Becoming a Best Ball Bro: A Go-To Tight End Strategy?

00:00:00
Speaker 1: So rich. The day that this episode releases, my daughters turned seven, so I want to give her a little bit of a shout at Avery Happy birthday. Thanks for being the best daughter ever. You're compassionate, You're sweet, You're a great dancer, You're a great big sister. And you also don't take Justin Herbert two rounds ahead of ADP after I drafted Lad McConkie, Nico Collins and Amari and Hampton and I love you for I'm JJ And last year I tried my hardest to become a best ball bro. I drafted over five hundred teams. I talked to some of the most successful best ball players in existence, and I admittedly had mixed results. So this year I'm going to chase that title once again. 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. Last year, I didn't quite get there. But this year this is going to be the year where I officially become a best ball bro. This episode is sponsored by DraftKings. There's no better way to lock in your fantasy dominance early than with Best Ball on DraftKings where you draft once and ride your roster all season long, and right now Draftings giving all customers a can't miss offer. Draft one get one, enter a lineup in the fifteen million dollar Best Ball contest for just twenty dollars, and you'll score another Best Ball ticket to play free for a share of that fifteen million, giving you a second shot to win big. It's easy. Just draft your dream team once, no weekly management required, and let your top scorers automatically start each week across the whole season. Every breakout star, every clutch play, every touchdown will count towards your quest for a share of fifteen million dollars. I'm drafting over there all the time. It's an absolute blast. So down with the DraftKings Daily Fantasy ap now to draft a twenty dollars best ball lineup to play for a share of fifteen million dollars, and get a second ticket to play free for a share of that fifteen million. That's two chance to win big without ever setting your lineup again. Draft one Get one only on Draftings. The crown is yours gambling problem called one hundred gambler in New York, call eight seven seven eight hope end y or text hope n y to four six seven three six nine. In Connecticut, help is available for problem gambling call eight eight eight seven eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org eighteen plus and most eligible states, but age varies by jurisdiction. Eligibility restrictions apply. Voidware prohibited. 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 dash Ball 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 my mustache wearing Rich Ryan Rich. What's going on, buddy, It's a gag.

00:02:59
Speaker 2: I don't want to give the game away because certain someone might be watching. But yes I have a mustache. I'm in my mother's not basements but guest room in sunny Florida, enjoying some time with the cousins and some families pool ocean. It's been great, but yes, this thing as soon as this thing can go JJ, It's gonna go.

00:03:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I feel you. I've never I honestly the the closest I've gotten to a full blown mustache. It just gets it gets mixed immediately by my wife. So I've never I've never gotten full mustache. Some will call me soft for that. I say that I'm smart for that at the end of the day.

00:03:39
Speaker 2: Very much though.

00:03:40
Speaker 1: But yeah, today I want to talk a little bit about before we get into the guests and the interview I had. It's Davis Maddock front of you, who are curious, but one of the things I want to talk about and kind of not rants per se, but just like discuss with you, and I hope that you know you can at least bring some data to the table with you know what I'm talking about and what I'm sort of contextualize the situation. I know that you have all this ADP data, but it seems like right now, I don't know if you're feeling this either. I'm really burying this. I'm just gonna I'm just gonna stretch this out as long as I possibly can, for like fifteen minutes without actually saying just tease you, guys, there's just this thing that now. So I'm surprised by the market's reactions to things. Right Like, I would say that DraftKings ADP itself in the way that's formulated. We've talked about this before, seems to be pretty reactionary based on recent drafts, and that's great, right Like, we that's that that to me is more beneficial than looking at, you know, the full four months worth of data or three months worth of the Millie and saying, oh, this guy's not gonna move up in ADP because there's so much back back weighted data that's gonna bring his overall ADP down. So like, even if you do thousands of drafts right now, it's not gonna bring that ADP up enough because there's so many drafts where he wasn't being drafted there. So I like that draftings ADP is reactive. But there's three instances where I just you know, I talked about one of them last week and it's still going on right now, and it's just bizarre to me. And I just want to walk through this, okay, because I want to see what other people are thinking, if they're experiencing the same thing, and maybe they just fully disagree with me, That's fine. That's what this whole entire freaking show is about. Is me just kind of brain vomiting and documenting my feelings and thoughts about best ball as I'm becoming a best ball bro So that being said, the Kansas city wide receiver situation, okay, Xavier Worthy's ADP has not shifted nearly as much as I thought it was gonna shift. Like I thought when the news broke about Rashi Rice, I thought the market was gonna overcorrect so much to the point that Xavier Worthy was going to be like an early third round pick, like like like pretty confidently. I thought that was gonna happen. And I'm drafting Xavier Worthy at times in the exact same spot that he was being drafted before all of that news went down. And it's crazy to me because if the assumption back then, even if it's by half of the market, if the assumption was that that Rashi Rice was not going to be suspended and Xavier Worthy was, you know, a late fourth round pick, you know, in the fourth round still but like a late fourth round pick, and then the news comes out where now the entire market kind of assumes and knows that Rashi Rice is going to be suspended, and Xavier Worthy's ADP I'm still getting him in drafts in the mid fourth round consistently make it make sense. Rashi Rice's ADP has fallen, but Xavier worthies seems to be in the same spot as a data backing that up right now.

00:06:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we're seeing a small uptick for Xavier Worthy week over week, he's up two point three spots. For the entire summer, he's up four spots. But last week when we were with you guys, ra she Rice was down half round. This week we're down an additional half round, so full round since the news broke. But that downward pressure that is affecting Rice negatively, like you said, is not affecting Xavier Worthy in a positive way as much. And we're not really seeing it in any of the other relevant pass catchers. Travis Kelce neutral down point four spots, Hollywood Brown, similar bounce, similar uptick to Xavier Worthy three. So it's not like they're looking for alternate pieces later in the draft to steam up as opposed to drafting Xavier Worthy. It's just they don't like Rice, and there's no other reaction Besides, that.

00:07:40
Speaker 1: Is the answer here that those guys were already priced with that. I don't know. I just I can't really comprehend why this is happening to me. Like I know the arguments, right, like we probably are overstating how many four or six games and what that actually means to a best ball portfolio, and like the actual production of that portfolio when there's no weeks during that time. For the most part, guys are healthy, so you're able to fill in that spot a lot easier, you know, than you otherwise would if it was happening at the end of the year. For instance, obviously, if it was happening at the end of the year, that's the playoff weeks, we wouldn't even be drafting Rashi Rice if we knew factually he wasn't gonna be playing, you know, weeks fifteen and seventeen right to seventeen. But it's still strange to me because I try to think through the very scenarios that could go down in these instances where there's no Rashi Rice. Okay, what does that mean? What does the Chiefs offense look like? Okay, well, maybe Jalen Royal steps up and he sees a little bit more action. That would be great, especially because the ZAP model had the Rashi Rice comp of Jalen Royals, which was which would be just fun to see that kind of come to fruition. But then also, like we know, you know, and this goes back to when people were commenting on my mentions being like xavier' Worthy and Rashi Rice are two totally different wide receivers. Guys. I know, I know, Okay, I know, they're different wide receivers. But the idea here is that when you're projecting targets here, there's one hundred percent pie that goes around in offense, and that target share shifts to the talented and good players. And so for she Rice is out, that's a very large target chair pie that is hypothetically being spread around the offense, which then raises the rest of the offense some more than others. So even if Xavier Worthy is not the same type of wide receiver as Rashi Rice is, he could still get a natural bump during the first four during the first six games, however, long that suspension is a nice bump and target share. And then the other thing that I think about is we saw the second half of last year, Xavierworthy's a dot fall. We saw him be used more horizontally than vertically, and that really helped his production. Now he was still being used down the field, and I think that we're all hoping that they're able to push the ball down the field more this year. But you know, without Rashi Rice, you know, some of those lower aid out looks still might go to a Worthy at times. You know, I'm not saying all of them will, but some of them might. And then there's the idea that if, for she Rice is out for the first month, month and a half of the season, Xavier Worthy can establish himself in this offense more. He's a second year as sending talent. Right, Like, I wasn't even high on Worthy before all this went down. I was actually low Onworthy before all this stuff went down. And the fact that the market hasn't shifted at all, I'm now at like twelve percent Xavier Worthy in my best ball portfolio because no one seems to want him, no one's no one's going after him despite this news, And I get it. At the end of the day, people might look at this and be like, this news does not matter. From a production standpoint, and maybe the most likely outcome is that because again early on in the season, you have people that can fill in in your lineup and you feel fine about, you know, taking those zeros from Rice, and you know, maybe it's not that big of a deal. But I think more on sort of like the secondary level, where we're looking at sort of how a seat and telling a story of how season can go down, there's a chance that Worthy just establishes himself more than he otherwise would have if, for she Rice was there, And I don't think that we can discount that.

