PodcastFrom The Long View Podcast

How to Structure the Perfect Draft in 2026

STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.

2 hr 34 min

Duration

Estimated from transcript

Aug 22, 2026

Published

Sat, August 22, 2026

Player insights

Players mentioned

Topics

Jaylen WarrenKeenan AllenMalik WillisMichael Penix Jr.Rico DowdleTua TagovailoaAmari CooperBreece HallCaleb DouglasChris BellChris OlaveD'Andre SwiftDe'Von AchaneDrake London

Player analysis

Player insights

Amari Cooper

NegativeDepth Chart42:38

Amari Cooper has been plummeting down draft boards after being confirmed to have played behind Isaiah Williams in the most recent preseason game.

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Breece Hall

PositiveValue35:55

The source views Breece Hall as a target and believes he is mispriced by half a round to a full round, noting he is an incredible talent despite the Jets' poor offense.

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Caleb Douglas

NegativeUsage58:48

Caleb Douglas played every snap with the starting unit in the most recent preseason game, showing flashes with an amazing catch but also experiencing a confounding play.

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Chris Bell

PositiveValue58:29

Chris Bell was activated off the non-football injury list and is considered to have one of the highest upside profiles among the team's rookie draft picks.

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Chris Olave

PositiveProjection38:43

The source moved Chris Olave ahead of Breece Hall and Jeremiah Love, citing the combination of the running backs' injuries and the Jordan Tyson injury, which creates a wide-open opportunity for Olave.

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D'Andre Swift

PositiveRole50:08

The source is drafting D'Andre Swift confidently, expecting him to maintain or improve upon his role from the second half of last season, and does not view the backup running backs as a threat to his workload.

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De'Von Achane

NegativeProjection105:22

The source moved Devon Achane up slightly in rankings but remains cautious, noting they previously published a negative outlook on him in their draft guide due to concerns about his profile.

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Drake London

PositiveProjection100:10

The source remains high on Drake London, ranking him as WR9, ahead of Nico Collins and George Pickens. London is viewed as a beneficiary of Michael Penix Jr.'s ability to attack intermediate areas of the field.

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Emeka Egbuka

NegativeInjury39:08

Emeka Egbuka is dealing with a significant turf toe injury that is not guaranteed to be healed by Week 1, causing the source to lower his ranking and treat him with caution in drafts.

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Emmett Johnson

PositiveDepth Chart42:48

Emmett Johnson has seen positive movement, playing ahead of Amari Di Mercado in the first preseason game and serving as the RB2 in camp drills this week.

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J.K. Dobbins

NegativeProjection47:00

The source has moved JK Dobbins down their rankings substantially, citing his injury history and the emergence of Jonah Coleman as a legitimate competitor for touches and snaps in the Broncos' backfield.

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Jaylen Warren

NegativeProjection38:33

The source is moving Jalen Warren down in their ranks and dropping him a tier, citing concerns that his total target volume will decrease due to the additions of Michael Pittman and Jeremy Bernard, alongside the coaching change to Mike McCarthy. While still considered a good play at his cost, the source is less aggressive on him than previously.

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PositiveUsage63:35

Despite reports of Rico Dowdle leading the committee, the source remains high on Jalen Warren, noting he is an underrated runner who will still be utilized heavily in the Steelers' offense.

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Jeremiyah Love

NegativeInjury35:24

Jeremiah Love is dealing with a high ankle sprain and is considered legitimately questionable for Week 1, leading the source to move him down in rankings and prefer Breece Hall.

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Jonah Coleman

PositiveBreakout43:06

The source is very high on Jonah Coleman, comparing him to Josh Jacobs due to his physical, shifty running style, ability to catch passes, and pass-blocking reliability. Coleman looked impressive in the preseason, appearing bigger and more physical than in college, and the source has moved him up their ranks while noting his potential for a high snap share.

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Jonathon Brooks

NegativeValue43:36

The source believes Jonathan Brooks is currently priced correctly in drafts, noting he belongs ahead of Jalen Warren and Rhamondre Stevenson, but should not be taken ahead of TreVeyon Henderson or Jadarian Price.

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Jordyn Tyson

NegativeInjury11:36

Jordan Tyson is dealing with a hamstring injury that will sideline him for at least the first six weeks of the season. The source suggests his rookie year may be effectively ruined, as he will miss significant time and require a ramp-up period, likely making him unavailable for meaningful production until week 10 or later. In standard home leagues without IR spots, he is considered undraftable, though he remains a stash candidate in deep formats with multiple IR slots.

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Josh Downs

PositiveValue12:48

Despite the signing of Keenan Allen, the source remains optimistic about Josh Downs. The source argues that the market's pessimistic reaction is an overreaction, noting that the Colts intend to keep Downs in two-wide receiver sets while using Allen in a specialized, third-down-focused role. Downs' ADP is considered inefficient, and he remains a strong pick.

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Keenan Allen

NegativeRole12:34

Keenan Allen's signing with the Colts is expected to impact the target distribution for players like Josh Downs and Tyler Warren, but the source believes Allen's role will be limited to specific passing situations. The source highlights that Allen's efficiency and yardage have declined over the last two seasons, suggesting he is no longer the high-volume player he once was and may be used as a 20-30 snap situational player to preserve his health.

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NegativeUsage31:55

The source suggests that at age 34, Keenan Allen should be used as a situational player (20-30 snaps per game) rather than a full-time starter to maintain effectiveness throughout the season, drawing a comparison to how the Patriots managed Stefon Diggs last year.

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Malik Willis

PositiveBreakout57:58

Malik Willis is receiving praise following a fantastic opening drive in his first preseason game.

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PositiveValue102:21

The source moved Malik Willis up to QB19, ahead of Baker Mayfield and Tyler Shuck, citing his effective operation of the offense and accurate passing in preseason. While acknowledging the sample size is small and scripted, the source is intrigued by his potential to improve the Dolphins' offense.

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Michael Penix Jr.

PositiveProjection59:09

The source believes Michael Penix gets a bad rap and notes that his arm strength and ability to attack the field translated well to the NFL level. They suggest he may play more than Tua Tagovailoa this season.

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PositiveRole96:42

The source expects Michael Penix Jr. to play significantly more than Tua Tagovailoa in 2026. Penix is viewed as a good fit for Drake London, specifically in attacking intermediate ranges 15-20 yards downfield, and is credited with helping the Falcons offense open things up.

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Najee Harris

NegativeDepth Chart9:46

Najee Harris signed with the Giants, a move that the source interprets as a lack of organizational faith in Tyrone Tracy. While reports suggest a potential tandem between Cam Scadaboo and Harris, the backfield situation remains murky with conflicting reports on Tracy's continued involvement.

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Rico Dowdle

PositiveValue38:40

The source notes that Rico Dowdle is being drafted aggressively in main events and is currently the cheaper option compared to Jalen Warren, with a 20-pick gap. While the source still prefers Warren as the better long-term player, they acknowledge Dowdle is a good play at his current cost and have moved him up to be right behind Warren in their rankings.

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PositiveDepth Chart60:07

Multiple beat reporters expect Rico Dowdle to lead the Steelers' running back committee, making him a target for the source, who views him as an underrated player with good peripherals.

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RJ Harvey

NegativeRole49:03

RJ Harvey remains an enigma to the source, who notes that while he is a specialist in the receiving back role, the addition of Jonah Coleman and the presence of JK Dobbins complicates his path to consistent touches. The source has moved him down slightly but still views him as a viable bet in best ball formats.

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Sam LaPorta

NegativeInjury47:17

Sam LaPorta is dealing with a hip injury, and the source notes that Dan Campbell's comments were ominous and did not explicitly guarantee he would be ready for Week 1.

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Tua Tagovailoa

NegativeProjection57:24

Tua Tagovailoa is facing significant criticism after a 'horrific' performance in joint practices and the preseason, leading the source to speculate that Michael Penix may see the field sooner rather than later.

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NegativeProjection101:51

The source is skeptical of Tua Tagovailoa's outlook, suggesting he will be 'found out' without Mike McDaniel's scheme and noting reports that he has looked 'horrific' in camp.

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Tyrone Tracy

NegativeUsage9:55

The signing of Najee Harris is viewed as a significant negative for Tyrone Tracy. The source has moved Tracy down in rankings, noting that even if he were to become the lead back, concerns persist regarding his role in goal-line and receiving situations, especially given his previous struggles with pass blocking.

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Zay Flowers

PositiveProjection38:29

The source moved Zay Flowers ahead of Breece Hall and Jeremiah Love in rankings due to injury concerns surrounding the two running backs, noting Flowers is a player they have been high on all offseason.

Insight page

Full transcript

Episode Transcript

1,905

0:00The Long View Podcast, Ben Gretch amp, Jakob Sanderson It's such a fascinating time, I think, in fantasy football.

0:05We've talked about, you know, since our first episode was about a lot of the macro concepts with the league, we've talked

0:12a lot about how the league is in this evolutionary phase.

0:15It's been a very fascinating last half decade. I'm really enjoying thinking through the puzzle of 2026.

0:20And so we'll talk a lot about draft strategy.

0:22As we get into the long view, we obviously start every show with the short view.

0:27But before we jump into that, how you doing?

0:29I'm doing good. Excited to be here. This is a super, super fun time.

0:33I feel like I'm in multiple big drafts each week.

0:36We're closing in on maxing out Best Ball Mania.

0:39We're, you know, finalizing all the content out of the season.

0:42The preseason is in full gear. This is this is a very fun time to be.

0:46I'm really involved in fantasy football. And, you know, what would make it even more fun is if someone's favorite fantasy analyst

0:53wrote a big ebook about all of their thoughts that's available.

0:56So I'm I didn't warn you about this pre show, but I'm forcing you.

1:00What is what is in the ebook that you just released?

1:03And where can people go and get that? What would they be able to expect?

1:07It's like 800 pages. It's absurd. It's all the most evergreen content that I've written at the newsletter since I started the Stealing Signals newsletter in 2020.

1:15You know, I I ramble a lot on the show.

1:18That's why we have the the Longview name that, you know, we both kind of tend to go along.

1:23I've had a lot of people describe my writing style as stream of consciousness.

1:27I have a tendency to just write as I'm thinking and as I'm kind of saying it in my own head.

1:33And I know people enjoy that part of it where it sounds like I'm talking to them a little bit.

1:39A lot of people play it as like they have like AI voices read it to them.

1:43And it's it's more like a podcast or something the way that I write.

1:47But a lot of times it gets off a lot of digressions and a lot of tangents and things.

1:53One of my subscribers named Darren read through the entire catalog in the last year plus and took all those digressions, pulled them from the different pieces.

2:01When you know, if I went on a multi paragraph rant about zero RB in a post that was about something else,

2:07he pulled that, moved it over to this area where, you know, there's going to be catalog stuff about zero RB and then like catalog the whole thing.

2:15So it's a reference guide. It's like clickable to go to all the different areas, all the different sections.

2:20And then it's all about the concepts that I've talked about at the newsletter for six plus years about how NFL seasons

2:26are chaos and we're playing in uncertainty. And, you know, I wrote this post about tacit knowledge years ago, which is this

2:33idea that there's a lot of caveats in this type of thing where like, you know, if A and B are present,

2:39then do C, except when D is also present, then do E.

2:42And then there's situations where Z is present. So you want to do Q like this is this idea of, you know,

2:49tacit knowledge that I think is relevant to fantasy football, where a lot of what I write about and how I talk

2:55about it is like trying to explain the way that I think through things.

2:59And, you know, my lived experience and sort of domain knowledge, if you will, rather than being like, I know everything or

3:05I'm right, or these are the exact ways to do it or follow this exact plan.

3:10It's more I often hear people say that it's trying to teach people how to fish rather than give them fish.

3:16And so I always really enjoy that those kinds of feedback.

3:19And a lot of this stuff over the years has been interactive with subscribers.

3:23They ask questions. It's a newsletter, right? They post in the message board or they respond to the emails, they ask questions.

3:29And then I write up posts, long posts because of a subscriber question or something that I think was really interesting.

3:35So there's a lot of like FAQ stuff that's been hit on over the years.

3:39It's macro concepts. Why are you always talking about this concept and not, you know, addressing this counterpoint or whatever?

3:45Well, I've addressed all of those counterpoints over the six years.

3:48It's anyone who knows the newsletter knows that's what I do is like, yeah, if I get asked about it five times, I'm going to talk about it.

3:56I'm going to write about it at some point.

3:58And so this book is all those concepts. I've had a lot more like newer subscribers in recent years who are like, hey, you referenced this thing.

4:06What is this thing? And I'm like, I mean, I got a lot of writing.

4:10It's in a lot of that writing, but it's not cataloged well.

4:14I've had a lot of subscribers be like, you know, I can't find these concepts.

4:18Well, this is the document that should help people find those concepts.

4:21And I mean, Darren was like calling it the Bible of fantasy football.

4:25I don't think there's a, that's a, that's obviously way overstating it.

4:29I don't think there's, um, I mean, I guess what I'd say is I don't think there's a lot of, um, like

4:35similar, like there's not like another product that it's like.

4:38It's like, it's literally 800 pages. It touches on like every conceptual thing from in-season management, all the draft strategy stuff, the evolution of the sport itself.

4:45Cause I've written about the macro stuff a ton.

4:48There's a ton on different individual player, uh, or positions.

4:51Um, there's so, so many different layers of, uh, youth, uh, upside over floor.

4:55I had Claude try to break it down. The youth edge was one of the main things that said structural drafting upside

5:01over floor in season management as probability churn advanced stats used carefully.

5:04Macro trends. Chaos is the rule tacit knowledge and signal verse noise.

5:08These are all like concepts that, um, AI decided when it read the 824 pages were the, um, the, the, the concepts that are most common in it.

5:16Anyway, it's, uh, I'm making it sound like, you know, more complicated or something than it is, but it is.

5:21Yeah. I mean, it is sort of a user guide to like, like a how to guide to play fancy football.

5:27It's not a draft kit. It's, uh, years of, of, uh, covering different topics.

5:31Some of it is my thoughts have evolved over the years.

5:35I've contradicted myself and I've corrected myself or I've grown my opinion as time has gone.

5:39So anyway, it's, it's a really fun thing. I'm really proud of it, obviously.

5:43So it's, it's, uh, it's sort of life's works almost, uh, in an absurd way.

5:47So anyway, it's, uh, I appreciate you asking and I'm going a little longer in this intro than I meant to on

5:54that topic, but it's, uh, it's cool. It's a cool thing.

5:57Yeah. Uh, I think it's an extremely cool thing.

5:59And I, uh, imagine if you are with us for between two and a half to three hours every week, listening to

6:06our podcast, uh, you would not have any objection to, uh, to, to, to getting the best of Gretsch in longer form.

6:12So, uh, you can find that on lemon squeezy.

6:14You can find that on gum road. That is the best of stealing signals.

6:18Um, I believe you have the link pinned on your Twitter.

6:21Uh, people want to find that nice and easy.

6:24Uh, getting into the short view today. Uh, we're going to go through some of the news.

6:29We are not going to do a three hour short view today.

6:32We intend to get back to the long view.

6:35So every time it's been like a running, it's been a running joke that we keep every, every, our ability to estimate the time.

6:42Of our short views is not been great so far.

6:44We'll see on this one. Um, but let's go through some of the top news items of the week.

6:50So, um, we'll start with two pretty unfortunate injuries to younger players.

6:53That is Jayden Higgins, uh, suffered a torn ACL in practice.

6:56And then Jordan Tyson has a hamstring injury. Um, another hamstring injury, really.

7:00He's going to miss at least, it sounds like the first six weeks of the NFL season.

7:05How far down are you moving Jordan Tyson in your rankings?

7:08I maybe went too far when we talked about it during, um, a main event draft with, with the ship chasing guys the other night.

7:15Um, which you weren't on. I was on over there with, with Pat and Pete for, uh, a draft with Sean as well.

7:22And Pat brought him up in like the 10th round.

7:25And I was like, I have him like wide receiver 72.

7:28I think I moved him back up a little bit.

7:31I get in the deep league stuff, like main events, maybe one into stash him for some potential late season upside where you can't really access it.

7:38Cause it's so deep and any, whoever ends up drafting him, it's not going to cut him in that format.

7:44But I moved them so far down because if you're in your home leagues and stuff, and a lot of the people

7:50listening are, I don't think he's draftable. I don't think you can, I don't think in a shallower format, you can justify

7:56holding him through all of the really important roster certain weeks early in the season.

8:01For the hope that he gets healthy enough to produce.

8:03It's probably going to ruin his whole rookie season.

8:06We see this kind of thing often. I mean, there's a potential for late season upside that often doesn't pan out in six weeks from now.

8:13He's still going to have missed most of August or the whole second half of, you know, of August.

8:19He's not going to be 100% within the offense immediately.

8:22I mean, they drafted him very high, but it's going to take a little ramp up period in season as well.

8:28I would be thinking not just missing six weeks, but then another maybe month.

8:32So you're thinking week 10 and beyond, is he up to speed and can he be really productive?

8:37And I had people compare it to OBJ to me.

8:40Like he missed a bunch of time the first four weeks with a hamstring in his rookie season.

8:45And then he had a little ramp up period.

8:47And then he had one of the legendary rookie seasons of all time from there.

8:52I mean, there's a reason that's a legendary thing.

