique ego stack you may not be able to get later and come August we can then say, hey, that Jamir and Nico combo really hasn't been drafted much this entire time. Let me attack it now.

00:44:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, that makes a ton of sense if if you have a draft or contest rather that you know is going to fill in four days, which we've seen frequently an underdog because people are ferocious and degenerates, you know, within that app But you know, if you know that a contest is going to fill, is that when you would maybe differentiate a little bit more in those first two rounds?

00:44:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean the think the way to think about it is the wide receivers that are going anywhere from I mean, there are so many in that kind of second or third round that if you look at the projections and you were to give someone an extra half percent target share, that might jump them from the end the third to the middle of the second. Like, these margins are so small, especially in that group of wide receivers. You can compare it to dfs, where if we were to think through, like, okay, all of our weekly projections, maybe one player's projector for fifteen point nine and someone else projector fifteen point seven, but there might be ten or twelve guys in that mix. And now, if you're just looking at rankings, you're like, oh, this guy's twelve spots behind. Yeah, But if you're actually looking at projections on a week of basis, that might be point two points or something. And so when the margins are so slim, when the difference between that late third and the mid second is kind of a hey, fifty two forty eight between like who actually finishes higher guarantee that you can get something unique, which is not many people have that Demior and Nico, so that if they actually both go off in week seventeen, that's a lot more likely for you to get to jump up the leaderboard than if Nico and London go. I mean, if Gibbs and London go and actually twenty percent of the field has that combo.

00:45:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, makes a ton of sense. What do you think of sort of the wide receiver meta? I guess I would call it at this point with prices the way they are, I know, when you won BBM, things were totally totally different from a market standpoint. Do you think that people have taken zero RB slash hero RB too far or do you think that this is sort of the way that it should be and this is the way that people should have been drafting maybe for the last few years.

00:46:19
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think it's worth noting, like what the landscape looked like when I didn't win it back four or so years ago. I mean, I've been known as kind of the hyperfragile rb BRO because when I did win that BBM, also a lot of my portfolio that year was tons of this hyperfragile and I went heavy into that strategy because hey, I'll draft four rounds. I'll do it in the I mean four rbs in the first like kind of nine or ten rounds. But I knew I could get guys like Garrett Wilson in the eleventh or twelfth round. You had wide receivers that were available in those early double digits that had substantial upside. So I'm not giving up, like, hey, this wide receiver big hits by only focusing the running back to earlier on that doesn't exist anymore. Like Jamar Chase when he was a rookie, we were lucky he was falling to like the sixth round because he gonn't catch because the balls with the stripes and stuff. But like now you've got Marvin Harrison going literally at the end of the first round, like and then what you look at roma dunes that you look at Brian Thomas also the third fourth best wide receiver processcts early and mid first rounders, and they're the number three options on their team, if not number even four, depending on what you want to argue. But they're still going so much earlier. They're still going in what like the seventh round. Now, if this was four years ago, those guys are going eleven, twelve, thirteenth round, And so it'd be more feasible to say, I'm going to focus on getting some elite to be elite tight end a little more running backs early because I know I can get those wide receivers that doesn't exist now. So now, yes, wide receivers are expensive as they've ever been, but like kind of got to pay the toll. You got to say, like I'm going to you know, if you miss out on it, you can do your zigging and zagging, but if you miss out on the wide receiver earlier early, it's just really hard to get that firepower and make up for it with quantity and that depth later on.

00:48:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think the consistent answer to this has basically been what you just said, where it's like what else are you gonna do? Man? You know, like like there are all these wide receivers flying off the board. You can't just not do that because you're gonna be stuck at without you know, good wide receivers, which are obviously important for these builds. And then the other thing that I think that at least I've noticed is that like you can also think of it as the one position that will not fall in drafts is usually wide receiver. Like not many people are gonna find, you know, like a Romadunze, let's say, or someone in that sixth round range just like fall to the eighth, Like it just doesn't happen. Whereas you know, Rashad White was in the fourth round, you know, a month ago, and now you can get them in the early seventh often, you know, like it's not like uncommon for something like that to happen. So these other positions are falling a lot more so if you're really trying to just gobble up value, good luck doing it at wide receiver at this point, because everyone freaking loves these wide receivers.

