10 Tips & Tricks to Win Your League + MEGALABOWL! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/19

your mission should you choose to accept is to crush humility and totally destroy your competition and your fantasy football draft it's incredibly simple so let me just break it down ultimate draft kit the ultimate draft kit for the fantasy footballers is hands down the best fantasy tool in existence I mean come on it's got sleepers it's got bus injury updates full projections this thing's even got full-time as do rentals don't overthink this it's the only wingman you'll need to ship head over to ultimate draft kit.com and grab your copy right away welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host Andy Holloway Jason Moore and Mike Rite oh, welcome in the fantasy footballers podcast Wednesday August 19th Mike Rite Jason Moore Andy Holloway in the building in the house oh their growls are percolating the doosers are doosing as they do every day but yeah we got to I mean we could just we can give straight to it I mean we got a big what got a big announcement today I don't want to hear the like subtle straight-to-bull what people have been asking for a while it's time go ahead Jay ahead what what's your name oh it's terrifying this is terrifying that's right the mega-ball for 2026 it's time maybe that graphic is awesome yeah we have a program in the back but point out some scale issues these those footballs there's some they're the size of a boat's a large football if you don't know what the mega-ball it is is it is the largest fantasy football league it is the most prestigious the fantasy football league is more than 21,000 of you played it last year it is mega-ball dot com if you're a football and supporter you get an entry into the mega-ball drafts will be held Friday September 4th all the way through Tuesday September 8th kickoff is Wednesday this year and you can write this moment go to mega-ball dot com and you can claim your draft slot today yeah it's it's a fun league we try to make all of the rules all the settings exactly similar to how we play our league of record other than it's not a keeper format you know you're going to play against 12 people randomly assigned other footballing members that did love this game giant balls are back I think I broke something but it disappeared too soon I wanted it back for the second time when Jason was talking yeah so but the the leagues are really really fun you're gonna be playing with other footballing members in the end the last three weeks if you make the playoffs which the top half of each league does it's tournament style highest points goes forward each week until the championship and at that final week the winner of the mega-ball is guaranteed a spot with us in the next year's listener league so if you've been not all and you ultimate subscription but wait for life for life yeah the ultimate footballing membership you will be a part of this forever so a lot of cool reasons to play in the mega-ball everybody loves it sign up make sure you do it now there's plenty of draft slots to to go around we're gonna play you know I'm in it I've already got my draft draft signed up I'm sure the doosters will be in there and it'll be a great time so you can do it now mega-ball dot watching this come ahead we need to make that screen like an aquarium more often oh yeah that's feeling good yeah that was nice I should add this to like if you bought the ultimate draft kit and you want to be in the mega-ball and you're not a foot claim member we will credit your full amount of the UDK towards an ultimate membership so it's a dollar for dollar all the way up till kickoff it's just what we do every year because sometimes people buy the UDK and they're like well I want to be in the mega-ball I don't wait until kickoff though because then you'll miss the draft yeah don't do that just do it right now and as far as how you do that it's really easy you just if you're logged in and you have the UDK then it'll automatically when you go to the the foot claim membership page it just automatically will show you the discount yep so uh there you go mega-ball dot com news and notes from around the league by the way we finally have our top 10 tips and tricks dang it it's not tricks it's tips and oh it is tips and tricks tricks really tips I've been doing this every day now oh man what is good at me what is dementia you know what I mean what is that how do you spell dementia J A N D Y we would tell you but you won't remember okay yeah that's today we will have tips and tricks you may not believe in any of mine after this intro album Camara here's some news we'll miss at least one month due to a sprained mc L rumbalaya and somehow Kendra Miller is back practice I don't believe you yeah but Travis H and junior big deal yes Kendra Miller Devon Neal back at practice but they are not the type of backs like I do worry about Travis H and junior with Camara involved he is you know obviously a big part of this franchise and he will take some of the receiving work with him gone Kendra Miller and Devon Neal are not going to eat into Travis H and junior we'll talk more about him upcoming but this is good news for for Travis H and junior sorry Camara Quentin Johnson left Tuesday's joint practice against the 49ers with an undisclosed lower body injury but is quote totally fine well that you know okay actually what's ironic about this is that the news was about Quentin Johnson's injury and then you see that and you go oh dude my god tray Harris but then it turns out the truth is that tray Harris was actually missing he was gone for injury undisclosed and Quentin Johnson's fine so really the news is not that Quentin Johnson's injured it's the tray Harris is why don't you share the other news for the other ones no I wasn't sure yeah the the all-world center that the chargers picked up Tyler Beattish he's going to miss a significant amount of time sounds like a lot yeah he injured several ligaments damaged to his ACL and additional injuries to his left knee gross he is seeking second opinions on how to deal with it so we don't know for sure I mean as of right now I think I the we just assume he's gone for the season TBD it could change but it's terrible awful very bad very bad news and slater their left tackle also currently injured his is much better he's you know he's gonna miss a little bit of time but I mean yes it is better than potentially missing the whole season but I didn't they say it was a flare up I thought I had read that so maybe I'm speaking out of turn no I'm unaware if it was a flare up or not yeah that is that's not great Kyle shanahan said after Tuesday's practice Mike Evans experienced tightness this is quadriceps Mike Evans did he also Simpson give he got back out there and