0:00Head. Hello and welcome to Episode 1024 of the official EstablishTheRun.com podcast.
0:04My name is Adam Levitan. I am one of the co-founders here at ETR and we are coming off of a, we
0:13are allowed to run good sometimes kind of week.
0:16Yes, that's right. It's really easy to whine and bitch and complain about how bad you run.
0:22I literally do it all the time. You know, I hate to run good sometimes.
0:28I hate that I do it. It's just pathetic loser behavior and I know that, but I still do it.
0:36And the worst part about that whining and bitching about running bad is that my brain literally just ignores all the times
0:44I ran like Usain Bolt, which of course happens all the time.
0:48But when I sunrun, when I Usain Bolt it, I don't go tell everyone how lucky I got.
0:55I tell everyone how great I played. And that brings me to week 2 Cash on DraftKings.
1:01And I'm going on the record here saying I probably deserve to lose.
1:06So next time when I whine about getting unlucky, remind me to listen back to this.
1:12And what I mean by, you know, running hot here in week 2 Cash, I got a 99th percentile outcome from not
1:21one, but two cheap players at positions that just dominated the field in Cash.
1:26Dalton Schultz at tight end goes off for 12 catches, 140 yards against the Bengals.
1:31You know, 29 DraftKings points at tight end, even with Nico Collins out and a good spot.
1:38I legit did not think Schultz was capable of 12 catches for 140 yards.
1:43I guess I'll call it like a 97th percentile outcome since he didn't score a touchdown.
1:49But anyways, insane. And then I also played Panthers defense, which I thought was fine.
1:55But, you know, I looked at teams with plenty of other defenses, Bucks, Ravens, ended up playing Panthers defense.
2:02They forced five turnovers, scored defensive touchdown, get three sacks, only give up three points.
2:07They scored 26 DraftKings points, for sure a 99th percentile outcome.
2:11And by the way, you know, outlier outcomes, speaking of defensive scoring, it's just so rarely aided by points allowed.
2:19You know, defensive scoring at fantasy in most scoring systems is about generating turnovers, generating sacks, and then getting lucky on some special teams or defensive touchdowns.
2:29You know, on the points scored thing, last season, only seven NFL teams got shut out all year out of 272 games.
2:37So 2.5% of the time did a game end in a shutout.
2:42Only 4% of the time did a team last season in 2025 hold another team to six points or fewer.
2:49Anyway, you know, I made a bunch of mistakes in cash this week.
2:54You can read about it in the lineup review on the site.
2:59That's free. But, you know, I played B. John Robinson over Christian McCaffrey.
3:04Okay, you know, not great probably. DK Metcalf, 5,200 against the Patriots.
3:08Aaron Rodgers is just such toast. You know, that was a mistake.
3:13Not prioritizing 7,300 CeeDee Lamb against the Commanders. You could say this stuff is results-oriented, but, you know, I just didn't feel great about it going in either.
3:23But it doesn't matter. When you hit these stone-cold nuts at tight end and defense and they score so outrageously, it's going to be fine.
3:32So, results-wise, at least, really, really good start to the season for me in cash.
3:38Again, you can read more about that on the site with the cash line of review.
3:44As for Week 2 DFS tournaments, obviously, you needed Schultz and Panthers defense.
3:49It wasn't crazy to have that at all. They were in a lot of cash builds, as I noted.
3:56And Panthers defense was actually not that owned because so many optimals had Bucks, Ravens, etc.
4:02But the real edge for tournaments in Week 2 was Fade Bijan Robinson play expensive wide receiver.
4:08Jackson Smith and Jigba had 41 FanDuel points, most on the slate for any position.
4:14CeeDee Lamb, 34, second most. Devonta Smith, 25.7, third most among skilled players.
4:19Jamar Chase, 23. And, you know, I saw that to some degree or tried to play that to some degree, at least to Fade Bijan part.
4:29I played five tournament teams. I didn't play Bijan Robinson on any, you know, mentioned that on last minute livestream.
4:36Just the way he produced in Week 1, it's a tough way to find the ceiling, relying on garbage time checkdowns and
4:44superhuman runs when the offense is so inept. And that was, like, the whole reasoning behind the Devon Achane Fade.
4:52Now, I do think the difference between Malik Willis and guys like Cooper Rush or Kirk Cousins or these other horrible quarterbacks,
5:00they will and can check down a lot to their running back.
5:05Whereas Malik Willis, don't expect that as much. But anyways, on Bijan, like, yeah, I thought Bijan was a really good play.
5:13Obviously, I played him in cash. I thought the floor was good.