8:54It's not impossible for Tyson. I just don't think we should be banking on that necessarily.

8:59It's something I'd rather play off the waiver wire in like home leagues and stuff like that.

9:03Yeah, the only extra note I'll add is just check the IR settings in your leagues because that's the one note.

9:09I like ranked him in a spot. I wrote up a little post on how I'm treating him in seasonal leagues versus best ball versus dynasty.

9:17And the big thing I'd note for seasonal leagues is it's entirely dependent to me on if there's an IR spot.

9:23If there's no IR spot, he's undraftable for me in a standard like five, six bench spot home league.

9:28If you have an IR spot or especially multiple and you can take him in the late rounds and stash him for free, then absolutely.

9:35Why not? Just kind of add an extra path or upside to your roster.

9:39I'll get into now. We got some signings. Some dust balls are signing with some teams.

9:44Najee Harris has made his way over to the Big Apple.

9:47How does this affect how you're drafting Cam Scadaboo and or Tyrone Tracy and or Najee Harris?

9:52Yeah, I mean, obviously, Tracy missed the pass blocking thing.

9:55And then when Rappaport tweeted out the Najee thing, he said he's known as a good pass blocker.

10:00Right. That was one of the main things that got referenced.

10:03And everyone's like, this is, you know, related. I basically want nothing to do with Tracy at this point.

10:08I haven't made him like a fade necessarily, but I moved down my ranks pretty considerably.

10:13I mean, I like the profile, but I had concerns about what I always call like the trap back stuff where like

10:19he's a little bit more between the 20s runner.

10:22He's not doing as much with the receiving and the goal line work because last year he lost goal line work to Devin Singletary.

10:28Now you have Najee on the team, too. Even if Scadaboo goes down and Tracy's the lead back, is he going to

10:35get the goal line work is the concern. But the fact that they're bringing this in shows, I think, a lack of faith in Tracy.

10:42I did move Scadaboo up a spot with this because the reports before were that Tracy and Scadaboo might basically split.

10:48But I took this as such a negative for Tyrone Tracy that I actually took it as a little bit more of

10:54a positive for Scadaboo's path to a fuller work early in the season.

10:58That is interesting. I agree with you on Tracy.

11:00I've not been very into him, though, this kind of whole year.

11:04So, you know, maybe you can take that for what it's worth.

11:07But I definitely moved Scadaboo down. And I moved Scadaboo down pretty materially.

11:11He's now like I had him a bit ahead of that tier of like the Bucky Irving, the Jadarian Price, the Henderson, Judkins, like all those guys.

11:18I moved him down into that tier. I just don't know exactly what this means.

11:23Like, for instance, we had Art Stapleton came out and said he expects it to eventually be a Cam Scadaboo, Najee Harris

11:29tandem and that Tracy would be lower on the totem pole.

11:32But then there were reports like the day after they signed Najee Harris, Tyrone Tracy was taking the first rep up at practice.

11:39And Jordan Vernon was saying he's still going to be very much part of the backfield.

11:43So I'm just unsure of how this shakes out.

11:46I'm guessing it's more about Tracy. But like, I still do have questions about where Scadaboo is at in his recovery.

11:52I don't think it's going to be a very good team.

11:55So I do want to make sure if I'm investing in Scadaboo ahead of the rest of these kind of timeshare backs

12:01that I'm getting a secure touch floor. And yeah, it's possible maybe Najee means I actually am.

12:06But I'm a little bit more concerned about that.

12:08So I ended up moving him down. So I had Scadaboo kind of in that tier already.

12:13I still have him behind Judkins. I now have him ahead of Tootin, Henderson, Janarian Price, those guys, as far as the other young backs.

12:20I moved him over Kyron Williams, who I have as kind of a fade now, but behind Judkins as well.

12:26And so anyway, I don't think I think we wound up kind of sounds like our eventual spots.

12:31It ends up being pretty similar. Yeah. Yeah. One other signing.

12:34This one's close to home. Keenan Allen has signed with the Indianapolis Colts.

12:38This has been widely anticipated for a while. And I'm going to cook a little bit on this one.

12:43And then I'm curious your thoughts. We both talked about how optimistic we are on Josh Downs.

12:48Take the floor. The Indianapolis Colts fan. Look, Ron, if you're listening, I love you.

12:53But there's no place you want to be less in the world when news breaks that is not necessarily what you wanted

12:59to see than to be live in the middle of a draft on Ron Stewart's YouTube channel.

13:04Because his commenters are like, you know, Josh Downs dead.

13:06It's over. Coffins. It's so tilting. I couldn't take it.

13:09So we're in the eighth round of this draft as the news breaks.

13:13And so I'm trying to contextualize takes. But I'm also trying to pick a $2,000 team.

13:18And I'm trying to provide content. It was like a rush of inputs into my brain.

13:22But anyway, here's where I'm at. I would say that my ranking of Josh Downs is kind of all offseason.

13:28Has A, baked in an ADP that I think is largely inefficient.

13:31And B, has baked in, I thought, a pretty strong potential that they would eventually add a receiver.

13:36And particularly Keenan Allen. Because of Val Pierce's health stuff.

13:39And because their other starting receiver was going to be Ashton Doolin.

13:43I think people... I mean, maybe not. It doesn't seem like he's moved that much in drafts.

13:47But a lot of the most pessimistic chatter I've seen on Josh Downs, to me, is a little bit of an overreaction.

13:54Because of how much Keenan Allen seemingly hurt Lad McConkie last year.

13:57Like, Lad McConkie was coming off this great rookie season.

14:00Was being drafted in the end of round two.

14:02They signed Keenan. Lad has a really bad year.

14:05And I think for a lot of people, it was just as simple as it was all Keenan's fault.

14:10I guess what I would say is... So Lad McConkie actually ran a lot more routes last year than he ran the year prior.

14:17So I don't think Keenan was taking him off the field.

14:20He still had like a 90% route rate. His targets per route declined from 23% to 18%.

14:25That's pretty meaningful. And I think Keenan probably is part of the big reason why.

14:29But then you also saw, and you've made this point before.

14:33I remember on the ETR show that he had his catch rate decline.

14:36He had his yards per reception decline. The cumulative effect of that as a crashing yards per target was declining.

14:42And so that stuff isn't Keenan to me. That's like O-line issues.

14:45That's maybe Lad playing hurt. That's just maybe him being worse or regressing.

14:49But I think that people drew an oversimplified conclusion about Keenan's impact.

14:52And then are kind of applying that to Josh Downs.

14:55I'll note from like the Colts team sources, all the talk has been they still want to play Josh Downs the two wide receiver sets.

15:02They want to use Keenan Allen as kind of a half replacement for what Michael Pittman was doing, but in more of a specialist role.

15:10They want to focus on third downs. They want to focus on passing situations.

15:14So the way I would view it as like on the routes that Keenan Allen runs, it's going to be a small

15:20drop in targets per route for a Josh Downs, probably for a Tyler Warren, because Keenan's going to earn more targets on

15:26those routes than Ashton Doolin or Nick Westbrook Akine would have.

15:29I don't think it's going to be a massive impact on Josh Downs routes.

15:33And I think his price had room to take that hit to targets per route run.

15:38I still think he's a pretty strong pick. But I'm curious for your thoughts on this.

15:42No, I like your thoughts a lot. I think people are overstating what Keenan Allen is at this point.

15:48It's one of these ones where the per route run stuff is really interesting.

15:52How good the player is on a per basis is notable.

15:55I've been in a lot of ways driving the bus on some of the targets per route run stuff in the industry

16:01over the last several years and do a lot of work on it.

16:05But I do think sometimes people miss the force for the trees on just like route volume and those kinds of things.

16:11The thing about Keenan Allen, people, I've seen so many tweets about how high his targets per route were last year and

16:17how good he was and all that stuff. He didn't have over 800 receiving yards in either of the last two seasons.

16:23Like, that's relevant. It's relevant that he didn't run enough routes and he wasn't out there doing what he did for such

16:30a massive route share that, you know, I mean, the season with the Bears two years ago, 15 games, 121 targets is

16:36a lot, 70 catches, 744 yards, 7 TDs. I mean, it's a good line for a 32-year-old.

16:41Then he's 33 last year. He plays 17 games.

16:43So the, like, yards per game goes down here.

16:46It's 122 targets. So one more target in two more games.

16:4981 catches, better catch rate. 777 in terms of yards, four touchdowns.

16:52Yards per game under 50 both years. It's, like, lower than – I mean, that's where, like, Marvin Harrison has been the last couple years.

17:00He's been just over 50 and people are like, Marvin Harrison's been horrible.

17:03And then people talk about Keenan Allen as if he's been a lot better, I think, than he's actually been is sort of the argument I would make.

17:11And so I think he's interesting. I think he's, like, for the other players more than maybe even for his own fantasy value.

17:18I think he's impactful to Downs and Warren and these guys in the sense that there's another guy running a route who

17:24can earn volume on a subset of the routes, like you were saying.

17:28But I don't think it sinks anybody. I completely agree.

17:31I mean, there's – if you go look at his game log last year, I mean, I'm just looking at it now.

17:37Now, the first, I don't know, 10 games or so, his high was 53 yards.

17:41His high was, like – oh, he had a seven-catch, 36-yard game.

17:44But other than that, it was five catches. I mean, these are – this is more than your typical ancillary receiver to

17:51have five catches in those things at times. But it's not a massive amount more.

17:55Then he did have one game. It was 14 targets, 11 catches, 119 yards.

17:59That's the 11th game or whatever when I said the first 10 games.

18:03Then on the back end, he had a couple actually 60-yard games down the stretch.

18:07Sorry, I'm saying that backward. I'm looking at his game log the wrong direction.

18:11He had a couple 60-yard games at the beginning of the year.

18:14He had a 100-yard game in like week seven.

18:17The last 10 or so games of the year, he didn't go over – 53 yards was his high.

18:22He didn't really have anything all that meaningful. The pro football reference game log is the other way.

18:27I'm not familiar with his game log. I've not done a lot of research on Keenan.

18:32The one thing I'll know on that is to give Keenan some credit, I mean, I think that it's probably true that you talk about an older player.

18:40He's going to start faster and finish slower. The one thing I will say, though, is every Charger was basically unplayable in

18:46the passing game over the last month plus of the season.

18:49Like, you know, if you look at QJ's game logs, if you look at Lad McConkie's game logs, you will see somewhat of a similar pattern.

18:57Yeah. Some of that, though, was them – I mean, they were using Gadsden.

19:01They were using a little bit more Trey Harris.

19:03I mean, some of that was them moving away from those guys too.

19:07So, I mean, I think it's – anyway. But the idea of him fading in the second half at his age I do think is really relevant.

19:15That's the other point that is pretty significant in terms of, like, what I'm trying to say about the 800-yard thing.

19:21Like, is he really going to be a stud for the entire season?

19:24I mean, at 34? Or, like, just because he did it at 32, just because he did it at 33, it's not

19:30– And that's part of why I'm so confident on the route stuff is, like, if the Colts want him to be

19:37effective in November and December, then you can't play him 60 snaps every game in September and October.

19:42Like, you're better off using him as a 20 to 30 snap player, situational player, and then you might actually get something

19:48out of him that's useful all year. Kind of like what the Patriots did with Diggs, where they were like, we're going

19:54to – even if it looks like you're capable of more, we're going to really keep the throttle back and then be

20:01able to actually get effectiveness throughout the entire season.

20:03And I think, yeah, the Diggs comp last year is a great one.

20:07It's a very clear one. It's another one of those examples of, you know, the per-route run stuff was really, really strong.

20:13Diggs had 1,000-yard season. He had 85 catches and over 1,000 yards last year.

20:17Again, Keenan Allen – and he was age 32 last year.

20:20He was going to be age 33 this year.

20:23Keenan Allen the last two years at 32 and 33 already, he's now going to be playing his age 34 season this year.

20:29He turned 34 back in April, so it's not like he's just turning 34 in season.

20:34He's going to be 34 and a half for most of the NFL season.

20:38This is relevant, like where these drop-offs occur. Diggs played at 32 last year.

20:42Allen at 32 and 33 the last couple years did not have 1,000-yard seasons in these good situations.

20:47So it's a very good comp with the Diggs thing, but Diggs was still, you know, 25% or 33% better in terms

20:53of like the overall output and the overall production.

20:56Some of that's like the way Diggs is used.

20:58Like their catches, their targets, a little bit more comparable.

21:01But yeah, I just – if Downs is good, if Warren's good, if those things are there, then I'm with you.

21:07I don't have really any concern about those guys.

21:10All right, let's get into some of the other topics here.

21:13So we got a bunch of quick hit or injury stuff.

21:16Not quite as significant as what happened to Higgins, what happened to Tyson.

21:20And I'll just get a quick sort of concerned or not concerned from you on these.

21:24So Jeremiah Love, high ankle spring. Concerned, not concerned, move him down.

21:28I'm concerned. I, you know, I always talk about the running back dead zone, and I think he's the last running back before the dead zone.

21:35So I didn't move him down as much. I didn't move him behind, like into the dead zone.

21:40I'm curious what you're doing with him. I don't want to take him as much.

21:44I want to get a better price on him, but I didn't really move him down.

21:49Well, maybe I'll throw in another running back to the mix because they went at a very similar range of the draft.

21:55Also dealing with an injury is Brees Hall, groin injury.

21:58He is more clearly been reported to expect to be ready for week one.

22:02Love, that sounds like, is – they're hopeful for week one but probably legitimately questionable.

22:06Those have been, at least by ADP, sort of the two last running backs before the dead zone.

22:11We talked about them a little bit last week.

22:14You were already Hall ahead of Love. I assume you are still Hall ahead of Love then?

22:19Yes. Yeah, so I've had Hall as a target in that range.

22:22I think he's mispriced by half a round to a full round.

22:26I understand the Jets' offense is bad, but I think Hall is an incredible talent.

22:30I think Love's going to be an incredible talent too, but it's a little bit trickier bet for me with him in year one.

22:37I still have Hall ahead of him. I'm not adjusting much from the injury.

22:41I still have him as a target. I still really want to be taking Hall.

22:45It's a trickier bet with Love. Yeah. Am I reading those injuries right?

22:49How are you seeing it? Yeah, so that's what I was going to get to.

22:53So I flipped them. I had Love ahead of Hall prior.

22:56I now have Hall ahead of Love. I still do have them back to back, and I didn't move them down a ton because I agree.

23:03I had like a big teardrop in my rankings, both at running back and overall, prior to these injuries.

23:09So I did make a slight move. I moved like two receivers ahead of them that I had behind them previously, which

23:15was Zay Flowers, who's just a guy that I've already been really high on this offseason.

23:20I now have him ahead of these guys purely for injury concerns.

23:23And then I moved Chris Alave ahead of them based on a conjunction of the two running backs injuries and then the

23:29Jordan Tyson injury, which gives Alave a wide open ramp.

23:32So that's a slight move. But I still consider them targets.

23:35I mean, I did a main event draft yesterday that we streamed, and we took Breece Hall at the 306.

23:41And Love was available as well. So we had the choice between the two of them.

23:45We took Hall in that spot. Nice. All right.

23:48I'll get to the next couple here. So Emekek Buka, he was spotted in a brace.

23:53Although I'll note that literally between me typing up the show sheet this morning and us now recording, apparently he's been seen now wearing running shoes.

24:00So that's positive. He's still not practicing. He is dealing with the most obvious case of turf toe that Todd Bowles refuses

24:06to call turf toe of all time. And he is considered also on the hopeful side for week one, but not assured.

24:12Your thoughts on him and how are you treating him in drafts now?

24:16I've had a hard time with his price. So I've had him ranked a little bit behind ADP, but not as like a fade.

24:23Because he's been going like wide receiver 13 in some of these sites, like right behind all the elites.

24:28I think he's going to slide a little now.

24:31I haven't moved him a ton down. Having said that, I'm monitoring.

24:34I want to know how you're feeling about this.

24:37I feel like this can be a pretty big part of his season.

24:41A turf toe injury can be pretty debilitating. Certainly.

24:43So I had a similar setup on him to you, which is that I had him in a tier with a lot

24:49of players who go behind him in drafts that I prefer slightly.

24:53I've moved him kind of to the bottom of that tier, but that is not very much compared to like maybe what the market would need to do.

25:01Because I already had him behind Waddle, Tedrow McMillan, Garrett Wilson, T.

25:04Higgins. The only receiver that I moved ahead of him that I didn't already have ahead of him in that tier is Lad McConkie.

25:11But I've now gotten Ibuka a couple times now in like the mid-fourth.

25:15I was not really drafting him in the mid-third.

25:17For me, though, like it's hard because I'm trying to separate the advice I would give to someone who hasn't done a

25:23draft until today versus me who's been drafting all year and has like 1% Ibuka.

25:28So for me, I'm looking at this as like, look, if he sucks this year because of this turf toe, I win.

25:34So I may as well now get him around later, like up my 1% to a 3% and protect myself, you know?

25:40But if you're just walking in, you don't have any of that background.

25:44This is the first draft you do. Like, who would you rather have?

25:48A Mecca, Ibuka, Terry McCorn. A Mecca, Ibuka, Jamison Williams.

25:50Like, then I think it's tougher. And I could see it being reasonable to be more cautious than I'm being and like push him down even further.

25:58Yeah, that's a great way to put it. All right, let's get through a couple more of these.

