0:00Hello and welcome to Episode 1030 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, the machine new kind of week.
0:14Yes, that's right. All week I stared at this massive CJ Stroud projection we had at this big Nico Collins projection and
0:22my pathetic, tiny, human brain just couldn't get my head around it.
0:26A lot of other people couldn't get their head around it either.
0:31Lowering the ownership, making the Stroud, Nico Collins stuff sim really well on both sites, especially on FanDuel where they were a bit cheaper.
0:39And I saw that, you know, I saw Nico, Stroud stuff simming really well.
0:44And of course, I not waived it because in my pathetic head, Stroud is not a good fantasy quarterback.
0:51When the Texans play well, it's through dominant defense.
0:55CD Lamb has a difficult matchup here and is very expensive.
0:59But of course, all that ignores why the projection on Stroud was so good.
1:04The Cowboys play so fast. Opponents run so many plays against them.
1:08This game is indoors. Cowboys defense is inept. I mean, if you look at our defense versus position stuff, and by the
1:16way, you can see that table in the data section of the NFL tab.
1:21Our DVP stuff had the Cowboys inflating quarterback scoring by 12.4% over baseline expectation.
1:26That was the most in the NFL. Same with wide receiver, 7.3% inflation, most in the NFL.
1:32So it's tough. There's some nuance here between like what I think we should be trusting the machines on and what I
1:40think are more spots to IKB, to I know better.
1:44I think this CJ Stroud, Nico Collins, CD Lamb play from week four is an example of one where I really do want to trust the machines on.
1:54When we have a really good projection on star players, when the game total is higher than my initial gut would have been on it.
2:03And yet people, including me, don't really want to click it.
2:07For example, in the three through three on DraftKings, Stroud was 7%, Nico 12%, Lamb 7%.
2:13So I know I'm not doing a good job of describing the difference here.
2:18I think the place where there's more room to IKB, to I know better than the machines, the better place to do that is in more volatile situations.
2:28There were not a lot of moving parts in Dallas, Houston.
2:32But in other situations, certainly there's more volatile spots.
2:36For example, Silva thought we were too light Emmanuel Wilson workload in projections relative to Helani.
2:42Turned out Silva was right. You know, that was a really tough spot.
2:46I'll talk more about Puka Naku in a minute, but we had a tiny doc on him for injury risk.
2:54In my heart of hearts, though, I thought a good chance he wouldn't be limited at all.
3:00That was a spot where you could IKB. On Dontavian Wicks, is he good enough to score fantasy points against Trent McDuffie with Jalen Hurts at quarterback?
3:10That's another one you could IKB. And so I guess my point is that the Dallas-Houston projections, there wasn't much to IKB.
3:18You know, I could say, well, I think that C.J.
3:21Stroud sucks. That's not an IKB. That is not an input.
3:25All that is baked into all the data already that the machines know, that the modeling knows, that the sims know.
3:33So on the Dallas-Houston projection, it was just rock solid.
3:37There was nothing tough about it on the input side.
3:40And that's the spot where I want to lean into the sims the hardest.
3:45So yes, I should have had the Stroud-Niko stuff in tournaments.
3:49Shout out to the people who did. I know there were a bunch of you got a bunch of messages about people winning some really nice stuff.
3:59Shout out to you. And by the way, unlike the spots to IKB versus where it's solid, I would think that it's pretty easy to figure out.
4:09But one of the reasons that we started that projections context show and Leonie does the lineup building show and why we
4:17talk about inputs on pretty much every show is to try to put context around it.
4:23So if you want to IKB, you guys know exactly how we're projecting these tough situations.
4:29As for cash in week four, man, I blew it on DraftKings.
4:33Like, I really, really did think Puka was going to be perfectly healthy.
4:38I talked about it a bunch. And it was such a big game for the Rams.
4:43They didn't want to fall to one and three.
4:47They hate the Eagles. I'm just such a Puka guy in general.
4:51He's so incredible. Anytime Puka Nakua is healthy and the greatest wide receiver kingmaker of all time, Matthew Stafford, is also healthy.
4:59And Puka Nakua is below AK on full PPR DraftKings.
5:03I want to be playing him. And, like, I don't get into those, you know, every slate is different.
5:10I agree. Every slate is different. Every spot is different.
5:13Every matchup is different. Every situation is different. But, man, if there was, like, a flow chart, Puka's healthy.