00:10:58
Speaker 2: And normally I'm really hesitant to do a lot of vacated target analysis, especially year to year, because some things aren't sticky. Offenses change, quarterback play changes, play calling changes. This is one of those offense jj Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes have been doing this for a while. They're on the same page. The style with which they play with is not going to change drastically, So when it comes to passing volume and scheme, things aren't going to change much for this team. So I think it's more fair to do some more vacated target analysis when it comes to Worthy than it does with a lot of other teams.

00:11:35
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I also think though too, with the vacated target stuff. I think that one of the big downfalls in doing that and one of the problems that people run into when doing that, because you'll, i mean, look, especially in August, when more of the mainstream sites are doing analysis and stuff like that and publishing content constantly, you're going to see articles that are like, here's how many vacated targets this team has, and this team has without Like the reason why I look at target share is because it's always going to be one hundred percent, whereas vacated targets are gonna fluctuate based on how pass heavy that team is, right, Like, Philadelphia could easily throw the ball a hundred more times this year, and if that happens any vacated not that they're a great example because they basically have the same you know, pass catchers, but any any vacated target is different, right because they could just throw the ball more than they did last year. So yeah, I mean I think that this is a situation where I'm surprised. You know, obviously, in some drafts you're gonna see Worthy going round three, but I consistently am getting him in the middle of round four, and to me, that's that's a sweet spot. Like I think he's like a three four turn type player, especially in a best ball environment where we know that he can generate those big plays where it might not be overly predictable like it would be with Rashi Rice in a normal season long league, like he might be a slightly better and best ball type player and an asset, which is another reason why I'm surprised he hasn't been moving up more. But you know, this will be it for well, I am technically talking to Davis about Xavier Worthy as well. We'll bury this Kansas City top. That's the last take I'll have, you know, I do think we'll probably have to come back to this if and when while we're doing the show we learn what the actual suspension is and we can see, you know, where things move, because part of me still does think that some of these players are going to move even more when the official suspension happens, even though we have a general idea of how long that suspension is going to be.

00:13:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's definitely the reacting to the hard news that people are just gonna you look at it, just at a brief point when it comes to when DraftKings has somebody as out as I put air quotes out for those listening on their podcasters, like the Ricky Piersoll dip was outrageous, right, people are just thinking out about Ricky Peers for no reason.

00:13:41
Speaker 1: We were getting Ricky piersall at times at the end of the eighth round the like like last week, you know, like it It's like, that's why, that's why the reactions to the market to me have been so insane and so unpredictable, because on one hand, I would expect some you know, a minor dip for Ricky Pierre starting on the pup despite the fact if you just click a link you can read that, you know, all these guys start on pup and he's likely gonna be fine, you know, sure, maybe maybe three or four picks or something like that. No, it was like at times like like eighteen picks, right, Like it was like a legitimate drop for pearsall. So, on one hand, there's a strong, strong reaction, on the other there's not. And then another instance like this is the Browns is Cleveland like right now, quin Shawn Judkins, it is almost August when we're recording this, it's July twenty ninth. This will be out on July thirtieth, on my daughter's birthday, Happy birthday, Avery, It'll be out. And it's almost August. Quin Shawn Judkins still doesn't have a contract. The Browns today were saying that they're hopeful that he's just gonna be a Cleveland Brown. You know that things get fixed, and said like this is not pointing in a great direction for Judkins right now, which means, look at the backfield is Dylan Samson and it's Jerome Ford. And then you look at the news items and I do feel like some of the coach speak slash, some of the training camp news has not gotten the DraftKings the way I thought it was going to get the Draft Kings. There's two instances. One is the Cleveland one with Jerome Ford in particular, where Kevin Stefanski said that Ford would be the starter essentially, which makes sense when Dylan Samson is a Day three running back who not a bad prospect at all, but not someone who you would envision shouldering the workload right away. And then you look at the veteran and a negative you know on a team that's probably gonna see negative gamescripts. I was drafting Jerome Ford before all the Judkins stuff because of the negative gamescript factor. And yes, he's risen in ADP, but it's still pretty crazy to me that that there's often times you'll go, and again, I'm gonna go anecdotal here because I think it's important to not just look at the overall ADP, but say, like, this is still happening in drafts frequently, right, And I'm drafting at least three teams a day at this point, and so a lot of times Jerome Ford will go two or three rounds after Dylan Samson. And maybe the argument here is that Samson has more end of season upside and upside in general, But I would actually argue that Samson doesn't necessarily have that the same way you think he does because Quinchot Judkins might be back by then like that that would be that would be when Judkins could dig into Samson's workload more, whereas Ford is the player who's probably gonna have a pass catching role for most of the season and at least would be frontloaded with that work without Quinnshot Jenkins. So like, that's a weird one to me. And then let me ask you this though, actually before I move on to this last backfield, what is the Cleveland ADP looking like right now?

00:16:32
Speaker 3: Yeah?

00:16:32
Speaker 2: So Samson is going off at one forty seven right now and Jerome Ford is one to seventy. So those two rounds are the standard right now. And yeah, every time I'm building these hero or zero RB builds and I need somebody to throw a dart at to get some volume with in the fifteenth round, there's Jerome Ford just staring at me right in the fence.

00:16:51
Speaker 1: Every every time. And look, this isn't even an anti Samson take, like I had both of them in the draft guide this past week as late round dart throws because I am not good about the Judkins stuff.

00:17:01
Speaker 2: Look, I love I love taking on risk. I'm all about taking on risk. I've probably done more two QB and two tight end bills than I should on DraftKings when we have twenty rounds.