26:03Tyler Warren, we already talked about the Colts. Tyler Warren has a minor adductor strain, is expected to be ready for week one.

26:10I have no concerns. Do you have any concerns?

26:12Nope. Sounds great. Chuba Hubbard, hamstring. He has been week to week.

26:16We'll see if he's ready for week one. How high is too high for Jonathan Brooks?

26:20Where would you tap out? Yeah. Good question. Like, it's not too high, but where he's going is right, I think.

26:26Which is, he's going after all those young guys we talked about.

26:30If he starts going ahead of like Jadarian Price, Travion Henderson, and those guys in the back of that.

26:35I mean, I guess I could see him going ahead of Henderson.

26:39Because the Henderson profile to me is just a, it's a very wide error bar.

26:43I don't think the Stevenson Bulls are like that crazy about some of their points.

26:47I think Henderson could be a really bad pick this year.

26:50I also think like the Henderson profile is so strong that like he could be, you know, he could prove you really wrong.

26:57And there's a reason the market has been buying in.

27:00And I don't think that the ADP is crazy on him or anything.

27:03Like there's, the profile is really good and he did a lot right.

27:07Anyway, we've talked about him a little, but he's coming in behind those guys right now as far as the last I checked.

27:13He typically is, but not always. Like the, I had mentioned the draft that I did with Ron and Liam.

27:19We took Henderson at the 604. Brooks went at the 603, right ahead of where we took Henderson.

27:24Interesting. Yeah. He's mixing into that group at the very least.

27:27Especially in some of the high stake stuff. Yeah.

27:30The latest ADP I'm seeing is like, he's coming in right behind Henderson, Bucky, Price.

27:34And then, but right behind him, like you said, he can go above them sometimes.

27:39Just probably, I would say too high. I mean, there's a lot of risk with Brooks and the offense isn't great.

27:44And there's a lot of things going on. And behind that is Jalen Warren and Stevenson and some of that.

27:50We're going to talk about Warren in a sec, but I do think Brooks belongs ahead of those guys.

27:56So I think he's right right now. He's a, he's a, a real upside swing.

28:00There's a lot to the profile. I don't think I would chase him up much higher.

28:04So, you know, if people are inclined to, then I'll probably stop getting, probably stop getting shares.

28:09Yeah. I have the exact same line. And particularly if we're talking redraft and we're, we're really focusing more on the ceiling than the floor, then I'm okay.

28:17Taking him ahead of a Ramondre or one of the Steelers running backs.

28:21But, um, Henderson and Price would be my red line in the sand.

28:25I don't think I'm ever taking them ahead of those guys.

28:28Um, couple other quick little injury ones, the nun guy week to week with a bone bruise or hyperextension.

28:33And Camara sprained his MCL. And then Sam Lapora took a hit to the hip.

28:37Um, the, the Dan Campbell comments were, were interesting.

28:40I thought they mostly sounded pretty hopeful, but he, he did not explicitly commit to him being ready for week one.

28:46Um, any thoughts on any of those ones? The Mononga one.

28:49I want to ask you about the Laporta. I didn't hear about.

28:52So the fact that he wouldn't guarantee week one's a little concerning for Laporta, but yeah, it was ominous.

28:58You know, you know, that I'm just doing the Jameson Williams, you know, a little, a little too excited about Jameson Williams thing.

29:04Um, no, you've gotten me excited about Jameson Williams.

29:07I'm, I'm now like, I'm going out into the streets and I'm, I'm trying to get Jameson Williams shares from co-managers.

29:13I've had mixed success, uh, with that endeavor, but, uh, you're getting me excited about him.

29:17The, the camera thing I think is doesn't matter.

29:20They have depth at that position. I mean, I know people talk about Neil and, and, and Kendrick Miller have been banged up.

29:27Um, but yeah, not, not really worried about what that means.

29:30I mean, ETN is going to probably play a little bit.

29:33Yeah, I did too. Um, he's going to play more early, but then also camera is probably going to come back.

29:39And also they have other guys that can fact factor in like if Kendrick Miller ends up playing more early because of

29:45that, that's maybe actually bad for ETN relative to Camara.

29:48Right? Like he's probably more talented at this point, but the Mononga thing is the one that I would really want to

29:54talk to you about, which is, I don't, I don't know what to make of his injury.

29:59I don't know a lot about it. Bone bruise.

30:01Yeah. Hyper extension sounds bad to me and I'm getting not in a way that I'm comfortable with like Deandre Swift curious.

30:08Like that's going to be, yeah, I'm, I look, I wasn't comfortable about it a while ago.

30:13I've gotten comfortable. Come on in. The water's fine.

30:15Like I I've been drafting Deandre Swift, um, vocally proudly.

30:18Um, I mean, this is a guy who was legitimately efficient last year, more efficient than Mononga guy, clearly more efficient than Mononga guy.

30:25Um, I I've been a Swift hater at times, uh, in my life.

30:28I don't give him that much credit for his rushing efficiency last year.

30:32Frankly, I give Ben Johnson and Darnell Wright a lot of the credit.

30:36They're still there. So that's fine. Um, like they clearly know who Swift is and isn't.

30:40And Swift is capable of giving you explosive plays of giving you, um, a successful running back.

30:45If you're comfortable with running him to the outside, a lot, throwing to him a lot, using him in creative ways, not

30:52loading them up with 25 touches a game or, or, you know, ask him to consistently make decisions inside the tackles.

30:57Like the role that he had last year was really valuable.

31:01And I don't see the talent profile with Mononga guy.

31:03So I I've been drafting Swift under the assumption that he's going to keep the same role he had over the second

31:10half of last season, or, or maybe even it gets better.

31:13Perhaps if Mononga is dealing with injury, I don't view this as like a rookie that is inevitably going to draw closer

31:19to a 50, 50 split at all. I don't think Mononga provides that dynamism.

31:23I think he is like a guy. And I think that the bears reasonably determined that Swift probably functions best as like

31:29a 60 to 65% guy, not as an 80 to 90% guy.

31:33So they need someone to kind of be a meat shield for him, like, and take some of those, like, you know,

31:39between the twenties carries that's to me, all Mononga is.

31:42Um, so, you know, I, the, the injury is probably a meat shield.

31:46Yeah. I think he's a meat shield. Yeah. Yeah.

31:48So what do you, what do you, um, do you have two questions?

31:52Do you have concerns about if Mononga, if the injury gets worse or he's, he's not good for most of the season,

31:58do you have concerns about them bringing in another piece and that guy being a bigger threat?

32:03Probably not. I can't see who it would be.

32:05Like is the real answer. Like, like who's out there, you know?

32:09Like maybe if there's like a, I can't think of like a stud that would be on the trade block.

32:15Like, I mean, I just want Trey Benson to land somewhere fun, but well, yeah, I mean, I guess there are some interesting, yeah.

32:21I mean, Kayla, I think with Trey Benson, the unfortunate thing is it sounds like he's not healthy.

32:26So I think they're actually going to get around this roster crunch where if I had to guess, they're going to keep

32:33all five backs because they're just going to stick Connor and Benson on IR to start the season.

32:38And I think then they'll have love and night and, um, uh, Algier, Algier.

32:42And then, and maybe, maybe Connor gets cleared before the season starts and then maybe they cut night or something, but like,

32:48I think they'll just IR Benson and keep them.

32:51Um, I mean, I think Caleb Johnson's going to get caught, so maybe they could get him, but like, I don't, I

32:57mean, I, I liked him as a prospect, but I was obviously wrong.

33:01He's terrible. So I'm not that concerned about, um, um, I think he could do a decent column and guy impression.

33:07Like, but I don't know that he could do more than that.

33:10Yeah, no, he's an interesting one. What about where, how far you're dropping Monunga?

33:14Cause I ended up dropping him to like RB 46.

33:17I dropped him behind TyJ Spears. Like I dropped.

33:19Okay. I didn't, I didn't drop him that far.

33:22I already basically had him as the last running back in my rankings that has plausible standalone value.

33:27Um, so I don't think Spears does still there.

33:30He might. Yeah. I don't know if that's an interesting one.

33:33Maybe I'm too anchored to ADP. Like, cause Monunga goes like 60 picks or at least he was at times.

33:38So like, and I, I've, I've been ahead of the market on Spears most of the season.

33:43I've been below him and unguy. So I've never even like thought of that, but I'm maybe I'm not enough of a free thinker.

33:50I'll, I'll ponder on that one. Spears is too cheap.

33:53Yeah. I'm not in the best call streets as much as you, but he's too cheap.

33:57The directional, my directional take is that Spears is a guy I am drafting.

34:01I think it's a guy I'm not drafting. Sure.

34:04Yeah. I probably move an unguy too far. I'm trying to figure that out because I do think like you can still draft him as a stash.

34:12He's, he's like a RB two that you're looking for like contingent upside, but also he's going to probably work into a

34:18role when healthy at a certain point. Yeah. And if he's healthy, I still think he plays week one.

34:23And if he's healthy and Swift was to go down, I mean, that's an offense.

34:28I really want a running back in, you know, compared to the Titans who we don't even have like short for you, but Cam Ward looked horrendous.

34:35Um, I'm assuming you're going Mononga or, uh, sorry, Lloyd over Mononga.

34:39Marshawn Lloyd. I don't have it ranked that way, but maybe I should.

34:42Yeah. That one, that one I can see more clearly because, um, like if Pollard goes down Spears has a Nick Singleton

34:49problem potentially, and he has a Titans offense problem.

34:51But if, if, if Jacobs went down, Lloyd is, I mean, I don't know exactly what we have with him, but he's

34:57potentially like a top 10 running back. The knock on him is health, but Mononga is already hurt.

35:02So it's like, right. The knock on Mononga is health as well.

35:06What about Mononga versus Mononga versus Bigsby? Uh, probably depends on like how deep your league is.

35:11Like Bigsby is the way cleaner contingent bet. I think it's the better talent.

35:15Um, I think he has zero standalone value. So how, how important Mononga's standalone value is to you probably determines that one, but probably a similar tier.

35:22Yeah. Cool. That's what I'm thinking too. I was just trying to get your thoughts on it.

35:27What else we got for the short view? Um, all right.

35:30We got some, some preseason stuff that I'll, I'll run through here and I'll know we're recording this at kind of an awkward time.

35:37So we're recording this Friday afternoon. Um, so we saw the preseason games last night.

35:41We've seen, of course, all of week one, you might be listening to this after there's been additional preseason stuff, but I'll run through some stuff.

35:49Uh, Dijon strumbling, just continuing to dominate. Um, he had a, another fantastic showing last night.

35:53He has a 58% targets per run now across two first quarters of preseason games.

35:58Um, Mike Washington had another couple explosive runs last night.

36:00Um, and then I'll, I'll get into this one is less of a preseason take more, I guess, of a training camp

36:07report, but we are now up to, um, Mike DeFabo, Mark Cavalli, and Ralph Acquiano, three separate reporters who have come out

36:13and said they expect Rico Dowdle to be the leader in the Pittsburgh Steelers running back committee.

36:18Um, so I'll get your, your take on any of these.

36:21Would you go as far as to move Rico above, uh, Jalen Warren in your rankings?

36:25Well, so I had Warren behind Brooks end of a tier of the dead zone as a target.

36:31I had Dowdle as the very next running back.

36:33So I do all my tears by position as the very next running back, but in a separate tier starting the next

36:39tier, but I do think Dowdle, I mean that, that has made Dowdle a target.

36:44There's been many times for me. I mean, not necessarily like a clear target, but there's been many times for me where

36:50I've been on the clock and several of the guys behind him in that tier have gone and Dowdle's clear, like in

36:56my rankings, clearly the, the next like best option up.

36:59And I've said multiple times this off season. And I think probably when we were talking about the running backs on this

37:05show as well, that the Steelers are the, this offense that you want to be in on Aaron Rogers running backs, uh, tend to score very well.

37:13Last year, they got a ton of targets. The stat that I've given many times is six running backs had 85 plus targets last year.

37:20The other five were all going in the first two rounds.

37:23And then Kenneth Gainwell was the sixth. He's no longer on this team.

37:27He did it with the Steelers, even though he had 85 targets.

37:30Jalen Warren had 45, which is a ton for a second running back.

37:34There was only, I said, there were six running backs who had 85 targets.

37:38There was only one more who had more than 60.

37:41Ashton Gentry is the one guy in that gap between 60 and 85.

37:44And the other five above was, I mean, it's Chase Brown, A-Chan, and then it was Gibbs, Bijon, CMC.

37:50So it's just all studs right at the top that get that much receiving volume and then Gainwell with the Steelers.

37:56So I'm not saying that like, I don't really think about vacated targets as a major thing.

38:01I'm not saying that, you know, the addition of Pittman won't change things, whatever it will, but it's a lot of running

38:07back target volume that's available there when the 85 target guy's gone.

38:10And Warren already had 45 last year. So I like both these guys a lot.

38:15In terms of how to play it, I don't know that I'm like meaningfully reacting to these beat reports because I think

38:21Jalen Warren is, I think Dowdle's underrated and I think he's good.

38:24I was out on him. I was too out on him last year.

38:28He had a good year and he has some pretty good peripherals and some interesting stuff.

38:33Jalen Warren is like a really underrated runner. Like he's a good player and he was very good last year and he played with Rogers last year.

38:40Now, Dowdle has played under Mike McCarthy before. So there's some familiarity there, but he's the new guy.

38:45They paid him well. I just, I, even if he leads the committee, like where is Warren going to go?

38:51They're going to, they're not going to be like 70, 30.

38:54They're not going to, I don't even think they're going to be 60, 40.

38:58Like, okay, maybe he's going to lead like 51, 49.

39:01Like I honestly, like, I'm like, you use Jalen Warren.

39:04Like even if you keep him in the second spot, you use him.

39:07And they've, a lot of different coaches have used him.

39:10Rogers isn't an, well, I was going to say Rogers isn't an idiot, but I mean, that's maybe up for debate, but

39:17I think like he had Jalen Warren in the offense last year and saw a lot of, a lot of the ways

39:23that he can help the offense function and, and, and make productive plays and those things.

39:27And that'll may as well to my, you know, to, to, to wrap back to that point, what I'm doing with this

39:34information is I am going to move Warren down and like put him in that other tier, not down in my ranks, just dropping the tier.

39:41So he's still behind Brooks, but I think my willingness to call him a part of the tier that Brooks was in

39:47and then price and Henderson and those guys above that.

39:50Um, I was already kind of pushing him up into that tier and I kind of no longer am.

39:56And so now when I drop him down, I still have Warren.

39:59I had a doubtle, but I have him back to back.

40:02And I think they're both good plays at those costs still.

40:05And if you can get Warren to fall, you're going to take him doubt.

40:09I'll still going to be the cheaper one for a bit, probably because there's, it's opened up like a 20 pick gap

40:15between them, but I have seen doubt. I'll go ahead of Warren.

40:19Warren and one of my mains this week, like there are people that are responding to this in main events aggressively with doubtle.

40:25And I get it. Like I get the, I get the optimism when there's all these reports, I guess I would just

40:32say that the most meaningfully I can move doubtle is like right up there behind Warren.

40:36I think Warren's the better long view player. And I think that would play out over the course of a season, even

40:42though I do think doubtle is pretty good. Um, and I think like beat reports that he's going to lead a committee

40:49is some of the like Flint for in a situation like this is some of the flimsiest stuff that I, I just,

40:55they're observing what they're seeing in practice. They know what they have in Warren.

40:59Maybe they're getting doubtle more first team reps because they want to get doubtle more familiarity with Rogers in the first team and everything.

41:06And Rogers is like, Hey, I, I know what I have in Warren.

41:09I mean, the teams are doing these things very differently.

41:12You know what I mean? Across it, across the league.

41:15I don't, I'm not, I'm not knocking Warren drastically.

41:18I am, as I said, going to move him down to a tier below that arguably kind of already was, I was

41:24kind of aggressively pushing him up into a tier that maybe he didn't quite belong in.

41:28He was clearly the latest in ADP in that tier above it, especially if you consider how Brooks is rising.

41:34I'm looking at the ADPs now, like he'd be like half around behind everyone in that tier or more other than Brooks,

41:40but Brooks is ADP continues to climb as we were just talking about.

41:44So, I mean, you're talking about me, me being a little bit aggressive with Warren.

41:48I'm being less aggressive with him now. I still think, I mean, I think both of them are targets.

41:54Like they're, they're good picks this year. Um, anyway, so not, not making drastic changes, but I, it's interesting.

41:59I'm listening. Yeah, I'll, I'll be quick on this.

42:02Um, I, I already was, I think a little bit lower on Warren, maybe not as much in ordinal ranks, but in,

42:08in the tiers, the way that you talked about it, just because I, I do think that the total target volume is

42:14going to come down maybe a little bit more dramatically, um, based on the Pittman edition, the Jeremy Bernard draft pick, uh,

42:20and the change of coaching staff to Mike McCarthy.

42:23Uh, but I, I am not out on Warren.

42:26I still have them ahead of Dowdle. I have them a lot closer than I had them previously.

42:31Um, and I've, I've prefer, I've been clicking more Dowdle lately at the lower cost.

42:35Um, some remaining hits here. We got, uh, some rookie stuff.

42:38Omar Cooper, uh, is, was confirmed to have played behind Isaiah Williams last preseason game.

42:42He has been plummeting down draft boards so far.

