How to CRUSH Your ESPN Knockout League Draft | Fantasy Focus

♪ Fantasy, you in the '06, no one knows ♪ ♪ Focus, fantasy, fantasy, focus ♪ - What's good everybody, welcome into Fantasy Focus, football alongside field minister Yates and Michael Lester Clay Jr., my name is Daniel David Dopp. Here on a Wednesday with some muted computers field, thank you for that. I did it earlier this week. - I'm just gonna play Mike for that one. - I did it earlier this week. - Thank you, yep. - We got a very big show plan for today. We got a knockout league draft. We are diving into an 18 team knockout league. We'll tell you about that and what it is in just a moment. But first and foremost, hold on my friends. How are you guys doing on this wonderful Wednesday? - I'm doing great, fired up for a knockout league draft. We have 18 teams. - You're going to win so many. - You're going to rip through this draft and this is like all the friends. - Yes. - It's not just fantasy focus. It's people that you may know now is colleagues of ours. - That's right. - From the NFL network. - Yeah, that's right. I'm excited too. I'm gonna do my best to knock both of you out in the first round here. Before we get there, before we get there, let's not let that happen. - Maybe we should check out the rules and regulations. - Maybe we do a quick check out of the rules and regulations first, my friends. Here's how a knockout league works. - Welcome to a new format to ESPN fantasy football this year. Knockout style. The knockout format works similarly to a traditional fantasy football league. We'll draft your players. Then set your line up each week. But there's one key change. And this is the most fun part of the format. At the end of each week, the lowest scoring team gets knocked out of the league. Done for the season. As you try to avoid this fate, each week, you can track your live results in the app, including alerts when you're in danger of being knocked out or if you're not in any position to relax. The team knocked out has all of its players released into the free agent pool, available for anyone to claim alongside all of the usual weekly pickups. The consistent players are paramount. And fab budget management is critical. One knockout happens each week until season's end when the final team to avoid elimination is crowned league champion. Can you last long enough to be the last team standing? - There you go, my friends. Gonna be a ton of fun. Who's here? Here is who we have in the league so far. Field Jates, David Presley, Matthew Bowen. - Daniel Dott, Mike Clay. - Well, it is the draft order. So field is one, I'm four, Mike is five. Nothing like drafting right next year, best friends. Six is Michael Florio, seven, Cynthia Freeland, Eric Carabell, Dan Graziano, and Tyler Fulgeum, that round out the top 10. Adam Rank, Kiana Martin, Tristan Cockroft, our producers, Christina and Zach. Joe Fortenbaugh is at 15, Kevin Pulsefer. Our guy from chat, Eric Moody, follow him in chat at Eric and Moody. By the way, big news about Eric Moody. Coming up on tomorrow's show, something very exciting we're gonna launch and then our friend Liz Loza pulling up the rear. Field, you are the number one pick in our knockout league. - Yeah, we're not gonna waste any more time or any get into it, baby. - Let's get into it. Nobody was surprised the conversation centers around Jameer Gibbs and B. John Robinson. I'm gonna go with Jameer Gibbs, who actually have ranked second. Very simple reason here. I like Gibbs match up more in week one. That's reason one. Reason two, I have no shares of Jameer Gibbs so far this year because this is the first time I've gotten the first pick. - There you go. I now have Jameer Gibbs on at least one of my teams. There we go. - Love that. - One thing I want to note about Michael Floreo's pick in six is it's not Michael Floreo and Pro Football Talk. This is Michael F. Floreo, fantasy x-word from the NFL Network who will be involved in this league. Excited about this. No surprises at the first three picks. Gibbs, B. John, Jim R. Chase. - I feel like, I feel like I'm gonna go with JSN. I'm still just a little bit worried in a knockout league. There is a chance that maybe something happens late with Puka. - Totally. - You draft them there and it's just a little bit more of a dice roll. I'm gonna go with JSN there. - The good news is we're eight days away from the Rams and Niners game and nothing has happened yet with Puka. But that's not a guarantee that nothing won't happen. - Michael's on the clock. - I'm on the clock. - And I'm going Christian McCaffrey. I like the much like you. - Reed. - I'm looking at the early schedules here. It looks pretty attractive to me. At least on the good side for McCaffrey, which is actually not the case for someone like John Robinson who has kind of a tricky schedule out of the Gachamart Chase as well. We're not really worried about Chamart Chase, but tough schedule to start the season. So definitely looking at things like that. Like your Gibbs Pick, I agree with that. I already like him number one. Not to mention with Isaiah Pacheco on IR. I mean, I mean, he's like a 20% of the snaps. - Yes. - I mean, Jalen Sailor, maybe they do sign Creme Hunt and he is a little bit of aversal. But yeah, I mean he's there too. I mean, that's how down this is. He's got a playoff. - He's not even Mike knows the first name of their background. - Is there a chance that Craig Reynolds, pride of Kutztown University, comes back and does that? - He did, he did, he signed, I think he signed for a week or two and then he was, I don't know how fast he was cut loose. Maybe the commanders. - Alrighty. - Yesterday's CMC conversation was great. We heard it from a lot of people on social media on both sides of that. Go check it out in case you haven't seen it. First six picks that we've got so far. Jamir Gibbs, Pajan Roberts and Jamart Chase. JSN, Christian McCaffrey and Amon Ross St. Brown. You know, the one thing I noticed about this is two Detroit lines have gone inside the top six guys. - Yeah, deservedly. They're the best team in the NFL. - Thank you. - More Giants talked throughout the week. No surprises here though, right? So again, just for those that you listened to what Daniel said about knockout leagues, but there is an element of obviously reaching for the stars while also finding a way to have the highest floor baked in with your star potential, right? Which is why Puka, who has this much upside, is any player in all fantasy football, is still on the board because if you don't have him for even a week, and this is an 18 team league. If you're picking third, you don't pick again until 34th. You're most valuable player on your team in week one might be like Javante Williams, who's a good player, but he's not the guy that I think is gonna get you 30 points in week one, whereas Puka, if he plays, could well get you 30 points in week one. The other thing that's gonna be in player I think is, it hasn't happened yet. Puka goes seven, by the way, to Cynthia Freeland. There's a chance that we see quarterbacks go much earlier in this format than they do in a regular league. Except for maybe the number one quarterback in the game. That's gonna say. That's been the one thing that I've given out as advice and you have two Mike and we've talked about this, Josh Allen field, you gave the step. Last year, Josh Allen, when he played the Houston Texans, how many fantasy points do you score the last time? This is 8.1. 8.1 fantasy points and that's who Josh Allen gets in week one. But Drake May, Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence. It's good, it's tough. Yep, out of gate this year. Drake May gets 80 out of my hand, it's tough, but yeah. By the way, week one rankings will be available. I believe by the end of this week. Yes, they will. And yeah, that made the Mike and I's already in. Are yours in yet? Yeah, got him in this morning of a rare. I mean, it was rare. Like this morning, it was disarming. All three of my kids slept until seven o'clock. Wow, and I'm normally like my body clock is like a six a.m. type of guy. And I'm not the kind of person that if my kids are all asleep, I'll stay down. I was like, let me go get a cup of coffee and enjoy some normal sea for an hour. It was somehow the longest hour of my life. It was amazing. I felt like I had a full day before my kids woke up and I got my week one. Rankine's done. Good for you. I drafted Christian McCaffrey and eight leagues. Wow. Wow. That's a different one. Big deal, different one. I'm saying this to be a little bit of a smart guy, but also it's also for real. Uh, my week 18 projections are in as in we have weekly projections in your round basically now, right? Last year, sorry, last year, you can see projections in advance for every week of the season already. If you want to go ahead and just take a look at what things look like, uh, obviously things will change every week. They're always being tuned and tweaked, but it's a good to kind of way to look ahead and kind of get a feel for, for things like that. If you want to look at the use all be zeros after the upcoming week. Now they're, uh, they're all there. So it's just part of the, uh, part of the offering here at the end and they're there. I mean, they've been there since before the draft. I mean, the initial run of projections. All right. So we've made it through, uh, 13 picks and just to keep things rolling, Daniel, Jonathan Taylor after Puka, and then what? Then we went CD Lambda, Dan Graziano, James Cook comes off the board, Justin Jefferson, Sequan