00:48:53
Speaker 3: You wanted to do like the zig verzag, because you're like, oh, everyone's going wide receiver. There's a strong there's a smart way to do it. Go with your first three picks, and then wait a whole bunch. Now you've still invested heavily at the wide receiver when other people are and you're not really missing ground. And now in the fourth, fifth, sixth round, you can get an elite QB, an elite tight end, a pretty strong running back, and you're kind of taking that zig zag method where it's like, you know, hey, I don't want to just go crazy wide receiver. Those three that you've repted in the first three rounds are probably really solid. Now maybe later on you can grab a Courtland Sutton. You can grab a stack partner, someone that like, maybe they don't have the greatest medium, but they have maybe a weekly upside maybe with the rest of your four or five, but you're gonna grab later on. You can piecemeal together one or two kind of weekly spots. But that's where it's you can get unique without just trying. You throwing your hands up and saying, eh, I'm just not going for wide receivers.

00:49:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seems like you can get unique too with what we talked about earlier, with the pairings that you get right where if you understand your tears and you know, let's just say that you're in round five or something, and you know things have shifted a little bit, but let's just say that hypothetically you had Terry McLaurin, Jaden Reid, and Marcise Brown all in the same tier, and maybe you also have Calvin Ridley in the same tier. Why not reach a little bit for Calvin Ridley, get a little bit of a differentiation there with where you're drafting him. Knowing that the difference between Ridley to McLaurin, in your eyes this is just all hypothetical, is not that significant. Why not just sort of switch things up and just get different pairings than other people might not get. That's at least something that you know, I've at least tried to do. You know, it just goes back to what you're talking about earlier, with like the pairings in the first two rounds. I think you could hypothetically just do that, and you should do that, you know, throughout your draft, to get a little bit different of a lineup. But if you are going with more of a zero RB build, then the obvious question is which running backs are you then gravitating towards. I mean, I'm assuming that you're still getting some in the early rounds at times. It's not like every single build that you're doing is just all wide receiver. You know, four or five wide receivers to the first five or six rounds. I'm sure that you're getting you know, running back here and there, but it seems like all of these running backs really get pushed into that round seven round eight range and then all of a sudden you get running back city from round seven to eight to round ten or so, where people there's just not number one, there's not many viable wide receivers left you don't really want to reach for, like a Khalil Shakir or something like that. But meanwhile you have these running backs who some of them profile as bell cows, like some of them actually have decent volume projections. So my question to you is who are some of those running backs in that RB twenty to RB thirty five range that you seem to be targeting a lot.

00:51:34
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I mean, as you said, you've got like two profiles. I would say in this group, you've got the bell cows that we expect to have met efficiency and their teams aren't great. That's the Devin singletary of the Jonathan Brooks. Or you get the ones that have the ambiguity, they have what you know, a little more concern high risk on like what their actual role is. But they're on these awesome offenses that really could bring break out or at least they have great roles. And so for me, I love leaning into the ambiguity. So the first one that I'll go, I'm gonna just go buy backfield. I'm gonna go Steelers backfield. Arthur Smith is heading over it. Now. In Fantasy World, we hear Arthur Smith. We climb on our desk. We're scared. We have night like the terrorists. It's that, but from a rushing standpoint, we actually really like Arthur Smith. And like, yeah, I get it, Drake London, Kyle Pitts, like you have the scars, but from a rushing game, and even Beijeon people are scarred, but like you still had really strong ears from Tyler Algmbijon. And so with Tennessee when Arthur Smith was there, they had the second and third most rushing guards. With Atlanta his last two years they had the third and the ninth most rushing guards. And just about every single running back that's unben underneath him has had a positive epall as well as success rate. He schemes very well for the running backs, and there's no reason to believe that's not gonna be the taste for Pittsburgh. So make it Najee, make it Jalen, make it Nausee, make it Jalen. I'm happy with both. So that's kind of the first backfield I would throw out.