goes well also I heard a foot injury on top of this Mike Evans is falling apart he should never have gone near that substation they're they're running out of of wide receivers not named strip club right now yeah it is confirmed that slater is a flare up but the timeline is supposed to be about two weeks and I but I say flare up as in because he's coming off a torn patella so it's that yeah that's not good that's not what you want to hear it's like having a quadriceps injury after having a quadriceps injury for Mike Evans yeah carnaltate undisclosed absence from practice it was he took a very big hit and they weren't saying whether or not he had a concussion but he didn't participate in the next day's practice so dealing with something but it was it seemed like it was head-related did you know Jerome Ford was a member of the commander stage I did yeah and he is now on injured reserve I so is he so then he's toast he's out for the year I just see injured reserve I don't think injured reserve guarantees loss for the year right now is it is it the whole year man I don't sure I'm Ford was not a no but Rashad White is not practicing I mean right now it's it's Bill so draft and then Jalen Mellon back up practice for the Buccaneers which that is news that that team needed yeah I mean there there was more news on a mechek buka he was wearing a one of those like hard soul like shoes to protect the toe Which, from what they were saying, you know, things came back clean. It's just not a great sign for the grade of whatever turf toe. If it's turf toe, he's dealing with which it's turf toe. - Well, what about me, Jay? - Yeah. - Give me some of the break. - That hurts. - Yeah. - Really, what about Chris Godwin? - Who cares? - Yeah. - And Tess. - No, Chris Godwin, looking like a mighty nice value right now. - All right, I don't think we have other news unless anything's been happening. I mean, we either have like injury news that's real or injury news where they're like, that player just left and went to the tent and then went right back out on the field and they're like, oh, okay. - We get those a lot. I freak out many times today. - Oh, many times a day. - A pump fake yesterday. - Oh yeah. - Oh, unnecessary. - A lot of these. - Take the injury, right? Wasn't it a concern about head? - Oh man, I didn't see that. If it was that, I would have probably peed my pants. - Yeah. - I think I really would have peed my pants. If it was a head injury. - That's what your reaction was. - I would have done it. - I would have done it on purpose. I would have done it just. - In protest? - Yeah. - So not like a scared pee. - No, no, no. - But just like a sat there until it was time. This is for you. (laughing) - This is for you. (laughing) - Godly, godly. - Well, we have our 10 tips and tricks. We want to share with you. It's a big show. So we're gonna kick it off right now. (upbeat music) - Tips and tricks. (upbeat music) - All right, it is time to jump in. Each of us contributing three different ideas for 20, 26 in terms of things to pay attention to, things that we're learning. We always try to bring you something new in this episode each and every year. So let's get it going. - Number 10. All right, number 10, loosely titled, "Out of Your Depths." I wanted to take a look and see how much depth you actually need to win at fantasy. I've said it for years at Mike's championship last year. I mean, and his dynasty team have been built on a lot of depth and the unwillingness to trade away some of that depth mid season and held on to it. And it paid off. - I don't know when to consolidate. - And I've always said, I adore putting together that perfect best starting lineup. But how much depth do you actually need? So let me give you some uncomfortable math to start off. 27%, that is the chance. - That is uncomfortable. - That is very uncomfortable. - Yeah, I hate that. - That is the chance of Jason peeing his pants on a daily, no, the chance of a running back playing a full season. 27%. That is, you know, any running back. Seven out of 10 missed games. Last year, here's some more math. Only six of the top 24 whiteouts that were drafted played a full season. Two of the top 12 drafted receivers played every game. So some level setting there for the amount of injury and things that you're gonna deal with. Here's uncomfortable math part two. Since 2010, only about 36% of running back one picks actually beat their draft slot. - Gross. - So you have injury risk, you have missing games and then you have performance risk. So basically the math is saying that roughly half of your first nine picks will either underperform their cost or get injured and you're probably gonna cough up 12 to 15 stars due to injury. So not surprisingly, you need depth. That is the answer to the question. So maybe we don't always realize it and you try to thread the needle. Maybe you can get really lucky. Some of the best NFL teams are the healthiest teams at the end of the year. That's nice. But what strategy do you apply per position and how should you think about that? So briefly, I just wanna talk about running back position when it comes to depth, injuries transfer value for that team very predictably. In the sense that the backup for the team or the committee back generally steps into that role. So you know, I mean, we've named a bunch of guys this off season Blake Horum, Tank Bigsby. You know that there are top tier backups and committee situations that are valuable to target. I'm a non-guys one of them. Kenny Gainwell is one of them. These are draft day targets that you can add knowing that they're going to have a direct predictable value if the starter goes down. On the other hand, talk to your wide receivers. If they go down, the targets on that team tend to scatter around. Not very many teams are the Pickens CD LAN situation. So what that means for wide receivers or what this tip kind of alludes to is that it's much tougher to predict or pre-draft the players are going to benefit from injury. Even though you know injuries are going to happen at the wide receiver position. So the way I like to think about it is you can get predictable value transfer with depth running back to selections. But the waiver wire is really going to be the place that you win when it comes to finding a valuable wide receiver. And this is why I like to take swings later on high upside guys at the beginning that may be beneficial to your team. And you can see right away. Depth is not fully solved at the draft. That's the point is you can draft a bunch of really good players. But you're going to deal with these injuries. You're going to deal with wide receivers. And those are going to get solved on the waiver wire more than they'll get solved by drafting the next man up type of thing at wide