00:17:10
Speaker 1: I am not touching yeah this dude at all? Yeah, why why would you write like this could go in so many And not only that, but like situationally, it's not like this is a phenomenal place for running back to be And he had question marks himself on the pass catching front, like as a prospect, so like there were a lot of red flags that begin with at his at his original ADP, and now with all this stuff off the field, it's just really hard for me to click his name almost anywhere on the board. I haven't drafted him once, so I mean, I think I have one or two drafts where I took him before all this stuff went on, like since the beginning of May, like in the Millie, but I haven't drafted him since. It just really difficult too. So yeah, like the Jerome four Dylan Samson gap is still bizarre to me, especially when you consider the difference between like getting a guy in around seventeen to round fifteen, like it's the same thing, you know, it's not, or around sixteen to fourteen opportunity costs and shift that that dramatically. But Samson will often like I've seen Sampson go in like round twelve and Ford still going round fifteen, round sixteen. So that's sort of where I'm at with the with the Browns back that I'm drafting both of them, but mostly when Samson falls and Ford is just seemingly always there. He just always seems to be a decent value. And then the Jacksonville thing is the one that I really want to dig into. Not that we haven't really dug into the other two situations, but man, I've seen discourse about Tank Bigsby just all over the freaking place over the last forty eight hours, maybe even longer, maybe we'll say, like five days. But Bigsby is getting a lot of steam out of camp. A lot of Beat reporters are saying he's running with the ones, you know, a lot of them are are are praising, sing his praises and saying good things and then bea shall Tutin got banged up yesterday. It sounds like he's okay, but like he's not getting the kind of work that you know, a toutin truther if you will, I mean, I think I'm a tootin Truther, so I'll throw myself in there. It's not the kind of work that you like want to see. And look, I'm not trying to overreact to this kind of situation, but I do want to talk about it. I wrote a newsletter about this. I do want to talk about and this is a season long thing, just as much as the best ball thing. When we're getting reports from beat writers. We can't just like like like, well, like an example, this is Minnesota, right, There was a report today that came out that Jordan Mason and Aaron Jones are going to have like an almost fifty to fifty type split in the backfield, or like, maybe it's not quite fifty to fifty, but it's closer to that than previous O'Connell. You know, situations and regimes, and you know, you look at that and you're like, oh, man, okay, let's say Minnesota scores three hundred fantasy points in their back then I don't know, it's just a random number. We'll just split that in half. We'll give Jordan Mason half of it. We'll give Aaron Jones half of it. Because this is a backfield split, and that's all a lot of people think about this stuff. Like I've already seen tweets being like, why is Aaron Jones going ahead of Jordan Mason when this is a fifty to fifty split. Shouldn't they be going back to back? Guys, for the love of God, one running back does not play the same position as another running back, right, Like, I'm not saying that Jordan Mason can't or won't outscore Aaron Jones. I'm saying the logic behind the ADP gaps is the fact that Aaron Jones is a pass catching back and Jordan Mason has quite literally never played that role, both in the NFL and in college. Because in college you play with Jamir Gibbs, right, So you can buy these factors in early down back right in an offense that he's still gonna split work, probably not gonna see that much receiving work, and yes, he'll probably be the goal line guy. You just have to do your projections and work it out and say, Okay, this is where this guy ranks, this is where this guy ranks. And I think that where they're they're being placed right now makes sense based on that because pass catching is so so important in the game, in the game of fantasy football. Then we look at what's going on in Jacksonville and all of a sudden, people are like, Tank Bigsby is their RB one? What does that mean? What does that mean? What does Tank Bigsby being the RB one really mean in that backfield? And to me, if you look at his history, he's never been an efficient pass catcher. Now, I liked Tank Bigsby a lot as a prospect coming out the model really liked Tank Bigsby as a prospect. His raw volume as a receiver was strong, and I care about that more than I do efficiency. But it's really really difficult to look. Every year in college he was either basically at average or below average across all of college football and yards per route run, and in his first two years in the NFL his yards per route run is point three to six. Okay, which I can't even explain to you, guys, how dreadful that is. That is one of the most depressing statistics that you will ever hear me say. Okay, if you look since twenty eleven, there have been nine running backs, including Tank Bigsby, who were at a point five which is higher than where Bigsby's at yards per out runner lower, while running at least one hundred routes. So their first two years, they run at least one hundred routes and they're at a point five yards per out run rate or lower. Okay, if you look at all of those those eight other running backs and their max target share in the NFL, so any season after that, it doesn't have to be in one of those first two seasons, only one of them was over the five percent mark in target share per game, and it was Terrence West who was at seven percent. So like, we don't see pass catching profiles emerge from and if you raise that threshold a little bit two point six instead of point five, you get a little bit more hits, you get like mark Ingram is part of that, but he also got off to a slow start in his career. JK. Dobbins is part of that, which you know, he hasn't necessarily been like an ultra pass catcher yet in the NFL. So like there's a little bit more hits when you like start to raise that threshold which is under like that. Of course there is, because the ars brought run does correlate to target share success. But my point being is we have to you know, in my opinion, of course, I've seen the best ball world fight over this tank Bigsby stuff where it's either he's the RB on his team or you still have to fade him. And where I stand, shockingly is somewhere in the middle where we should react to this idea that Bigsby, you know, is he might get more early down work than we're projecting, but we also are questioning what his receiving profile looks like, while also recognizing that because the receiving profile is not probably not going to be there, you know, ninety five percent plus chance that it's not going to be there, then that means the other guys in that backfield ETN or Tooting in my case, who I think those guys have the hypothetical higher ceiling when we're when we're projecting range of outcomes. The problem here, man, is that Tank Bigsby's ADP, despite all of this steam, is not really shifting that much on DraftKings. Like I drafted him today a one fifty four overall, you know, I'm drafting Bigsby quite a bit. And when you're in those double digit rounds and you're in a best Ball environment where you don't have to predict or project when that touchdown might hit, to me, if you know that he's going to get some volume, even if it's not a league winning volume. I think that in a weekly game like best Ball is more so than what season long generally is. Obviously you're playing weekly, but it's a little bit of a different beast. I think Bigsby's a great pick right now, because we're getting this information from beats, and it seems like we're not as a market really deploying that and using that enough and utilizing that enough. Maybe it has to do with the ambiguous backfield idea and how everyone's going to kind of have their guy. But as the person who has probably written about ambiguous backfields more than almost anyone, I can tell you that it's it's not as simple as just like find your dude and only draft you are dude. The idea behind.

00:24:40
Speaker 2: Want to have all the guys. Yeah, it's literally ambiguous. It's exactly.

00:24:45
Speaker 1: The idea behind it is that you want exposure to these situations because this exact situation where cost stays low because there are other players keeping it low. Like I see Tank Bigsby right now as a potential arbitrary off of Brian Robinson. Of course I would like Brian Robinson more from a projection standpoint, all that kind of stuff, But think of it, Think of think about it. You have Travis etn versus Austin Eckler as the established veterans who you know Eckler's a better pass catcher, but could could hypothetically serve a similar ish role in their offenses. You have the early down bruiser and Brian Robinson and Tank Bigsby and then oh, by the way, there's this emerging rookie talent in Washington's to Cory Krosske Krossky Merritt, and in Jacksonville it's base shall Tuton. Like to me, it's a very very similar kind of situation where I mean, you guys know by now that I've been basically fading Brian Robinson and maybe it comes back to bite me. But my reasoning for doing that is because if the idea is that he could walk into thirteen touchdowns and that's how he's gonna pay off, Tank Bigsby can do that too. Like that, like, given these reports and given the way they're currently deploying him, you have to think about that in his range of out comes. Right, That's where things shift for me. Neither guy is likely going to be a top twelve fantasy asset because they don't have the receiving numbers and the receiving profile. But yeah, I mean, like there's a lot of players that are that are you know, in that sort of like like you could argue to a degree that Jordan Mason's the same way, right, And so if we're gonna be drafting and getting exposure to those kinds of players in the single digit rounds, I'm gonna try to find arbitrage to get them five rounds later. And that to me at least could be Tank Bigsby.

00:26:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, Bigsby going off right at one fifty five point seven, so right where you nabbed him today, top of the fourteenth round. I think I said on one of the earlier episodes when we were talking about too and you were talking about the DAGs backfield, is I thought the worst opinion this summer on the Jags backfield was just gonna be have a strict opinion on one of the guys being the guys because new offense, Liam Cohen, all these guys have their path to having some sort of upside. Of course, the young guy in ETN from pass catching perspective and Bigsby from a touchdown variance perspective. But yeah, I'm just getting all these guys wherever they fit my builds. I'm getting a piece of all three of these guys, because you can tell a story that any three of these guys have success.