00:52:59
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like that one a lot. That's the fact that I think the Nausey stuff is sort of a post hype situation too, where you know, a lot of people were off of him last year and because his cost was kind of you know, it was in the third round, fourth round range, and then all of a sudden, you know, you have a player who's now really doesn't profile that much differently they did a year ago, and he's going five rounds later. So it's really easy, you know, to go after that player. What are you doing with like the Cincinnati backfield? Do you feel similarly about them as you would with like the Steelers backfield, where maybe the run game isn't going to be as efficient, but Cincinnti's offense is probably gonna be top ten this year, you would imagine.

00:53:39
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so Bengals great example as well. I want to embrace that ambiguity and best ball. We're not playing for the media and outcomes. Finishing third in your pod is the same as finishing last. We want to build teams that you know, win your pods and are set up for substantial upside come playoffs, and most likely in Cincinnati, one of these two guys is going to be the primary back on an elite Bengals off. And you know, when I'm right, I've got a guy that probably should have been going in the fourth, fifth round. If I'm wrong, it's a tenth round. It's not that actual painful, and you know what, turns out that team probably wasn't even get advance out of your pot anyways, because it's hard to do that. But we're playing for the upside scenarios. And so when I think of, like, hey, Zach Boss, is he really that much? Every though we had at a Joe Mixon last year, Like I think the difference is is not for much as the talent perspective, but even they're probably gonna still use one of these backs is kind of that still Joe Mixon type. It's just we have we have confusion. Is it going to be Zachlass, Is it going to be Chase Brown? Who's gonna rise there? I don't expect them to just go to kind of a sixty forty fifty five forty five split. I think one of them will kind of rise. Chase Brown has the higher talent, but less track record. Zach Moss was the one they brought in. Feels a bit more of the kind of norm feels more the kind of goal line back. So I like both of those. I'm willing to invest in both, and I'll throw one more out there as well. So I mean that from a des I continue to these themes of kind of ambiguous backfields, and there's no larger, no bigger ambiguous backfield than the broadcus. I mean, right now, you kind of have five running backs that could legitimately be there. Maybe samaj p Ryan gets cut, that goes down to four ones a UDFA. We wanted to bring him up, so like, most likely it's probably gonna be some combo of Javonte Williams, dri Estimee and then Julian McLaughlin. But what's important with this backfield? I mean, let's start with the opportunity. So this team, we know they're going to throw to their running backs at a time, and they do it efficiently. Last year they led the league with it was thirty three percent of targets two running backs was leading the league, and those running backs were schemed defectively. They had great yards after catch for a yards per route run metric. All three finished in the top twelve of the league. You had. I think it was Samaji was first, Julia McLaughlin was sixth, and I think it was Javonte was right there at twelve as well. So you've got these running backs that are catching a ton of passes, are doing it out in space efficiently, and like it makes sense. This wasn't just like a one year outlier. It's Sean Payton. We've seen it all the years that he's done it before with Alvin Kamara and other backs, and then he goes and drafts Bonex and Bonus is the king of kind of the short dumps off the screens. Like everything is setting up that like there's gonna be a ton of and especially PVR, but we still like and have PPR value from past catching running backs. The question becomes who's gonna play what role, and we really don't know, and that's why they're such you know, at such a cheap price, all three of these guys. But for me and my money, you've got Jivante. He was the elite prospect, he was the second round draft talent. I know it was a previous coaching staff, but he's coming off that an extra year on the torn acl So we like that health aspect. And if someone is going to become like a warhorse going to get the lion's share of that backfield, I believe it will be Javonte. Yes, there's substantial risk he you know, there's recent tweets out that them. You know, actually, I guess it may may get kind of forty percent of the touches. We're not really sure, but if this works out, this could be a huge slam dunk. If it's not like all that risk is already baked in at the tenth eleventh round price tag, think his ADP is like one to oh something like that.