receivers. So the math is tough. The math I don't like. I don't like, I mean, we don't like it right now in preseason. The amount of injuries and things that don't, the unpredictable is going to happen. It is inevitable. Yeah, it sucks. I do like the idea, just the mathematical reality that stashing more running backs at the end of your bench is probably wiser than the wide receivers. Because wide receivers, I mean, we've talked about this before, we'll talk about it. Again, the rookies get better as time goes on. Not first rounders, but the later drafted rookies. There's also guys that come out and want Jennings last year. Sorry, breaking news. Oh, no, don't be bad. Don't be bad. Don't be bad. Is it bad? It's bad. Jaden Higgins is a torn ACL. Oh, man. So he used in Texans. He was one of the big publicity guys like the Pat Bryant and Cyrus Alex. Jaden Higgins talk was, that's Texans wide receiver. That's him. He was. That's a big one. That is a major injury for them because. Was yesterday the sleeper episode? I don't. This week, we had the sleeper episode. I went Jordan Mason, but it was close between Jordan Mason and Jaden Higgins, but then he had the injury. That stinks. Obviously, Tank Dell now has a shot. It's, yeah, I mean, their depth chart is so Tank Dell, which that's a complete wild card of number one. Will he ever really be back at the lead type of injury? You know, there's Hutchinson and other players involved. Yeah, and then and their third rounder from last year, Jaylen Nol, I don't know that he's a player that can like take over for Jaden Higgins. It's probably Hutchinson and the doc Andy, the slowest man alive. Dr. Schultz. He is so there, bro. If you're in a tight end premium, where you get boosted reception totals, dolm Shultz is probably going to have 80 plus. I didn't want to start the 10 tips and tricks. Yeah, sorry, but breaking news, but yeah, the TLDR there, build your draft around starters, spend the back end on running back backups. You know, we're going to have a shot and receiver lottery tickets and then realize that you're going to need to you build the team in August, but it's finished up in November, right? You keep the waiver wire going, lay the whole season, recognize that you can keep adding like, I think maybe another thought that just hit my mind too is that like, don't be don't wait so long to take a shot on guys that you know, we're going to have chances at the waiver wire to start the year, just add more and more depth, never think that you're done. Yes, I very much agree with that. All right, we are going to take a quick break and then we'll move it on to one of Jason's picks. All right, we're into our 10 tips and tricks and we're on to number nine. Mocking like a ding dong, baby, mock it like it's hot, mock drafts are exceptionally important. I know our mock draft episodes, people love watching, but you need to be doing mock drafts and you need to know how you should be doing mock drafts. This is one of the most important tools available to have success in fantasy football. This is why we just built a mock draft tool in the ultimate draft kit. We have it now and our, you know, we've had over a, I probably at this point over 200,000 mock drafts done on our mock draft tool. We've had a lot of feedback. People are loving the fact that you can, you can actually put it to the platform you're playing on and you can, you can use it to where you're seeing what you're going to see. I want to give you a couple examples of why that's important. Kyron right now is around cheaper on ESPN than he is on sleeper, like just, just better values. T Higgins right now is round three on Yahoo and a fifth rounder on ESPN, whereas Garrett Wilson is the exact opposite. You got David Montgomery, a guy that I, in the office, he's like, I, I like David Montgomery. Now it's like, he's a fifth rounder. But then I was like, I was like, he's a seventh rounder on ESPN. That's not like, okay, even I can get with that. All right, Trevo, you know, Trevo's a seventh rounder on ESPN, a fourth rounder on sleeper. I mean, those are wildly different. So what you do is you use, you. put in the platform that you're playing on so that you can see what the ADP is, ADP affects drafts. ADP, it affects even our, like we make these, we make these the psychology of every player in your draft when you see the board. And they feel like they're passing on somebody perceived to be better because the system tells them. Yes. And, and so then once you are doing mock drafts with your platform ADP in there so that you can get an idea, you, you, the way that you do, we say this all the time, right, stay water, not stone, like be willing to pivot. That does not mean have no plan. Don't just know players and have no idea where you're going when, when this happens, you know, genuinely a draft is if this, then that I go into every league of record draft knowing if this happens, then I will do that. You know, look at if you don't know where you're drafting from, you should be draft, you should be doing mock drafts from the second pick, the seventh pick and the twelfth pick because at that point, you get to know who is available around the two, three turn or the three, four turn or if I'm in the middle of the draft, you get to know what player types are there. And your first four rounds of your draft should really, maybe even the first three rounds should really dictate where you go. And it's different for everybody because what you think of certain players, you know, you might be out on Tyler Warren, Colson Lovelin, you might be totally in on them and that, that makes a big difference. If, you know, a perfect example here of knowing what your game plan is, is if you do mock drafts, first of all, you should not be just, every time you do a mock draft, it's like, I'm going to grab the, I'm just drafting the players I like the most every time and then you end up with the same type of team over and over. You need to explore other options that I have found personally that when I choose to draft Brock Bowers or Train McBride, if I pull the trigger on them, which I'm happy to do, I hate my team if my first round pick was a wide receiver because then in the third round, I'm drafting my first running back. It gets kind of like, I just don't love where it goes personally. So if in the first round, I, I just learned from mocking like, oh, if I ended up with a really good stud running back, then I can grab Brock in the second or McBride and then license to Brock. License to Brock and so you can't get that experience without trying, like, taking early quarterback, punt quarterback, just explore and I'm telling you, your drafts will be 100 times better if you spend and you can do this in one day, you just do four or five mocks from the spot where you are