5:20Stafford's healthy. He's below AK. He's a good play.
5:24And I also knew a lot of people wouldn't play him because of all the ridiculous FUD.
5:30There were so many quotes this week from Sean McVay that were taken out of context around Puka Nakua's injury.
5:37So many Twitter doctors spreading absurd FUD. Headlines on Twitter about snap counts and he'll be limited.
5:43That just wasn't the case. Both Schefter and Glazer said Sunday morning Puka would not have any restrictions.
5:50It was just more of the, you know, the field, Adam, the field.
5:54More of that hysteria that I talked about last week with the game down in Rio.
6:00And so, like, a huge edge these days in today's media landscape, in today's overall landscape, a huge edge where there's just information, information, information.
6:09A huge edge is just cutting out the ridiculous overreactions and FUD when it's warranted and knowing when the FUD, when there's reason to be scared.
6:19And I pride myself on that. And I knew it, too, on Puka, you know.
6:24In the last-minute live stream with Silva Sunday morning, I talked a ton about that Puka spot.
6:30You know, Wiggins told me that I convinced him.
6:34He was watching last-minute live stream and he had the team that I played in on DraftKings.
6:40He changed it to a Puka team. So, why didn't I get off Garrett Wilson, find the 700 more to get to Puka?
6:48Because of quarterback. And this goes for everything I, this goes against everything I stand for in DK Cash.
6:55For so long, I was playing cheap quarterback and having tons of success.
7:00In this case, it's like, oh, God forbid I don't play Trevor Lawrence.
7:05You know, like he's some lock. Could have easily gone to Brissette or Baygent and then gotten up to Puka that way.
7:13You know? I mean, $700 to play Puka Nakua with the greatest wide receiver stat producer ever at quarterback.
7:20Or I could play Geno Smith. Wide receiver one.
7:23And, you know, I looked at it and I just didn't pull the trigger.
7:28So, pretty frustrating. You know, no excuses. Just really, really bad on DraftKings Cash this week.
7:34Still somehow won like 40-something percent of my head-to-heads.
7:37But, yeah. Just hate playing bad. And I know I said this last year.
7:42I think at the end of last year. But, I got to be honest.
7:47You know, it did cross my mind. Part of me did not want to play Jacoby Brissette or Tyson Baygent because those
7:55teams were a couple points off optimal. And if I, I can't be it like that in such a big spot in
8:03cash, if I try to do something quote-unquote above the rim, well, I'm not sure that's the right thing to do.
8:11Even if it's right for me personally on a risk-reward of doing something like getting off Trevor Lawrence.
8:17And, by the way, Trevor Lawrence ended up 70% owned in double-ups.
8:22Like, it would have been risky. I thought it was, you know, in hindsight, obviously, I think it was right.
8:29But, yeah. It's just, it's hard for me to play stuff that is off the optimal and then show up and talk
8:37about it and be like, yeah, this was my gut feeling.
8:41I'm not sure that's right. But, it's a constant struggle with that stuff.
8:46I'm not complaining. Like, hey, Adam, didn't you see this combo or why didn't you consider this play?
8:52And it's always this off the board, above the rim stuff that, you know, is risky and like might be losing more than winning.
9:01I'm just trying to explain kind of why. I hope that makes sense.
9:06Yeah. Good news was on FanDuel, found a really good team with Stroud at quarterback.
9:11Tee Higgins at wide receiver did get lucky there with the chase injury.
9:16But, one of the biggest things on FanDuel for me was I had the 300.
9:21On FanDuel, McCaffrey was 300 more than Kenneth Walker.
9:25I had the 300 to get to McCaffrey over Walker.
9:28But, I beat it a little bit there and stuck with Walker, which made a big difference.
9:35I thought that was, you know, a somewhat easy call to leave the 300 on FanDuel because it gave me a natural
9:43hedge against CMC, who I thought was better on full PPR DraftKings and was cheaper on full PPR DraftKings.
9:50And then, I wanted to play Walker on the more touchdown heavy FanDuel.
9:54So, yeah, I was happy with that decision over there.
9:58Anyways, four weeks into the season, always like to check on results here at kind of the quarter poll.
10:05ROI on DraftKings head-to-head so far through four weeks, 41%.
10:08I mean, way above expectation. ROI in FanDuel head-to-head so far is 26%.
10:13Overall combined, 37%. Again, 37%, way over expectation. Best year I've ever had is 22%.