Barkley and Trey McBride. The first tight end goes to Tristan H. Cockroft. Question for you guys. Do you feel like, because I know, I know where I stand on this. Do you feel like the positional advantage that you're gaining at tight end matters as much in knockout leagues as it would in a regular league? Um, I think what's interesting is if your plan is to win the league, which is usually your plan, right? Is that your plan? That's my plan. Let's go from that. Okay. Is the plan of what we're doing in that, in that case, when you get to the end, you want to make sure you have like a top two tight end and a top, a couple top two running, a top five running backs. You know, so getting McBride at least locks you in. If you make that run to the end to have one of those elite guys, you don't want to every week be rolling out Kyle pits, like just being set there and not having the bid on tight ends at all, like even if Brock Bauer's becomes available necessarily. So, um, I think there's some strategy to that. So I feel you on that, Mike, I do. I do feel you on that. I also think that there is something like you got to get to the halfway point because the beauty of the knockout league is not just like that it's an every week strategy. It's that a team that comes out of the gates, piping hot, can week six just fall flat on its face, other because of by weeks, or I think we should do this more often. I want to put this in the ear of the viewers and listeners of this show. I'd love to start a thing where we do each week. The best worst fantasy league, best worst fantasy team of the week, where like you submit your submission where you're like, I started Josh Allen, Ashton Gentee, Chase Brown, George pickings. Terry McClaren, uh, Colston. Lovland, the Chargers defense and Cameron Dicker, and I scored 41 points. Yeah. Happens there every week. So we need that to keep that in your brain if you're listening right now. The best, worst fantasy team of the week or the worst, best fantasy team of the week. Just to answer the original question of, do I feel the need to go out and get a tight end? Yes. Because of what makes this format so different field, a superstar tight end very well may become available on the waiver wire. So if I am in the draft and I feel like, boy, I really want to make sure I grab one of my tight ends, I'm not worried about it as much as I am in other leagues because there is still a chance, if I don't get him in the fourth round, there's a chance I get him in week six, which is how we do that in every position. You could say about Josh Allen. You could say that about Jamir Gibbs. You could say about Jamar Chase, right? Yeah. I just think kind of locking, if you lock in McBrider Bowers, you don't have to think about tight end the rest of the year as long as you're active. You don't have to spend the money like everyone else is going to be able to get them guys. You can just kind of hone in on those other positions. So I don't know, there could be something to it. I guess you could say that about every position too, but there's just feels like something about you have to get the elite guys at the position. You have to figure out how to get the elite guys at every single position by the end, basically. And that's one way to just do it. Just lock in that one spot and then focus on the others. It does now that I've been thinking through that as you're talking, Mike, it does feel like given what knockout formats are and the fact that you were specifically kind of talking about island positions, it will be a lot harder to get island positions on the waiver wire because there are just fewer options then. So now that you say that, even though I still don't feel the need to reach, because things do come available, but I definitely like I get the premise of, let's make sure we grab our guys so that we don't have to fight with 17 other, 15 other teams to be able to grab them off the waiver wire. A couple of interesting things that have taken place since we last spoke is Josh Allen's off the board. Josh Allen goes second round fifth pick, Christina and Zach deciding to land the best quarterback in fantasy. What's really interesting about Josh Allen, though, for knockout leagues, as Daniel said, who's he playing week one? Houston Texans. And how's that match up? Look, very hard. Or perhaps the hardest, I think I have him, I think seventh in my quarterback rankings for week one. Yeah, it's going to be one of those where get used to this phrase because it's going to happen a lot. But ranking doesn't really matter, it's, are you playing the player or not? Right. That comes up early in the season. It doesn't really matter whether you have Josh Allen ranked first or eighth. Yep. It's, are you starting him against Houston or are you not? Let's say that you've got Josh Allen and Tyler Schuck, who's taken on the Detroit Lions injured second Gary and how it looks like. Are you like, do you maybe want to throw a shot at a, a weaker defense, but not as good of a quarterback? I don't know. That's a great question. I'm going to quickly catch us up here guys while we go through the rest of this. We're getting back close to the clock. Yeah, Mike. You're on the clock here in five picks here in the second round. Since we talked about it, Tremick Bride came off the board with the 13th pick of the first round after that. Oh, Maureen Hampton, Devon A. Chan, Brock Bowers, Chase Brown, Kenneth Walker, the third and Derek Henry. Those two picks were Liz's picks at the turn. So Liz went running back, running back here at the turn with KW three and Derek Henry. The rest of the second round, AJ Brown, Nico Collins, George Pickens, Josh Allen, Drake London, Ashton Gentie, Chris Olave, then Bruce Hall, Zay flowers and Javonte Williams to Eric Carabell. We now have Cynthia Freeland on the clock, Michael F. Florio on deck and Michael Leicester Clay Jr. In the hole. By the way, Ashton Gentie was really interesting coming off the board. Yeah. It's a looking promising for a week one, but it's not a sure thing. Let's go through some of the quotes recently. There was one, I saw this. Sorry. I think the more, while you look that up, I think the more concerning thing for him where he's being drafted is the fact that Mike Washington, Jr. looks awesome. And there's a lot of chatter about him having a bigger role than maybe we thought this along those lines. Mike dove into one of the quotes that I was going to mention to you, which is a GM John Spitek for the Raider spoke yesterday and said that Ashton Gentie quote, I expect him to be back as quick as he can, maybe quicker than some people would expect when that is we'll see. Definitely some, some vague GM speak involved there, a little bit perhaps a chance he is back in week one. He also noted that the person who stumped for Mike Washington, Jr. for the Raiders in their draft room was Kling Kubiak and when Kling Kubiak head coach stumps for a player, it does not mean that that player is going to be sitting around collecting dust on the site. Wow. I need to say this really quickly. Second round, 30 second pick overall. Mike decides rather than take his plant, my flag guy, Jeremiah love goes with Roshy rice. There's a reason love is still available and that reason is that he's questionable for week one. We don't know if he's going to play. And even if he does, how much will he play in week one is the question. So very optimistic about the season. I've been over this. I do expect a slow start. That's notable. Obviously here in a knockout format where you have a bad week one and there's so many teams. Like you're death is short here. So if he doesn't go and that could that could burn you pretty bad. And there he goes. He go. Wow, who did that? Who got on you? Wow. I guess I wasn't listening to Mike when he was talking. Sorry about that. Here's the thing. Mike that's still a tear thing for me. Look at the running backs available after Jeremiah love at this point for me. Bucky Irving, Basel Tutten, Cam Skataboo, David Montgomery, Quinchon, Judkins, I recognize the one. All guys you're not going to be able to start if he doesn't play in week one. So when you have, when you have Kyle Manunga in there, fill it in. I just found myself in a pickle, by the way, and Daniel to a degree, uh, Mike a little bit there. So which is, uh, so picking first, obviously means that you pick last in the second round. Yeah. First and the third. And you got to wait a long time. Yep. Uh, my first pick, as you guys know, is to be our Gibbs. At some point, this running back crop crop is going to dry out. But do I reach? And I mean, reach reach for running back at pick 36 or 37 when the best available in our knockout rankings like the Bucky Irving, Tutten, Skataboo, David Montgomery, Quinchon, Judkins. Or do you just keep on stockpiling these premier wide receivers? So I ended up drafting Teneroma, McMillan and Devonte Smith and said, let me go for the top wide receivers over the running back. And I think that one of the realities of Jumeir Gibbs or having a top pick afford you is that you're kind of baking in like a, you know, one deed to 25 point outcome for your number one pick. You have a bit more security like whoever drafted 18th in this exercise took Kenneth Walker the third. Liz got him. Walker is a, he's going to have a great year. We're very optimistic about Kenneth Walker the third. But if he goes for 12 against the Broncos and week one, that would be much less surprising than if Jumeir Gibbs goes for 12 and week one against Saints. Agree with that. All righty. Agree with that