or if you don't know, do beginning, middle and end mocks and just have a plan saying, if, if I start this way, the end is good or the end is bad and you'll have far more success in fantasy football. Yeah, and you know, less likely to have those panic picks in the middle of a draft, I'd say as well. All right, Mike. Number eight. All right, these tips and tricks, you know, sometimes we like to get, you know, in the weeds, like Andy's digging through a bunch of data, a bunch of numbers and analytics and things, my tip is real easy because this is just, this is a reminder, we're calling this tip, mark my words and it's literally that mark your players like at the bottom of the draft in the bottom of the ADP and I say this because you're like, oh, of course I do. It's so obvious. It's real easy to forget, man, like do it right now. I, you know, we've had several times in our league of record drafts where you're going through the draft, we're in like round eight or round nine and then a name gets called out and I go, oh, because I literally forgot to mark that player. Like it was just, I'm telling myself in my head over and over, I'm going to do this so I don't forget this player. I never get to marking that guy. So do it right now. Like players who are lower in ADP that you're, you're interested in, you know, like Stefan Diggs, he's going to be way down in ADP because he just, he's not going to get enough time to climb up the, the actual board, but people are going to know. Keenan out. Keenan out. Exactly. These, these types of players that you know, you do want to get value on that player, but everyone else does as well and just, they can get lost in the shuffle. They really, and there's, there's different ways you can mark them. If you've got the UDK, we have, you can, you can literally highlight them. If you're printing a cheat sheet, circle them, go to the bottom and circle them. You have to do that. Otherwise, you forget to tank Bigs B is out there. I wanted to leave the draft with him and. Exactly. And then like, right, tank Dell. I'm seeing a 16th rounder. That's you're not going to see him. He's not going to naturally see him. He's not. Yes. You won't just cash now because you won't scroll down far enough to see him. I love it. And other, other teams, other fantasy managers are going to be targeting those players as well. And you're going to hear their name or see a pop across the screen and you're going to go, gosh darn it. I would also say, I forgot to mark that guy. Right before your draft, the proceeding three or four days, news can break. Sure. And that, those guys are not going to have enough time to move up in ADP. Like if, if this Higgins news happens one or two days before the draft, like you said, tank Dell or maybe it's Hutchinson or maybe you want to raise another player up or Dalton Schultz. You know what I mean? Like just things to pay attention to. It's just being prepared. It's very simple. But we're all humans and we're all we all do done things all the time. So I'm just, hey, hey, just do it right now. Just start marking the players off, especially if you got the UDK, that will really help to mark them. But just do it right now, man. Yeah. I mean, I do the printout, you know, but in the UDK, you can go mark out, you know, four different types of players so that they're highlighted. Yeah. I mean, if you don't, if you don't have, if you don't have it, then just get a piece of paper and write down the name, just write like the names of those guys super low in ADP that you don't want to forget. Yeah. And it'll make you feel like your draft went much better if you steal three or four of those guys at the end. So move it on. Number seven. All right. I'll call this panic free tight end. And this is something that's been emerging a little bit over the last month. I think with some different names, but, you know, we've talked a lot in the off season during our top 10 rankings episode four of the tight ends, how badly we want one of those elite guys Jason just talked about how if he drafts a running back, he feels a little bit of a license to draft Brock or McBride, but I'll throw leveling Warren into that group. But if you don't get them, maybe you have craft, maybe you have kit on, if you don't get the big time tied in, I want to highlight what you should be looking for at the tight end position either laid in the draft or more so on the waiver wire throughout the year, things that we need to pay attention to to actually get viable tight ends later in the draft on the waiver wire that produce. So we looked at the last seven years of data and here are four things that we pay attention to. The big one target share. This is an easy one for us to understand. It's a go to on the show all the time, but targets for I mean, I remember doing this 10 years ago, sorting by sorting the waiver wire tight ends by targets when I'm looking for a streaming tight end, just who's getting the ball targets have the highest correlation year to year for fantasy, just in it just acknowledges how involved the player is in the offense. What we're looking for, 17 plus percent target share closer to 20%. Receiving yards per game again, another easy one to look at, you need 45 plus receiving yards of game to be a top 10 tight end. If you want to be top six, you got to be up over 54 maybe. You look at route share when they're on the field for a pass play, are they blocking? Are they running a route? There are lots of different types of tight ends. So are they actually running routes? What's the percentage of routes they run on their snaps? And then ariard share is something you can look at just to show downfield potential. There are certain tight ends that are just going to be close to the line of scrimmage. Not a lot of them are going to go way down the field. Ariard's measured the distance of football travels through the air from the line of scrimmage to the target. That's the definition of it. And so we want downfield threats, not necessarily, Kyle would say like Austin Hoopers, right? So you want something above 15% in that metric. And so some light round tight ends the highlight this year that meet that, that aren't the top guys. Kyle pits who I really like. I do. I really like it, but his target share. His target share is 21%. Route percentage is 86%. Ariard share 21%. He checks all those boxes. Sam LaPorta target share 18%. Same thing. I mean, he checks all the boxes. Dallas Goddard. And then the one that we haven't said a lot, maybe because he's always infinitely boring in our minds, but Hunter Henry, who just signed another extension target percentage. 17% last year. Route percentage 72%. 