10:19And I think these days my expectation is probably closer to 10% or 15%.
10:24So, yeah, most likely if regression rears its head, which it almost always does, most likely I'm going to be experiencing plenty
10:32more losing as I regress off this 37% ROI so far this year.
10:36But we'll see. You know, hopefully not. Reminder, this free show is brought to you by Polymarket, one of the world's largest
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10:48state. You can go back to episode 1018 for more on my take why prediction markets make sense for people like us.
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11:42And that's even if you're winning, even if you're getting CLV, et cetera.
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12:04If you deposit $10 with promo code ETR. Again, promo code ETR at Polymarket right now.
12:10Deposit 10, get 25. All right. Let's get to everyone's favorite portion of the program.
12:15The listener questions. Bruce or Luke, hit the theme music.
12:19All right. Appreciate the questions from everyone. Going to do three more here today.
12:24Question one from Timmy. He says, how did you meet the big dog, Evan Silva?
12:29Not that crazy of a story, Timmy. This was probably 2006, 2007 or so.
12:34I somehow got a, you know, per hour, hourly job doing NFL and NBA news blurbs at Roto World.
12:41Silva was already there. I believe as a full timer.
12:45He was also blurbing. He was doing NFL only news blurbs.
12:49And, you know, that was just a crazy time for fantasy and sports information.
12:54It was crazy intense because there wasn't really anyone else surfacing the news that people cared about.
13:00Like people relied on us so much for information.
13:03So we read newspapers, you know, online newspapers all day and night, basically.
13:08That was like the only way to get info.
13:11We blurbed 24-7. So all of us, you know, myself, Silva, Wesley, Rosenthal, Pat, you know, Mencio, all of us.
13:19I'm sure I'm leaving out a ton of people.
13:22We would all chat online all day. But we still worked from home, you know, not in the NBC office.
13:29We all worked from home. So the first time, so, you know, not that interesting of a story, you know, how I met Silva online.
13:38The first time I met Silva in real life, though, was in Vegas a bunch of years later.
13:45NBC, who owned Roto World, they sent us out to Vegas for some conference like FSWA or FSTA or something like that.
13:53Silva was winning some award. There was a bunch of talks and networking stuff going on.
13:59Obviously, we had no intention of going to the actual conference.
14:03But anyways, I show up. I text Silva. I'm like, where are you?
14:08He says to meet him near some restaurant. I walk up to this restaurant and I walk up and I see Silva
14:16on the stage in front of the restaurant, like dancing.
14:19Not with a group, just on stage dancing while other Vegas mouth breathers are just eating or walking by.
14:26He's like 6'6", 260. It's so absurd. But anyways, I'm not going to get into too many details here, but I'll never
14:34forget two things from that first Vegas trip. The first thing is Silva wins this award, right?
14:40It's like maybe 11 o'clock in the morning. The ballroom is full, hundreds of people.
14:46And somebody on stage is like, congrats to Evan Silva from Roto World.
14:50Come on up here and accept your trophy. And he's just stone cold not there.
14:56He's sleeping in the room. Man, I was laughing so hard.
15:00That was so good. The second thing from that trip, we had NBC credit cards.
15:05Horrible idea by them. I have no idea why we had them.
15:10Actually, I don't even know if I had one, but Silva did.
15:14So while we're in Vegas, he's using this NBC credit card on everything.
15:19I'm not going to get into exactly what. But anyway, we get back home and our boss just sends an email to us with one sentence.
15:28It said, either you can explain all these charges to me or you can write a check to cover it.
15:36Man, that was such a great email. It was so good.
15:40It's just all too much, man. And those were the days that was so good.
15:45Question two from Winning Streak. He says, true or false, AI should not be used for predictions.
15:51So Winning Streak, I'm not sure exactly what you mean here by predictions, but I think these kind of AI questions are
15:59similar regardless of what problems you're trying to solve.
16:03If you just go to Claude or GPT and say, hey, here's this week's games.
16:08Show me the best bets. You're going to lose in the long run, right?
16:13Like, just like in any business, this lazy mega shortcut way of using AI, it's not going to work.
16:20You know, lazy shortcut way of doing anything is not going to work.
16:25But yes, our team is using AI relentlessly to make improvements to our modeling, to backtest things faster, to find leaks easier,
16:33to code faster, to build things better, to see where we're, you know, messing up in projections.