5:17I questioned the ceiling, given his team environment when he's going to be 40% in tournaments.
5:23So I felt good about that fade. I really wanted to fade Bijan in tournaments, play Christian McCaffrey, and go with the stacks that I liked.
5:33Purdy, Dak Prescott, Carson Wentz, Baker Mayfield, Jordan Love.
5:36And, like, establishing that, just, like, a few things that I want to make sure my lineups reflect in tournaments, that's where
5:45I've really enjoyed playing around with the DFS Sims that we have through Solver.
5:50Like, I cross out guys I don't want in tournaments.
5:54I lock guys that I do want. I lock the stack that I want.
5:59I boost and dock some guys that I have leans on.
6:03I generate 500 lineups based on ceiling. Then I see what the Simmer RIs and Cash RIs, Cash Rates, and Finish Position Distributions look like.
6:12So my best team was on FanDuel. I wanted to play the Baker-Emeca-Egbuka stack, so I locked that.
6:19I also wanted Christian McCaffrey. Locked him. I wanted the Parker Washington-Jalen Waddell mini correlation.
6:25Locked that. And then I just ran a ton of lineups with my leans on players.
6:31Got Schultz and Panthers defense in there. You know, obviously this team didn't make any real noise because Baker Mayfield was terrible, but still, I like that team.
6:41Also, on the subject of tournaments, I want to give a quick shout-out to Nate from our team.
6:48He's working on FanDuel-specific stuff for us. He won 50,000 actually on DraftKings with a very chalky Dak double.
6:55In other words, Dak was really owned. Pickens was really owned.
6:59Lamb was really owned. He played a chalky Derrick Henry and Aaron Jones.
7:04A chalky Dalton Schultz. But he had 8% Jackson Smith and Jigba in this lineup and 6% Panthers defense.
7:11And that's all he needed to win the tournament, you know?
7:15So just another reminder that we can play the best plays in tournaments.
7:20We just have to do it in a smart way.
7:24Need to get to listener questions. Before I do, I'm sure some of you saw the $100,000 buy-in best ball league that
7:32Circa, and I think it was NFFC, put on a few weeks ago.
7:37Yeah, it was just a 12-team league, $100,000 buy-in best ball.
7:41The draft board from that league got tweeted. And it certainly wasn't the sharpest board I've ever seen, you know, in my opinion.
7:50Like, Cam Ward went before Jalen Hurts and Jordan Love.
7:54No matter what you think about rankings or projections or ADP, whatever argument you want to make there, like, that's not going to be right.
8:03And there was a bunch of stuff like that.
8:06And so when they put this on Twitter, the board from the $100,000, everybody starts chirping.
8:12You know, they're all chirping from the cheat seats.
8:16These guys are idiots. You know, let me play for $100,000.
8:20I just want to make the point that what that rhetoric fails to realize is that in any high-stakes peer-to-peer setting, the
8:28whales are almost always the actual winners in life.
8:31Yes, they're not as good at poker. They're not as good at fantasy football.
8:37But they show up and they take their cock out and they lay it on the table because they've already won in life.
8:45They've already been extremely successful in other aspects of life.
8:49They don't have to sit here and grind whether Parker Washington should have a 20.1 or 20.6% target share.
8:56And so I guess my point is it's not that they aren't good at these games because they can't be good at these games.
9:05They're typically very smart guys. It's just they play 100K fantasy football for fun, not for EV.
9:11And like being able to do something for $100,000 for fun is like life goals, right?
9:17And so that ecosystem, the nosebleed stakes ecosystem, it is the best kind in peer-to-peer gambling.
9:23The pros get good action. The whales get to have fun.
9:28No one gets hurt. So yeah, I regret that we did not get in there for that 100K best ball.
9:35You know, not that I or we are prepared to spend that much on one league where there's obviously a ton of
9:43variance, but we should have sold some pieces and gotten in there for sure.
9:49The larger point though is that I always try to remind myself because I get stuck in it too.
9:56Often the worst action is the mid-stakes action. It is where the grinders operate.
10:01Like, yeah, I'm playing for a living. I can't play $1, $2 poker or 2-5 poker.
10:07I can't play $2 head-to-heads in DFS. You know, if you're a pro, if you're a grinder, it's just not enough money.
10:15But yeah, I can play 5-10 and 10-20. I have enough money to do that and I can make real money there if I'm really good.
10:25I can play 109s and 50-50s, 109, 50-50s in head-to-heads in DFS at that level too.
10:31And just my point is always sometimes that is the worst action that you can get.
10:37At really low stakes, obviously there's really good action.