15% Ariard share. Just kind of a tried and true guy. There are lots of guys at the end. I mean, I think Isaiah likely is going to be in that category. Sure. This year. But predicting touchdowns is really tough. But looking at target share, looking at Ariards, that's your best chance at not panicking at tight end, not feeling forced to submarine your draft. If Jason's in the first round, and he takes a wide receiver, because that's the best player available to him. And he doesn't go for one of those big names. There are some things that you need to pay attention to at the tight end position. So I just wanted to highlight some of those. Yeah, I mean, this is why personally, I hate middle round tight ends. I just think you're wasting opportunities to get quality running back some of our series because at the end of the draft, when the draft is over and every team has drafted every player imaginable, I can can look on the waiver wire and see five tight ends that I'm like those are just as good as some of these like maybe they're a point worse or their opportunities a little less good, but it's like not that big of a gap. You don't need to freak out about tight ends in the in the middle of your draft. I like that tip. All right. We are moving on. What are we on six? Is that right? Six. Yep. Cool. That's because the sevens on the board. Yeah. That's good. Number six. We are moving on. Moving on from the dusties, you can't that means that the dusty picks at the end of the drafts. I see. Move on from them. Do not just hold them because of promise of the future. What if they're super good? Well, then they're not dust and they're not dusty and you don't need to move on from them. But I want to make it. I think the best way to realize this is not making a move is in and in of itself a move that is your transaction, every action has an equal opposite. You are choosing to keep that player that is that is an active movement. So just to clarify for listeners, you're talking about the lap. When you take those shots at guys, very, very late in the draft, you're saying quickly move on from those players when they don't show you something. Don't stay on the promise that you will see something exactly right. And there has so much data behind this to just say that, you know, we're playing on odds probability game. And the odds are that those guys who don't do something good in week one aren't going to do something good in the first month of the season. It doesn't mean that they won't be good the second half of the season, but you can pick them up off a wavers later. You holding on to them for the six weeks it might take before they finally show up. That's not a good transaction for your team. I talked about this on a former tips and tricks episode of Take Dumps Now, Not Later, with regards to week one and week two, yeah, Matt takes Dumps Now, and later if he's he's a Dumps like a truck, you know, here's the thing, those week one and week two waiver wire pickups, they are statistically, yeah, there it is. Shut up. They're just statistically so much more valuable, not only because you get more weeks, but just because they perform better, the guys who show up in week one tend to do better. Here's a perfect example from last year rounds 11 through 15, okay, no kickers or defense, so that's 60 picks other than, you know, taking out kickers and defense. There were four players of all of them that made an impact in the first month of the season. Let's just like take four of those rounds 11 through 15, yeah, it's just most of them don't order back. So it makes sense of they touch the ball every, every game you're going to know be willing to move on quick, just don't hold on it like draft them. You got to draft someone in the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th round. That's a rule. You have to, but if they don't hit in week one, be fine moving on. Now, the only exception to that, I would say is kind of going with Andy's tip of depth, those insurance running backs, you know, you're, Blake Corms going to be lost everywhere. Yeah, you're not expecting to see something that one you're holding on to so that you don't have to bid 100% of your fab when and if they have the chance to become a superstar outside of that. And I would say especially lower, lower NFL drafted wide receivers, those guys, Cyrus Allen, you talked about him as sleeper. If he's not on a field week one in like, you know, getting 75 plus percent of snaps, on him off a bridge, backster, this thing. Okay. All right. It's Mike's turn number five. Speaking of quarterbacks, the elite quarterback prices are cheaper than ever. And you need to understand what's going on with the market because fantasy football, especially in the draft season, everything is the market. The, you know, the early years of, of this show, we were completely late round quarterback. That was the, the theory, the game theory that we subscribe to, to tremendous success. It because of, I mean, a lot of it was just fantasy football players weren't quite fully educated on the value of that you could extract from the end of, of mobile quarterbacks. You say it was a little bit of the emergence of the mobile power. Yeah. And in like 10 years ago, you know, everyone, well, I got to get Tom Brady, he's the best quarterback in the league. He's going to be the best fantasy football quarterback, of course. And it was, well, actually, if you, your opportunity cost of, of giving up that, that first often back then in or a high second round pick is you're missing out on high probability running backs and wide receivers. The market is kind of flipped that this year, not kind of like, it has severely right now. So Josh Allen is, he's the certified QB one, I think he should be right now. He is going five picks later. So that's not, that's not a, that's not a ton, but he was about the middle of the second last year. Yeah. Compared to last year, in this year, he's going into about the end of the second. And here's where stuff gets wild. The QB two in ADP right now is Lamar Jackson compared to 2025's QB two. It's a full round and a half a later. So your opportunity cost is not a second round pick for the QB two. It's, it's an early fourth rounder. In fact, this year, you have the guys who I think can be up, you know, the most likely to be the elite game changing quarterbacks. The end of that tier is Jane Daniels and Jalen Hertz, who are going right now in the sixth round. The QB five and QB six ADP wise are going in the sixth. So, you know, I still prefer to go into my draft with the idea of, okay, I'm not going to burn an early pick on on a quarterback and really hope that it's the difference maker when I need to be building up my depth like Andy was pointing out. This year though, there's a lot of guys who are presenting value at the at the position. Joe Burrow, a player, I love this year. I love the bangles. I think that burrow can