42:45And then in more positive news, uh, we got Emmett Johnson.

42:48He played, um, ahead of Amari Di Mercado in the first preseason game.

42:52He also, uh, played behind Brashard Smith, but then this week he's been the RB two and drills and camp.

42:57You may have already watched the chiefs game by the time that you're listening to this.

43:02And you might know, um, how things rolled out in the second preseason game.

43:06One other rookie Jonah Coleman, um, really played well to my eye, at least in the preseason.

43:11And it seemed he played well to Sean Payton and Davis Webb's eyes as well.

43:15He was quickly pulled out of the game, received some really positive comments.

43:19Um, your thoughts on any of these rookie spots here?

43:22Yeah. The Coleman thing. I agree. I watch all of the preseason stuff right up the preseason stealing signals, um, wrote him

43:28up as if he looked, I hadn't really seen as much of the positivity when I watched it and wrote it up myself.

43:34But, um, the way I always talk about the prospects is like, do you see the things that they did well at the NFL level, like translating?

43:42And, and I don't watch a massive amount of college football.

43:45Really? When I say that I'm thinking of Huskies because I went to UW, I'm a Husky alum.

43:50These are guys that I watched really, really closely through college.

43:53I do watch every, you know, snap of Husky football.

43:56So like Roma Dunze in his rookie year, he did not look the same to me.

44:01He did not look like he was able to impact the games the way that he did in college, where it was

44:07just so clear that he was the stud. Like when you needed a play, you could go to Roma Dunze for that

44:13year where the Huskies went to the national championship.

44:16Comparatively, I've, I've said that Michael Penix actually, I don't think he's great by any means, but the things that Michael Penix

44:22does well, the really good arm strength, the ability to attack different areas of the field kind of translated pretty quickly for me at the NFL.

44:30It was like, Oh, I can kind of see this now that I'm watching him.

44:34There was a lot of concerns with the analytical profile, but when he's been at under center, like he's been able to

44:40get the ball to the spots, he's going to miss throws.

44:43And that's why I've talked about it as like, people are really down on him.

44:47I think it was a failure of expectations for him, frankly, why people are down on him.

44:52So anyway, there's different, there's different layers to this when it comes to the different Huskies and stuff, but to circle back

44:59to the Jonah Coleman point, when I watched him with the Broncos, it wasn't just that I was like, yeah, that's what I saw in college.

45:06And for the record, when people ask me about this in the winter, like what's he, you know, what's he like?

45:12I compare him to Josh Jacobs. He's, he's not like the most explosive guy.

45:16He's physical. He's a, but he's, he is shifty.

45:18The thing, the thing about Josh Jacobs is he doesn't get a ton of explosive plays, but he always has really good

45:25yards per carry and efficiency because he gets yards.

45:27Like he gets downhill. He gets yards through contact, through the hole, through whatever he's shifty.

45:32And then the other part of using him as a comparison, other than like body type to pretty, pretty physical, like bowling

45:38ball type is that he, Jacobs can do everything plays in the past game.

45:42He'll catch the ball and you'll get upfield in the, in the past game.

45:46He'll pass block. He'll get his head in there.

45:49Very physical player, right? Jonah Coleman was like that all through college.

45:52He'll catch bounce off, you know, kick something outside.

45:55If there's, you know, trouble inside, he's a physical tough player.

45:58I think you saw that in the first, in the first preseason game.

46:01What, what you said, I, he looked like that to me.

46:04If anything, he looked better in a Broncos uniform than I remembered him in a Husky uniform.

46:09I was like, man, dude, dude looks like big in, in orange.

46:13Like, I don't know what it is, but like, I, I loved watching him at UW for sure.

46:18He was a stud, but I saw him run a little bit, uh, in that preseason game.

46:23And I was like, I mean, he looks even bigger and meaner and more physical of a runner than, than I remember him.

46:29So, um, and like the numbers back up as well.

46:32What I said, he did test. Cause he's probably not the most athletic guy in the world, which kind of gets back

46:38to some of the Jacobs comparison points. And yet very efficient as a runner, very efficient, like breakaway run rate as well.

46:45Like he's still getting 15 plus yard runs. Like he's able to, for a guy that's not testing, he's showing an ability

46:51to create big plays still in, in the data.

46:53So it looks like they have that with the Broncos.

46:56My, my immediate reaction was to move JK Dobbins down pretty substantially.

47:00The way I've talked about Dobbins all off season is I think, um, you know, for all the injuries and stuff that

47:06people don't realize that he's not over the hill when he's been out there, he's been a really great runner.

47:12And you know, the, the Broncos said he was a priority and free agency above all else.

47:16They really wanted him back. He's such a good running back.

47:20He's like a peer rusher and Harvey had struggles running and it's all this stuff about 2025 and how, how good he actually was when healthy.

47:27The issue is he's in a very different spot now in 2026.

47:30If you have a good third back in your backfield now, I mean, if Jonah Coleman is a legit good player and

47:37he's competing for touches and he's also running effectively.

47:39And he's also reliable and pass blocking, which is one of the big reasons they took him because RJ Harvey is really

47:45not, you know, they want to use him as if he's on there and passing down, he's going out in a route.

47:52Probably like he's that clear pass receiving back. I mean, Coleman's going to take some snaps.

47:56You already have the injury issues with Dobbins. I like Dobbins, but he was already not going to play a lot in the past game.

48:03He already has some injury issues. I think he's very good.

48:06And I think he's going to run efficiently while healthy.

48:09It's not a bet. I want to make at this point when I see Jonah Coleman look like that in the preseason.

48:15Yeah, I agree with much of what you said.

48:18Coleman is my kind of back. Just like a guy who's not that flashy, but can do literally everything.

48:23He's a guy that if the situation allows, like there's no reason he can't have 90% of the snaps, you know, in a given game.

48:31He's like the classic guy of, oh, a couple people got hurt.

48:34Like, oh, this guy had a 92% snap rate this month because he's 5'8", 220 and he passed blocks and he has

48:40soft hands and you can give him 25 carries and he's going to be okay.

48:44Um, I love targeting this type of back in fantasy when they're at depressed prices.

48:49This is the type of back that I don't necessarily love targeting at like round three prices, but when you can get

48:55them cheaply and you get a lot of that contingent upside baked in, it's fun.

48:59I've moved him up my ranks. I've moved Dobbins down a bit.

49:03I've moved Harvey down, um, especially in managed. Um, it's just the path to like, when I start, this guy feels muddy to me.

49:10And I'm, I'm curious if you also moved him down in addition to Dobbins.

49:13I, I guess I had him a little, uh, that area has been weird for me.

49:18Um, I've been moving quorum up and I wasn't really into quorum, but seagulls got me into quorum a little more.

49:24Like you guys had this choice in the main yesterday.

49:27Cause or was it yesterday? Whatever. I listened to it this morning and, um, you guys had a choice between spoiler alert, RJ Harvey and Ja'Cory Kraski merit.

49:35I I'm decidedly bill at that point now. And I was not prior.

49:38And a big part of that is Coleman. I still have Harvey three spots ahead of him in my running back rankings.

49:45Part of that is I have Stevenson lower than most.

49:48So he comes in in between there, which is maybe wrong.

49:51Stevenson goes higher. So anyway, Stevenson's usually gone when you're making this decision.

49:54I have them sort of back to back. The other guy in between is Jordan Mason, who I think is interesting in this range as well.

50:02I could totally see taking bill over him. We ended up doing that.

50:05I didn't have a strong opinion. As I recall, I can't remember exactly what my input was on that pick.

50:11We, we had back to back picks and we took quorum with one.

50:15And then we took Ja'Cory Kraski merit with the other.

50:18I think I, I wanted Harvey because I think Sean wanted Harvey and, and Pat kind of wanted bill.

50:23And then Sean was working the one twos and he clicked bill.

50:27And I was like, why don't you just click the guy you want?

50:30Then anyway, but I don't think I, they're all the same tier for me is the short answer.

50:35I don't have a clear answer. That's totally fair.

50:38I don't even know how to talk about RJ Harvey.

50:41I wrote a whole piece about him after I wrote that he's an enigma.

50:45I wrote off season stealing signals and I talk about every player and I wrote it.

50:49And then someone was like, you didn't really explain anything about Harvey.

50:53And then I wrote a whole nother piece. It was called RJ Harvey's an enigma.

50:57And I also didn't explain anything about Harvey. So if you want to read like several, like maybe like 2000 words about

51:03RJ Harvey and not come to a conclusion about what he could be.

51:07I mean, the profile is still good enough to bet into in year two.

51:11There's a lot of positives about year one. He did score a bunch of touchdowns.

51:15He did do a bunch as a receiver. He almost doesn't even need to run the ball.

51:20Sean's line during that draft was like, you could give him no carries and he could potentially pay off cost.

51:26He did have over 200 PPR points last year as a rookie.

51:29And we all talk about him like he's horrible.

51:32And he probably is. No, I don't think he's horrible.

51:34I don't think he's horrible at all. I think he's like part of the reason I've been very bullish on him in best ball.

51:41I moved him down a little bit, but he had been a target for me in best ball, especially all year.

51:47And he'd been even a target for me in redraft early on, or at least I thought he was going to be

51:54was because to me, like you just mentioned, he's already really good at something, which is that receiving back specialist role.

51:59It's like almost a role that he's almost like the only guy in the NFL that has this role these days.

52:05Like this role used to exist more maybe Rashad White has something similar in Washington this year.

52:10We'll see. But he already had that and he was great at that.

52:14So why would they take away something he was great at?

52:17And then the question is, okay, can he get better at the stuff he wasn't great at in year one?

52:23And to me, that is totally plausible. Like he had a pretty strong college profile, at least in my opinion.

52:28He's a year or two ascending player potentially. Why couldn't he get better at it?

52:33Um, my issue though, is it's like Sean Payton, I think at his core, like prefers to have a split backfield.

52:39And the way that he doesn't is if it's like so clear that only one guy is bet way better than everyone else.

52:45I think Dobbins is a good rusher. Um, and so I think he's going to be hard to dislodge, you know, unless he gets hurt.

52:52And then now having a third guy in the mix who has legitimate strengths to compliment Harvey's.

52:57Okay. Well then what would be the reason for the coaching staff to force this unless Harvey is like so good?

53:03Um, you know, in every capacity that they have to treat him like a complete superstar, maybe he is.

53:09But, um, I do think that just having another option now where we have two guys who excel potentially as like between

53:15the tackles backs, um, in a way that Harvey didn't year one, it just complicates it to me.

53:20Um, at least like in a managed setting. Cause in, in best ball, it's like, you know, he's going to have weeks

53:26where he has four carries three targets, but he scores 17 points.

53:30Um, but, and that, that's a little easier to play in a, in a best ball format.

53:34Um, but unless you have any more on this.

53:37Yeah. Well, I do. The only other thing I would say is that Broncos are underrated as a team.

53:42I think I've said it big, a couple of different pods that they are my favorite or they were my favorite win

53:49total over bat when I placed it like over a month ago.

53:52It was actually, maybe it was in June. Um, but anyway, that was the, I don't know where the win total is now.

53:59I haven't looked at win totals in weeks. So that's why I don't want to just say that because maybe they've moved

54:05up because I've heard other people say this as well, but I think the Broncos are going to be, I don't know if that's the number you got.

54:13That's what it is. I think it might be what I got or close to, I would take the over on nine and a half.

54:20This is a good team. This is a, this is a playoff team.

54:24They're going to win games. Um, and then the, the, the crowded back thing, like work, you know, work opens up.

54:30Like one of the things I love about Jonah Coleman is he, you were talking about how, um, you can play him 90% of snaps and everything.

54:37I was nodding along during that whole thing. He played hurt a lot at UW.

54:41He had some little things here and there. And the guy answered the bell and he was still the bell cow and was still tough.

54:49And, um, they would rotate him more cause they do that in college.

54:52You, you, you know, you have other good backs.

54:55You give other guys some, some work, but it, he never seemed like he couldn't take on the work, even when he was like banged up.

55:02Like he was, he, so anyway, I, but it doesn't matter.

55:05Like he could still get hurt, right? Dobbins could get hurt.

55:08Anything could happen. Uh, Harvey himself could get hurt that consolidates the work onto the other two and a good offense.

55:14So there's, there's ways that this, everything's about Harvey.

55:17I agree with it's tough to predict, but that's also our week one perception of the backfield.

55:22It's a good backfield. They're going to score points.

55:24Sean Payton backfields tend to, you know, get used in the red zone and score touchdowns.

55:29You know, especially if Dobbins does end up getting hurt or Coleman misses time or something, Harvey could wind up consolidating still

55:35and, and be really good from that perspective too.

55:38So there's, it's a, it's a very convoluted situation.

55:40I do like being in on the Broncos backs generally.

55:43So Dobbins is the one that though, that I'm moving down and feeling like I don't really want to make that play right now.

55:50I'm trying not to make it all about Jonah Coleman.

55:53So I'm still pretty willing to make the Harvey bet as well.

55:56That makes sense. All right. We have, we're probably not going to get this done in under an hour, but we're going

56:02to get close because we have very few items left on the short view.

56:06So it'll be our fastest one in a while.

56:09We've got a Ronda Gadsden, another preseason take this from last night.

56:12He didn't play any snaps at the starters, Charlie Kolar and David Njoku each split snaps ahead of him.

56:18Kolar played the most total snaps early on in the game.

56:21Then we have a two, a tongue of Iloa.

56:24They had Falcons joint practices with the Colts this week and shout out Kevin Bowen is a Colts reporter who I wouldn't

56:30consider a shock shock in any sense. So when he calls it opposing quarterback and I quote horrific, that's I think pretty

56:36meaningful in terms of how horrific he was. And he played, I would say also quite horrific in the preseason game we saw him last week.

56:43You talked about this. We did a premium draft episode recently where I think we took Michael Penix.

56:49We were talking about, we might be seeing Penix sooner than later.

56:52That agenda I think is going pretty strong. And then the last thing I want to hit on here is Malik Willis.

56:58He's run a lot of praise, had a fantastic opening drive in the first preseason game.

57:03We'll see if we see him in the second preseason game or not.

57:06But there's some things looking up for the Dolphins.

57:09Chris Bell was also activated off the non-football injury list.

57:12That's their round three rookie, probably the highest upside profile, or at least was thought to be of the guys that they drafted.

57:18And then Caleb Douglas, the guy we talked about last week, another third round pick for them.

57:23He played every single snap with the starting unit, had one really amazing catch, had one really confounding play.

57:29Your thoughts on the Dolphins or anything else from the rest of that list?

57:33Well, the Gadsden thing, I had a pretty impassioned argument in defense of him as a profile a couple shows ago.

57:39I'll just say that I have sort of capitulated and started to move him down.

57:43I still believe a lot of those things in terms of the uncertainty and all those things, but we're just getting more

57:49and more clarity that he's not going to play a big role.

57:52We talked about it when we talked about that, that tight end's a weird spot and sometimes guys just don't get used.

57:59And yeah, so I was wrong on that or I'm backtracking on that.

58:02The Tua thing, you talked about it. But maybe we only talked about it on the paywall draft show, but Penix is

58:09going to probably play a lot more than Tua, I think, this year.

58:12I've written about this a little bit, but I think Penix gets a bad rap.

58:17He's only started like 10 games or 12 games until he got hurt last year because he didn't start a ton as a rookie.

58:23So it was like three in his rookie season and he got like seven or eight or something or whatever last year.

58:30And it's like 10 or 12 games. And they've been pretty competitive in them.

58:34He's been good in come from behind fourth quarter situations.

58:37They've had some losses that have been tough. Like he had a couple of comebacks within the opposing offense answered.

58:42And so they, they lost at the end. He had one where he led a drive that should have been a tie

58:48game, I think against the Patriots last year, who obviously went on to go to the Superbowl and their kicker missed the

58:55extra point that would have tied the game. So they ended up losing 24, 23, if I'm not mistaken.

59:00He led a touchdown drive in the final five minutes.

59:03And that one, there's like, he's had some, some bad outcomes.

59:06The, the Carolina game, especially he was horrible and they lost 30 to zero, but he's a young QB.

59:12He won some games and then he had a lot of close losses was sort of the, the point lost to to

59:18play, um, two overtime games that he started. I think he got hurt in the second of those, but many, uh, close losses for him.

59:25Yeah. Week one against the box. Uh, he had a, a, a, a go ahead score.

59:29And then Baker answered with a go ahead score with like a minute left week, uh, nine against the Patriots was the 24, 23 game Colts.

59:37Good Colts team. They lost in overtime and he, uh, Penix had led, led some point scoring drive, I think late in that game.

59:44And then the Panthers game is the one he got hurt.

59:47He left with a lead and they ended up losing in overtime.

59:50Um, and he went like three and six as a starter, three and seven as a starter.

59:55And it's like, it could have actually been a winning record.

59:58Anyway, he's not like his win loss is what it is.

60:01Obviously JJ McCarthy had a winning record last year, but I think Penix actually does help their offense opens things up.

60:07He's able to attack different areas. Bijon has run more effectively.

60:10Um, when Penix has been in there, London had the really good stretch of receiving when Penix was in there.

60:16I had a whole theory last year that, um, in a lot of the off season stuff that London was a really

60:22good Penix was a really good fit for London in the ways that he can attack the intermediate ranges.

60:28London. Are you warming on London now? I mean, I am a little bit.