00:27:13
Speaker 1: This here on the jackt And I think that's where I'm really trying to like learn and grow as a best ball player, is that, like, of course Brian Robinson should be drafted ahead of Tank Bigsby. That's not what I'm trying to say when I'm talking about the arbitrage here. What I am saying is if in this game we're trying to look more at seventy fifth percentile outcomes eightieth percentile outcomes, if we do that with Brian Robinson and Tank Bigsby, it's really not that far off from one another, right, And so that's why maybe the floor sure, but like we shouldn't be drafting four floor. That's the problem when where Brian Robinson goes, oftentimes you're taking him ahead of Ricky Piersoll or some like really interesting year two or up and coming wide receivers, or maybe you're taking him over a TJ. Hockinson and you really want to a tight end or what have you. I mean, there are guys in the tenth round that I think are a big deal to take to take Brian Robinson over, And so to me, I'm just trying to sort of like gobble up that archetype and see if I can get that kind of player late and because of the news items, even while knowing that he's not that much of a pass catcher, him not being that much of a pass catcher places him in this archetype bucket, right, And then that these news items can allow you to then BISB ten spots ahead of the market on him, and then all of a sudden you have a decent amount of tank Bigsby exposure, and hey, what if he does? What if he is this year's Raheem Mostert or Jamal Williams or whomever where he gets a five percent target share but is able to find the end zone fifteen times. I mean, I think that you know it's not likely, but I think that there's a distinct possibility that Jacksonville is pretty good. Like that's why we're targeting this backfield, and Bigsby's the one who finds the end zone the most.

00:28:52
Speaker 2: And like you said, this steam is it's six picks over the last week from mid fourteenth to an early fourteenth son and.

00:29:00
Speaker 1: Then Ricky Piersall is dropping around in the app because he's on puff.

00:29:03
Speaker 2: I literally couldn't believe that I was. I was just I was walking away from like seven of eight drafts with piersol and I didn't care because, like, I'm gonna take that following value.

00:29:15
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's just that's why that was the theme of the show for me. It was like, I can't get a read on the market with the news items and with the changes. It's wild, it's crazy. It's so much fun. You guys can comment away and give us your ideas and all that kind of stuff and tell me I'm a moron for the way that I'm thinking about this, but it is the way that that I'm thinking about this, you know. In the end. All right, let's get to the guest today, Davis Mattock, friend of mine for over a decade at this point. I've known him since he was basically in diapers. Maddick does the Swole Cast, the Take Cast. He's got his YouTube channel now it's just his name, Davis Mattock. We talked about transitioning from season long to Best Ball, which was a good discussion. Why. We talked about why he thinks brock Bowers is the best pick on draft right now. We did talk some suspension stuff, so you might hear a little bit of a similar take as what I just talked through, but I think it's still very, very important, and so much more so without further ado, here's the interview with Davis Maddock. All Right, Davis, I'm going to give you a scenario to kick off today's show. All Right, there's been a season long bro who's been winning his season long league for years now and now can't relate exactly. And now that he's been winning so much, he's like, you know what, I want to dive into best ball. I want to play best ball instead of playing season long or on top of season long. I should say, what's the one piece of advice that you would give him or her? But I said, Bro at the start of this, but give this person before they really dive in and do their first best Ball.

00:30:53
Speaker 4: Draft, that you can be absolutely right about everything for the first fifteen weeks of the sea and it won't matter at all. I think thinking of best ball the same way you think about your season long fantasy league will make you do a lot of suboptimal things. I think you're really going to overvalue safety. I think you're really going to overvalue archetypes of guys that you just know have a job. And this is not even just a running back thing. You know, this isn't just a James Connor thing, This is a this is a Diami Brown thing, this is a Jacobe Myers thing. Not that you should never take those guys or whatever, but the goal of the game is to generate the highest score the final week of December of the first week of January, and everything should be built from optimizing backwards from that.

00:31:41
Speaker 1: I think the one thing that we should kind of expand on here that I don't know if I really have, but I'm sure someone has the question. But when you say that you need to score the most points in that final week, someone might push back and say, well, why wouldn't I be doing that also in my season long league? So can you talk about the difference between I mean, you know, at the end of the day, likely that it comes out of the fact that it's a fifty to fifty outcome versus a one and many outcome, But can you talk about like what that all means with best ball versus season one?

00:32:11
Speaker 4: No, I actually think that it's super specific in season long how different it is because we all have had this experience. So the first thing being what I try and optimize for as much as possible. In my home leagues, is getting the buy so a top two seed just because you have one extra game that you don't have to win by the time you get to week ten, Week eleven, week thirteen. I mean, look, man, you're your buddies are not making way room. I mean maybe they are. Maybe you're in like a crazy hyper competitive league and people want to win the consolation bracket, but you kind of can pick and choose. You'll generally speaking be able to get you know, the best kickers, the best streamers. Right, You'll be able to get the best streamers, and you'll just be rotating through a bunch of ricky running backs. I was actually looking at my team that won my home league last year.

00:32:57
Speaker 3: Humble bragg, humble brag.

00:32:58
Speaker 1: There happened.

00:33:00
Speaker 4: I just every good waiver wire guy the final month of the season, I had him. You know, I was optimizing for streaming matchups like these really are just different things.

00:33:10
Speaker 3: So I don't.

00:33:10
Speaker 4: Necessarily want to optimize for the best score in Week seventeen for my home league.

00:33:14
Speaker 3: In your home league, you kind of just want a jugg or not.

00:33:17
Speaker 4: You kind of just want like your fifth bench guy to be a quality fantasy starter.

00:33:22
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and at the end of the day, like on DraftKings, you're playing against a thousand people in that final week of the season, right, so you need that monster monster week from a scoring perspective, more like you could realistically win your season long championship with an eighty point week in a PPR format like a normal like it can happen, right because what if your opponent just has a bad week and something happens or what have you. You're literally never going to get that done in a best ball environment, So that shift does happen with you know what you're looking for, and obviously you know what you're alluding to as well, is the ability to pick up players off the waiver wire and be able to be able to to manipulate your team as the season goes on, but as opposed to having a draft in July and August or June in May and not be able to do that with your rosters. Now, looking at DraftKings, one of the questions I've been asking a lot of Best Bob bros That have come on the show, are you in er out on the three quarterback build this year? Is it something that you're doing like ninety five percent of the time. Is it something that you're doing just fifty to fifty sort of what's that weight look like for you?

00:34:25
Speaker 4: No, this is like ninety percent of the time, because in particular, I think Anthony Richardson, Tyler Schuck, and Jackson Dart are such obviously good picks on DraftKings where you have twenty roster spots, and actually a weird thing on DraftKings is just like I don't know if it's the generated order that I don't know if their adp thing is weird. But like you know, guys like Tank Dell and stuff and Christian Watson are hanging out in like the two twenties, But if you scroll a little bit more, you get to like a bunch of guys with like real roles, Like I mean, not that anyone should be that excited about these guys, but like the Tavian Wicks and Ady Mitchell or even and like even like Breshard Smith and things like that, like they don't even get taken one hundred percent of the time. So like a lot of the times I'm just sitting there in round eighteen, I'm like, all right, Tyler Shuck, let's do it. I think even when you have like a Josh Allen type, to me, it just seems like three quarterbacks is so clearly the strategy people should be using.

00:35:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it seems like when I do get that elite quarterback, like if I get a Josh Allen or whomever you know in those early rounds, that third quarterback, it's, like you said, so easy to just get like Jackson Dart because you can just yes, you not only can get him in round eighteen, but you can also just stack him with either Theo Johnson or Darius Slayton, even if you have nothing to do with that game going into that part of the draft, in that team. So I'm with you. It seems like, you know, so let me ask this. If you have let's say Kyler Murray and Joe Burrow, and maybe that's probably the best example because they're playing each other in Week seventeen, but regardless, let's just say you have like Kyler and Burrow or Burrow and Dak. Is that a situation where you would at least consider a two quarterback build or is it still you're gonna try to at least force the three quarterback build.