00:57:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, look, you might still get usable weeks from Javonte if they do split it way more than we would want them to, or or if estimate gets a lot more work, you know, on early downs and we want them to. The stuff with Sean Payton is very very real. One of the craziest stats that I found all off season was that when you look at the top twenty team target or running back target shares. Since twenty eleven, Sean Payton's teams own eight of the top twenty, which is just like mind blowing. This is this isn't just a personnel thing. This is a It's not like Alvin Kamaro was with Sean Payton this entire tenure. I mean he's gone through. We saw guys like Pierre Thomas be really relevant in the Sean Payton offense. We obviously saw Darren Sproles for a while. Now you know, we get this new group where, yeah, we might see four running backs on that like make that team. I don't know if four will dress every week. It's not usually what we see from teams, but yeah, I mean, like even still, I do think throwing darts at that backfield makes a ton of sense because it is so cheap. When it comes to elite tight ends, I've been saying it all along. I think that tight end seems to be the position that might make or break some folks this year if they feel very strongly one way or the other. But have you been going have you found yourself going more elite tight end this year? We'll call elite tight end? Everyone up to like George Kittle right like where we at least know the Kittle weekly upside is crazy and then you know he'll go in like that round six range. But you know we're talking Mark Andrews, Tree McBride, you know, Kelsey Laporta, et cetera. In Kincaid, have you have you been going after those players or have you found yourself sort of getting more of the three tight end build, maybe getting like a Friar mooth and then two more guys that are complete dart throws lead.

00:58:45
Speaker 3: Yeah. Historically I've leaned more into the late tight end strategy ondock because it's a position that's the easiest for a late round player to really break into that kind of top five or even way even easier in the ten scoring. And like in twenty twenty one, three of the top six tight ends for late round picks Dalton Schultztas and Knox Rob Gronkowski. In twenty twenty two, two of the top six were late round picks Taysom Hill Evan Ingram, and then last year the number one tight end was a late round pick with Sam Laporta. So there's a lot of validity and reasons for the Historically why I've kind of leaned into that kind of late tight end strategy, but this year, I just don't like the tight ends that are going late, and I really like the price and the upside of the ones that are going earlier. And so you know, you combine the upside of hey, late late ren tight ends, they're more likely to be on the field compared to who's available the running backs and wide receivers, Like everything makes sense for why those late round tight ends kind of have that have that kind of breakout potential. But we don't have the rookies this year. The sophomores that we do have are going far higher, and so I think this is a year that I've really changed my tune and I'm just more likely. Hey, those top seven tight ends, they have elite weekly upside. They're being drafted at discounted prices. In my mind, a couple of them are going after the wide receivers. Like if you want to grab the Ingram and Kittle, and the gap in my mind between like Ingram and Kittle and then your godter, you're in Djoku, I think that's a substantial gap that like I want to really, hey, try to grab one of those early those early seven or I'm making sure that I'm stacking with that next tier with Bowers being the outlier where I think Bowers is just the rare case for like his median is substantially lower than where he's being drafted, but it's still great to get kind of i'd say exposure in your portfolio because of the talent and the upside that kind of goes there.

01:00:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, with it with the early tight ends, and I've been trying to go elite tight end more. It's it's really easy to build you know, three tight end port like just weight weight waight and just get these guys late and you'll feel really good at running back and wide receiver and such, especially because if you're not going to a leade tight end, you're probably going elite quarterback. But you know, regardless, the thing that I that I've kind of been going back to is seems like these tight ends are being drafted in round four, round five because of projection, where you know, we're looking at like what Kelsey did last year and we're afraid that maybe you know, he's on the downturn of his career, or like Mark Andrews sort of the same same deal. Where we didn't really see it as much last season. But to me, it's like, these guys clearly, clearly are the players who would have that hypothetical like like when we look back or looking into next season, would be a late first early second round pick, right Like, these are the players who at least have that upside. I think that what we all need to separate ourselves, or what I've had to separate myself from, is that, like, not all these guys are gonna hit. We know that Trey McBride might not hit, Samuel Porta might not hit, but it does feel like maybe two or three of these guys will end up hitting and being you know, worthwhile enough at their cost, worthwhile enough if they were even in the mid third, early third. And that's pretty significant at the end of the day, especially when, like you said, feels like there's this aren't many obvious late round tight ends this year. You know, it's just it's very, very difficult to find those guys, whereas last year we had that influx of talent and it just seemed like it was a little bit easier to go with those players.