10:40At really high stakes, there's really good action. The middle is just tougher.
10:45So in terms of ROI, I just want to keep that in mind.
10:50Remind me of what I just said here next year when I tried to coward my way out of the 100K.
10:58Reminder, this free show is brought to you by Polymarket, one of the world's largest prediction markets and one that is now available in every U.S.
11:08state. You can go back to episode 1018 for more on my take for why prediction markets make sense for people like us.
11:16But the bottom line is really two things. First, Polymarket is just another place we can look to shop for the best price.
11:25And because there's competition for flow, we can often get the best price on our predictions on Poly.
11:32For example, before the season, I talked about Jameer Gibbs 7-1 to be Offensive Player of the Year on Polymarket.
11:39It was 6-1 on sportsbooks. It doesn't sound like that much, 6-1 to 7-1, but that stuff makes a massive difference in the long run.
11:48Just always getting the best price. And second, perhaps most importantly, there's no limiting in any markets on Polymarket.
11:56And there's tons of markets, you know, traditional ones, futures, alts, everything.
12:00Even if you're interested in player props or some of the really small markets like I am, you will not get the
12:08dreaded max is 26 cents screen that we get on so many legal sportsbooks.
12:13Even if you're winning, even if you're getting CLV, you're not going to get limited.
12:19And also we can trade out of our positions at any time at market odds, not the gouging that we see from
12:27sportsbooks with the early cash out buttons. So if you're interested in checking it out, Polymarket is offering new users a $50
12:36bonus if you deposit $10 with promo code ETR.
12:39That is a $50 bonus if you deposit $10 on Polymarket with promo code ETR.
12:45All right. Enough is enough. It is time for everyone's favorite portion of the program.
12:50The listener questions. Producer Luke, hit the theme music.
12:54All right. Thank you to everyone for the questions.
12:57Going to do four of them today. Might ask for some new questions soon.
13:02Kind of running low. So stay tuned to Twitter at Adam Levitan.
13:07I'll probably ask, I don't know, on a Thursday or a Friday for new questions here.
13:13But we're going to do four today. Question one from Minnesota Sports Talk.
13:18He says, will ETR ever have a way to adjust rankings based on league settings?
13:23Yeah. So I know this is something that people really want for redraft drafting season.
13:29You want the ability to input your scoring system, input your league position requirements, all the weird rules that you have, and
13:37we spit back out rankings specifically for your custom league.
13:41Believe me, I want to provide that for you guys also.
13:45And I think we can do it, but we're just never going to put stuff out that isn't up to our standard.
13:53So, you know, a lot of people want us to put out a season-long simulator for best ball, like try to simulate
14:01the entire NFL season against the best ball season.
14:05We've looked at that. That is such a difficult project.
14:09I'm really skeptical anyone can do it well. And if we aren't 100% sure it will help people win, we're just not going to put it out.
14:19You know, same thing goes for selling picks on sides and totals.
14:23Yes, people want it. No, I don't think we can do it well.
14:28You know, same goes for how X player fares against man zone or X player separation data.
14:34We've looked at all that stuff. There's no signal.
14:38It's just stuff that sounds cool on Twitter or shows.
14:41It's descriptive. It's not predictive. Right? And so, we're not in the business of being performative.
14:47We're in the business of giving people what they actually need to win.
14:52So anyways, this is a long way of saying that, yes, Minnesota Sports Talk, custom rankings for your league is a priority for us next year.
15:02But I don't want to promise it just in case we can't get it working to our standards.
15:09And by the way, those things I just described, like, I'm not saying no one can do it, but like, we need
15:17to be able to do it at our standard in order to put it out and sell it.
15:24Question two from Nate, he says, why does the probability of correctly pronouncing someone's name drastically drop when you turn 40?
15:32Is it your eyes failing to distinguish between the letters?
15:35I'm 33 now and fearful of pronouncing names incorrectly after listening to Silva try to pronounce Dijon Stribbling.
15:42Please help. You know those progressive insurance commercials where they say, we can't save you from becoming your parents, but we can
15:50save you money when you bundle home and auto with us?
15:55Man, those commercials really starting to hit home. I mean, my dad cannot pronounce anyone's name for decades, and now I can't pronounce anyone's name.
16:04I'm not really sure what it is. I promise I'm not doing it on purpose.
16:10Well, I guess I am doing it on purpose on the Travis Etienne, Travis HN one.
16:15That one I'm doing on purpose because I honestly do think there's a statute of limitations on this stuff.
16:23If you went by Travis Etienne all through college and four years in the NFL, and there's another player in the NFL
16:31who's really good who goes by Achane but spells it A-C-H-A-N-E not E-T-I-E-N-N-E.