00:36:07
Speaker 4: I mean, I think it's really all, well, you want to know what it is. It's a little bit of a psychological thing too, where you're like, God, do I really need to take ja Cory Krosskey Merrit, Like this dude's just gonna get cut, He's never gonna play, he's gonna be behind Jeremy mcweapon. I might as well take a guy. What I've been doing a little what I would do less of with Berwin Dak is like take Bryce Young or even even like Sam Darnald Donald is now up to like the sixteenth round on DraftKings, like I would be doing less of that. To me, it just feels like Shuck and Dart in particular would have to be so bad when they played to not add points to the average round, Like it would be very hard for them to not add.

00:36:45
Speaker 3: Points to the average DraftKings roster.

00:36:47
Speaker 1: And are you going for that third quarterback because you want that extra out in the most important weeks? Is it more for those three weeks of three playoff weeks as opposed to like what's going on in the regular season.

00:36:57
Speaker 4: A little bit of both, I mean, adding in that random week seventeen stack is really nice. When Karine won his big best ball tournament, Daniel Jones was the quarterback that contributed the score.

00:37:07
Speaker 3: So stuff like that does happen.

00:37:09
Speaker 4: It's actually more of an advanced rate play though, ye, just because over the course of fifteen and to be clear, to go back to my initial answer, advance rate is still very much important because you can't control what happens in week seventeen, like doing things to suboptimally hurt your advance rate in names of like uniqueness I think is bad. But so it's a little bit call may, a little bit of calm be there.

00:37:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, So with elite tight ends, then you know on DraftKings you have Bowers usually goes in that early second range. McBride goes I mean sometimes with Bride slides like the mid third, but usually at that two three turn area, and then Kittle at the three four turn. Do you categorize the elite tight ends as those three number one I should ask? And then the second part of this is that a position that you are spending up on because the advantage they can give, or do you feel good about what you can get in around fifteen, sixteen seventeen, et cetera, because we are getting usable tight ends late in these drafts versus you know, even at quarterback. Yes, we just talked about Jackson Dart and Tyler Shuck and such. But the guys who are actually playing all season long, like the Gnos or the Bryce Young or whomever, they have risen a little bit in ADP, which you know, changes the dynamic of like early round quarterbacks maybe being a little bit more attractive if you want to squint a little bit and then you know, but with tight end, if you're getting usable guys in round eighteen nineteen twenty, does that make you want to wait more? Or are you getting the elite one?

00:38:34
Speaker 4: I mean, brock Bauers might just be like overall the best pick on DraftKings. He just is you know, the hundred yard bonuses full point PPR. I mean, it would not surprise to me at brock Bauers subtracting the quarterbacks so it's like a top three skill position player in terms of raw points on DraftKings this year really wouldn't surprise me at all.

00:38:54
Speaker 3: There is just like a window.

00:38:55
Speaker 4: Of tight ends on DraftKings that is so appealing though, when all the good skill position players are gone and then you're left with Tyler Warren David and Joku, Tuck her Craft, Dallas Goddard, just like kind of that whole range of guys. I find myself quite often sitting there round ten and being like, well, yeah, I'm just gonna take David and Joker. He's gonna catch eighty passes like it's fine. Not that I dislike. I'll tell you the one I don't draft a ton of is Kittle because he is sort of penalized by the format like rewarding a full point per perception, because even like a really good Kittle season is probably eighty catches, like a Nutted season, He's more of a touchdown guy. Not that I never draft Kittle, He's just not a core part of my strategy.

00:39:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think you make a good point, though, where like I can make an argument for basically all if you want to just categorize the tight ends in like three spots where you're talking elite, middle round, and late. I feel like on DraftKings, the wage drafts of sort and ADP have sort of shifted and sorted out. You could probably make an argument for each pocket and in some way, like I definitely can make the argument for Bower, McBride and Kittle, very easily obviously, and then the tier that you were talking about with like like I got a ton of Dallas Goddter because there's contingent upside and he's just a forgotten about dude oftentimes, or like a Tucker Craft or whomever. But then there are like the Tyler Higbees of the world who could easily be usable, you know, in the last round of your draft and so on. So like, I don't know, I feel like last year was, you know, when you look at at best Ball, last year was a year where you really had to sort of decide how you're gonna attack tight end because it was either like like we had this giant cluster of these earlier round guys. This year, I feel like you can go in a lot of different directions like are you are you there? Like like a like a are your builds varying at the position?

00:40:37
Speaker 4: It seems like, I mean, I think that is like the optimal strategy, going back to telling the guy like I don't think you should do the same thing a bunch because then your season just ends up kind of being tied to like six guys doing well, and if they don't do well, then it doesn't matter if you randomly pulled out a you know, twenty twenty five Kyra and Puka team, if you're held down by a bunch of dead weight at the top it, I would say, like, if I had to rank them an order of how I liked it, I would say number one strategy is Bowers or McBride early, and then two really late guys like a Jatavian Sanders Juwan Johnson combo, followed by two of the mid tier guys like do a double tap Warren and Joku Kraft whatever. And then the one that I really wouldn't do a ton is three late guys that just feels like you're you're just not giving yourself enough ceiling. Like if your tight end room is Mike Gezicki, Arondez Gadsden, and Dalton Harold A Dalton Schultz, Yeah, it's just like you could maybe limp by, but I think you're gonna have a hard time finding Spike Weeks.

00:41:42
Speaker 1: Yeah. Are there any late round tight ends though that you are going after? I mean, we just named some random dudes, you know, as just like a laughable picks, But it does feel like there are some interesting guys that are going late.

00:41:52
Speaker 4: I mean, late and rational is Juan Johnson and Theo Johnson, who are just starting tight ends on their team and are probably each going to catch fifty passes. Late and irrational are Aronde Gadsden, the second for the Los Angeles Chargers. I mean, I think he probably is the best receiving tight end on the team, but I don't know if that means he's gonna run thirty percent of the routes or sixty percent. And true irrational is Harold Fannon for the Cleveland Browns. Basically, you just say there's no Jamari Thrash is not a slot wide receiver. Deontay Johnson doesn't exist. I mean, look, the coaching staff and the play caller Stefanski and I forget the name of the offensive coordinator, did both say like, oh yeah, I mean we think he could probably catch fifty passes if we asked him to. So, I mean that's kind of more of do as I say, not as I do, because I am taking those guys. But I wouldn't be taking a ton of fanon in Gadsden, but a little bit.

00:42:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, how do you handle like with a guy like Gadsdon, Let's say, who doesn't get drafted in every draft. I don't know what his his total you know, exposure is, and a ownership is across all drafts, right, No, Yeah, let's say that if a guy's sub ten percent, sub fifteen percent, And what I mean by that for those listening is if a player isn't draft is only drafted in ten to fifteen percent of overall drafts, does that make you want to be extra overweight? Or is that a situation where like if you're at ten or eleven or twelve percent, you don't need to be at ten, eleven or twelve percent because obviously, even if your exposure is at five or six percent, you're still overweight versus where the market's at. But like, if you're like Gadson, for instance, are you just like I'll be overweight on this dude. He's my tight end three? I know that I'm getting an extra edge with him because people aren't drafting him. Or are you kind of pulling it back because the market kind of knows what it's doing.