01:02:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I want people to try to I want people to sell me on which late title and like which late tight ends they could see breakouts out of them, because it's really difficult. I mean, the fun names are Noah fan Hey new contract, you get rid of Disley, you get rid of the other tight end, but like he's still best case number four pass catching option on a run first team. Then you get Chig Okay Titans Brian Callahan comes in, They're gonna throw more offensive line improve Yeah, but they still have DeAndre Hopkins, they still have Calvin Ridley, they still have Tyler Boyd. They have two pass catching running backs. Like, there's just not gonna be much volume there. I can run through all the names, but like normally historically, like I told myself a story on Jake Ferguson, you can sell yourself a story on Seam Laporta. It's just so so gross this year at the very.

01:02:56
Speaker 2: End, Yeah, I totally agree. Is there a particular strategy just in general, just an item this year that you think just isn't being talked about enough within the space.

01:03:08
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say so for me, And it's one that I've kind of heavy on the past couple of years, so people know it. But drafting qrb's in the same team. And you know, historically people are like, ah, I don't want to handcuff my running backs. I especially don't want to do an invest ball because I'm special draft like, I'm right, So if I grab the first running back, why am I going to grab this second? You know, I've got a draft like I'm right. But we've done some analysis and seen that, Like, there's a lot of value to drafting multiple running backs in the same team, especially when it's in an ambiguous situation, because there is some correlation aspects through out here. First is you're making a bet on that team as a whole, and specifically that the run game is effective, and so you can have scenarios where both actually overproduce their outcomes if you're getting values because it's an ambiguous situation, you can get where one of them gets hurt for a period of time and the other now rises to a substantial better pick and maybe actually they picked. You get some ping pong throughout the season as well, or maybe even in the playoffs where last year Raheem mosteran a chan like a great example where one week one goes off, one week the other goes off, and having them together gives you actually some additional contrarian value in the playoffs because if you needed one to advance in the pods, but then most of the next to the next week, the other guy probably isn't as you know, isn't as owned there, so you get that kind of upside there. Now, this doesn't mean that, hey, if you go draft, let's see, what's a good example Bjean Robinson, that you should go grab Tyler Routjaire because in those scenarios you've been drafted so much capital at that first one, you really do need Bijon to be the world beater and have that elite season. But the ones we talked about, the Steelers, the Broncos, the Bengals, the Cowboys, those are all examples where like, hey, you're making a bet on that run game with an efficiency and both those could outproduce. And when we ran the data, we saw, hey, even in seasons where one guy really went off, there's still value to kind of having them both from those intermittent spike weeks, the larger kind of correlation across the season and the valuing playoffs.

01:05:12
Speaker 2: That feels it's amazing that you brought that up, because that's something that I've thought about, haven't dug into slash talk to anyone about because in season long, which is obviously the perspective that I'm coming from, and season long, it's just not easy or optimal to really do that because you're having to then choose and figure out which one of those guys. It's just a massive headache and it's annoying, and you're burning that roster spot and trying to figure that out. But to your point, you know, obviously, if you had like moster To and a Chan last year in season long, that's fine. But I do think that the idea of injury if you do hit on that backfield is really interesting. Think about like even Jamier Gibbs and David Montgomery last year, which you know, obviously a little bit more capital than what you're talking about with some of these backfields, but even then, like we both of them were fine standalone right when both of them were healthy, but then they each had their own little pockets of being injured, and when they were injured, the other guy was an RB one in fantasy. And I do think that the key here is probably the point of differentiation in the playoffs, which is not something I really thought about much. I would assume, I don't know if you guys have run the numbers, but I would assume that most teams are not doing this, like most teams are generally avoiding doing something like that, and so if you have that, then there's a point of differentiation for your lineup right there.

01:06:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll throw it from I think it was two years ago. Conversation was between michae Leoni and my colleagues at ETR, and then he put out analysis article on that. I think it's just titled should you handcuff RBS and best Ball at Mania? I think it's free to see, so feel free to check that out. But it does actually go down to how often teams they're doing it, what the value is of doing it, which ones it kind of works best with, and so on.

01:06:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really fascinating. So, speaking of these tournament, these playoff weeks, are you a heavy Week seventeen game stacker number one? That's the first question. But then the second question, are you concerned at all about Week fifteen? Week sixteen, especially now that there's a little bit flatter payout structure, things are a little bit different where you don't necessarily I mean, obviously we went first, but you know, not getting first there's not as big of a cost as there was, say last year, and so just kind of getting there, getting to the dance and then you know, placing fairly well instead of extremely well can still give you that payout. But are you are you very very focused on Week seventeen still and while you're drafting, are you paying attention to those week fifteen and week sixteen matchups or do you just not care that much?