60:32Yeah. I'm not like, I'm not entirely out on, I haven't wide receiver nine.

60:36I mean, I have neighbors aggressively at, at eight, but like, I think London goes eight.

60:40And so maybe it's just the, the neighbors difference that makes me like down on him, but I have London ahead of Nico and Pickens.

60:47So I, I mean, I'm not like out on, on London.

60:50Um, but yeah, I think he's a really good Penix is, is good for London compared to Tua in a, in a, like a major way.

60:58I think that's a huge difference actually for London.

61:00Um, and it's not necessarily like targets and receptions.

61:03It's really like yardage. I think Penix can hit him 15, 20 yards downfield.

61:07And I mean, Tua can, but it's just, it's not going to be the same.

61:11I think fit, I would say, I think too, a lot of the Tua does is the quick game and the accurate stuff.

61:18And he's just going to get found out without McDaniel.

61:21I've been saying that all off season. And it's sounds like it's happening.

61:24That, that quote stood out to me too. I brought it up in the last episode of stealing bananas.

61:30I couldn't, I didn't have the exact info, but I was like, I know it was a beat reporter for a different

61:36team who was like commenting on the other team and then threw in also Tua looked horrific.

61:41Like it's terrible. And then the Malik Wilson, I thought he looked really, really good.

61:45And it got me a little bit more intrigued by that offense.

61:48It's just tricky. Cause going back to college sack, right?

61:51So high scramble rate. So high that drop back conversion rate stat, um, is going to be low.

61:56I guess the way that, that you look at it, it's going to be low.

62:01He's not going to turn a lot of drop backs into pass attempts.

62:04They want to run a ton, but yeah, he looked good.

62:07He looked good operating the offense. He threw the ball effectively.

62:11I think he's an accurate passer of the football.

62:13I don't think the dolphins are going to be good, but like their offense might be like mildly better.

62:19I don't really know how to play it. Like the Caleb Douglas thing playing a lot is interesting.

62:24I moved him like Wills up. I moved him up like, not like meaningfully, but I moved him to QB 19, which

62:30is, is, I think he's like QB 22 in most ADPs.

62:33I moved him ahead of Baker Mayfield. I moved him ahead of Tyler Shuck, moved him up like three QB spots for me.

62:40Um, and I do think he's, he's a way to play it.

62:43I'm not really still into a Chan. I think you can play the rookie receivers.

62:47I can play Douglas. I'm not really into Dulcich.

62:50So I have a hard time figuring out how I want to play that.

62:54But I think Willis himself becomes more interesting. I definitely agree with that.

62:57I moved Willis up a bit. I already had him pretty, pretty aggressively in like the pure redraft stuff.

63:03Um, I, I'm, I'm going to move him up a bit and I moved him up a little bit in best ball

63:09just because I think it makes me feel a little bit better about avoiding some of the disaster outcomes where he's benched

63:15like by the playoff weeks in a way that I didn't really care about in redraft, but care about more in a best ball format.

63:22I moved HN up a little. I just, there's a lot of people who are optimistic about HN.

63:28I posted, um, an excerpt from my, uh, draft guide that was negative on HN and why I'm lower on him.

63:34And some, some people were, you know, reasonably commenting on, on that when HN was having a lot of success, uh, in that preseason game.

63:41My issue is, I just don't know how much we actually learned from Malik Willis in this setup.

63:46Like we already watched him in Green Bay, um, where I didn't think coming off of Tennessee that he was going to

63:52have any success in Green Bay or at least anywhere close to the success that he did.

63:57And he did. And that surprised me. And that's a credit to legitimate development, but we already do have proof that in

64:03a controlled environment, scripted plays, low volume sample, he can look really good.

64:07Um, that's kind of what a preseason drive is.

64:09So I'm actually not that shocked, especially against the second team defense that he was able to look really effective in that capacity.

64:16The question on him has been to me all summer.

64:19Like, is this a guy who over the course of a full game, can he remain efficient?

64:24If asked to drop back 30, 35 times on a regular basis, um, in like the flow of the game beyond the script.

64:30And to me, the preseason drive was impressive. So it's not like he did anything wrong.

64:35He did everything right, but it's kind of unanswerable to me on the fundamental question about his profile, about this offense's profile.

64:41So I haven't adjusted that much. Um, and I guess I just, what I'm saying is I probably can't adjust that much

64:47until like we get rid of games, at which point it will be too late, but then either I'll, I'll like be wrong or, or not.

64:55But that's kind of where I'm at on, on Willis.

64:57Yeah. Makes sense. All right. Um, that wraps up the short view in about an hour.

65:02So like progress, you know, we did good. We got through a lot of stuff.

65:06It's still, it's still training camp. It's still preseason.

65:09We talked about a bunch of injuries. We've talked about a bunch of, uh, you know, news, new signings.

65:14Short view has had a lot of topics. We got through a ton of stuff.

65:18That was a good hour. We're going to talk draft strategy now on the long view portion.

65:23Jacob, you wrote a massive strategy guide at your newsletter, like 19,000 words.

65:27Um, I wrote one last week as well. I found it harder to write a strategy guide this year, uh, for a

65:33variety of reasons that we'll get into it. Um, it's an interesting year for a couple of different reasons.

65:39We've talked about a lot of the macro stuff.

65:41We've talked about the different positions. We've talked about, you know, being a little more into running backs early and those things.

65:47Um, and I think some of the, you know, mispricing at some of the positions creates different, uh, opportunities and, and how

65:54you can build depth and length in your, you know, running back room and your wide receiver room and some of those things.

66:00But there's also a lot of stuff that I think is very, um, sort of classic fantasy football.

66:05The idea of like humility based drafting and structural drafting and those concepts over the years has always been about getting a

66:12lot of depth, getting a lot of contingencies, getting a lot of, um, paths because you're going to have misses.

66:17And I think people don't realize enough how many misses there are.

66:21One of the things that I ended up writing about this year was just doing a bit of a recap as, as

66:27like an intro to the strategy guide, a bit of a recap on like what won last year.

66:32And there was just so many misses. Like you only needed like a couple of hits in the early rounds.

66:38Like usually the first and second round picks, you needed to get points out of there.

66:42Cause there was a lot of, of healthy players and there were a lot of hits in the early rounds.

66:48Um, and then there were some, you know, James Cook, George Pickens and like the round five range were huge hits.

66:54JSN round three, huge hit. Um, but a lot of the other, like round four, round five, round six, seven picks, there

67:00weren't a ton of really, really good picks. Um, there were some okay ones.

67:04There were a lot of the like small hits that I usually advocate for the big ceiling stuff.

67:09I, part of the reason I started talking about that is I found a piece at the end of last year that

67:16was, uh, and I mentioned this to Siegel on bananas this week, but there was a little bit of a discussion at

67:22the end of last year of whether Travion Henderson was a good pick right at a time when he was, or, or a bad pick.

67:29Or a neutral pick, not great or anything, but like where he fell.

67:33And, and I think everyone who thinks he's really bad, it was a bad pick.

67:37I would caution you to go back and look at his game log.

67:41And then this discussion was happening after week 15.

67:43He had a 30 point game in week 15.

67:46He ends up getting a concussion in week 16 in the first half that sunk the rest of his post is week 16 and 17, the fancy playoffs.

67:54But after week 15, what we knew to that point, he had worked into a meaningful role.

67:58It was his third 28 plus point PPR game in the previous five games.

68:02And he had been over 11 points in all, in the other two.

68:06So there was, you know, a floor there as well.

68:09I think he had been over 11 points for six straight weeks.

68:12And then he was, he was hitting ceiling. And that floor means, you know, we always talk about these late season producers

68:19that people were putting him into their lineups. And you know that he's scoring.

68:23And so you put him in your lineup and then he answers that with points.

68:27And so I was making the case that, I mean, if you think he's a bad pick, which a lot of people

68:33were saying in, um, JJ Zacharyson had done this poll.

68:36Cause in his discord, there was a big discussion.

68:39A lot of people were adamant that he was a bad pick because he had been really bad the first half of the year.

68:45You can't win with him. You can't make the playoffs with him.

68:49And I'm like, he's not the only pick you make, but if he was a bad pick, my argument was like 75%

68:55or 80% of picks were bad picks. Like there's so many bad picks and if that's your philosophy, then your whole mindset

69:01should be huge home run swings with every pick.

69:04We, I mean, we've talked over the years about upside and about big swings, but you should think that you're trying to

69:10hit a league winner with every single pick because you think everything that's not a league winner is a bad pick.

69:16Everything that doesn't give you production from week one through week 17 and isn't consistently great.

69:21I mean, Travion Henderson, a big part of the point was like, maybe he'd give you production late season and he had started to do that.

69:28And people were like, well, he's still bad. Cause he didn't score early season.

69:32Well, if he'd scored early season, he would have just been a massive league winner the whole, the whole way.

69:38When he started to give you some ceiling and including a ceiling, a ceiling game in the NFL playoffs.

69:43Now, again, I caution people who are thinking of Travion Henderson specifically through the lens of what happened after that point, that

69:49this was a discussion after week 15, because 16, he gets a concussion, 17, 18, like Ramondre's taking over.

69:55And then obviously in the playoffs, Travion barely plays and he's clearly the number two.

69:59And people have a very different opinion of Travion Henderson.

70:02They played four playoff games. Patriots football after the point of this discussion.

70:06So anyway, the way that it worked out and where we're at now in this off season, very different than where this discussion was happening.

70:13But my point in using him as this sort of hot button player is to discuss this idea that you get different things out of your different picks.

70:21Not every single pick is either like good or bad on a spectrum.

70:24That's really easy to classify. And you're not going to get 17 weeks of elite production out of a whole lot of guys.

70:31There's very few of those types of actual league winners.

70:34And so when we think about draft strategy and we think about how to build our teams, we have to understand that

70:40concept and we have to understand how to build redundancies and contingencies.

70:43And one of the things that I always think is misconstrued about zero RB over the years is that people are like, you can't draft zero running backs.

70:51That's crazy. Like, why would you do that? It's never been about drafting zero running backs.

70:56It's always been about that if you were going to push running back, you didn't want to hit them in the dead zone.

71:02And you didn't want to pull out of that strategy too early with bad running back picks so that you didn't have strengths at the other positions.

71:10The whole point of zero RB has not been about zero running backs.

71:14It's been about getting enough wide receivers, maybe getting an early tight end, maybe getting an early QB that you can win

71:20at all the other positions by enough that you can make up for the fact that your running backs are going to be worse.

71:27And they're not going to score as many points.

71:29And yes, running backs are massive to fantasy football, but the whole philosophy of it was take enough receivers early that if

71:36there's busts, if you get injuries, if you have bye weeks, you're still able to have firepower at wide receiver through the flex positions.

71:42And you have an elite tight end in there.

71:45And you maybe have an elite QB who's going off.

71:48You have the guy like you obviously don't want Lamar Jackson or Jane Daniels last year who got hurt.

71:53But if you had Josh Allen last year or whatever, and you took Trey McBride and you took up the wide receivers

72:00that didn't get hurt, Pukunakua and JSN. Like a zero RB team could have worked.

72:04The point is there are misses at wide receiver too.

72:07If you took some other guys that didn't hit, if you took Terry McLaurin and he got hurt or whatever, well, hopefully

72:13you came back with George Pickens and you had redundancy so that you would still have firepower receiver and you could beat

72:19your league mates at the non-running back positions. That was always the point of that.

72:23Zero RB always gets talked about as like an arrogant strategy.

72:27And it's to me, it's always been a misconception because it's a humility based strategy.

72:31It's an understanding that if I'm going to sacrifice early running back scoring, it's tough in the dead zone.

72:36I better be able to draft enough depth at the other positions to make sure that I'm scoring enough points to make this strategy work.

72:43This risky thing that I'm doing at running back work.

72:46I need depth and I need redundancy and I need contingencies because I'm going to miss on some of my wide receiver picks.

72:53I'm going to miss on some of the other stuff.

72:56I better have so much firepower. The way I always used to write about it was I better have at least two

73:02really good wide receivers on the bench. Like you want to think about the depth at wide receiver too deep onto your

73:08bench, however many you can start before like the wide receiver window closes.

73:12Sometimes before you even take a running back if you're going like a really extreme version of zero RB.

73:17Now I'm not advocating zero RB this year, but it's the most extreme example of this point of redundancy and contingency and hammering a strength within a build.

73:25And I do think I actually think balanced builds are more interesting this year.

73:29We'll get into the different like structures and layers.

73:32I'm really curious what you found when you worked into your draft strategy stuff.

73:36But I just wanted to start with that conversation of what actually won in 2025 and this idea of what makes a good hit.

73:42Sometimes it's just production in parts of the season.

73:45And so you need depth. You need a lot of plays.

73:48And really the biggest tie-in before I kick it to you, I would say is the quarterback position, which we haven't talked a ton about.

73:55It's one of the big reasons I love late round quarterback.

73:58It's always been the idea of late round quarterback.

74:01If you can get quarterbacks deep and there's a lot of good ones this year that can give you solid quarterback production.

74:07It's one of the most comfortable positions to push because you can get the solid production late.

74:12It gives you more early picks to build more depth.

74:15You can really build up the running back depth, really build up the receiver depth as you work through the first 10 rounds.

74:21When you're not worrying about quarterback at any point in there, if you are willing to push quarterback to 12, 13, 14,

74:2815 in some of these drafts, you can get a lot of depth at the other positions.

74:32So anyway, that's sort of like a rough background of what I think the interesting considerations are in 2026 from what happened in 2025, where we're at.

74:40There's a lot of nuance to that. What did you find when you went through your draft strategy guide and were trying

74:46to figure out the best ways to attack? Yeah.

74:49Yeah. So, I mean, first off, I'll say if you've read both of ours or if you haven't, you'll note like Gretz

74:55did his in parts, which probably makes his content way easier to consume.

74:59So good for you. So you wrote up all your tier guides in the different positions and then added the strategy focus layer over top.

75:06Mine is very differently structured in that I kind of am weaving a strategy throughout, but I'm also writing up all my tiers.

75:13And I do the tiers on an overall basis.

75:15It's funny. We had a chat at our premium stream about like just the minutia of ranking from an overall perspective versus ranking from a positional rankings perspective.

75:23And like I, my brain has always worked more on the overall rankings and not the positional rankings.

75:28And I guess the reason for that, from my perspective is like, I want to sort of have the feel of the

75:34whole draft of like what's coming off and what's still there.

75:38And I want to try to be thinking through each individual step as three-dimensionally as possible in terms of how these positions overlap with each other.

75:45And I make that point because to me, the defining nature of this year's drafts for me is that more than ever,

75:51I feel like there is like almost three defined sections of draftable players or like startable players this year that are like more flat.

75:58Like I always rank in tiers. I always have, and I'll always think that I'll find tiers.

76:03But in terms of like the overall draft landscape, I feel like I can innately feel these like large teardrops this year

76:09in a way that I don't know that I ever have.

76:12And it really comes in like there's the first two rounds.

76:15To me, there is a clear group of running backs that are before the dead zone and after the dead zone.

76:21And there are a group of these very dominant receivers.

76:24And then there's a huge drop off after that.

76:27And there's kind of, you know, middle guys you can quibble about.

76:30But to me, once you get into early round three, there's a very massive tear break.

76:35And then to me, it's once again, very flat at both the running back and the receiver position, kind of all the

76:41way through to like early round six, where you get all these dead zone running backs.

76:45We talked about this on one of our earlier shows.

76:48You get like what I would call the traditional dead zone running backs in this range.

76:53You're Javante, you're David Montgomery, you're Travis Etienne, you're Swift.

76:56Like even though we just talked about we're kind of excited for him.

76:59And then you get like kind of the new age dead zone running backs, I guess.

77:04Like you're Henderson, you're Judkins, you're Bucky Irving, you're Janarian Price.

77:07Nice. And then also in this range, it's like a massive glut of receivers that everyone kind of has ranked differently.

77:13And the ADP is kind of what it is.

77:16But like I feel like that there are like over 15 guys that I think project pretty similarly.

77:21And then there's another massive drop to me right around that mid six.

77:24In best ball, the solution to this is really easy.

77:27That's when I start hammering quarterbacks. In redraft, you know, I'm probably less inclined to do that.

77:32And so how you manage this drop, I think is interesting.

77:35And then you get into like the post dead zone running backs to me, which is like a bunch of guys that

77:41are kind of in potential timeshares that have interesting profiles.

77:44And similarly, you get to be another pretty flat tier of wide receiver.

77:48The interesting thing about this tier of wide receiver is I think not only is it flat, I think it's aggressively mispriced

77:54in that like I would almost rather draft it in reverse.

77:57I would probably rather have a lot of the guys with substantially later ADPs, like a Matthew Golden, a Xavier Worthy, a

78:04Casey Concepcion, than a lot of the guys who have ADPs considerably higher than them, like a Cortland Sutton, a Quinton Johnston.

78:10So you get this interesting dynamic there. And so like, how am I trying to formulate a strategy within that?

78:16You know, looking just at running back and receiver, it's like the first two rounds to me are almost a draw.

78:22Like I really want to draft one of those receivers before the teardrop.

78:25I equally really want to draft one of the running backs before the teardrop.

78:29And so that's when you start thinking about an element that you've talked about a lot.

78:34And Sean's talked about a lot. It's like, think about your draft backwards.