00:43:42
Speaker 4: I would say I don't care at tight end all that much about ownership type stuff. Like it's it's really tight end is pretty binary in terms of like are you one of the guys who scores eight touchdowns? Yeah, or does he not? I at like running back and wide receiver. That can be like a pretty useful decision making tool. Like a good example from last year was are Yoshibas being like, okay, once he started getting the camp buzz, you know that all these teams that got drafted from May to June, like he literally probably was like zero percent drafted. So that is like a really strong reason to start taking someone. Jacry Krofsky Merrit who I did just mention earlier he would be a good one, like really low drafted rate. He's getting a little bit of a buzz now. Elijah Mitchell for the Chiefs like seeming like he's just like a really strong bet to make the roster, whereas Kareem Hunt is like basically one hundred percent drafted on draft Kings for for some reason that I don't quite understand.

00:44:36
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think.

00:44:37
Speaker 1: I don't think I've clicked his name once so far, very very strange. Yeah, let me ask you about the looming suspensions. I talked to Levitan about this a little bit last week. I opened the show about it a little bit last week. But I won as many perspectives as possible, because I think it's one of the bigger things that we have to worry about right now, especially especially right now, but just in general, until we learned for sure, you know how long these guys are going to be out. But we're sitting here looking at Rashi Rice, Jordan, Addison is likely going to be suspended, Quinn shown Judkins doesn't even have a contract right now, so it's even more difficult to figure out what the heck's going to go on there. I mean, obviously he hasn't gone through the you know, the legal process like Addison and Rashie Rice have. How do you handle that all of the suspension stuff? And do you think the market on DraftKings has shifted enough with these players, you know, and where they're generally being drafted right now, or do you think that like like one example that I go back to, and I've brought this up on the show in the past, and I talk about on my live streams, because there's someone who I've gone back and forth with about Addison, like Addison hasn't No one's been handed their suspension yet, right we all kind of know something's coming with like Addison in particular, you can sit here and say that you think where Addison goes right now is actually a fair price, even with the looming suspension. Like if you were to get three games and he's going in like the early to mid seventh, you're like, yeah, that's still fine, that's a fine price. But are you a believer that the mark once it officially learns that Jordan Adison is suspended for three games, his price is gonna fall more? Or are we sitting in a position right now where a guy like Rice, a guy like Addison, they're properly priced right now and we should be attacking those players.

00:46:14
Speaker 4: I bet when he like actually gets the official red o on DraftKings, he probably slips a little bit more. I think it's like pretty negligible, though, Like I don't think I don't think it's going to be like a full round.

00:46:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think i'd be.

00:46:25
Speaker 1: I've seen it is like it's like probably like a half round, and like the opportunity cost really isn't that significant when you're talking about that half round, you know, like look at what's going on around But then I look at like Ricky Piersall goes on on on the.

00:46:39
Speaker 4: Pup because because he had the it's because he had the oh because.

00:46:43
Speaker 1: And peersaw you were we were drafting him in early seven, right, and then all of a sudden you're getting him in the late eight. Like it was like a to almost a two round difference at times. So I'm trying to really figure out if I should just get Addison exposure right now when it when it falls in my lap and where I feel good about it, or is it something that I should just be waiting on, you know, because people are reactive to this kind of stuff.

00:47:06
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I just have him like right about at market. Yeah, you know, he's not like a huge part of my strategy this year, nor am I like outright fading him. A pretty key difference between best ball in your home league is like actually like Addison Rice, Like, let's say Judkins gets a six game suspension, IU, let's say he's on the pup. These guys are dead weight in like a much worse way in your league because it prevents you from making potential league winning moves Like oh.

00:47:36
Speaker 3: Man, I can't, I can't. I mean I drafted Jordan Neis.

00:47:39
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna cut him, and I can't cut this other roster clogger yet, and therefore I didn't pick up Sean Tucker, who actually ended up getting thirteen carries the next week for the Buccaneers, and my buddy did, and I lost my league. But these decisions are made, they're set, and most of these suspensions are taking place at the time of the year that we would like them to have happen in bestball is before the bye week start, before your entire injury, before your roster started to be decimated by injuries. Like if Rashi Rice is, I'd be curious one of these nerds out there should run this. I don't have the capability of doing this, but run Rashi Rice for a full season at I don't know, you know, sixteen point one fantasy points per game over the whole season, and then subtract the first four weeks of the season on an average basketball roster, and like, how much does that change the advance rate? Because I'm gonna guess probably not much, not not as much as you would think.

00:48:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that you're right, and that's why. But the weird thing, it's like this weird combination of like, you know, when we got the Rashi Rice news let's talk about Rice really quick, because I know that you've been on like Worthy two and et cetera. So I really want to dig into like this situation. But like when the Rashi Rice news dropped, Okay, I did, I don't know, eight to twelve drafts over the next two days, and during those drafts, Rice will it's consistently still a late second round pick. On DraftKings was there was someone who had tagged me. I think it was Matthew Betts had tagged me and showed me that Rice was went two to four in a draft after the news had dropped. And so to me, the obvious thing to say is that his ADP should drop to some degree, right, Like it shouldn't just remain stagnant. But I think the question is is he now someone that you should take in the mid third? Is he now someone that you should be taking in the late fourth? Is it someone that you're avoiding? Like where do you think the proper area for Rices? And then I'll ask you on top of that, like the Worthy versus Rice dynamic and how you feel about you know, what Worthy could do to start the season. I know you are already heavy Unworthy to begin with, but like, I'm assuming you're drafting Worthy ahead of Rice as a result of this, and where are you doing that before? Like, where are you at with the whole Kansas City situation?

00:49:53
Speaker 3: No, I had Rice ahead of Worthy.

00:49:54
Speaker 4: I think the right spot for Rice now is kind of that four or five turned Sutton Jamison Williams that group of guys. I moved Worthy way up in my stuff. I mean, I had Worthy ahead of ABP this whole time, but I moved him up to the low, like low thirties, like I think I think he's thirty one, and my stuff, to the point being, I'm higher Unworthy as a player. I do think that Worthy hits in a season where the Chiefs just run back that awful stuck in the mud offense anyways, because he showed that he was pretty capable of kind of facilitating the horizontal stuff that run that they were missing without rights. And if you are of the mind that Kelsey is like Dusty, then there's gonna be even more of a need for the horizontal stuff.

00:50:40
Speaker 3: And then obviously, you know, if they do.

00:50:42
Speaker 4: Return to twenty twenty twenty twenty one Chiefs, I don't think any player stands to benefit more from that than Worthy and the running game, Like what like what are we expecting out of the running back twos like Hunt Mitchell Smith. I mean we saw Worthy stuff be a replacement for that last year. Of all the Chiefs players, I think Worthy is the one who's just like most clearly the fantasy by because of Rice's suspension.

00:51:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, the weird thing is that Worthy has not seemed to rise quite as much as I expected on draftings, Like he's still like I get him in the fourth people think he sucks.

00:51:17
Speaker 3: People just think he's.

00:51:18
Speaker 1: And look, I had I had my question marks more so from a season long perspective, but like I had my question marks about how he was going to be deployed. And I still am not totally all in on the Chiefs just like being like turning like they didn't change offensive coordinator. I think Matt n Aggie's part of the problem with with what with how they've been operating in the last couple of years. And also Worthy did shift his you know, his production got better when they they shifted his deployment and stuff, and like you said, more of that horizontal stuff. But I think the Kelsey point is really valid. And also, like I don't know how you don't react to the Rashi Rice news with Worthy, because now not only does not only is there, you know, this this general out of you know, right, just not being able to play for some of this time, but like there's also the idea that Xavier Worthy is a second year wide receiver who was a good prospect who came on towards the end of last year, and now he could play a pretty significant role for the first chunk of the season, and what if that what if that's stickier than what people are projecting, you know, Like it almost feels like the market is just assuming that when Rice is back, everything just kind of goes back to what was being projected by the market in general, right where Rice is this twenty five percent target share guy. Worthies like an eighteen percent guy, and maybe he gets some big plays, but it's going to be inconsistent, YadA, YadA, YadA. But I think that the main crux of this is that the market's not really factoring in what Xavier Worthy could do during that time to establish himself more, right, like, to be more of that dude. And so I've been surprised that he's been more in that like mid fourth range frequently like four oh seven, four oh eight, he's there pretty often, when that's not even far off from his ADP before all this happened. That's basically that's basically where he was being drafted. It's just so bizarre to me that that there hasn't really been that reaction to the suspension, which then goes back full circle. Leads me to believe that when games actually drop, like when we know Rice is out for four games, or he's out for six or however long it's going to be, when we know that Jordan Addison is out for two or three games, however long it's going to be, that's when the market just seems to react a little bit more just based on you know what we've what we've witnessed.