push to be the QB one this year. He's going in the fifth and then they said Daniels and Hertz are going in the sixth. So it's, while you, you can go into if you're a late round quarterback draft or you can go in with that strategy of, you know, I'm, I'm still going to wait. I'm going to get value and I'm not said, there's fun guys who are going late. Of course, someone will emerge from that crop because they do every single year, but when you're building your team, the highest probability is these early quarterbacks, but they're not early round quarterbacks anymore. They're now mid round. It changes the acclaim. So it's all about the market. It's all about the opportunity costs. So just be cognizant of the fact that you're like, I'm, I'm not looking for a quarterback in the fourth round. I normally get them later. Just peak, peak at that quarterback tab and you might be like, holy crap, Lamar Jackson is still there at the turn of the fourth round. What I sometimes just take the value, what I've seen a lot in our mock drafts in my experience this year is that Josh will go, Alan will go. And then people will kind of wait. And then when the next shoe drops on quarterbacks, they all go real quick because it like Lamar Burrow, May, Daniels, Hertz, those guys, you can see the like the game of chicken happening a little bit, which, you know, again, you, you, whether you want to get in on that or not, the value so much different is what Mike's saying. Yeah. And look, this is ADP. You got to know your league. Perhaps you're in a league where quarterbacks just, they fly off early, then you, then you just chill out because there's like we said, there are guys who are going later that are, that are fun and they, you can see what the ceiling case is. You can easily make the ceiling case for a lot of these later round guys. So just, I guess it really, you know, it's just an, an evolution of the stay water. Don't have a, a rock solid firm plan that you will, that's rigid and you can't deviate from it. Well, I don't, I don't feel guilty at this point. Correct. Taking the quarterback. Like I, we've been in a lot of mocks. We had so many years of late round quarterback. We get into a mock. I'm like, I like this guy at this spot, but I almost feel guilty taking a quarterback. Yeah. Oh, that's, that's not the, that's the ones isn't the way. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, all right. We'll take a break and continue the countdown. All right, our top 10 tips and tricks continue. Number four. All right. This one I'm calling the battle days, the battle days, this one will not be a T, T, E, you going to battle? No. Bad. Old, old, old, space, old apostrophe, because, because there's a phrase people say the good old days. Right. Yeah. So this one's like the pot. These are the battle days. The battle days. I hate you guys. All right. This was my, this is my favorite one because it was a journey to discover these numbers on my own. Like I was very curious. So I took a look at the last 10 years at the 10 old displayers drafted each year in fantasy. Okay. So that's a lot of, a lot of players. And I wanted to look which ones were what I'd consider a win. That would be exceeding their ADP, a loss, much worse than their ADP or a push, kind of met their ADP. So 10 years worth of data, the 10 old displayers each year. Here's the, here's the numbers, 30 wins, 50 losses, 20 pushes. So a true hit, like winning on that pick has a 30% hit rate. But I was like, let's look at it by position because maybe age has a correlation more with a position. And it did. The worst bet you can make. And it's ironic timing with with the Evans news this morning is on older fantasy wide receivers. In that 10 year span, they went seven, 19 and eight. So that seven wins above ADP. So seven, a 21% of the time above ADP 19 losses below ADP and eight pushes. So the receiving age cliff seems to be very steep. Like when it goes, it goes, we've been there with the Julio's and AJ Greens. We've been there with, you know, so who is that this year? That's Devonte Adams. Yeah. I'll give you all those. So old tight ends in that span did the best, but you kind of, yeah, that's Kelsey. You kind of know why it's just, I mean, he wasn't old. He wasn't in the sample for, you know, 10 year ago sample, but they were six two and one. But if you weren't Kelsey, if you weren't a Hall of Famer, they were horrific. So if you were a non elite, you were O and five. You never outkicked your ADP. Also one of the things I think that was interesting looking at it is that over the years, we've had Hall of Famers that were older, that performed super well. And it kind of made us think that old guys perform better than they do. If you look at Brady, Breeze, Rivers, Big Bend, Fitz, Gore, like those were these older elder statesmen that always performed. But that's what scares me about like Kelsey. No, no, no, like two years from now, Dak, because I love Dak, I love him forever. But it's like, we, we look at these guys who are playing at 40 Brady and, and, and Stafford and go, well, Dak's going to freaking crush when he's only 37, but it's like, is he, is he that level? Is he a Hall of Fame level quarterback? Because they, because most people don't, well, look, I'm going to try to tell you what to pay attention to, to try to figure out who will perform if you're an older player. One thing to know, half of the losses were availability, not decline. So in other words, injuries were prominent for older players. Yeah. I can, I can attest. One thing you can pay attention to when we've seen it with some of the older guys recently, or one of them, especially the on core effect is actually real. If a player was old and already performed, old, they're more likely to do it again. So Derek Henry, Travis Kelsey, those guys, if you did it once, if you broke the mold, if you outkicked the 30%, you're more likely to do it again. That's something to pay attention to if you don't want to take Derek Henry off the board, which I won't. Yes. Exactly. So I will give you here are the oldest players, I'll give you the oldest players being drafted this year. But the TLDR is basically that over the last decade, drafting one of the 10 oldest players in the first nine rounds lost you money, half the time. So it's just something to keep in mind. Profitability, doing well with the pick, old quarterbacks did well, Travis Kelsey did well. But this year, it's Matthew Stafford, he's 38 years old. It's Travis Kelsey, 37 about to be. It's Devante Adams and Mike Evans, Travis Kelsey, 37, 36.9. Yeah. Just saying that the fact that he is still out there. So like Matthew Stafford, but so these are draft in the first 12 rounds this year. Stafford, Kelsey, Adams, Evans, Kettle, yeah, we, we kind of were like excited about