78:37You know, think about building from the reverse and how does that influence the path that you might want to chart at the beginning.

78:44I look at that next tier. And to me, it's like, that's a tier of running back that I think is drafted

78:51in reverse, almost like the next year of receiver is.

78:53Like I would rather, if I'm taking a running back from that range at all, I want to ideally be taking whoever

79:00is the last couple of names of those younger, kind of like I termed them the new age dead zone backs.

79:06After the receivers I'm targeting are gone. And so that's usually round five, round six.

79:10I really want to be playing into that group of receivers in three and in four.

79:14Your Waddle, Higgins, Garrett Wilson, Tedderall McMillan, even some of the guys that I'm not taking, but like in a vacuum would

79:21have interest in like a Ladd-Bakonky or an Emeka Igbuka.

79:23And then, you know, later in the drafts, obviously you're going to, to some extent, just be filling out your roster depending on what you need.

79:31But there's a group of wide receiver prices that I think are so inefficient that I want to make sure that I have room to target.

79:38I want to have a roster that is constructed in a way that needs Matthew Golden this year or that needs Makai

79:45Lemon this year, needs Casey Concepcion this year, because I think those are really interesting prices.

79:49And so how do you allow yourself to have that?

79:52For me, it tends to have been like a difficult year for me to actively want to build zero RB teams because

79:58I really want to be embracing probably the most convicted take I have about the ADP economy this year, which is that

80:04people are being way too reactive to a small sample of years in a different ADP environment by driving a lot of

80:11these like traditional dead zone profiles right back up into prices where they used to fail.

80:15I want to be hitting receivers pretty consistently in three and in four and avoiding profiles like Javante and Kyron and Etienne and Montgomery if he's priced up.

80:23And so in order to have the flexibility to do that, in order to also attack some of these really mispriced receiver

80:29profiles towards the end, you know, I probably want to at least be playing one, if not two running backs for the

80:36first two rounds to give myself the flexibility to do that.

80:39Um, especially, you know, mixing in some of the stuff that we talked about a few episodes ago about tight end and

80:45how both of us are pretty aligned on, on wanting to target some of the earlier tight ends.

80:50Um, so anyway, that's a lot. Um, obviously like, you know, it really depends like where you're drafting and every story take

80:56holds, but that's kind of like my, my overall, if I was trying to summarize it in a somewhat concise way would

81:03be, I think there are larger tier breaks and flatter groups within the tiers this year than usual.

81:08And I think the key to determining a draft plan, in my opinion, is figuring out where do the tiers at running

81:14back and receiver not quite align with each other?

81:17And where is the flatness of these tiers potentially not just flat, but like actively misvalued and mispriced into a point where

81:23you would probably prefer to be setting yourself up to draft at the end of the tier at one position versus the

81:29top of the tier at another position. Um, those are kind of the key questions I'm asking as I go into my rankings.

81:36And then, you know, how I try to set up my draft plans reflect what, what are my answers to those?

81:42Whenever we talk about stuff like that, I love the way you put all that.

81:46And, you know, you talked about how you went through your tiers in your draft guide and I kind of did my tiers first.

81:53And that was for me a, a different plan than usual.

81:56I've usually written my strategy guide and then come back with positional tiers pieces a little like around now, like a couple of weeks into August.

82:03Um, as like content that gets me closer to week one that I'm kind of restating some of, I do the team

82:09by team stuff earlier and there's whatever you can approach it.

82:13However you want, you're going to talk about the profiles and the different situations.

82:17I wanted to do the tiers first because of a lot of what you just said.

82:21I wanted to talk about the different pockets of value in the draft strategy guide, because I think that's so interesting to strategy this year.

82:28It's a very much a year to think about tier based approach.

82:32And a lot of the specific names you said we agree on.

82:35And I completely agree on, I think there's multiple really interesting tiers, but like the, the pocket of players you talked about

82:41with golden and worthy and conception and those guys are clear targets.

82:45And there's a clear value range there at wide receiver that is deeper into drafts this year than typical.

82:50The why of that is really interesting to me.

82:53And it gets back to what we talked about at the beginning of the long view as a show, where we started

82:59talking about the macro stuff on day one, the why of it is we're in a point of upheaval in the NFL.

83:05We're at a point where teams want to use more tight ends.

83:09They want to do more sub packages. They want to rotate things more.

83:12You look at like Sean Payton's offenses over the last several years, and it's been tough to consolidate routes within the Sean Payton's offense.

83:19Sean Payton offenses. We talked about how he's used different running backs when we were going through the short view, but you

83:25know, that receiver up until last year, or I guess the year prior to last year, 2024, I think there was only

83:32one receiver, Cortland Sutton, who had more than 400 routes.

83:34Everyone else was running different rotational stuff. Last year, Troy Franklin started to consolidate sort of that second role, but there wasn't like a clear third guy there.

83:42The tight ends weren't consolidating. Ingram was very rotational.

83:45You know, people very excited about Ingram as a guy who was going to play a significant role in that offense.

83:51It didn't materialize. I bring that up because Payton's style of offense has always been what I think a lot of other

83:57offenses are going to gravitate towards, which is a lot of sub packages, a lot of different personnel groupings, a lot of substitutions and rotational things.

84:05And some of that for these teams is going to be within games.

84:08Some of it's going to be throughout the season.

84:11The thing I always go back to with the 13 personnel stuff with the Rams, they didn't start doing that until Puka Nakua got hurt.

84:18They were not doing it for the first like eight weeks.

84:21Nakua got hurt around week nine. He missed like one game.

84:24And then when he came back, he was playing lower snap rates.

84:28That's when Sean McVay is like, all right, let's use all these tight ends.

84:32Let's start doing 13 personnel. And it was effective.

84:34And then they built off of it. I think he probably had it in his back pocket longer than that.

84:40I don't think it was like a fortunate thing that just fell on their lap because Puka got hurt or something.

84:46But I do think the extent to which it became a thing and then the extent to which it's become a thing

84:52league wide as a result to a certain degree was a response to who was available at the other positions, was a

84:58response to wanting to limit Puka Nakua. They were using Devonta Adams as the only wide receiver and 13 personnel at that time.

85:05And then when Nakua got healthier and as they got into the postseason, their 13 personnel rate actually came back a little bit.

85:11It wasn't as extreme. They were still using it was still sub package they wanted to use and their teams are going to do these different things.

85:19There's going to be more offenses that are like the Broncos that are going to be uncertain that are not going to be as productive.

85:26I can't tell you exactly who there's a lot of because I don't know we're guessing with a lot of this stuff.

85:32There's a lot of like offenses that look like they're going to be a little bit more rotational and not consolidate routes.

85:39But I think this concept of consolidating routes is going to be something that we're going to learn is really important to

85:45the future of fantasy football as the sport continues to develop as seasons get longer.

85:49NFL owners are going to eventually push us to 18 weeks.

85:52We're already at 17 weeks and things have changed just because of that.

85:56I hypothesized in a piece not too long ago that we had more games in the last few years where NFL players

86:02left right away like early because of injury where teams just were like, look, we're going to pull you out as a precautionary measure.

86:09We're not going to have you play through it because it's a long season and we might as well be careful and it sucks for fantasy.

86:16As a result, I was writing about that. One of my subscribers did a deep dive into that and came back and

86:23was like, yeah, there's like it's statistically significant that there have been more games the last three years in the last decade.

86:29The number of games where players had played fewer than 10 snaps and scored zero points or something like that.

86:35I think was the specific parameters he used, which is like, you know, maybe a little bit too specific, but he found

86:41that 2023, 2024 and 2025 were all the highest rates in the last three years.

86:45It was a small effect, but it was a, a, an up swing swinging effect.

86:49Um, and, and that was despite running back being the last two years, the play of the running backs who that's happened

86:56to was, uh, was the lowest two of the decade running back that used to happen to a lot more.

87:01They've stayed healthier the last couple of years. So the other positions are overriding the running back, uh, health of the last

87:08two years and, and even pushing this effect that much more.

87:11So anyway, the, it was a very, you know, minor study and shout out to that subscriber whose name I don't have right in front of me.

87:18And I apologize for that, but, um, uh, a cool use of, of data to, to, to validate something.

87:24Um, which was just a broad hypothesis that we have more players leaving games early.

87:28I've talked about this like rule we should add in fantasy football, where you could have like one or two quote unquote bench players.

87:35And if that kind of thing happens in that player automatically inserts into your lineup, it's not full best ball, but it's

87:41like a concept similar to best ball. Um, anyway, we don't have it maybe someday in fantasy, we would have something like

87:47that that exists because I think it sucks when you lose games because of stuff.

87:52You have it on, um, on well, or no, not quite that.

87:55Nevermind. I was gonna, I was gonna say we have like this replacement thing on sleeper, but that doesn't actually work that way that you just said it.

88:03It's like, it's like if someone is questionable, um, and they play it like the late games or whatever.

88:08So they're questionable going in, you can like designate someone as a designated replacement ahead of time.

88:13So it's like, you would get the early guys score if the late guy doesn't go in, but that's, that's a different.

88:20Oh, that's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, I, the injuries and all that stuff matter a lot more

88:26as well, but the, I mean, I was off on a, on a bit of a tangent there anyway, about the, um, early replacements and stuff.

88:33But the point was, we're going to get a lot more sub packages as teams are a little bit more health conscious.

88:39We've had a lot of that over the last several years, teams holding guys out for a couple of games, this, that,

88:46and the other thing to be a little more cautious long season.

88:49We got, you know, a lot, a lot ahead of us.

88:52It used to be when, when I was growing up, I mean, guys tried to play through everything every, any given Sunday,

88:58man, you put your life on the line, just shoot up toward all and go play.

89:03You know? I mean, that's the way that it was.

89:06I mean, you laugh, but like, that's, that was the, that was the NFL.

89:10Like, if you didn't do that, you were letting your brothers down.

89:13I think there's a lot more like long-term health and like, it's, it's much better for the players in this regard, but

89:20a lot more of that, um, that, that layers into the, um, decision-making in a way that is important to fantasy football to understand it.

89:27Does it like for, for some people it's like, well, it just makes it harder.

89:31It just makes it, there's more variance. There's more uncertainty.

89:34And it's like, yes, but also we can build our strategies around that knowledge.

89:38Now, part of the reason I'm going into this whole thing about more sub packages and route consolidation being so important and

89:44all this stuff is as you are talking about it and how there's so much value at that wide receiver position and

89:50the guys that we like later, I think a big part of that is there are more offenses that are uncertain this

89:56year where teams are playing or people are playing it.

89:59The industry is playing it. Like I have a bunch of guys completely removed from those tiers.

90:04Like I have Quentin Johnston out. I have them as a full fade lad McConkey and Quentin Johnston both go in those

90:10earlier ranges that help push down some of those names that you mentioned.

90:14Um, think about like, you know, you mentioned Matthew golden, but the Packers have two other receivers ahead of him.

90:20He's the third receiver taken on his own team.

90:22Um, the, the Jaguars and the Cardinals have been on certain ones where there've, you know, there's been multiple players up in that range for a long time.

90:30I mean, even teams like the Titans, you have Cardinal Tate and you have Wondell Robinson.

90:35Um, as soon as Stefan Diggs got, uh, signed, he moved up there pretty quickly and he's up there with Terry McLaurin.

90:41You have the Steelers. People have not necessarily known how they want to play Metcalf and, um, Pittman all off season.

90:47And a lot for a lot of these teams, I think the relevant point is we don't even have like a clear hierarchy.

90:54These players are ranked back to back with their teammates in some cases.

90:57I mean, they're ranked very, very close to their teammates.

91:00And because of that, you have sort of a cluster of, of, of, there's always been like a group of veterans there

91:06that pushed down some of the young profiles, but I think we have a bigger cluster of veterans because of a lot more uncertainty.

91:13A lot of those guys are going to miss man.

91:16Like I'm getting increasingly concerned that Brian Thomas is just going to be like a big bust for people that have been

91:22drafting him in the sixth round or whatever, like right in the middle of their, you know, key rounds of building their team.

91:29And Brian Thomas is going to be the third best option on his passing game is, you know, the way that I saw it put today.

91:36And it's like, that's not going to work in the sixth round.

91:40You don't want to be the third, you know, targeted, most targeted player in your passing game.

91:44There are, there's this phenomenon exists at running back a little bit as well.

91:48There's some offenses where we have multiple guys going or offenses where like no one is going that high.

91:54We're just talking about the Broncos. Dobbins has been going pretty high.

91:57Now we want to push him down. There's sort of three Broncos backs.

92:01There's been the issue with the Vikings backs all year issue with the commanders backs all year.

92:06A lot of these teams where you have, you know, we've talked about the Steelers, both Warren and Dowdle because we, the

92:12market can't decide who's even the lead. I mean, Basial Tootin and Chris Rodriguez, there's a bigger gap, but similar thing.

92:18Those types of backfields have existed, but you know, in the past in, in fantasy, but I think it's less certain now

92:24it goes all the way back to. Um, the lack of certainty with last season, all of the favorites last year, like

92:31from a, uh, win total perspective and a season long Superbowl odds perspective tended to struggle.

92:35The teams that made the Superbowl, like the Patriots were, um, whatever, whatever they were the year before they had four wins or something.

92:42Vrabel ends up winning coach of the year. They have a really easy schedule.

92:46They go to the Superbowl. Uh, they were like a nine and a half win total over, over under Seahawks were somewhere in that range.

92:53Rams were somewhere in that range. Broncos, I think were decent, but those were the four final four teams and none of them.

93:00I remember looking at this from the perspective of, um, futures odds.

93:03And for reasons I'm not going to go into, I look at the futures odds right after the Superbowl every year for

93:09a, you know, a different type of fantasy draft called on the fantasy.

93:13I'm not going to go into it too deep, but I look at, um, NFL next season, Superbowl odds and, and, and

93:19pretty extensively every February and the February before, I think the Broncos were the only one that were like, even in the top 20 odds.

93:26The Seahawks had really low odds. The Patriots had really low odds.

93:30The Rams were like, or maybe the Rams were the only one.

93:33I can't remember exactly, but Rams probably would have been higher.

93:36They would have been decently high. I have it somewhere.

93:39I wrote about it early in the off season.

93:42Um, but maybe the Broncos were the one that was around 20th in the league, but they were like the, the final four teams.

93:48None of them was like a top five favorite.

93:51The top five favorites coming in were obviously like the chiefs were coming off another Superbowl run.

93:56They didn't even make the playoffs. The lions had just been really good the year prior.

94:00They didn't even make the playoffs. The commanders had made the NFC championship the year prior.

94:05They had fallen down in odds a little bit, but they were, you know, Jan Daniels going into year two.

94:11They, they had a worse season, right? Like, um, the Ravens, Lamar Jackson gets hurt.

94:15They didn't even make the playoffs. All the, the, the bills made the playoffs, but they were a wild card and they

94:21ended up, you know, they had a shot for last year to be their year.

94:25They ended up losing in overtime in Denver. Um, could have potentially made the Superbowl run, uh, had they won that game,

94:32but they were one of the few preseason favorites.

94:34The Eagles were the Superbowl favorite winners the year prior, and they were much worse last year.

94:39They still had a really good win loss record.

94:42I think they were 12 and whatever, 12 and five, but they ended up losing in the first round of the playoffs.

94:48If I'm not mistaken, many of the top teams coming in from last off season did not actually do very well.

94:54The teams that did do well were lower. And as a result, when I was looking at the futures odds for 2026

95:00in February, like I do for this on fancy thing every year at the beginning of right after the Superbowl, the beginning

95:06of the release of those odds, there was more parody than I'd ever seen.

95:10It was absurd. Usually the favorites about plus 500, like five to one, the favorites were like 9.5.

95:15It was like plus 950, like way higher. Now the Rams have since traded for miles Garrett and there's an expectation.

95:21Aaron Donald's going to be back and they're like the clear favorites now.

95:25And I don't know where they're at, but they're probably up at least a plus 500.

95:30But at the beginning of the off season, it was extremely flat at the top.

95:34The Rams and the Seahawks were the top two coming into this off season.

95:38And, um, but, but from there all the way to like the 20th team, which I remember at like the 20th team was like the bears.

95:45And I was like, they're undervalued. Uh, the Broncos had moved way down, even though they were, had made the AFC championship.

95:51And I was like, they're undervalued. Uh, people really liked the chargers.

95:55They started betting them up, but there are so many teams.

95:58There's like 20 teams that people think could legitimately win the 2026 Superbowl is the point that I'm getting at in kind of a long winded way.

96:06But this uncertainty for who are even going to be the good teams gets back to the macro stuff we've talked about.

96:12We've talked about, we want to, you want to talk about more macro stuff, more young coaches hired this off season than

96:18ever before for coordinator roles, major coordinator roles. Declan Doyle's in his twenties guy was 29 years old.

96:23He's the new coordinator for the Ravens. There are several like 30, 31 year old, 32 year old coordinators.

96:29Never been anything like that in the history of the NFL.

96:32As many as there were this off season. I think it was also the most turnover in offensive coordinators in one off season as well.

96:39I think it was as much as 20 teams have new offensive coordinators this year.

96:43And some of that was like teams letting the old guy go just to promote the young guy from within.

96:49Like the, the Broncos did that to get Davis Webb to, to an offensive coordinator role.

96:53Um, there's been a lot of these different, um, like ways of looking at the NFL being in a period of turmoil and uncertainty and things are changing.