00:53:24
Speaker 3: I mean, I think you're I think you're absolutely correct.

00:53:26
Speaker 4: You hit on the obvious reasons to expect Worthy to play better, and my guess is you're probably correct that there will be an additional upward movement when the NFL says Rice is suspended four games six games. Although it is bizarre to see two clearly interconnected players and see the news impact one of them, yeah, but not really impact the other one.

00:53:49
Speaker 3: It's it's quite strange.

00:53:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree, it's really strange, especially because the other dude is not Juju Smith Schuster, you know what I mean. Like we're talking about like a legitimate prospect who was very good, like towards the end of last season, obviously he got off to a slow start, who has question marks, don't get me wrong. Like it's not like he has a flawless profile and he's undersized and all that kind of stuff, but like it seems like the kind of player that would rise in ADP with this kind of news, and it just hasn't happened. So, you know, anyone listening. I know Davis signs off on this because he's been high and worthy, But like I've gotten the majority of my worthy exposure or like a lot of worthy exposure over the last two weeks, and I haven't really lost any sort of equity in doing that or any sort of advantage in doing that. Just because his ADP hasn't changed. I think there might be you know, maybe there is a chance that we see a rise still to come once we hear the Rashi Rice suspension. One question that I've asked some Perspective guests that I think is really important because it's kind of a difficult question to answer, my opinion, You look at the wide receivers ranked like twentieth to fortieth, and you look at them and you're like, yeah, I can make an argument for this guy. I can make an argument for this guy. Are there any players in that range that you actually just feel terrible about and that you're mostly fading?

00:54:58
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't like Courtland Sutton. I don't love Jacobe Myers.

00:55:04
Speaker 3: I don't. I'll tell you Judy is.

00:55:06
Speaker 4: Probably gonna end up being fine, but he's very tough to draft on DraftKings, where getting your quarterback stacks lined up should kind of be what you're thinking from the time you make your first pick, and so to just eliminate one of your wide receivers from adding in a quarterback later is pretty tough.

00:55:25
Speaker 3: I oh, I mean I don't. I don't love Terry McLaurin. He's a little bit more.

00:55:29
Speaker 4: Expensive, although although I did just get him at forty five today this morning and a DraftKings Millie Maker.

00:55:36
Speaker 3: And like that is a totally appropriate price.

00:55:38
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's the you know, the hold out and stuff that's pushing him down a little bit recently, and I've seen him go four or five turn in some drafts where I wasn't going to take him at the three four where I was, and then obviously he hands up falling that far. The judy thing, Like I talked about this on Perspectives last week with Andrew Cooper, the judy thing I totally totally vibe with. To me, if you're getting a similar archetype player or a similar like projected output player in that range, and there's a lot of them in that range, you know, just a cluster of like solid talents that that you know could obviously give you some production this year, why would you not use a tiebreaker? As can I stack this guy? And and I mean, are are you taking any Cleveland quarterback right now? Like? Have you have you leaned into any of them even on DraftKings where you get twenty rounds or have you just mostly faded?

00:56:27
Speaker 4: No, because you're you're having to hit some well, you're just having to hit such a gnarly parlay you have to it. Okay, you get the one who's starting. I mean, if not weeks fifteen, sixteen seventeen, at least week seventeen, then you need to hit the parlay that Cleveland is throwing enough to get there now with Jamis, they did lead the NFL in dropbacks.

00:56:49
Speaker 3: Per game like super pr we I.

00:56:51
Speaker 4: Would guess that if your quarterback room, like if they're starting Gabriel or Shueder, they are probably just gonna be so bad and ground heavy.

00:57:00
Speaker 3: And yeah, rutle like I can't.

00:57:02
Speaker 4: Maybe if, like honestly, if you told me Flacco seventeen games or he starts every game he's healthy, I would take him some. But I think it's like you got a third round rookie quarterback of fifth round rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett digits injure as hamstringing Michael on the pups. So maybe maybe people start clicking Flacco a little bit, but it's Judy's just a very tough.

00:57:23
Speaker 1: Click for me, And yeah, I know. And the thing with Flacco though, it's similar to like Russell Wilson, where you draft him and you're like, is this guy actually gonna be playing for me when it matters most in those weeks that we were just talking about earlier, and I feel much better about Jackson Dart playing at the end of the year. I feel probably even better about the brick because I the Browns are in a really competitive division, Like, what are the odds that Cleveland is a really competitive team As we get into like week twelve, Week thirteen, Week fourteen, and all of a sudden they go to but there's only there's there's multiple outs. Instead of just going to Jackson Dart for the Giants, now we're going to Shador or Gabriel or whomever. And it's just a really really difficult you know, a position and group to click and to draft. So that to me is one of the main reasons too to not get Judy, Like I don't I think there's a reason outside of that where you look at his splits with him without Cedric Tillman, you look at his splits with him without Jamis last year. You know. I know that Amari Cooper, you know, moved, But I would argue that Cedric Tillman is a better player than what Amari Cooper is right now, considering no one's even talking about Amari Cooper, you know, signing with a team and being an impactful player in twenty twenty five. So I just have my concerns, and like you said, with Jamis last year, they threw the ball a ton and Jerry Judy ran a ton of rounds. He's been sworret of my go to. What do you feel about Zay Flowers? Like, is there a difference with him in like a best ball environment versus a season long one, or is that someone that you're fading or targeting?

00:58:52
Speaker 4: Man, I think I'm probably wrong about this one. Like I don't love Flowers, but if Flowers just ran into like an e Lee touchdown season, He's been so efficient and it feels like, in a weird way, the Raven's offensive efficiency has been bad for him because it just doesn't allow him to like a mass volume and Andrew's un likely you would anticipate, you know, kind of drawing more of a red zone share. And they are like the most They're like Eagles esque in terms of just scoring rushing touchdowns inside the five yard line. But like some of these guys who I don't love, like Jacobe Myers or Judy or whatever, I'm like, Wow, I'm just not sure you're that good. I'm like really sure that he's that good, you know, Like I'm really really sure his e Flowers is that good. So if he just ran into like I don't know. Man, if you told me he caught ninety one passes, I'd be like, oh, well, he was the guy you had to have.

00:59:47
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah that year.

00:59:48
Speaker 1: Oh look, look, I'm more on the fade side with him, and it's probably he's probably the scariest profile that I feel that way about, just because, like you said, his peripherals, his efficiency so out of control. But then I look and I'm like, the dude's scoring like four or five touchdowns a year, and he's coming off a season where Lamar Jackson is not going to repeat what he did through the air last year, you know, from like a touchdown rates standpoint, like what are the what are the odds that literally regression hits for Lamar and Zay all of a sudden, because like Zay's expected touchdowns are weren't very high either, because he's just not used in that way, right, And so to me, he's kind of like a really rock solid three, you know. Uh, And obviously he has big play upside, so maybe that changes the dynamic and best ball, But I think he's one of the harder players to feel that way about, if you will. It's just really tough when you got like, you know, George Pickens and stuff, who just has like very clear upside in that in that area, very clear.