16:36I mean, it's just too much. I just can't take it.
16:40But anyways, I guess, Nate, to answer your question, it's got to be cognitive decline, right?
16:46Like, the pronunciation stuff, like, clearly here at age 44, I am more forgetful.
16:51I don't process things as fast. I don't see as well.
16:55Maybe the pronunciation is just a symptom of that stuff, but it's not good.
17:00You know, I feel bad about it and I apologize to the affected parties.
17:06Question three from Zach. He says, after going through all of your health issues and having so many people reach out to
17:14you who you've never met, how do you balance the idea of fantasy slash sports slash gambling maybe not being how to use your limited time, i.e.
17:24the deathbed theory, how do you balance that with the idea that you bring joy to others and they feel connected to you and ETR?
17:33Yeah, I appreciate it, Zach. You know, that's very kind.
17:37Surely, there is a ton of societal value in just entertaining people.
17:42There's a reason there is incredible demand for that.
17:45People make music, comedy shows, movies, street performers. None of those people are contributing anything tangible, really, or great to society.
17:53But if they make people smile for a bit or laugh or get their mind off something tough that they're going through in life, I agree.
18:03You know, that's a gift. You know, that's a great thing.
18:07Like, what are we really on earth for anyways?
18:10I think, A, number one, sustain the human species, right?
18:14Like, keep pushing society forward to be better, more sustainable.
18:18That's our responsibility. And B, enjoy it. You know, everyone is so negative all the time these days, but really, that's just social media.
18:27Social media is not the real world. It's not all doom and gloom.
18:31There's never been a better time to be alive than now.
18:36And so, yeah, I agree, just entertaining people online where it's so doom and gloom, I actually think that is contributing to society.
18:44So, like, I try to go out of my way to be as positive as I can.
18:51I guess, you know, when I think about it, teacher, doctor, police officer, military, jobs like that are just so directly, measurably important to society.
19:00Like, the most important. I think all those people are underpaid for the record, but whatever.
19:06I don't sit around and struggle with this really, though.
19:10Like, I get, like, the entertainment aspect of it.
19:13All that said, you know, I know I've said this before, but I do want to do something else with my life at some point.
19:22I've gotten really into coaching kids sports. It's really fun and fulfilling.
19:27I love sports, but there's more to it. Like, coaching kids at this age, like the seven-year-old to 13-year-old window, coaches really
19:35do have a big impact on these kids' lives.
19:39Like, the things you learn from playing sports about working hard, how to work hard, playing the right way, dedication to someone
19:47else on your team, developing strategies within a given set of rules, handling life when you feel like you got screwed, being resilient.
19:55I mean, I could go on forever, but doing the coaching feels like I'm having a bigger impact on society, so, yeah.
20:04I don't know. We'll see how it goes. Uh, question four, last question we're gonna do today comes from Champ.
20:11He says, Adam, why doesn't urinal etiquette of always leaving a gap where possible apply to the stalls too?
20:18It seems to me that creating as much separation as possible would be easy plus EV, yet the general public doesn't seem to agree.
20:27Thanks. You know, Champ, one thing I do often, probably too much, is see things from someone else's point of view.
20:35You know, I really believe you've never walked a mile in someone else's shoes.
20:40You are not in a position to comment. You know, you've only heard one side of a story.
20:47You've heard a third-hand story. You can't take that as the truth.
20:52You gotta talk to the other side, to the other person.
20:56But in this case, Champ, there is no other side.
20:59We do not defecate in public restrooms, and we definitely don't do it next to someone else in a stall.
21:07As a great innovator of human behaviors, I literally only take a dump right before I go in the shower.
21:14No exceptions. And I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking.
21:19That's not practical, Adam. Sometimes you're in public and you have to dump.
21:24Nope. Not me. You just gotta be smart. You can't be an idiot.
21:29Like, I see these slobs at the Broncos games, for example.
21:33They're just housing greasy pizza and burgers and they're drinking a thousand beers.
21:38Guess what, bro? You're gonna have to use the stall in Broncos Stadium.
21:43You know, shocking, I know. But once you know your body and once you know your body really well, you know what triggers defecation.
21:52And once you've mastered this, you can truly be free.
21:56AKA, never use a public stall again, Champ. All right.
21:59That is gonna do it for another edition of the Solo Pod.
22:04I'll be back Tuesday evening with Silva for the second team-by-team show of the year.
22:10For producer Luke, for Jerry, the most beautiful beast in the world, I am Adam.
22:15Good luck, everybody. Good luck,