97:01You have that with the coaching changes and everything you have that with the parody and odds.

97:06You have that, um, with a variety of, of different elements with the scheme stuff that we've talked about and how the

97:12personnel stuff's actually going to manifest in the different tight ends and all of this, it's going to change the way fantasy football works.

97:19When I'm thinking about draft strategy this year, one of the big things I'm thinking about is I want to be flexible

97:26in season on the waiver wire to adjust to trends.

97:28I've always said the NFL seasons are chaos. You can't plan for a lot of stuff.

97:33You have to understand uncertainty and you have to deal with the fact that NFL seasons are uncertain and try to find

97:39strategies that can then navigate the uncertainty be, you know, to use the, the Taleb terms, be robust to, uh, shocks to the system.

97:46Uh, but also, you know, you, you would love to have anti-fragile elements that can actually improve through chaos.

97:51That was the whole idea behind zero RB is, you know, if a lot of running backs get hurt, your team's going

97:58to get better while other teams are getting worse.

98:00You're an anti-fragile roster. And I think, um, that axis of robustness and anti-fragility is really interesting.

98:05I've talked a lot about anti-fragility over the years.

98:08I would say that my draft strategy this year is an intent to be more robust.

98:12It's an intent to be deeper. It's an intent to understand I'm going to miss a lot and I want contingencies at different positions.

98:19And as you talked about the idea of wide receiver, uh, pockets and value, uh, being a little later leading you to early running backs.

98:26I mean, absolutely. I don't want to be taking the dead zone running backs.

98:30I don't like there's structural stuff like that, that I very much want to still have in mind so I can build

98:36a team that has the best shot to not have a ton of misses.

98:40From a structural perspective. I want to have enough wide receiver depth early because wide receivers tend to be a good place

98:47to invest early draft capital at the same time.

98:49I want to have, I don't want to be very imbalanced.

98:52I don't want to go full zero RB as you had also said.

98:56Um, and so that leads to a pretty clear strategy of, of some early running backs and then building out some wide

99:02receiver depth in the, um, later single digit rounds.

99:05I've talked before about this concept. I wrote about it last summer and I talk about it a lot and I think

99:11it's the, probably the best, like simple draft philosophy framework that I've kind of come up with over the years.

99:17There's a lot of different ways we can talk about these things, but I said, cut your draft into quarters.

99:22And it wasn't to say like, if you have a 16 round draft, it's four rounds, four rounds, four rounds, four rounds.

99:29It was more about a philosophical thing. So the first quarter was really like first and second round, maybe into the third,

99:35but it's this idea of pre dead zone. You talked about how in those first couple of rounds and the idea with

99:41the first quarter is you can draft any position.

99:44These are elite players. If somebody's draft is being, um, valued there by the wisdom of the crowd, there is, they're a really good profile.

99:51They're going to, they have the potential to return a lot of value.

99:55Um, whether that's a running back, whether that's a receiver, whether that's even a tight end or even like the years where

100:01quarterbacks go that high, typically speaking, there's a reason that they're going there.

100:04Then starting about the beginning of the dead zone, which is like for me, middle round three, late round three into round four.

100:11Or the, the court, the second quarter and the way that I was saying, cut your draft in the quarters is actually

100:17a bigger gap than the third quarter. It's not like, you know, two rounds and four rounds and six rounds.

100:23The second quarter is that round four range through like round eight, round nine.

100:27It's like six rounds or seven rounds. And that's the range where you, you it's before the wide receiver window often closes.

100:33Now it's interesting this year, as you talked about with some of these golden and worthy guys, they can go in round 10, 11, 12.

100:40The window doesn't really close as early, but that quarter two philosophy is okay.

100:44During this time, what do we want to accomplish?

100:47Well, you have the start of the running back dead zone.

100:50You don't want to be taking a lot of running backs in that range because historically that's not great.

100:55You do want to be building wide receiver depth in this range.

100:59Historically, that's been very favorable to builds. There's the, certainly the option of an elite tight end.

101:04And by the back end of this, or even in the middle, if you wanted to go after an elite QB, you

101:10could now this year, my argument would be don't take elite QBs in this round or this quarter two range.

101:16Don't probably go after, I mean, you could do tight ends in the early part of this, but it's kind of an

101:22elite tight end year or a wait at tight end year for me, a great or late strategy.

101:27And you talked about the, so it's the front end of this in a lot of home leagues, you can get a tight end in round four.

101:35And that's like, you know, you can get Loveland even, uh, maybe Warren.

101:38I think that's a really nice way to build where you don't, I love getting powers certainly, but you don't have to

101:45sacrifice the elite running backs and receivers in quarter one in those first couple of rounds to take Loveland or Warren.

101:50You get, you can get them at an opportunity cost of dead zone running backs and a lower tier of receivers.

101:56And that's a pretty meaningful downgrade to still get a really good tight end play.

102:01So I kind of like that concept build enough wide receiver depth through that range, but you might also be hitting some

102:07running backs in the later part of quarter two, or even the middle part, the lower, not just not at the very

102:13top of the dead zone, but you know, round six, you can, you can hit a running back.

102:18I mean, I'm, I'm doing that this year in drafts and then as you get into quarter three, this is a shorter quarter for me.

102:25It's like eight, nine through like 12. It's like four rounds.

102:29It's like not as quite as many rounds. Maybe it's around nine through 12.

102:33Maybe it's around 10 through 12. I don't know.

102:35Maybe it's three rounds sometimes, but this is a like often thought of as a really good QB range.

102:40It's often thought of as the zero RB range where you go for these zero RB targets this year.

102:46That's that RJ Harvey, Jordan Mason, Ja'Kory Krosky, Merritt group that we were talking about.

102:50Um, and then it's also like the last stop to get wide receivers, but traditionally I've been like, you don't want to

102:56need wide receivers into quarter three is sort of the idea this year.

103:00You can get some still. So it's interesting, but the idea is whatever positions you are not strong at through quarter two,

103:06you probably want to hit in quarter three. So if you haven't taken a quarterback yet, there's room to take a quarterback here.

103:13If you have taken a lot of receivers, you want to be hitting zero RB backs.

103:17If you took more running backs early, you definitely want to be building out some wide receiver depth in this range.

103:23If you haven't taken a tight end yet, maybe you start thinking about tight end, whatever.

103:28Now you can still push some of that to quarter four, but the idea of quarter four, like round 12, round 13 plus is you're mostly into flyers.

103:36You're looking for big swings, upside plays. What I think is super advantageous about late round quarterback is you can go all

103:42the way to quarter four with your starting quarterback.

103:45And you can potentially take two back there, have two swings at the apple, and it can be two really intriguing ones.

103:51The one that I've always talked about is, um, this off season is Kyler Murray is going so late that he can be your quarterback too.

103:58You can do like a Knicks Murray thing or a golf Murray thing, and you're going to have plenty of upside at quarterback.

104:05And you didn't have to pay any quarter three or higher prices, but this idea that you were talking about of these

104:11different ranges, that's sort of how I like to think about it.

104:15I think it's a reasonable framework. This cut your draft into quarters framework.

104:18It's a small quarter at the beginning quarter one's just a couple of rounds.

104:22It's a bigger chunk, the sort of the rest of your single digit rounds.

104:26That's quarter two. We often call these the mid rounds.

104:29And then you have sort of the zero RB range, the early double digit rounds.

104:33A lot happens in that quarter three. I said, it's only like three rounds, but you can hit on all the different stuff, but everything dries up, right?

104:41Like wide receivers may be already dried up. The good zero RB options get hit there and running back dries up quick in that range.

104:48If you don't hit quarterback some years, quarterback dries up this year.

104:52It doesn't, which is nice. Tight end some years can really dry up in that range.

104:56So it's like whatever you choose. There's a lot of opportunity costs still in quarter three.

105:01By the time you get to like round 14 and you're meaningfully into quarter four, the opportunity cost is sort of out the window.

105:08You could draft the last round player and bring them all the way up to around 14.

105:13If you really needed him for your build, the opportunity cost doesn't matter anymore in quarter four.

105:17Make the picks that complete your build. Um, but yeah, that point you made about how like some of the wide receivers

105:24that should be quarter two profiles are bleeding into quarter three.

105:27That's that idea of like this tears based thinking and how I'm approaching it.

105:31So for me, I want to get a running back at least one.

105:34I want to get running back exposure in quarter one.

105:37I want to build more running back depth through quarter two than I used to think was important.

105:42I used to be maybe only an anchor running back through quarter two.

105:46And then I'm hammering running backs in quarter three in that, you know, late single digit, early double digit round.

105:52It's, it's like, you know, almost modified zero RB, right?

105:55Like anchor, like true anchor running back, really push RB two.

105:58I've done that kind of build a million times in year in the last several years.

106:02I don't think I want to do that this year.

106:05I don't think you need to do that this year because of how you can push quarterback.

106:10You would be taking a ton of early receivers to just, it's like, you'd be like really pushing running back for no reason.

106:17And so when you push quarterback, even if you take an elite tight end, there's a lot of early picks for you

106:23to get enough receiver depth to still get like three or four running backs through quarter two.

106:28Um, and it's, it comes across as like a very balanced draft, which it is.

106:32Um, I think the, the keys of it that are still really important structurally are you, you don't want to sacrifice wide

106:38receiver depth through quarterback two, to the degree that you're needing late round wide receivers to be key parts of your build.

106:44Cause that has not historically been very successful. You still want to maintain enough wide receiver depth in the first eight or

106:51nine rounds or 10 or 11, depending on, you know, the worthy and golden tier and that group.

106:56Um, and you want to consider the late round QB thing.

106:59You want to consider, you know, tight ends a position where you can go early, but you could also play meaningfully late.

107:05You want to consider a lot of depth, I think at both running back and receiver.

107:10And then this whole idea of like, there's a lot of uncertainty in the season.

107:14There's a lot of ways that the season can play out.

107:17I want to have a lot of different paths to be right.

107:20One of the things I'm doing in my drafts is also really leaning into the idea of like ADP value in those things.

107:27I still very much want to be getting my targets.

107:30I want to be fading my fades, but I want to take what rooms are giving me and building the most, uh, total value into my build.

107:38Like there's people for years have been like, just draft the ADP followers.

107:41And there's merit to that. There's merit to just trusting wisdom of the crowd.

107:45Now, a lot of the ADP followers are like fade profiles.

107:48I think you still have to be at least a little bit idealistic and understand some fades and some target type elements

107:55and be willing to reach at times when you're in a flat area and the target is worth the reach.

108:00But in pockets, taking the ADP faller allows you to maximize the amount of total value on your roster in a way

108:07that is that humility based drafting is, is creating that redundancy and that depth at these positions because you know that this

108:13season is potentially going to be the most chaotic that we've done in a long time.

108:17And I talk about it and I just described it for, I've been talking for however long and I need to kick it back to you certainly.

108:25But as I talk about that, I feel like it's like, I'm not giving enough to subscribers or listeners.

108:30I'm not giving them enough information. I'm, I'm, I'm saying throw your hands up and guess.

108:35And it's, it's, I, it feels that way. I, I guess I don't think it is that way.

108:40I think what it actually is, is an understanding that this is an uncertainty based thing that we do.

108:45And this year, more than ever, the uncertainty is going to be ratcheted up.

108:49And so you have to come up with strategies and ways to navigate that uncertainty.

108:54It's nuanced, but there's a lot there. That's also not just, Hey, go into your draft with no strategy, no rankings, no

109:00understanding of targets and fades, no understanding of draft structure at all.

109:03It's not that there's, there is still stuff that you need to do.

109:07It's just less idealistic about like structural drafting. It's less, um, intent on like, this is the plan I want to follow,

109:13or these are the guys I have to have.

109:16It's more, again, humility to the market, more understanding of ADP and those things.

109:20So, um, and then the other part of that is, is it's humility on draft day, but it's for me, it's a

109:26confidence that I, I watch all the games I'm writing, stealing signals.

109:30I'm going to navigate the wave of wire better than my team, than my league mates.

109:34I'm going to out earn them throughout the season.

109:37I'm going to build the better team. And I think we have to do that.

109:41That's part of fantasy football in 2026 is an understanding you got to manage your team.

109:45And I love that stuff, man. I love thinking through the ways that values rise and fall.

109:50And we're going to be talking about it in season every week, what we're seeing, what we're not seeing.

109:56You're going to be writing the hitchhiker's guide and all the awesome work you do.

110:00I'm going to be writing, stealing signals. And we're going to come together on like Thursdays.

110:04And we're going to talk about this stuff every week.

110:07What we're seeing from a long view perspective, whose values rising, who's falling.

110:11That's the stuff that makes or breaks things. I think in a 17 game season, in a league that has a lot

110:17more, um, sub packages and a lot more of these issues with things not being clear.

110:22There's a lot of uncertainty right now. Right. And so how do you play it?

110:26Well, hopefully I just kind of laid that out to a certain degree, at least how I think I'm playing it.

110:32I'm curious if that resonates with you at all.

110:35Yeah. Um, there was a ton of good stuff in there.

110:38A lot of it resonates with me a lot.

110:40Um, I mean, I think that the way that you put the quarter stuff, like, um, resonates a lot with sort of,

110:47to me more than ever, like how I'm seeing some of the, the, the natural tiering playing out.

110:52Um, I wanted to pick up on a couple of points, especially that you hit on that I thought were great.

110:58And I definitely won't hit on all of it, but the, the ADP stuff has been something I've noticed, like in terms

111:04of the, the, the willingness to take followers I've noticed already has benefited me in spots with co-managers where there's already been drafts that I've had.

111:11Like I've been drafting mains all week with various different people.

111:14And there's been times where someone else has wanted to reach on someone and we've outvoted them.

111:19And then the person that they wanted ended up being there the next round anyways, or I've wanted someone and we, and

111:25I've gotten outvoted and they've been there. I think there's so many flat pockets of drafts this year that it is really

111:32difficult to predict what the room is going to do.

111:35And so I do think that that, um, I think that it presents you with opportunities to understand when to take, um,

111:41when to take a stand and when to take the faller and like try to say what I mean by that to make it sound less cliche.

111:49It's like, you know, there are going to be guys that you just don't understand, um, their price.

111:54I think this year that you're like, why is this guy in this tier?

111:58This guy should be in a completely different tier.

112:00And I think if you get to a point where you feel like the ADP, like the markets tiering is very flat

112:06and you have an opportunity to go and get your guy, maybe a little bit ahead of ADP.

112:12I think that's a chance to be aggressive. Whereas I think that there's also opportunities to be like, maybe I have a

112:18mild preference for one guy over another, but you know, the ADP tier here is actually not flat.

112:23I got to grab this guy who I have in the same tier.

112:27I know he's not coming back and I might be able to play into a bit of the humility of, you know,

112:33the guy that I think should be in this tier, but the market says, isn't he's going to come back to me.

112:39Like Jameson Williams, the guy that we've talked about a few times on the show, you haven't even higher than I do.

112:45I've moved him up since talking to you. Like there's, he's been, there's been times where he's the highest guy on my

112:52board in the middle of round five, but there's actually a decent chance to come all the way back to you in round six.

112:58Um, you know, in certain spots, Matthew golden's guy that we've both been high on where like I've literally had two drafts

113:05this week where he's been my highest guy in round eight, my highest guy around nine, both times I got outvoted out of him.

113:12He was still there in round 10. Um, so some of the ADP taking advantage of ADP followers, I think has been a key.

113:18It's something I've been noticing in drafts. The other thing I think that is big, we're talking about the running back stuff.

113:25You're talking about the usually quarter three is a spot to draft some of the zero running back targets.

113:30Um, and about how this year, you know, you're emphasizing trying to get an earlier, earlier running back in quarter one.

113:36I mean, a big reason to me this year, why I felt more comfortable building with more running backs early is that

113:42like the, you know, I, it's hard to, I don't know exactly where the lines would be on like what's quarter three

113:48and what's quarter four, but like the, the late round running backs, I find to be largely unappealing and the like zero RB target list.

113:56I feel like dries up faster than it ever has because I do feel like in the late rounds, I mean, we

114:02were talking about this a little bit when we were getting into the discussion about my nun guy, like I feel like

114:08most years, there are a lot of options deep into like round 11, 12, even 13, where I feel like I have

114:14a chance to marry like three elements together, which to me are really key for a zero RB target, which is like

114:21a, what standalone value do you have immediately? You know, can I play you in the RB two slot or the flex

114:27if I absolutely need to week one two, what is your a two?

114:31Oh, did I just do a two? Oh my God.

114:33All right. B, B, Roman numeral three, stick, stick, stick.

114:36Um, all right. B it's so much easier when you're writing to keep that consistent than when you're talking.

114:42Um, anyway, so yeah, a, a is the standalone value.

114:44B is like, can you carve out a much larger role over the course of the season without injury?

114:50You know, can you just take someone's job? Um, you think of like Bucky Irving a couple of years ago was a

114:56classic guy who was not startable at all in week one, but pretty quickly became startable.

115:01And then pretty quickly became the RB one, um, because he just went out and took a guy's lunch.

115:06And then three is pure contingent value. How high is it?

115:09You know, your talent, whatever. Just went AB three.

115:12What? Like, yeah. What's, what's another category of something that I could like, I don't know.

115:16Uh, I've tried to think of the most wrong that could be here with the categorization.