01:00:39
Speaker 4: Yes, no, you're you're you're You're absolutely correct and and it's probably one of those things that I'm like wrong about. But it is hard to change the behavior because I like a lot of the other players that go around him too. It's like, Okay, who am I going to rank him over? You know, you know what, you know what, it'll be the one that'll feel dumb in the end, It'll be It'll be Jalen Waddle. It'll be Jayalen Moddel which just easily suck again and every week and and and Flowers will be awesome and you'll be like, yeah, but the projected volume wasn't even close.

01:01:09
Speaker 3: Jealen Waddle was way better in the projections.

01:01:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, you're you're definitely right. It's it's it's strange though, like do you feel like the you know, especially with like the Stafford stuff. I don't know, you know, we don't know how serious the Stafford stuff is right now, but it's.

01:01:23
Speaker 3: Not He's had he's had a hurt back.

01:01:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. He's also like trust me, I know, as being an old.

01:01:28
Speaker 4: Dad, you know, that that well, you know, it's funny, is I've actually done I've actually done some scouting because he was on Bryson Deshambeau's YouTube channel this offseason. They golf together, and he looked very nimble, he looked and he's got a quite he's got quite a good golf. I mean, as you would anticipate, he has a he has a pretty good swing.

01:01:49
Speaker 3: So I'm not worried. The party line right now is I'm not worried.

01:01:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I drafted him yesterday, so I'm hoping that he's fine. But my point is is that when you get to that like mid third area of DraftKings drafts okay, where it's like JSN, you get into too DeVante, who I've been really high on, you know. So that's why I brought up the Stafford thing, just because he's kind of part of that that cluster. But you get JSN, even Marvin Harrison you can throw in there, and then you get into McLaurin. Does it feel like to you, because it feels like to me that I just prefer the value of the fifth round guys more than the value of those third round guys because there isn't necessarily such a dramatic tear drop there, and that's making me then more overweight on the fifth round guys, and then what that's also doing is then making it more difficult to draft a player like Zay Flowers. Is that sort of the experience that you've had or are you just cool with just going wide receiver like in that third like the jsn's, the Marvin Harrison's, the you know, Terry, I guess you know you already mentioned the McLaurin stuff, but like that to me kind of feels like a like an anchor running back range at times if, like you know, if the right guys, especially with the mari and Hampton there pretty frequently now, like it just feels like an easier spot to go running back. I'm just trying not to have my all be the same. But like I at the end of the day have felt better about the fifth round white House in the third round Whiteouts. Are you there too?

01:03:09
Speaker 3: Yes? Yeah, absolutely.

01:03:10
Speaker 4: I Mean some of those guys just feel like they're there because they've always been there, because that's just what the rankings and the ADP was when it came out. But you know, I don't know, like George Pickens and JSN feel like a coin flip to me, or or Jameson Williams versus Terry McLaurin, or or you know, like even Marvin Harrison Junior. You know, like if Marvin Harrison Junior and Jalen Wata were going right back to back, I'd be like, I don't know sure, I guess that basically makes sense. So I've been taking a ton of Hampton, Chase Brown, you know, these guys, and I think it's actually a good argument for maybe taking some of the elite quarterbacks more often than would be my preferences, Like Okay, well it's okay, I'll just take this awesome quarterback who I know is going to be awesome right now and make it up at wide receiver later.

01:03:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's a great point. It's one you know, obviously there's gonna be some drafts where like Lamar and Josh Allen are going like two three turn, but when they go to when they go at ADP and they fall into the three four turn pretty frequently, it makes more sense to probably go after them. Just given the kind of flat tier a wide receiver that we see. Let me ask you what stacks you've been going after. It's something that everyone always wants to hear. Who are you overweight on?

01:04:21
Speaker 4: From a team perspective, I mean, frankly, I guarantee if I pull my stuff up right now, the top team I have stacked is the Saints just because of how cheap Tyler Tyler Shuck is and even even Rashid Shaheed. My top stacked team that costs anything, though, is the forty nine ers easiest schedule in the NFL. I mean, do I love Ricky pearsall? I mean, I have no idea I Ricky piersol is any good or not. But Piersal Jennings, Purty Girendo, Jordan James, these guys are are all, you know, really really nicely priced mid tier type stuff. I really like doing May and then one of his guys a little bit later, and I love doing Jordan Love and then Dubs and then Win.

01:05:06
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, DraftKings, especially for what I say this all the time, but for whatever reason, Jordan Love seems like he's the falling pocket passer most frequently, like he's the one that like. And it's weird because you have a situation where you actually have multiple wideouts that go in front of him, you know, and Golden and Reds. There's like other teams that would hypothetically want to be reaching for him to complete that stack. But like you said, you can get Craft. You can make a turn and just get Craft with love. You can get Romeo Dubs a little bit later and get your boy Dntavian Wicks towards the end of the draft to pair with Love. So I like that call out a lot. All right, last question for you. Give me some some players on DraftKings right now that you think are just massively undervalued.

01:05:47
Speaker 4: Hollywood Brown is one of them, Di Mario Douglas and Wandale Robinson. Look, they're they're not like good picks.

01:05:55
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, those are not very Davis Mattic picks.

01:05:58
Speaker 3: Sure, they're not pick.

01:06:01
Speaker 4: But what they allow you to do is they allow you to first take the suspended guys, Rice Addison, can you can get away with some Travis Hunter, some Golden some Mgbouga like you're expecting those guys is production to kind of take a little bit of time, and then the the slappy triumvirate of Byshelle Touton, Jaden Blue and Brishard Smith are I think I believe my three most drafted running backs on DraftKings the aforementioned Tyler Shuck, Juwan Johnson Stack trying to you know what here, Here's here's a spicy one. Here, here's an actual hot take, brock Bauers. Brock Bauers in a full point per perception format probably should be going ahead of like Brian Thomas Junior and those guys like he could have an Aman Ross Saint Brown statistical season while being eligible at tight end, which is very valuable.

01:06:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, love those takes. Davis as always, thanks for hopping on talking some best ball. Let everyone know where they can find you, your YouTube channel and what you're working on.

01:07:02
Speaker 4: Yeah, everyone can get all my content at YouTube dot com slash at Davis underscore matic than all of my written stuff, rankings analysis, all that over at patreon dot com slash Davis Mattock. Thanks thanks for having me on. When are you changing the title of the series too? Became a best ball?

01:07:21
Speaker 3: Bro? Is that next year? Is that? For season three?

01:07:23
Speaker 1: We'll see how the results go. Like last year wasn't the best overall, really weird, structurally not sound season with the way that the running back position went. I don't know. I feel good about this year so far. I think I feel better this year than I did last year. A lot more learning and like I do things in drafts, in live streams and stuff, where like other Best Ball bros Are like, yeah, that was the right move, that was the smart thing to do. It's just a different like I think anyone who's making the transition from season long to best Ball knows that. Like when you start to when you start past ball, you're like it's like the parabola meme where you're like you're like, oh I got or what you know you or Dunning Krueger in a way right where it's like, oh this, yeah, this is this isn't that tough? Or as Kitchen would say, it's solvable. And then you start to dig in more and more. And then you dig in a little bit more, you're like, I know nothing, right, and then as you kind of go in a little bit more, you get more and more comfortable. So we'll see, we'll see how this year goes. Maybe next year is I've become a Best Ball bro and I can, uh, you know, have a different conversation with people. But but we'll see. Then we'll see it should be fun. Uh. Anyway, all my stuff you can find over on lateround dot com. Make sure you are ordering that draft guide which is available right now, make sure you subscribe to this podcast, and make sure you are subscribed to the YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash at Late round FF. Once again, Davis, thanks for joining, and thanks to all of you as always for tuning.