16:39All that flows through to us making better predictions.
16:42You know, I'm certain of that. But what we aren't doing is just letting AI run without a knowledge base behind it.
16:50Like, people who are already great modelers use AI to do it better.
16:55And they know when something doesn't make sense. Same for developers.
16:59They're pushing code faster and maybe better. But as someone with no real coding background, I'm not just going to jump in
17:07there and start doing it with Claude and expect good results.
17:11You know, same with the ball knowing team. Like, we're using AI to do better research to try to figure out exactly
17:19what the split will be between Helani and Emmanuel Wilson.
17:23We're finding information better and faster in so many ways.
17:26So, yeah, I know I talked a lot about GPT and AI around the thyroid cancer stuff.
17:32I think medical slash health is one of, if not the best use cases of AI.
17:38But no matter what you do or what's going on in your life, I'm 100% confident you should be using it if
17:46you have some knowledge base in the subject already.
17:49Like an example, I'm coaching my younger son's basketball team this winter, third graders.
17:55I uploaded the rules from the league to Claude, described the skill level of my team.
18:00I asked it to suggest defenses to play, inbounds plays, you know, some offensive actions.
18:06If I had never coached before or if I had never played basketball, I wouldn't be able to implement what it was saying well.
18:15But since I have a knowledge base already, it's just a huge help and I can sort out what makes sense and what doesn't.
18:23But, yeah, if you're trying to use AI in sports predictions, I'd just be sure you're following kind of the same path here.
18:32We're going in with some knowledge already and expanding on that and iterating on that.
18:37All right, question three from Jack. He says, got a solo pod question that's been on my mind and curious for your take.
18:46He said, I love how much you guys talk about the business side of ETR.
18:51I'm a casual fantasy player but totally addicted. I don't have the time to grind my cock off to be plus EV on DFS and gambling.
19:00I just love the player takes and strategy for season long.
19:04It feels like most of my favorite fantasy people are gradually going more and more behind paywalls.
19:11I totally see the value for guys who are grinding to make money.
19:15But how do you think about casuals in your paywalls and pricing?
19:20I know we're not the target market and don't expect to be catered to.
19:25Just curious how you all have thought about mass market, if at all.
19:30Yeah, I appreciate the kind words and the question, Jack.
19:33This is all really hard. I don't claim to have the answers and we don't claim to have the issue solved.
19:41It's just really complicated. So Jack loves fantasy football.
19:44He loves season long fantasy football. I'm sure he enjoys all our shows.
19:49You know, shout out to us. But he's a normal human.
19:53He's not a stone cold virgin. Maybe he plays in a $25 buy-in fantasy league with his buddies.
19:59He wants to win, but he's not that intense about it.
20:03We know there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people like Jack out there.
20:09Our DraftKip Pro is $54.99 per year. Considering what comes inside that, you know, all the stuff leading up to the draft
20:17that our entire team dedicates months to. But also during the season, Thorman ranks and waiver wire and redraft trade calculator and
20:25rest of season top 150 and dynasty trade calculator and dynasty ranks and more.
20:30I personally think that DraftKip Pro, which again is $55 a year.
20:35I think it's worth $200 a year, $500 a year.
20:38I don't even know. But definitely way more to me at least than $55 a year.
20:44The reason we make it $55 is frankly to give more casual people like Jack a chance to interact with our content behind the paywall.
20:53We're confident if you do so, at a minimum, you'll want to keep subscribing.
20:58Now, I totally understand. There are tons and tons and tons of people who don't want to spend $55 a year on
21:06fantasy football, even if they think our stuff is great.
21:10That's totally cool. We aren't offended in the least.
21:13Totally get it. I do find it funny when people get pissed off about this.
21:19Like, hey, fuck you, Adam. This should all be free.
21:22Like, first of all, it's RIP. We can do whatever we want with it.
21:27Second of all, here in America, we operate in a free and fair market.
21:33If you do not want to buy our products, then don't.
21:37If enough people don't want to buy them, then we will go out of business.
21:42That is the way the economy is supposed to work.
21:46Now, I suspect Jack, when he says mass market, is thinking about another kind of business model.
21:52One where everything is free, but the business operates off of advertising revenue and sponsorships.
21:57Certainly viable. I'm sure there's companies out there that are doing it.
22:02However, I don't think most people understand how many downloads, viewers, YouTube subscribers, etc.