field. Oh, Mike, you're back on the clock. All right. So I'm going to quickly recap while we do this, you know, keep going. We ended up coming off the board. We finished with Breeze Hall, Zae Flowers, Javonte Williams, Cynthia took Travis H. Chan, Kyron Williams, Rashi Rice by Mike in the second round. I took Jeremiah Love, then DeAndre Swift, Colston, Loveland and Teteroma, McMillan who you took field. You talked about that third round so far, Devonte Smith, producer Presley took Lad McConkey. I was really hoping he was going to make it to me, Matt Bowen took Garrett Wilson. I took Tyler Warren and Mike goes with the running back. Queen John Judkins. Going to get that second running back. Queen John Judkins, I expect him to get off to a better start to the season than Jeremiah Love. And I like him this year. I've drafted him a lot. Also, I think we have a big drop in tier here at the running back position. I did think about Tyler Warren. One of my concerns there was early in the year, they opened Baltimore, Kansas City and Houston, which is going to be a really, really tough slate for that Colston. Can I use that as a jumping off point to a thing I've seen around the NFL? I don't know if this was intentional or not. I don't know if it's just reflective of general strength of the NFL right now. So many of the teams that we think are going to be really good this year have ridiculous early season schedules. Let me go read the Rams. People probably know this about the Lions though. I was just going to say that. I said so many. I didn't say all of them. The Rams in their first five games, put the 49ers, giants, Broncos, Eagles, both on the road and then the bills that bills game as Monday night football lots and lots of prime time for the Rams early. No surprise there. The Jaguars, a trendy pick to make an even further step from last year in their first six games. Browns week one that feels windable, obviously. At Denver, home to the Patriots at Cincinnati, I think will be much better this year. Oh, yeah, great. The Eagles, home to the Texans, like that's a tough schedule right there as well. The Patriots who of course last year took advantage of a great schedule at Seattle, home to Pittsburgh at Jacksonville at Buffalo in their first four games. Like this is going to be a fascinating start for so many teams who are banking on progress from last year. Quick update on the draft guys as the seventh pick of the third round. The Afriel and goes with quarterback, Bo Nicks with Lamar Jackson, Drake May and Jaden Daniels still on the board. Is this part of that early season schedule where you're trying to look at the chiefs, right? They do. That's pretty good. I think yeah. I will say the Broncos fall into that category of tough early season schedules. Take a look at theirs. All right. Like they might have the toughest six game schedule and I'm not talking for fantasy just real life. Real life. I actually for sure some tough fantasy match some of this for Denver at Kansas City week one Monday night football home to the Jags, home to the Rams at San Francisco at Los Angeles, home to Seattle. Yeah. That's a tough one. How about that for six games to start? There are a lot of teams that have this. Yeah. Crazy. I think. Yeah. for Jackson's surprise Jackson. I feel like as of the top quarterbacks, let's say the top seven or eight quarterbacks, one of the easier schedules to open the season from a fantasy standpoint. So I think that's a fine enough pick here. Definitely surprise Nick's went ahead of him, but this is why also I like Bo Nick's though. So your team, that's right. You're just trying to be able to make it to this, this format is so different than the other one because it really is a weekly format. I mean, it is just like I need to just survive this week. And if Bo does struggle in week one against Kansas City, there are pivot options, right? Absolutely, somebody starting quarterback is going to be put into the waiver wire. There might be quarterbacks that are also available on the waiver wire that surprise us. We can say this too, just to make sure that everyone recognizes the starting lineup for this is quarterback two running backs, two wide receivers, a tight end and a flex. And then we only have four bench spots because we have 18 teams in the league. So we're trying to not completely deplete the player pool as a part of this. Yeah, it's going pretty status quo too. Like a normal league, the top four tight ends are gone. Exactly my top 21 running backs are gone. And of my top 22 receivers, 20 are gone. The exceptions are Malik neighbors and Devon to Adams. Neighbors being the obvious one. But if he's limited in week one, obviously, you don't want to be starting him. The quarterback is the one where it's kind of all over the map. Alan went Jackson went and then of course Bo Nick's. That's it. So far a quarterback. Hmm. And there goes Adam. So there we go. There we go, guys. Adams and Jalen waddle off the boards. And now we have, okay, so there it is. Twenty three on my top 24, the only exception, like neighbors. And your favorite wide receiver. For this year, Luther bird and third comes off the board to our body. Pulse. All right, quick recap then for those listening since Bo Nick's. It was a mecca, a Bucca, Bucky Irving, Roma Dunes, a Lamar Jackson, T Higgins, Terry McClaurin, the Vante Adams, Jalen waddle and then Luther bird in the third to Pulse's chop house. It's so long to wait between pecs when you're pecs and 18 teamer. I think, I think I made my last pick during Monday show. It feels like it. Yeah. It's hard to watch all of these options drying up. It is our starting line. If you're going to look at it compared to all the other way we're doing 10 and 12 team leagues and we're going to be like, oh man, this team's in trouble. This is a problem. Well, let's take a look at the running back position right now. We are still not out of the third round. And again, our running backs available on the board, Basel Tutton, Jalen Warren, Jadarian Price, Marshaan Lloyd, Tony Pollard, Rico Dowdell. Yeah. Okay, I like the pick that Moody just made, David Montgomery, love the schedule early out of the gate. Yes. Agreed. As far as running backs or as far as offenses go, they have a, who do they have after the bills in week one? Do you have the bills? First of all, the defenses. This is not a Sean McDermott defense anymore. We should point that out. This is a very advantageous matchup after that. Let's see. We have Buffalo. They have Cincinnati. Well, I'm not, you know, they're a little. They're not as bad as they were, but it's still a good matchup. I would say. And then they have Indianapolis. Dallas should be better, but that's manageable and then the Titans. And then the Jags, so I don't think are that great. And then the Giants before they're by, I mean, that whole first half of the season is very interesting from a fantasy standpoint. Jack defense is an interesting one. I've seen them get some love. I think they may feast it on a couple of things last year. Some insane turnover production, which is just hard to recreate here is not the most difficult schedule for opposing quarterbacks. Yeah. And they also have the best, perhaps the best week one matchup at home against Cleveland. So you're going to see them drafted quite a bit. Once you had David Montgomery come off the board who Mike talked about, we had Drake May and then Cortland Sutton, both of those to Liz Loza, so Liz at the turn going with a quarterback and a wide receiver there, Malik neighbors, round four, second pick to our guy, Eric Moody. This is one of the big question marks because of his week one availability. And we talked about that earlier this week, guys. We are Hawking the Twitter feed of Jordan runoff. That's right. Yeah, because I thought this was gamesmanship. Yesterday I talked about how like, yeah, you know, you can't let the cowboys think you're going to play or 10 days away or 11 days away from the game made a lot of sense. You're like, Hey, early on, just get some excitement around everything. Fans are excited. Absolutely. By the way, we're all excited. Like John Harbuss pumped to be back at camp down in West Virginia at the, it's called the shoot. What's the place they all do it in West West Virginia? Oh, I don't know. It's the really cool place where they do a lot of training camps there. So embarrassed. I don't know this right now. Come on, man. Conference center. The father. We're talking about the green briar. The green briar. Yes. The green briar. It looks awesome. I want to go play there one day. No one cares. All right. But yes, we are Hawking Jordan runoff and Twitter feed because that, that Blake neighbors thing felt a little steadier to me than it does right now. I will care about you golfing to the green buyer. Breyer. When you tell me what breaking news, Adam Schefter is going to do from the seventh whole while you guys are playing. Okay. That matters to me. I can do that. I can work on that. I'm trying to think who's eligible for a contract right now on the board with. Oh, hopefully it's the week neighbors will be a full-go and weak one. That's what we want to hear. Basel Tutton comes off the board at the fourth round as well as Michael Pittman Jr. Darring and Price and Marshawn Lloyd. There's a spicy one. Yep. That's a Christian age cockroft. That's a classic. Not running right? Yeah. That's a classic knockout pick there too. Right? Yeah. Josh Jacobs probably going to miss some time. It could miss a lot of time. Yep. I mean, Josh Jacobs could be done with the