him, but we forget he, there's an age component on top of the injury. So availability for Kettle is going to be a question, Stefan Diggs, Derek Henry and Aaron Jones. So to Jason's point yesterday, when his sleeper was Jordan Mason, Aaron Jones at running back, that's a tough one because I would not say the encore effect is in place for Aaron Jones. No, he hasn't been special. Henry it is. Henry it is. Stafford, it is. I wouldn't have said that Kettle probably fit. Kettle's just breaking into the older group. So that was one where we're going to see, but Evans and Adams, I think, are the biggest decisions for fantasy players. There was a part of this offseason pre-substation, Jason, where I feel like your, your Evans has gone. Yes. I was so high. When, when he signed with San Francisco, I was like, holy crap. Yeah. I love this. He's perfect for their system, perfect for their quarterback. I love everything about it. And then he's just like, man, he's so old and broken and he's playing next to a substation. Yeah. Oh. A graphic with no sound. That's the sound. I made the sound. I made the sound. I made the sound. Jason, do it again. What does this sound that a substation makes? Thank you. Yeah. Well, that's disappoint. Yeah. Yeah. I thought Terry McCloren might crack this list. That's why I was really curious if he was, so he's not one of the 10 oldest. Yeah. He's 30.9, 1331. Yeah. He's not one of the, he doesn't technically fit the, uh, the age. He's a little scary. Doesn't mean he's fine. But he just needs, he doesn't fit the, uh, the stat. So, uh, there you go. Do it, do it. That what you will, um, we're moving on. Number three. The hangman is back. We are revisiting the dead zone, this is the dead zone for running back. We just got a question on that. Yeah. And, and I, I knew this was coming, um, if you've been playing fantasy football long enough, you know about the running back dead zone for years. It was like the rounds four through eight. They were, they were, you know, not great hit rates to draft running discs because usually what happens in those rounds is people who, um, they've got a lot of red flags. They just get pushed up. It's the desperation. Yeah. It's the, oh no. I have to get a running back here. So you burn a pick on a running back who is only there because the, uh, because supply is running out and you're like, well, he's a starter. So I got to take him to the fourth and you're like, you're missing out on, on high level wide receivers or tight end. Yeah. You were. And then the last couple of years came and it didn't really work out that way. The, those, those rounds weren't just a dead zone and weren't terrible. But I think we're back this year looking at 80 P. I think we are, uh, back seat. What's happened now is you've got a lot of running backs being drafted. I mean, more than half of the first two rounds are running backs. The studs are being drafted very high. But what is happening is that it's pushing up the lesser good backs into a range that they haven't been the last couple of years. Um, I'll, I'll give you a couple examples here. The running back 24 in 2024 was in the seventh round. The running back 24 right now is a mid fifth round pick there is significantly higher. It, an eighth round, uh, pick was the running back 36 in 2024. So that's like a fringe flex play eighth round. That's okay. Um, you know, or, or I'm sorry, he was 10th, 10th rounder. And now he's up in the eighth round this year. Because those players being pushed up really means, I mean, part of that, part of this is the, the correlation to your quarterbacks going a little bit later running backs are being drafted. Yeah, mediocre, middleing running backs are being drafted higher than they should go. And we have it, we have a tool, uh, on the website, the value scout tool. Um, it's in the U. D. K. It's a really cool thing we came out with last year where it takes our projections, looks at basically what the true value would be according to like historical precedent for what you would expect them to be drafted at ADP wise. And then it compares to where their ADP currently is. And so there's a handful of guys right now, uh, that if you look at the value scout tool, you just see they're being significantly overdrafted what the expectation of their ADP should have been drafts H and junior right now is being picked 10 spots ahead of ADP. Now, obviously, maybe this changes with the Alvin Camaro being out for a month, uh, Dave and Montgomery, uh, right now, you know, we've got him priced basically 15 picks behind where he's being drafted in ADP, Jalen Warren, looks like an eighth round, or according to our consensus projections, but he's being pulled up to the sixth round on sleeper and Tony Pollard, another one where he's going, uh, you know, 11 spots ahead of where we project is ADP should be you can, you can check out more of these players in the value scout tool, but this is basically, it's not to say, don't hear what I'm not saying. It's not to say that there won't be any good pick in the rounds four through eight for running back, but it, what it, what matters that you need to know is that when you are drafting the running back 24 through 36, you are paying a lot more right now than you have in recent years. And if you are, it mathematically means that other players at other positions are being pushed down and they are better value than in years past. So you just got to play the market, the pendulum swings back and forth. The health of running backs the last two years has just pushed running backs way too high in those middle. Do you want to know something cool? Yeah. I do. Heck, if you take two awesome running backs at the top of your draft, you don't have to worry about that. You don't have to worry about, you know, our B strategy just do just draft great running back. I pretty much require two of my first four rounds to be, to be running backs and potentially three because I love to just, you know, Hi T shot gun those wide receivers for a while afterwards. Yeah. Number two, we're calling this one hot or not. Number two, man, I think a man. Remember that. Oh, hot number two is that's not a place you want to be. Uh, but that's not that's not focused on that. This is a PG show. Remember, so rim. What did he say? So, uh, we actually, we just feel the question about this, where people are saying, you know, what is the kind of the emphasis on early season schedule? And because we're talking about hot starts and it does factor in the first month of the season, it carries a lot of weight for fantasy for emotion. And, and when also a part of that is like, because when you are, when you go, oh, and two, or oh, and three, it's really difficult to not panic, because you feel, you feel under the knife, you're like, I got to make, I