01:07:36
Speaker 3: Yeah? So for me, still very heavily on the week seventeen. I consider it a core part of my strategy, but not something I am giving up other facets of the draft to, you know, get that week seventeen. Meaning I don't want to reach a ton just to get week seventeen correlation. I am not valuing a week seventeen bring back more than a primary stack partner. I am not going to give up my roster, construction or capital just to get that week seventeen. All that said, though, there's still is value and playing for the week seventeen and getting the bringbacks for your stacks and get the mini stacks for that week seventeen, for Week fifteen and Week sixteen. I'm not gonna say you shouldn't be doing it, but like, it's so so so small down on what I'm prioritizing, that it's not just something that I'm really caring about. And there's also even argument saying that, hey, if you build for week sixteen and then you get the guys that go off in week sixteen, you now have a higher und guy in week seventeen. So maybe there's actually some value of like, hey, the best way to really get the week seventeen is to kind of squeak in there with a more unique lineup. I don't know, end of the day, I'm not making a strong argument for against, but there's just a lot more important things that I'd be recommending people focus on than trying to start going into week sixteen Week fifteen.

01:08:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, makes a lot of sense. We talked about this a little bit earlier. I feel like we could have talked about this when we talked about it, But the stuff about information and having the information that we have here in June versus what we're gonna know in July and August as we learn more. One of those situations that we could have thrown out there was the wide receiver situation in San Francisco, where every day there's a new rumor about Brandon Iyuk or Deebo Samuel leaving the team. And so my question to you is have you been drafting them any differently or have you not cared because you're not entering BBM as heavily right now where things could drastically change in July and August.

01:09:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think the first thing I will say is post NFL Draft, it's pretty rare that we have major trades. So I think that like the chance of a trade now is pretty slim, and I wouldn't really be incorporating into my draft strategy because more often you're just kind of be going after a red herring and it's just not worth it. But if you wanted to say no, you know what, No, I've actually got a pretty strong feeling. I've got a lean that like something was going to happen, and either Iukadiba is going to get traded. If anything, you should then build out like a, hey, what are the possibilities If this works, the player that gets traded probably is gonna go down in ADP because they're going to leave San Francisco. Sure, there's a chance that like Auke goes to Buffalo and like, you can build out that perfect scenario, but there's a lot more risk there. But what we do know is if d we or Ayuke left, the other one is moving up the draft boards to probably early second round. I mean, Debo as the number one wide receiver option without you as as a target earner, and if he's actually getting more volume without their kittle is probably even the sneaky, substantial booster there as well, if we're gonna say like, hey, he's actually going to be a regular part of this passing game and move up to the number two option. So you always want to think through like hey, what are the downstream implications there? But for me personally, if it's regarding trades, I think it's pretty pretty slim that we see any major trades this far into the offseason.

01:10:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. I feel that's a really good point because I feel like there's a negativity bias that we kind of approach these things with where we just think about how bad it would be for Brandon au going to Pittsburgh or something like that. We're not thinking about how good it would be for Deebo Samuel. This season at Brandon Ayuk were gone, and so yeah, I mean maybe there's a little bit of risk in drafting them just in general, because what if you are a little bit heavier on Ayuk and then Ayuk is the one who gets dealt But number one, as you said, trades don't often big trades especially don't often go down you know, post rap. But also you know, you could just be getting both of these guys at an equal exposure and then the other guy really blows up and then all of a sudden, those teams, you know, have that edge. So I like thinking about it that way. That's that's a way that I for whatever reason, I think it's just the negativity bias of our brains. I'm just like not as focused on that side.