Packers. Yeah. We have no idea. There are a lot of different ways that that one could go. Yep. There we go. All right. Over that. But there we go. Madison took Jalen Hertz. And I've been talking about this all off. Well, I don't know. Oh, that was made when the schedule came out. Yes. The Eagles have the easiest fantasy schedule during the regular season and the hardest during the fantasy playoffs. But again, you could feast on Eagles for the first few months of the season and use them a lot. I should say. And then you won't need them by the time the fantasy, if you're so alive. Yeah. It's against the law. It's a federal time. Just in case anyone doesn't. Don't do that. Mike, as always, giving up bad advice on the show, guys. Are Eagles federally protected? I actually know what Eagles are. What are Eagles are? Yes. Are you familiar with the Chimney Swift? I am. Yeah. Yeah. Chimney Swift turns out are federally protected. Apparently, Chimney Swift's are small birds that perch. Yes. They have to go into, like, hollow locations. I know all this. And I know that they're federally protected because we had, like, a whole pack of them fly into our chimney in the middle of July. And they were there for a month. You can't do anything about it. You just have to let them be. They have to let them. They have to find their way out of there naturally. And I'm telling you, for a month straight, like, every 90 minutes, these birds would flutter and make noise. And that wasn't ideal. It wasn't ideal. Sounds like an ideal. That sounds idyllic is what it sounds like. You just wake up to the sound of birds right outside your window. You and I have a different definition of idyllic. You've got three unbelievable tiny cute little daughters. And it's just, like, it sounds like a princess, like scenario in your home. Sure. Yeah. I don't think my wife and I were quite close. That's not how it works that way. Okay. All right. Well, I understand that. Interesting. It was just made right now. And we haven't really talked about this one very much. Yeah. Dan Graziano took Ramondra Stevenson with the 10th pick of the fourth round. Not that I'm super intrigued by Ramondra, but Patriots are eight days away from playing. Yeah. Trivia and Henderson wasn't practicing yesterday still because that ankle injury. So Ramondra could have more value in a knockout league as a result of Traveon still nursing that long ways to go by next week in some ways, but also like close enough that, and we already think Ramondra is going to be the guy in this backfield, the leader of this backfield. Maybe not the guy meaning 80% of the snaps, but again, knockout strategy, a little bit different than tickle strategy. About it, and I just made a knockout decision here looking at guys like Karnel T. Marvin Harrison, DK Metcalf, Alec Pierce, I went Metcalf, like the schedule out of the gate. Tates, obviously, some uncertainty is he built some chemistry, chemistry there with his new quarterback, Harrison tougher schedule appears obviously may not be a full go. My team is on the screen. Here's how we started. The Caffer and Quinchon Judkins running back for Shi rice and DK Metcalf at wide receiver for picks in. Rollin. We are rolling along. We are at the end of the fourth round and just a couple of picks. I totally blood the entirety of that clock there guys. I was having a hard time in trying to make a decision between which of these wide receivers did I want. Karnel Tate, who I'm more excited about for the longevity of the season, or Wondell Robinson as the potential like, do I just think that he might have a safer floor in this week one situation? Every guy I like that thought, I like that thought process because I just followed your lead there, Daniel. I went, I thought my first three picks were all guys that I think have tons of upside. Yeah. Me or Gibbs. Do you want they Smith and Tatero Macmillan? That left me with a gap at both tied end and running back and we have reached the point where upside is much harder to find at those two spots. Correct. So I just, I figure, you know what? I like Travis Kelsey earlier in the season, then later in the season, he's like my age. And Tony Pollard, same deal. So my team as it takes, again, picking from the one hole, Jameer Gibbs as my RB one, Tony Pollard, Tatero Macmillan, Devonte Smith, Travis Kelsey is my tight end. So I still need a quarterback and a flex from my starting lineup before we get to our four bench spots. A couple philosophical questions for you guys. Yeah. Okay. Because it's the, you know, it's, it's, it's because it does matter like week one every week as consequential, are you more likely to fill out your entire starting lineup before you get to the bench? Or no, great question because this is the kind of thing where you're starting lineup is actually what matters, not like bolstering your bench. You can bolster your bench all season long. I can't tell you how often I see people in season long regular drafts. Yes. Fill out the starting lineup. And I'm like, it's really fine. If you don't draft, it's okay. If you don't, yeah. Do you guys feel that's different in a knockout league, especially a knockout league with no kicker or defense? One million percent. Sort of going to answer your question here because I am going to take a tight end to help fill out. I know there's a little risk on this one, but I'm looking. I don't want to take another brown because I have, I feel like Quenchon Judkins and I don't to be that reliant on a week one dud and then it's a mess. So I'm actually going to take a little bit of risk here with Sam LaPorta, Hobie's healthy and ready to go. What I really, why I think it's worthwhile is the Lions maybe have the most attractive fantasy schedule out of the game. It's certainly if a great schedule is a team this year, the easiest in the NFL, the fantasy schedule the first month and throughout most of the season is extremely attractive. So I'm going to expect them to score a lot of points. LaPorta in the tight end slot. I'd like to say this right now, Michael F. Florio with my favorite pick of the fifth round so far, if there was ever a time where I would be I took a lion on Christian Watson. It would be in the first week of a knockout league because I don't have to worry about the whole season long. I can use them until I need to not use him anymore. Right. Right about him there. I actually think he has a little more value in this by the way in week one. So second, wish I want to keep talking about what keep talking about the picks, of course, but I want to discuss strategy here as well. No matter who gets knocked out in week one, there's going to be a high profile player. Unless that player is hurt, you're going to have, I mean, just read the names of the very top Gibbs Robinson, Jamar, Almanron, McCaffrey, Nakua, Taylor, Lamb, Cook, Jefferson, sake one. How do you guys approach the fab process each week in knockout leagues? Yeah. How aggressive are you right out the case? Is it? Yes. Are you the kind of person that because I remember we played in a knockout league together? I think all of us. And last year Eric Moody, I believe Christian McCaffrey's team got knocked down in week one person who had Christian McCaffrey. And I think Moody spent it all on CMC or a healthy dose of it. And he had a great team that had worked out. I think he may have won the league actually. But obviously if you do that, you are left to pick up just scraps from there on out. Do you guys generally lean aggressive? Do you generally lean towards patients? Because you could say like, yeah, my team, I barely scraped by in week one. I need to spend big for week two or you had a tough week one. Your team was just unlucky. And like your team actually isn't that bad. So I've got I've got two thoughts. I'd like to know where you're at on this too. Obviously. I don't, but I see when we see us alive after I can still knock you both out week one, right? Did we just? Yes. Yes. Yes. I wasn't listening. I heard your voice on the rules thing. I wasn't you're paying attention. Yeah. Yeah. I think that for me, I don't necessarily go big right out the gate. There's a little bit of a first off. It's so difficult in a, in a league with a thousand dollar fab budget. And you have no idea what everyone else is going to think. Someone could come available and you bid $17 and someone else bid $634. Yes. That's because we have no idea what people are doing when they're valuing like this is what I need to get this guy. Right? You correct me. Is other one of you know this? If Keith, I think Keith is listening or watching, probably knows the answer to this. I believe the waiver report is revealed each week. Yes. Obviously new to ESPN. This this for me. I believe that as well. The like, you know, hey, let's just say I'm just making this up. The person who has whatever who has a Jeremiah love. Sorry, Daniel likes loses in week one. And Mike wins. Jeremiah love for $278. We'll be able to you'll see who the number two you'll bid 200 Liz bed 150. Adam rank bid 100. Mike had the highest bid at 278. So yes, he won. He may have quote unquote overspent, but only by $78, which in the first week, it's hard to say that $78 too much is really overspending because you just have no idea. I also think the first couple weeks, people might want to be a little bit more conservative because they don't want to spend it all up front. Sure. So there's a chance that if you do want to be a little more aggressive, if there is a superstar superstar, if for some reason, Jumir Gibbs, Bashan Robinson, Pukinakua, Jamar Chase is available. And you want to go out and be a little more aggressive. I think it's easier to do early Iran because people don't want to go through and think about not having enough money for the rest of the season. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt about it. I think it kind of depends to the player or something. I don't want to do is continue to spend hundreds of dollars at a time, just getting a little better in a position when I have the money to make a splash on an elite player to my point before when you get to the championship, you want to have the the best guy at the position elite. So if Gibbs Robinson, CMC, Chase, Dakota, JSN, Josh Allen, McBride, Bowers, could become available. That's where that's where I'm looking hard at that. I think everyone has value, but those guys, my goal is, and this is like threading a needle. Obviously, you want to be one of the top scoring teams just because it's safest. But if I can just be in the middle to like bottom third, but still not be the worst and save as much money as possible, if you can have a bunch of fab by the time that you get to the middle of the season, the guys that start to get dropped in the middle of the seasons, those teams are more stacked than the teams at the beginning of the season. My finish if you ever thought I was going to change subject. I just love the idea of interest. Something interesting. Being able to just think about grabbing someone and waiting in the middle of the, you know, you get to week eight. And now all the sudden the team that gets dropped has six actual superstars on it, not a team from week one or we two. It's tough because their strategy is really all over the place. I'm not sure there is like one specific thing you can do. There's just a lot of nuances with the way that you can approach all of these situations. Yeah, no doubt about it. What I wanted to protect. Yeah, subject change here is the quarterback situation here in this round early in the round. Mapo and takes Joe burrow later in the round. The guy I was targeting, but I was uncertain if you would get back to me. It's a lot of quarterback depth. I was okay waiting. But Tristan Cochraf, no surprise on top of things here. Get your guy Justin Herbert. You're waiting early season schedule Cincinnati Tampa Bay in week one. I think they're going to be better defensively, but that's fine. But then ad Houston at Pittsburgh for Joe Burrow. But on the other side, Justin Herbert opens with Arizona at home, Raiders at home. And then at Buffalo, I said, I still believe it's going to be a really good match up this year for quarterback. So the schedule, again, I think Herbert is the best weeks one, two, three schedule in the league. So fascinating that burrow goes before Justin Herbert. This is more of a of a real life than a fantasy conversation. But if you guys see in this, everybody's tweeting about this now, the stretch that the chargers have starting in week three schedule wise. Again, real life factors here. Real life at Buffalo at Seattle home to the Broncos at the chiefs at the Rams. I mean, tactically a road game, but you know, literally the same stadium home to the Texans at Baltimore. That's six straight games. They play home to the Jets and then home to the Patriots, which is something to keep in mind there. Remember, after week three, you might not need Herbert anymore. You might be able to scoop someone up. You might get Bonyx off waivers. You might get Brock party off waivers. You might get so generally you're not going to be dropping the number one quarterback in the season three, but get that, you know, but in this format, you don't have to when he's going to Seattle or Denver, whoever may be, you don't have to start him, right? You're going to be able to replace these guys this year goes on. It's it's, but the first three weeks, if you could cement yourself as a, as a legit team, that's the huge quick recap here of the fifth round that we had field talked about taking Travis Kelsey after that. Can you gain well, Joe burrow. I took Rico Dottle with the fourth overall pick. Mike went with Sam LaPorta. Then we had Christian Watson, Harold, Fanon, Jr. Carnell, Tate, Dak Prescott, George Kittle, who did fly to Australia. I believe, Mike, we talked about that before the show for vacation either. We don't know that place. We don't know that actually. He might know you're right. Maybe he did just maybe just have flown there for vacation likes the party. Then Trevian Henderson, Chris Godwin, Jr. Justin Herbert, Marvin Harris, and Jonathan Brooks and Josh Downs with Michael Wilson and Matthew Golden rounding out the fifth round to start the sixth to quickly catch us up. Johan Johnson. We're in the sixth round and Johan Johnson just went at the tight end physician. That's how deep it is when you have an 18 team knockout league guys. I think with Jordan Tyson out for whatever we'll say maybe six weeks of the regular season roughly. Yeah. By, I believe I said, as week eight, something like that. Johnson's been viewed as a target right now for the early season. In this format, you don't have to start Johnson throughout the whole year, but maybe take advantage of that schedule early in the year coming off a year with career highs across the board for him last year. He was he was pretty darn good. So he was fine. He was tied to Nate. Shout out. He came off shout out. Liz Lose a field says it's fine. He came out tight end 11. He was drafted. He was tied to Nate last year. Love that. It's fine, but like that's the arc type of fantasy football player that like you don't really get fired up to start that guy on Sunday. You're not like, I'm exactly why he went ahead of Godter. Okay. I'm just likely. I mean, this is why you're you. You are the machine. You are the engine. You are the pistons behind the ESPN fantasy operation. And then people like me are just blabbering because it's like, yeah, like it's exciting to start like, you know, you're Gibbs. Yeah. Right. So on Johnson is a little different. However, Mike, I appreciate the argument also like 10 points. You're like, all right. I'm excited about that. Well, if someone's going to race an eyebrow who's watching this, I'm going to explain why that may have happened here. So Michael, the circus dancers are not the man of the people is what you're trying to say here. That's what it is. Yeah. That's it. People call me after that. No one goes after that. We had you on Johnson. Man, of the minions. Jackson dog chew a hover. Many kids movies. I've trust me. I watch a lot of minions and stuff. Caleb Williams was the fourth pick of the sixth round. Then Stefan Diggs, JK Dobbins, JK Ferguson, RJ Harvey, Brock Purdy, another quarterback that just keeps being slept on, which one of you had all those Brock Purdy stats was talking about how good he's been over the last couple of years. Mike, that's you top three top 12 fantasy points for a game three years under running now. I believe it's top 10 actually three years running is Brock Purdy. So yeah, when he's played, he's been effective. He has missed games at times, but yeah, he was really good down the stretch last season. Remember how good he was 17 plus fantasy points in seven of his nine games. He had 26 plus and three straight 16 17 15 16 17. Beautiful. Yeah, top 10 three years. in a row in points per game, so he's in a good spot. I think he had like 26 and 15, like 31 and 16 and 36 and 17 or something like that. He crushed it. The final three games of the playoffs were unbelief. Very pissed because somebody just took my quarterback target. I was going to look at him too. Who just took Jared Gough? Eric Carabell. DMU Eric Carabell. Yeah. That is an Eric Carabell pick. It picked by you. Great pick by Eric Carabell. No surprise. He's always very, very sharp with this quarterback process. I wanted to mention something. It's in this draft right now, is Dan Graziano. If you haven't yet, go on ESPN.com and there's a piece that Dan wrote called Graziano's bold but realistic predictions for all 32 NFL teams. I don't like it. Don't be surprised if dot, dot, dot. Yeah, I don't like it. You don't like it. How come it says positive things about your Scott? Didn't he say, don't be surprised if Jared Gough gets traded? The line is moving on from Jared Gough. The following surprise if Jamison William. Oh, I was thinking about a different article that he wrote then. Maybe it's a different article that he wrote. Oh, okay. His bold prediction was, don't be surprised if Jamo leads the team in receiving. Ooh. I got to say, though, and I do feel a little bit bad for Graz in a situation like this. We're in this, this information and aggregation era now, right? Where Graz wrote a piece called bold but realistic predictions, right? I think the bold is the most important part of that conversation and like, yeah, he's acknowledging these are bold. Bold to me means probably not super likely. Exactly. And super likely are two different things. And I've seen aggregators that are like ESPN's Dan Graziano believe James Williams will lead the lions in receiving. I mean, that's not what the article is. Do you guys really think Dan Graziano who's like this incredibly well-respected, educated, smart, talented reporter would be like, yeah, you know what's probably going to happen is Jamison Williams will most likely lead the team in receiving. It's possible. Of course, it's possible. People that write about those are those, that's a bold prediction from Dan, but the people writing about it, they'll get traffic if they put it that way. People click