got to make moves here. And you can end up making trades that are, are just their bad decisions. You get on tilt. Yes, you tilt. And we don't want to do that. So we want to have, you know, hot or starts. So, for a strength of schedule, a different way to look at that. Last year, we looked at it, we took the data, we had eight teams that were projected as underdogs. This is overall the NFL team, they were projected as underdogs in three, at least three of their first four games before the seasons, even started. Of those eight teams, only one of them, one more than a single game. And it was the Jacksonville Jaguars. And that was like, oh, this is the team that people were pretty wrong about like the Liam co and effect on, on the Jags really took them to a different place over those first four games. They won three, they had a positive point differential. That was a great year. Six of those eight though, bottom 10 in points per game scoring, six of the eight scored less than one rushing touchdown per game. So it's like, look, the sportsbooks, they're not trying to lose money. They're trying to put lines where they think they can win it. But these people know what they're talking about. It was Jacksonville, Carolina, the Titans, Cleveland, the Jets, Raiders, Giants and Saints, who they were, it wasn't good. And so I bring that up for you know, maybe it's going to help you make some tie breaker decision. And in the running backs from those teams, guess who ended up being a value? Travis H and junior, because he's on the winning football team is like, genty, there was a great game. There was a great game in there. But overall, for that pick that you made, it was a big bummer. Chuba, couple good games. And then it was, then it was rough. Breeze Hall, it was not a strong start. Camara, the same if you're talking, looking at those four games and Tony Pollard is these were not truly like these weren't running backs that you could plug and play and feel good about. So let's look at 2026. Who are the teams projected to that they're underdogs and at least three of their first four games? Okay. Get the numbers for this. It's tough because it's Arizona. Yeah. Cleveland. Yeah, Cleveland. The Colts. Yeah. That's, that's interesting because Johnny Taylor splits and wins and losses are pretty, pretty I see if you can spot what's going on. He didn't throw their, they didn't come favorites instantly. See if you can see what's going on with you. Okay. Colts. Raiders. Yeah. Dolphins. Yeah. Dogs. They are dogs and at least three of their first four games. And those, those are first and second round running backs. And Taylor and Jets. Breeze. Surprisingly, the Broncos are in there too, because they're, they're opening schedule is tough. But it's, it's, this is not to say that all of those guys, all those running backs are going to be bad or bust picks. It's just uphill battle. It is, it is definitely an uphill battle for guys who are going very early. Yeah. And your fantasy football draft. So, you know, it's when you're deciding, maybe it's a, maybe it becomes a tiebreaker. Yeah, for you. Yeah, that's interesting. And kind of sad. Yeah. Because of the players we love this year. Alright, we're there. Number one. Alright, our tip. It's always been something a little bit like this every year. Number one is just wipe the slate clean. We all suffer the fantasy. It burns the bad memories and thoughts about Mike didn't have any bad memories last night. He wants to keep his slate dirty. But we are recommending to you, Mike, wipe that slate clean. Yeah, let's remember nothing. Get back to Hey, that's what I'm doing. But you got to, you got to move. I won last year. I will remind you that I won last year, but it we're on to. I don't really remember that. I was, it's funny. I was twice the slate clean. Yeah, I followed the rule. I was on a, I did a guest spot for Tony Reale show. And we were talking about like bad beats. And I brought up the, how I had Lamar Jackson week one, he takes me up by 1.8 points. They end up going into overtime. And he fumbles. And I lose. And it's like, this is a horrifically bad beat. It turns into one of the worst, not what it turns into the worst fantasy football season where I'm just getting bad beat. And he's like, well, did you ever go back to Lamar Jackson, Mike? Of course, yeah, of course I went back like you can't when, when a player of, of that caliber is like Christian McCaffrey, there's, there are many people last year who are like, I will never, ever draft Christian McCaffrey again, because of what he did to me. The phrase, the phrase that people probably used was like, well, I'm just willing to let him be great. And I won't deal with the risk. But they might not think that anymore. Yes, they might think I wish I had drafted him. And I'm not saying, sometimes a player burns you and like, then they burn you again, it's just, it's, it's a new year. The new you went, yes, and thank you, Jason, a brand new you. If, if a player destroyed you with injury last year, just, just wipe the pain, man, it's tough, but you have to do it. Yeah, I feel like Jason's hat is so perfectly blending with these back wall graphics. It's like all the dudes, the doosters are just like nodding. They don't even have a top of a head. Oh, I mean, now, do you need to make a little PSA for people that the other day you had gotten a haircut? Oh, yeah, and people a lot of people was like, oh, so welcome to the ball tonight. All right, got that got I'm not. We got bad news for you. We got bad news for you, baldies. Look at these luscious. He's not one of you. Not yet. All right. His slate is not why clean up top. Am I right? Team bald down bad. Yeah. Sorry, baldies, losers. I mean, oh, yes, I love Josh. I love the idea of you just turning horribly. Yeah, for sure. If you're balding, you just need to know what a loser. Oh, man, one of those coldest sex. Well, I would never get real. Oh my gosh. Um, there you go. Hey, one final reminder here, the Megala. Megalable. It is available entries right now, grab a draft spot. Come play with us. We'll be playing 20,000 plus players a chance to win the ultimate foot clan for life and a spot in the listener league. Let's set the new record. Every year, we've had a new record. Let's do it again, foot clan. You are undefeated. Megalable.com. Yeah, that'll be so awesome. And then tomorrow, we're going to get into bust and value picks. And on Friday, it's mock draft mayhem. So you do not want to miss an episode. It is go time. If you're drafting tonight, tomorrow, soon, good luck. Hopefully some of these tips and tricks helped you out. We will be back tomorrow with another episode. Take care. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join the foot.com. And follow us on Twitter at the FF ballers.