22:07you need to make real money off advertising. Like, the general public underestimates how hard that revenue path is.
22:14Like, yes, Mr. Beast is killing it on advertising and sponsorships.
22:18Joe Rogan gets zillions in ads. Zillions of money for ads on his podcast.
22:23We do not. Like, yes, these shows are somewhat popular in the scheme of hardcore fantasy football.
22:29They are not popular whatsoever in the grand scheme of media.
22:33The advertising revenue we generate from these shows does not come close to pay our operating expenses.
22:39It's like a fraction. And that's fine. It is a conscious decision by us to do work and create content that attracts the most serious people.
22:49Like, I don't have a desire to get up in the morning and go to work and tell people that Chris Olave is a good start this week.
22:59Or that the Lions are bad on defense. Or that, you know, if Kenneth Walker goes down, we need to pick up Emmett Johnson.
23:08Like, that's not me. That's not us. I wouldn't enjoy this job if I wasn't living in a world where we're talking
23:16about stuff to the people that are grinding down to the nub to try to win.
23:21You know, I used to actually talk to Al Zeidenfeld about this when we were on the DK Pro team.
23:29You know, he always wanted to try to reach more people.
23:33I frankly didn't want to try to reach more people.
23:36I just wanted to create hardcore, the content that I think is right and helps people win, and the products for the hardcore virgin.
23:45I wanted to create that and not worry if we ever hit mass market.
23:50Which you're not if you're operating in this really hardcore niche space.
23:54So, it's a really tough balancing act on pricing.
23:58You know, there are tons of pros and semi-pros and rec-plus people who use our stuff to make four, five, six, seven figures a year.
24:07Those people would pay insane amounts of money for our stuff in some cases.
24:12And then there are some people who use our stuff and they play smaller.
24:17They would not pay insane amounts. It's tough. What I do know is that, like, our goal and what I think we've
24:25done is to create a if-you-know-you-know situation. The actual sharps know who is doing the best work, what that looks like.
24:33They know who has the goods, who's for real.
24:36They know what's valuable. And they know, like, the truth is if we stop doing the best work, those people would move
24:44on, look for another product, and we'd be out of business.
24:48And to that point, we absolutely, positively have to stay ahead of the market and be beating it in every product we sell.
24:56That is not easy. It is absurdly expensive and difficult.
25:00And no way could we afford to stay ahead of the market based on human capital and all the expenses that we have.
25:08There's no way we could do that through advertising revenue.
25:12And so, yeah, we have to charge for products.
25:15And on some products, we have to charge a lot.
25:19And I think we deserve to charge a lot, if I'm being honest.
25:24Like, if we just got on here and fired takes from the gut and that was what was behind the paywall, we
25:32gave some takes, we watched some games, and we gave some takes.
25:36That's not worth very much. But, again, I think what we do is very valuable to the people that are hardcore enough
25:44to use it in the right way and understand it.
25:48It's just expensive to make it. So, yeah, I understand that what I just said there squeezes out casual people like Jack.
25:56And that sucks. I get it. But, again, if I'm being honest, I just think that's right for us specifically.
26:03I think I said on a show in August something along the lines of, like, ETR isn't for everyone.
26:10It's for the top 1% to 5% of fantasy players.
26:13I think some people got pissed off about that.
26:17It wasn't really meant to be a controversial statement at all.
26:21It was just a short way of saying what I just said.
26:25It's a hard thing for me to explain well.
26:28It's just I think of ETR as for the people who are serious enough about this stuff to want the best numbers and want the best info.
26:38And then also for people who know what quality in this space looks like and don't get tricked by people sticking their
26:46chest out and victory lapping all their takes when they have a million other bad takes just like everyone else, etc.
26:54So, and the people who meet those two things I just said, it's not a huge percent of the people.
27:01Like, yes, I get it, Jack. Tens, hundreds of millions of people play fantasy football.
27:07How many of them are actually willing to grind their cock down to a nub to play a well?
27:14I don't know. I'm guessing one to five percent of them.
27:18So hopefully no one takes offense to what I'm saying here, but just is what it is.
27:24All right. That is going to do it for another edition of the Solo Pod.
27:29I'll be back Tuesday evening with Silva for Team by Team.
27:33For Bruce and Luke, for Jerry, the most beautiful beast in the world, I am Adam.
27:39Good luck, everybody. Good luck. Good luck. Good luck.
27:42Good luck.