on it. I just wanted to give, I wanted to show some, some of you are, some sympathy to people like Graz who get put in this, this pickle, you're right. You're right. Hey, we have a bold predictions show coming up. We do. We sure do. We sure do. I'm going to report field eight says that pile of use check will lead the 49ers and fantasy points. Oh, Graz, Graz just text to me, by the way, he, I think he and I are aligned on the aggregators, but uh, Graz is the best. And by the way, you can't repeat what he said, I'm going to think it's a word for word. Bear Graz, that one feels you're on the clock back to back here while you make your picks. I'm going to quickly recap everyone on what's happened in the sixth round. We had Jordan Addison off the board of Dan Graziano, then EK took Jared Goff who we talked about. Mike Evans, Isaiah likely Matthew Stafford to Michael play NFL, then I took Tyler Shuck, Dallas Goddard, Dejon Stribling and Field, you went back to back with two quarterbacks, baby. I did. Yes. So I'm picking at the end. This was the end of six in the beginning of seven. And I really wanted Jared Goff as my quarterback, like badly talk about him on the bold prediction show, no teasers, but they're sort of the teaser right there. And I ended up with Trevor Lawrence Trevor Lawrence plays the Browns in week one, which for a long time, that was considered like a tough matchup for a quarterback. I'm not saying they're a bad defense now. But without Miles Garrett, they definitely feel like a little less daunting to me, but I wanted to give myself some optionality early in the season because if I'm not totally certain on T-Law based off of the schedule, then at least they have Patrick Mahomes to kind of like weave my way through the season, whether it's with those two guys as my quarterbacks or until I can accumulate or I should say acquire a quarterback who's better than either of those guys. I'm with you on that. Did you already have your flex or does that? I don't. But the flex options to me. We've reached the point now. I kind of agree. I'm not entirely sure. Like, we're both looking at the same thing right now. I'm like, Oh, no. No, I don't like it. We're totally certain that Mackay Lemon is better than Jalen Koker or Debo Samuel, right? Yep. Okay. Okay. Well, I did the same thing that field did. I went with a second quarterback just in case. I mean, in part because my first quarterback is Tyler Schuck. I do like the week one matchup against the Detroit Lions and how banged up that secondary is going to be. So I think he has a nice week one matchup. But I don't know as though I love him as my only quarterback for the entirety of a knockout draft. So I would like to be able to have Baker Mayfield. I do love what Baker potentially brings to the table a little bit of that wild card. Daniel, I have a question for you. Yeah. Think about you just mentioned the Lions secondary. Yeah. If the team still goes 12 and five, would you be on board with a season in which the Lions have the highest combined point scored and points allowed by a team in NFL history? Would I be okay with it? Yes. And we went 12 and five. Yes. We made the playoffs. I presume if you go 12 and five, you're making the playoffs. Yeah. Okay. Because all I hear about is getting in the playoffs. Once I get to the dance, then you figure it out. By the way, you would imagine branch and Walker will be back. I don't know by mid season worst case. I would imagine they're back to a hundred percent. I mean, that's going to make a big difference. I think they're defenses. Kirby Joe's pretty good. What did I say? Walker. Crazy Walker. I knew what Kirby Joe said. Yes. I knew what you meant. Former Lions safety, not long ago. Yes. You would expect them to be healthy. And I think the Lions defense on paper is pretty good. Yeah. So I think it's a top 10 defense on paper, just a matter of getting those star players healthy. And then of course, we've been saying that for about three years now. So we don't care about this, but the sixth rounder that I'm super excited about from last year, Ahmed Hassanine, being able to come off the edge, brings a lot of fire. I'm excited to see what he can do as a pass rush. And they loaded up on replacement safeties, too. Like I think they'll be, I think they're going to be okay. All right. I'm going to quickly recap again, where we're at in the seventh round here. Field went with Patrick Mahomes for his first pick. Then Brian Thomas, Jr. Jaden Reed, I went with Baker Mayfield. Mike, you went with Quentin Johnson. Hey, I know how high I've been on Mike McDaniel and the charger. That's exactly true. So I got. Yeah. I brought in Quentin Johnson. Yeah, look, again, I'm trying to take advantage of weeks one, two, three. The schedule is so appealing. If I can get a couple of good games, which we got out of him early last year, yes, you did. That's going to be huge in this format. I don't have to start him all season. I keep pressing that, especially in the flex spot. I'm going to be able to replace that at some point. It's funny to me because it's like when you put your money where your mouth is, you agree with me. When you don't, it's this is not the same format. You got to adjust this is a little different. You just talked about the schedule after week three. That's true. It's true. It's true. Michael Floreo after Mike took Quentin Johnson. He took Jordan Love. Then Cynthia Freelin took Aaron Jones, EK took Mark Andrews, then Jordan Mason and Romeo dobs. Next. Did you just say like that on Jordan Mason? Yeah. I think that's a good pick at this point. A guy who could potentially get you flex numbers. It looks like he's going to lead the Vikings backfield, certainly in carries and goal line work. There's a lot of chatter about him being the centerpiece there. So I worry about his passing in usage, which will limit him. But in this format, we're talking about 30 some running backs off the board already and you just got probably the starting running back four minutes. So again, Aaron Jones will play a lot, but Mason, a lot of momentum building there and there's not many. Many teams potential starting running backs are left, Washington, maybe, yes, and end of list. That's it. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Maybe Jacksonville, but yeah, it's it is dried up quickly. So by the way, to answer your earlier question, my starting lineup is filled out. Oh, is it all bench from here? Hey, why don't we talk? Can if we can then why don't we throw Mike's line up up there just to be able to see what a full starting lineup looks like? Throwing something new that happens at practice, this will be my week one, this will be a week one starting lineup. All right, we'll start out. Start out at the top. Mike can give us your line up. Yeah, rolling with Matthew Stafford, a little bit tough out of the game at the 49ers, but it clears up then for a couple of weeks. So I expect a decent game to start for him. But then right back to Christian McCaffrey and Quinch on judgekins. We're going to get a ton of volume out of them where she writes no indications. He'll be limited or out in any way for week ones. I'm happy to take him where I got him. He came at calf, go to the early schedule there, Quentin Johnson, extremely light scheduled open this season. And then we're going to fill it out here with tight end Sam Laporta. So I think I'm happier with this and I was our draft on Monday, honestly, and that was a 12 teamer. Are you? So when you look at this starting lineup, obviously again, 18 team leagues. So there's a little bit thin in certain areas. First bench spot. Are you most worried about being able to find a second flex just in case? Are you worried about Sam Laporta? Maybe not being around week one. So you want to target a tight end? How do you approach? Maybe. I mean, I think it's going to be just give us just a strategy now so we know it's such a cop out. But we'll see use available. I mean, it's okay. The here's the thing. I'm really far away from picking again. So this thing can move in a lot of different directions. But here's the thing. My lineup is, uh, my lineup is filled out. So I could take some chances now on guys that maybe I don't want to start week one. But maybe by week two or three, they'll have to be starting. In a 18 team league, if you pick fifth, how many, you're talking about 13 picks, but so are you? Are we going like 25, 26 picks between, like that's for Mike. And it wasn't a math guy. I know it's more for me. Learning more for you. Yes, for me. 35. There's one of the guys that was on my radar, Christina and Zach just picked Alec Pearce who would have been, he kind of stood out way up my career on your radar, Mike. Yeah. He's a guy that's standing out as best available, but the problem was I'm not going to start in week one. So I wasn't going to touch. Oh, there's a good back by Liz right there. Mike Washington, Jr. Love that. Good one. Yes. We're done in the last four rounds here. Do you like other like, sort of theory strategy questions generally that you guys have about or that you guys want to talk about, but knockout leagues? I will just say this, okay. We're in the seventh round. And the names that we're looking at are gross. 