01:11:38
Speaker 3: And if you want to remove the trade aspect, we can still think about this as contingency upside, because the same argument for Aya Gudbo leaving is ay Debo get hurt and then what happens to the other And if we think about like I don't know, I'm trying to think of another wide receiver that's in an area. Okay, let's go Maleak neighbors. Ah, there's no one that can get hurt on the giants that increases Malik Neighbors' kind of rolling upside in that offense, maybe Daniel Jones would be the only one. But that's tongue in cheap. But if we look at San Francisco, if I your Caadbo get hurt, like now we actually have continuency upside and later on in the draft, good example would be Courtland Sutton versus trying to take another wide receiver that like, we'll do the roam that beat Ryan Thomas even't though they're a little earlier on. But the idea is, like Courtland Sutton, there's nothing he can do to actually increase from a contingency upside, to get more targets, to get more volume. Things just have to really work out that Like, hey, Bo Nix is actually good in the offense is great, But if you look at Rome or Brian Thomas one one in a wide receiver injury and hav An Ingram injury, now those guys can have substantially more upside. And we think of the contingency upside often with the running back position, but you can do it with wide receiver and you can even stack wide receivers if there's three guys on Houston on Jacksonville on Chicago, and you want a draft two that third one gets hurt. Both those two have major boosts, and now you're getting some correlation there, uh, with the contingency upside.

01:13:03
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that's the number one reason why you can't just draft off of projections, right, Like projections, especially Houston and best Ball Houston or Chicago or even San Francisco. It's like, yeah, like these guys might not have a projection that lists them where their ADP is, but we're also recognizing the number one, they can have these spiked weeks and even with you know, look at Houston, Tank Dell can have a spiked week even with Stefan Diggs and Nico Collins being there. But also, what happens if one of those guys gets injured? What happens if one of those guys are out, then all of a sudden, you know, its wheels up and they could hypothetically have you know, two wide receiver ones within that offense. That's a really really good call out to make. I'm gonna I'm gonna end this with one more question. I want to know two or three players right now that you seem to be getting most frequently so far this year.

01:13:48
Speaker 3: Okay, well, so if you just listen the past half hour, you probably could have picked up on a lot of those because those running backs that I talked about, there's a lot of those. Uh you know, we talked about how much tight ends, but like aims that I'll say, the Room and the Brian Thomas are definitely ones that you just mentioned. But I'm really excited about because of hey first round talents, third and fourth best wide receivers in this draft, both on strong offenses that I think are going to be taking up board and both have substantial continguency upside as well as playing their way into larger roles and peaking as the season goes on. Given the rookies and kind of the talent, so big on that two people that I would say you did mention but are pretty similar, let's go with Elijah Mitchell and cech When we're at the end of drafts right now, we've got to make some tough decisions. You can either kind of say like, hey, I'm going for the tight ends because you're going with the late three tight end strategy, and you can find a couple of tight ends that at least be out there wide receivers you can try to correlate with your QB. There's definitely some value in that. But when we're looking at running back and you're like, ah, I just need a couple more running backs, there are very few out there that have this level of upside in the offense. You've got Kansas City and San Francisco to the top offenses, this much clarity that you have the number two role. There's minimal competition for Elijah Mitchell and ch for that number two spot, and we've seen with both teams when the number one goes down, both of these just kind of as long as they're healthy, move directly right into that role. At maybe I was going to say eighty percent production. Ch is probably eighty percent production of a check out. Obviously Elija just not of CMC. But we've still seen from a touchdown efficiency and what they can do on the ground, like both a specialized Mitchell what both those still have substantial upside just one injury away, and it is really hard to find that level of security and clarity in the backfield for a strong team with any other running backs going in the end of drafts.

01:15:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, in full circle, especially right now as we draft right like, we might learn more. We probably will learn more in July and August, where there is some more clarity as to who you should be drafting in around seventeen and eighteen. But right now, let's just go with the old reliables, although calling cech and old reliable is probably probably a little bit too much. But anyway, justin thank you so much for hopping on and ball a little bit. Can you let everyone know where they can find you and the stuff that you're working on?

01:16:04
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure. So name is at justin Herzig. You can find me on Twitter, do all my stuff at Establish the Run and JJ appreciate the invite. Always love doing these shows with you and hope you have a great best ball bro summer.

01:16:17
Speaker 2: Thanks man. Yeah, I'm trying to. I'm trying to as always. You can find all my stuff over on lateround dot com. Check out that draft guide and pre order it that'll be out on July first. But otherwise, everyone, thank you for tuning in.