18 teams. Yes. Right. But that is the point. If you are going to do an 18 team knockout league, I would just suggest that you kind of refresh your brain on the names at the bottom of the list because we all know the guys at the top, the top 150 that we've been talking about, but in an 18 team league, and I recognize you may not play them, but this is also where you could potentially grab some flyer that no one else is going to know is going to turn into something. So just make sure you refresh your brain on all of the names at the bottom of our player pool in this league because you will be tested on them in the draft. No doubt. We're also going to pick up the pace with some, uh, by, by shortening up the clock here. Oh, are we? Yes, just love that. You know, we're at the point now where these guys all kind of blend together. 30 second picks begin right now. All right, love that. We're starting the eighth round. Eighth rounds already started. Wow, it's already going in faster. Khalil. Yes, it is. TJ Hawkinson, Casey, Kise Pseon and Greg Dolcich, which one do you like, Mike? Uh, Kise Pseon. He was on my radar for the next pick. I think he's going to be very busy right out of the gate for the Browns. What I was going to say about knockout leagues is you have to be comfortable, though, especially when you have just four spots in your bench, like we do, which is in part a factor of the 18 teams. Um, is you got to be comfortable with going into the season, say, like I like the long term upside of Casey, Kise Pseon and then pivoting to potentially dropping him after two weeks. Yes, yeah. It's just a reality, right? Like if he's not making the cut and he's got seven targets through two games and you really need or you really want to prioritize adding somebody else, he gone. Yeah. Um, the other thing that I would say just about knockout leagues is it's perfect when you can play. I think 17 or 18 is the perfect number for the number of people for number of people. Yeah. Um, and the reason I say that is, you know, if you play 17, you play all the way through week 17 and the head to head championship is in week 17 when almost every team is still playing for something. Yeah. Uh, week 18, totally understandable. You get action every single week. Um, and you're still going to have like good players playing on both teams, but you're also susceptible to Josh Allen in the bills or locked into a C to he's not playing in week 18. Uh, if you play with like 10 or 12, there are a couple of different ways to go about it. Um, actually, a handful of different ways to go about it. Like you can cut the league off like a certain number of weeks. Um, you could play a playoff, like you get down to four teams and kind of go round robin for four weeks or something like that too. I'm in a, I'm in one of these leagues with my buddy Kevin Paulson for our buddy Kevin Paulson for he does, uh, more than 18, right? Yes. More than 18 and it's multiple chops. First two weeks, there are no chops as where you're allowing people to be able to go through. No one has cut. Um, and then after that, it's like you will have a couple of weeks where you have more than one team is cut to be able to let people play. So there's a lot of different ways that you can set it up to be able to make this work. Totally. Yeah. Um, there are a lot, there's certainly a lot of ways to, uh, to make this fun and different and interesting. I do think the ideal number, the most straightforward number is 17 or 18. These require some maintenance, but, um, that, that's sort of the fun of these things is the strategy involved in waivers is very different than the strategy involved in typical standard leagues. And that is, I think the most fun, sorry, Mike, I didn't like that. Mike. I don't like that one. What happened, Tyler Murray. I don't like to be too, but I feel like at this point, schedule is not too bad for them. I'm a little surprised he fell this far. I am. Tyler? Yeah. I'm surprised he fell this far. A lot of quarterbacks went after him that I've ranked, uh, went before him that I've ranked after him shut off. Daniel Jones Baker. Love. Mike Willis just went one spot later. So 24 teams for pulse. What a beast? Yeah, it is a beast. It is a beast of a league for that final five and a week 17 shootout that he does. That's really cool. Right there too. Nice. Uh, you're back on the clock, Daniel. Yeah. I'm going to go with the, uh, what I believe is the wide receiver two of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Oh, if you guys let me draft, I'll make Alex John. Nice. Like it. Um, upside, upside, upside. Damn it. Matt Bowen took the other guy ahead of my new rush. I thought, yeah, he was in my queue as well. Um, I went to Chris Rodriguez, by the way, little running back depth could be the lead back, the lead rusher and goal line option for Jacksonville. As soon as week one, I actually have rush. He'd ranked ahead of Jalen Lookmillan, but because my number one wide receiver is Jackson Smith and Jigba, I decided not to double up on the offense there. That's why I want Jalen. All right. I just took back to back, uh, wide receivers. Jerry Judy to potentially fill out my flex in case on booty. New Houston Texans wide receiver. So I am now pretty receiver heavy. You are a little bit, but, um, the roster that I have right now, Trevor Lawrence with my running backs, being Jameer Gibbs and Tony Pollard, my wide receivers being Tedaro Macmillan and Devante Smith with Jerry Judy in case on booty. Travis Kelsey is my starting tight end. Patrick Behalms is the second quarterback that I have again, reminding I waited in a quarter back a long time. So I gave myself what I think is some optionality field. Yes. Matt Bowen. Yes. Played for what professional football franchise? Uh, the Chicago Bears. And he just took Keaton Mitchell over Kyle Menungai. Hmm. Interesting. I'm going to take Kyle Menungai. Do you guys know I like him this year? I was aware of that high moon Nungai. Did you guys know that Matt Bowen's son is like one of the best high school. Yeah. He's got four sons, I believe. He's got one of the, and one of his sons is one of the best high school players in the country. Unbelievable. He's amazing. Do you think that a lot of that DNA comes from his mom? Well, I would probably guess. Okay. It feels weird to say mean things though that Matt Bowen should my good man. High integrity guy. Mike went with Terrence Ferguson. Money is all about this. Right, Mike. Hey, if you were absolutely about Sam LaPorta and week one, is there a nice option there at the Tedent spot? Terrence Ferguson, Mike with the bill and play safe. Right. Let's say, say about this format. It's all about first point. Yeah. Yeah. I think he's pretty clearly third in line for targets. I wanted to get him on the team. And I do think the board is going to play third in line and targets in the offense. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. All right. So I would say that it's the tagline for for knockout leagues is if you're not last year first. Yes. That's a great way to put it. Thank you. Yeah. I like that. I want to take a look. If you guys don't mind, I'm going to throw a my line up here. Quick on the screen. We'll do a quick recap of all of ours. Now that we have our starting lineups and part of our bench is filled out. I've got Tyler Schuck at my quarterback with Baker Mayfield as my number two QB. Jeremiah Love, Rico Dowdell, Kyle Menungai are my three running backs. My wide receivers Jackson Smith and Jigba Wondale Robinson and Jalen McMillan with Tyler Warren. A reminder, this is an 18 team knockout league in which the player pool gets thin quickly. Let's say quick look at field steam field at the quarterback spot. You also have two quarterbacks with Trevor Lawrence and Patrick Mahomes. Yeah. Patrick Mahomes, Trevor Lawrence. You mentioned Mier Gibbs, Tony Pollard, Deteromic Millen, Devonte Smith, Jerry Judy, K. Sean Booty, and then my tight end. Travis Kelsey, Travis Kelsey, who I like him more early in the season than I do, probably late in the season when those legs get heavy. Were you on the seven, 35 years old, whatever he is? Were you trying to put a battery together there? Yes. You were. Yes, I was. Anyway, I forgot to follow up on this, but you made a baseball reference earlier with on dead in the whole. Yeah. I was waiting to see if you were paying attention. That's mostly our theme. That's the theme of the podcast. That's right. Everything's baseball. Let's take a look at Mike's lineup real quick. All right, and that's enough. Go ahead and pull it off the screen. And we're good to feel. That's it feels dang it. We already looked at him. Good job. We'll do it one more time. Yeah. My lineup. We talked about earlier. Stafford McCaffrey, Juddkins, Rice, Medcalf, Laporta and Johnson. They're the starters for week one, boring disaster. And then the bench so far is Chris Rodriguez and it turns Ferguson. But we're not done yet. We are not done yet. We have two picks left. How about our guy Kevin Pulse, who's on the clock right now, picking 160th. Wow. And he still has to get a quarterback. Pulse will not make his quarterback pick until either the last or second to last round seems like it. When with a guy that's not going to play for the first handful of weeks of the season, but I will say this about Kevin. I thought about him. I think you'd be hard pressed to find somebody who plays into many leaves Kevin Pulse. I agree with you. That man plays in a lot to fantasy football leagues. It's one of the various whites and amazing. So look at his options. There's a lot of knowledge in that brain. So CJ Stroud appealing a lot of guys left are not guys you want to really be starting maybe even some super flex leagues. But the schedules are appealing for a lot of these guys early on. So maybe that's the stop process here. CJ Stroud, great schedule early on Sam Darnold, Bryce Young, Kim Ward, Jacobi Bersetch, you know, Smith Aaron Rogers. The names you just read don't inspire Sean Watson, but I realize that's all it's different. That's like right. You're talking about how this is week one. We're trying to win one week. Yeah. In a season long, I'm with you for even in super flex. I don't feel good. I have CJ Stroud as my quarterback in our dynasty league. That's a super flex. I don't like starting him. I remember when you had that. I was like, damn Daniel's got CJ. I thought for a minute, I had something. But in this league, when it is a knockout league, it's all about one week at a time, guys. And Joe Fortenbach finally made the decision to end this streak. Josh Jacobs. Yeah. It's interesting. Again, you got to be prepared to like if your team is on the, if we find out it's going to be eight weeks for Josh Jacobs, then if he can survive eight weeks. Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Paul's also ears were burning listening to the podcast. Obviously took Sam Darnold at that point because he realized how thin the quarterback position was right. That is also true. That is where we're at. Gunner and Helm comes off the board next and now a lot of tight ends going since I took Ferguson, which makes me happy. Oh, yeah. You started that run, Mike. Yeah. I take full credit. Yep. And that's more a flex guy's I can pick later. That's right. They can take him back up tight ends. We got two guys left. Mike, your wide receivers, two of them are very similar to each other in DK Metcalfe and Quentin Johnston, both field stretchers. One of them's got a good quarterback. The other one has Ann Rogers. Are you worried about Ann Rogers not being able to throw the ball down field to DK Metcalfe? I mean, look, there's a reason Metcalfe is going where he's going in the 30s and not in maybe the teams where he was in his prime in Seattle. But he was the best guy in the board at that point. And also I was comparing schedules. And again, I'm not too intimidated by the early schedule for the Steelers. I think they'll come out fresh when it's warm and they'll get the ball in his hands. I'm glad you're here because this is a great reminder. And you say it every time you make a pick, just when your drafting looking at the first handful of weeks is what is most important Mike and you are continually doing that as you are making your picks. Yeah, I'm not too, uh, I don't think I picked anyone that I'm like worried about the schedule. You can't get a, there's a season long brain and there's a knockout brain and you kind of have to draw a line between them when you decide to do this draft. I like that. Caleb Johnson comes off the board of Dan Graziano. We're at some dark throw picks here. Guys that, you know, it's a whole dark. That guy we thought might be out of league, not long ago. But now we can play a role in San, or in Green Bay. All right. We're down to the nitty-gritty here with our final picks and there's going to be a tough one to close this out. There's not a lot of guys left. I'm going to quickly recap the 10th round for you guys while we are waiting to get here with Cynthia Freeland on the clock. Round 10 with Liz Loza. We went, Liz is picks at the turn. We're Emmett Johnson and Jalen Nailer. Then Malik Washington, Sam Darnold, Josh Jacobs, Gunner Helm, Jacoby Brissett, Evan Ingram, Ryan Flanoi to Adam Rank, Jacoby Lane, Caleb Johnson, Denzel Boston, CJ Stroud, and Chris Bell. There we go. Chris Bell. If you can be patient, Mike Florio, Mike, you can be a patient. We have a winner there. We are all about to make our final picks. We can rip through our teams after we do exactly that. Mike is down to his, just made his penultimate pick, Matt Daniel on the clock here. I will be first to wrap up because I had the first overall pick in this 11 round draft and producer Presley just ahead of me. I'm going to rip this up. All right, so my final two picks will be Dylan Samson and George Holani. I needed to try and throw a couple of running back darts is up to this point. I am rather under indexed at running back. Sure. My team, I don't know if we can pull it up quickly, but we can. Absolutely. Again, I had the number one pick in this draft. I decided between Bijan Robinson and Jamir Gibbs, the schedule played a factor, specifically as early as week one, right? I mean, the Lions getting the Saints versus the Falcons getting the Steelers can be enough to break the tie. So I went with Jamir Gibbs. Trevor Lawrence is my QB, Tony Pollard, my RB2, Tenerome McMillan and Devante Smith, my starting receivers, Travis Kelsey, a tight end. Jerry Judy, my flex and here my bench guys, Patrick Holmes, Keishan Booty, Dylan Samson, George Holani. I need a running back, not named Jamir Gibbs and Tony Pollard to find a pulse. Or I'm going to have to hit the waiver wire really hard. Yep. I mean, this is, but the great part about this format field, you will be hitting the waiver wire every single week along with everyone else as new people are added to it. I'm going to take a quick look at my roster because I just wrapped up my squad starting to the quarterback spot. I already said, I can't get him. Who? Mike, who are you trying to get? Oh, I got him. I did it. So I had a moment there where it was like weird. I put I searched for came on black and put him on my Q. And then I put the top. You went and usually it says who was picked there. And I thought you took him. And I was like, and then it just like was weird. And I couldn't get back to it. Time to press it. But anyway, you're good. You're good. Sorry. Go ahead. All right. So my team Tyler Schuck and Bacon may feel the quarterback spot running backs are Jeremiah Love, a little bit of question mark their week one Rico Dowdell Kyle Menunguy and Zach Sharbinay. I'm going to throw on IR and just add somebody immediately when the draft is over. My wide receiver, they're Jackson Smith and Jig, but Wondell Robinson, Jalen McMillan and Trey Harris. My tight end is Tyler Warren. And I'm going to definitely be working the waiver wire. I mean, we're all going to be working the waiver wire in this league with all the the loose ends that we have on our rosters. Mike, you have a full roster now as well. Give us the final team. All right. Final team. We have good old Matthew Stafford in the quarterback spot. And then we're going with Christian McCaffer, Quinch on Judkins, wide receivers, receiver, STK Medcaffin, Quentin, Quentin Johnston, Sam Laporta, a tight end that your starters. And then the bench, Chris Rodriguez, Terrence Ferguson, Braille and Alan and Caitlin, Caitlin Black. My last two picks. No wide receivers. No, no, not in the bench. Alan is, look, if Breeze Hall is a little setback and isn't ready for week one. Remember, he was a little beat up. It looks like a play. But if not, I have Alan as a potential flex option. And then again, I don't always target the insurance running back for my players. I don't necessarily do that. But in this case, if you look in the draft room, what Christian McCaffer, so it was a little cue by his name. He looks like he'll be fine for a week when I'm not worried. But again, if something shocks us like two years ago, yeah, and he doesn't play, at least I have Caitlin Black ready to go, which is so important in this format. I cannot say, it's okay if he misses one week. I'll just throw, you know, Chris Rodriguez in there be fine. I need to not finish last and week one. So I have a little security there with Caitlin Black. Here's how the last round is playing out just for you sickos that want to know the dark throws that we are throwing. Round 11 pick one, George Alani, Bryce Young, Fernando Mendoza, Trey Harris, Caitlin Black, Jordan James, back to back, 49ers running backs just in case they're Mike Aaron Rodgers, Kenan Allen, Jack Besh, Alameda Zacchaeus, Calvin Ridley, Travis Hunter, Chris Brooks, Pat Bryant. I think Chris Brooks is a good pick there too. We have no idea. Obviously, March on Lloyd is the first one in that room. But we're trying to see it's we're throwing darts here now. Pat Bryant, Cam Ward, Gino Smith, Tank Bigsby, and Darnell Mooney. You know, a lot of those guys are going to be contingent drops in week one. That's one of the choices. Go to after week one, when you're placing claims for some superstars you're going to be dropping the insurance backs and flyers were taken in the last round. All right, before a piece out, I got to be on my draft from the grade. What'd you get? I got an A minus. I don't know. I got a B. Okay, Mike. I don't know, I got to open it. You tell me. Don't you have it there? I get the email. I didn't get it. I didn't get it. Mike doesn't have functioning internet. Mike got it. Oh, I don't have it. What do I get? Mike and Mike and Eric Carebell both come on. Oh, there it is. I hate that. I got it. I got it. Hey, oh, it's so beautiful. What a team. Oh, my gosh. Pulse's chopper. I'm first overall. First overall. I gave out Fs in this. No, hey, you know, quarterback. Pulse got an F. Hey, oh, can't. Was this quarterback Sam Darnell? That'd do it. Gino Smith, who was a great schedule to start. He said, I do it. Yikes. Wow. I've never seen an F and I've seen some bad drafts. I've never seen an F. That's in respect. Wow. The pulse revenge tour begins right now. That's going to wrap it up for us for your own focus. We love you guys. Thank you for hanging out. Don't forget to love each other. Be kind to yourself. You deserve it. Field and I will see you tomorrow and Friday. Going to the beach later. Later. Later. See you guys. See you guys. [Music]