115:21No, I love it. Um, but yeah, it's AB and three is like, you know, based on your environment, based on your

115:27profile, like how high can we get the contingent value?

115:30Are you a guy that's only going to be a two down hammer or can you play on all three downs?

115:36Are you going to provide efficiency? Are you on an offensive scores touchdowns that fuels points towards running backs or are you not?

115:42And like, ideally I'm trying to find targets that marry multiple of these elements together.

115:47Um, and this year I do find it to be very difficult.

115:50Like tank Bixby is a target for me, but he's only a contingent value play.

115:54I think like maybe he can steal a little bit more work from sake one.

115:59I would be surprised if he's a guy that we are like looking forward to start, you know, especially early in the season.

116:05And he's certainly never taking the job outright. Um, you know, Ty J Spears, the guy you brought up earlier, like, I

116:11think he'll have some elements of standalone value, but, and, and maybe he could overtake Tony Pollard, but that's like a bit of a stretch, I think.

116:19And then the, the total contingent value is murky for a guy like him because he is tended to be fragile from an injury perspective.

116:26You have a third back and Nick Singleton who could potentially be interesting there.

116:30Um, and he plays in the freaking Titans who stink.

116:33Um, and like Dolan Samson, similar thing. Like he has, I think a talent profile.

116:37I like, he has a potential standalone pass catching role, but you know, if every starting running back went down tomorrow, Dolan

116:44Samson is not at the top of my list for, for contingent value because he plays in the freaking Browns.

116:49So it's, it's a really tight spot where I think that like some of the situations that I want to draft backups from don't have profiles.

116:57I'm as interested in some of the profiles. I like are either have like third backs that are pesky or they're on rough teams.

117:03And so like this, like very late range is tough.

117:06Um, I mean, we're getting some more interesting guys like Emmett Johnson.

117:10I've been getting more and more excited about, but like, I don't expect him to have a real role next to Ken Walker.

117:16I think he's mostly a contingent value play. So I feel like, you know, even the guys that I think other people

117:22have gotten excited about, like Woody Marks is being drafted right now.

117:26Like at the 11, 12 turn, that's not a profile that I have much love for.

117:30Like to me, he could have a standalone, like flex ish role as a pass catching back.

117:35But like we saw his contingent value last year and it was mid as hell.

117:40So like, I'm not that into playing that profile.

117:42Tyrone Tracy, I was not very into all year.

117:45I'm less into it now with Najee Harris by a lot.

117:48So all that's to say, like, you know, when I first wrote, like the hitchhiker's guide has changed a lot from what

117:54it was when I first wrote it way back.

117:57But like what it used to be, it's like, I had a preseason thing and I, and I bring up like some

118:03different guys in each round that I thought were interesting.

118:06And like, I, I don't know who I think are like uniquely interesting running back bets in like round 14, round 15, round 16.

118:13Like it is tough. There's guys you can stash, but they're like a lot of waiver plays to me.

118:18You know, you know why it is as we're talking through it.

118:21It's because the running back stayed so healthy last year and the receivers, the whole thing I described with the glut of

118:28receivers in the middle is because the receivers got hurt.

118:30I mean, like Parker Washington, we saw so much of him because Travis Hunter got hurt and the guy and you know,

118:37different things opened up opportunity for guys like that.

118:39We had a bunch of running back or receiver injuries, and then you get to see players and you get to see things.

118:46And then the next year they are the interesting names or you're not really sure.

118:50Is it the, is the guys coming back from injury?

118:53Is it the incumbent? Who's going to be the star for this offense at running back?

118:57We didn't get to see enough of the backups, like actually get meaningful work in the last couple of years because the lead backs have stayed so healthy.

119:05And so there's a lot of guys out there that are just like, like I'm looking further down the list at like interesting guys.

119:12Like I saw Braylon Allen's name. Braylon Allen's been like an interesting, like running back in that range.

119:17You're talking about the last several years. We don't really even know what we have in Braylon Allen because he hasn't actually

119:24gotten like a lot of run necessarily. Like he's played some and people are reading into like some small sample efficiency.

119:30There's a possibility that like if Brees Hall would have missed meaningful time last year that we would have seen a run

119:36of production from Braylon Allen that people would still be talking about in a way that would like have him going much

119:42higher and either would make him the intriguing player or push down other intriguing players.

119:46Right. You have this whole thing of. Like last year, Ray Davis is an example of a guy who last year we

119:53were taking like round 12, 13, because he'd had that one big primetime game.

119:57And then, you know, last year his role, I don't think was meaningfully different.

120:01Like he's an early down backup to James Cook.

120:03Whoever what acknowledges is going to be the third running back when James Cook's healthy because Ty Johnson has a more defined role.

120:10The big difference is James Cook never got hurt last year.

120:13So we never saw proof of concept from Ray Davis.

120:16And because like sometimes we struggle with object permanence, like now he's, he's 50 picks cheaper.

120:20But like, I don't think the profile is that much different than it was last year, but I actually thought it was overpriced.

120:27But he's another example of a guy who like was being deemed as a guy we push up and now is not.

120:33Yeah. And a lot of that's just that we didn't get a James Cook injury.

120:37We didn't get a chance to see Ray Davis.

120:40We don't know what we have in him, but he's in the exact same spot to your point.

120:45I mean, he may even be in a better spot.

120:48Another, another year of clarity that like, they're going to run a ton and they're going to have a bunch of rushing

120:54TDs and maybe they'll be thrown to the backs more this year.

120:57And there's reasons to think that James Cook is a really good handcuff this year.

121:02I think James, sorry, Ray Davis, because James Cook is going in the first round this year.

121:06I mean, look at how high James Cook is going and how much production is expected to come to the running back

121:13in this backfield relative to last year where James Cook was thought of as more of a mid round running back, like

121:19a dead zone back that you had to take, you know, a little bit of a leap of faith on.

121:25So anyway, there's, and it's, it's, it's fascinating. Like there's obviously rookies on both sides.

121:29There's rookies at receiver. We have the rookies like shriveling, getting pushed up and stuff.

121:33But there's like, I don't know. I think at wide receiver, there's less, there's less certainty.

121:38There's a lot, there's a lot more uncertainty with a lot of these teams because of different injuries and things not really

121:44panning out the ways that the offense is wanted.

121:47And then also just the fact that the routes are going to go away to a certain degree for some of these

121:53offenses, because tight ends are going to be played more.

121:56And you don't have as many like offenses where we feel really good about three receiver sets really high.

122:01And then, you know anyway, I'm sort of conflating different things because now I'm sort of contradicting myself.

122:06I was saying there's a ton of, of a glut of these veterans from these teams where there's a lot of players.

122:12And now I'm saying there's not as many in, in some of the offenses.

122:16One of the issues with all these kinds of conversations, it's tough to talk about the league level stuff when there's 32 teams.

122:23Sometimes, sometimes, you know, it is something that impacts a certain number of teams and that it is, it's a meaningful trend

122:29to talk about for the whole league. In other cases, it's like, and the difference between that and like it not being

122:35meaningful sometimes is like five teams, like whether they're doing it or not, you know, this trend, like whether, whether there's 15

122:42teams doing it or 10 teams or whatever, maybe 12 teams or seven, like seven teams, it's not that meaningful.

122:47Once it gets to 12, it becomes meaningful. Um, and it's, I mean, there's a little bit of like, what we talk

122:54about is, you know, who's been getting draft, uh, the, the coaching roles and stuff, the way that's influenced, like, you know,

123:00you get all the McVay and Shanahan offenses are going to start going everywhere.

123:04And then you start thinking, okay, well, that's going to impact a lot of different, you know, trends in the offenses and

123:10the, the, the ways that things go and in those offenses.

123:13And anyway, it's the, these trends are really fascinating, but the, I agree with you.

123:17I agree. There's not a lot of interesting, um, quarter four running backs this year.

123:22You feel like you want to get them by the end of quarter three.

123:26Um, and what's weird is there's like, I talked about the wide receiver window.

123:30There's usually traditionally, I said, when we get into quarter three, I don't want to be taking wide receivers more.

123:35Well, there there's some that are stretching. I'm saying I'd almost rather take some of the running backs at the end of quarter two, right?

123:43Like, cause I mean, if you're playing it by ADP, the, the two V two might be something like, do you want,

123:49you know, pick your favorite of like bill or Harvey or, um, you like Jordan Mason plus you can get your Matthew

123:55golden or Xavier worthy or Casey conception. It's like, or would you rather take, I don't know, um, Cortland Sutton or Quentin

124:01Johnston or Michael Wilson, like, and Kyle, man, guy or Aaron Jones or Chris Rodriguez.

124:06Like, um, like I feel like that the running backs are, are ordered by ADP not perfectly.

124:10Um, but like more sensibly, I think than the wide receivers are.

124:14So I'm probably prioritizing the running backs more in that like Q2, Q3 borderline range.

124:18Um, with the comfort of, you know, we're going to get a receiver that we like to come back here one round later.

124:25And I probably don't want to click. Like if I've been building up receiver, maybe I started with three straight running backs, right?

124:31And then I'm just building receiver depth. But like, if I have a balanced build, I'm looking to add running backs and

124:37I'm looking to add receivers, um, towards the end of Q2 throughout Q3.

124:41Like I I'm probably looking at this. Well, I don't need all of Matthew golden, Casey conception and Xavier worthy, but I

124:47know one of them is going to be here for me in a round or two.

124:52So I'll just take whichever one the room gives me.

124:55And then I'll, I'll target the running back position instead right now.

124:58Yeah. And to that point about that you made about like, you don't know exactly where I defined the end of Q2 or beginning of Q3 or whatever.

125:06I was intentionally vague about that. And I wrote about the reason was it's more about this idea of like what you can accomplish in the different pockets.

125:14It's more about some of the long-term trends we see about like when the running, running back dead zone starts, right?

125:20Like when there's a traditionally like the end of a wide receiver window or different things.

125:25And it's like the idea of the, of the different quarters is more just like you're trying to accomplish certain things with

125:31your build before you reach a point where you can no longer accomplish it right in, in the different pockets.

125:36What's fascinating about some of the stuff you're saying about like with those wide receivers is I really do feel like the Q2 receivers pushing the Q3.

125:44And so like when I wrote up a main event earlier this week, I had Q2 go through all the way.

125:50I did it by quarter and I had the, the Q2 screenshot go all the way through round 10.

125:56And I was like, yeah, I don't usually consider quarter, quarter two to go through round 10, but we were picking in

126:02the back half of the round and we had a sort of an, I think we got Xavier worthy at 10 Oh

126:08four, 10 Oh five, you know, coming back early 10th.

126:11And I'm like, that's, we were still accomplishing what we were trying to accomplish in Q2 by, by making this pick.

126:17And then I, I had like 11, 12, 13, 14, I think was all I had for, um, Q3 was just these

126:23other, you know, these next two turns. And we took like two quarterbacks and two running backs.

126:28And it was like, all right, then, then you're in the late rounds, then you're in the flyers.

126:33Right. And, um, the point is like, it's, it is vague and it does change by year.

126:38And this year there's two elements happening at receiver.

126:40I think the back end of the Q2 wide receivers, that wide receiver window, that usually kind of slammed shut is pushing into the rounds.

126:48It would traditionally be more zero RB rounds, but you might want to take receivers there.

126:52And then because of that as well, because of whatever the dynamic is, whether I'm describing the veterans that are pushing that

126:58back, like, I think part of why, cause like when we talk about that, it's like, well, why don't Xavier Worthy and Matthew Colton go higher?

127:06Well, part of it is like, who's going to come down?

127:09Who's like, who's going to fall? Cause there's a lot of veterans up there.

127:13And I talked about that a lot of other players and they go in those ranges and people want to take running backs rightfully a little bit higher.

127:21And they go, those veterans go in those ranges for a reason.

127:24They're good. Like they have profiles that are worth drafting in round six, round seven, round eight at wide receiver.

127:30And so golden and worthy of there's less certainty with them.

127:33They get pushed down. It's not easy to just move them up meaningfully higher relative to the names that are ahead of them.

127:40There are people that really like those other names.

127:42And like, we think that the ADP is, um, not particularly accurate in that range.

127:46Like that whole Q2 range. There's other people that think that as well.

127:50And they think it for different reasons, right? Like there's, there's a lot of uncertainty with the wide receivers that are actually going to be good right now.

127:58Because again, we get back to these different offenses and the different shifts in the, um, the ways that teams are going

128:04to work and the sub packages and how many routes are going to be run.

128:09And so like some of us are looking at like the different profiles.

128:12Some of us are looking at the offenses, the target.

128:15Some of us are trying to figure out the combination of like profiles and offense.

128:19Like I want a player who's going to run enough routes and has some ceiling to his profile.

128:24And, and, and there's different things that people are trying to, to identify with the wide receivers are looking at.

128:30Some are just looking at buzz and they're like, Hey, I just want to be all in on Parker Washington.

128:36Cause I keep hearing about Parker Washington. I've been moving them up and I'm like, I, I mean, I still have concerns

128:42about how concentrated that offense is going to be, but I think he's a fun pick certainly.

128:47But some people are just doing that with dribbling.

128:49They're doing that with all the guys. They're like, yeah, I mean, everyone is created equal until I hear buzz.

128:55And then I move that player up and then I take that player.

128:59I mean, so everyone's going to have their own kind of framework that they work through it, but it's creating, it makes

129:05it so that like, there's not guys that can be replaced for these other players to move up.

129:10And if they were, then I would just want to take the other followers.

129:14Basically, like there's going to be a wide receiver in 10 or 11.

129:18That's going to be worth taking. But the other thing that's doing is it's pushing receivers.

129:22There's, you were talking about how there's no good running backs in round four or quarter Q4.

129:27They're good receivers this year. The Denzel Boston, Trey Harris, Pat Bryant, Jacoby Lane, Cyrus Allen group.

129:32I have all those guys as targets and back to back to back in my rankings.

129:37I even like, like Malachi Fields a little later.

129:39You can throw Travis Hunter in there, but like, it sounds like he's not going to play a ton early, but like

129:45there are a number of intriguing late receivers this year as well.

129:49But again, it comes from the uncertainty in all of these offenses.

129:52We don't really know how it's going to go.

129:55And it's create, it's pushed like a guy like Denzel Boston would have been pushed up to like the 10th round in prior years.

130:02I feel like a second round pick that's getting a lot of camp buzz.

130:06Like that guy would be going in the, in the 10th round.

130:09The stuff that we're hearing about Pat Bryant, the stuff we're hearing about Jacoby Lane and some of this stuff has been so optimistic.

130:16There's just no room to take these guys higher unless it becomes all wide receivers in the early rounds, which is what it was for years.

130:23But people want to take running backs higher. There's only so many picks and there's a lot of receivers that are viable picks.

130:30So it's, it's keeping interesting players available at wide receiver, especially into Q3, into Q4.

130:34And then again, that working back to front point that you brought up a lot earlier is so crucial to thinking through this year as well.

130:41When you think about what I, what can I accomplish in each of the quarters?

130:46All right. I can, I want to, I want to be taking wide receivers more than running backs in some of these spots late.

130:53I'm, I'm free to take some running backs. The biggest reason we always took all the receivers early is you couldn't get receiver upside late.

131:00Yeah. There's a lot of risk with taking a lot of running backs early, but you can also build enough contingency into

131:06that by playing late round quarterback and giving yourself an extra pick in the early rounds.

131:10You can do different things to navigate a structure where you're taking more quote unquote detours in the early rounds.

131:16That was always this idea of like the detour to the goal of getting adequate wide receiver depth.

131:21We're taking more detours this year, but it's, it's still navigable in a way that doesn't completely forego these ideas around adequate wide receiver depth and structural building.

131:29It's a fascinating year with the ways that the tiers come together and all those things.

131:34But yeah, I think we actually have a lot of, a lot of agreement in how to play this.

131:39Well, speaking of detours, um, I'm going to, I'm going to put you completely on the spot if you're okay with this.

131:45Uh, it's an idea. I didn't text you at all.

131:48Um, so, uh, to illustrate kind of all of these abstract concepts that we've been talking about and putting a lot of

131:55it in broad terms, why don't you chart for me?

131:57I'll let you pick. Do you want, do you want to pick at the beginning of the draft, the middle of the

132:04draft or the end of the draft? And then I want you to read out, you don't have to give me like

132:10the super specific players, but broadly what like a dream draft would look like in kind of a standard home league setup.

132:16Well, it's only 12 rounds. It's going to be nice and shallow.

132:20So it's going to be one quarterback, two running backs, two receivers, one tight end, one flex.

132:24We're not bringing what kicker defense. So did you say seven starting lineup spots?

132:28Yeah. Two running back, two receiver, one tight end, one flex.

132:31I'm making this like a shout the shallowest possible home league set up.

132:35The easiest one for me. So it's 12 rounds.

132:38Yeah. The easiest one for me is the late first.

132:41Cause I really think in this format in the late first, I want to go running back, running back.

132:46I want to get two of the like Ashton, Gentty, Kenneth Walker, Chase, Chase Brown, Omari and Hampton group at the one, two, two, like red at 12.

132:54I think you can get two of those guys.

132:56And then at three, four, I'm probably taking Garrett Wilson and Colston Loveland.

133:00And I'm getting my elite tight end and starting the wide receiver build.

133:04And then at five, six, I'm hoping that Jamison Williams is there and probably taking another receiver or potentially a running back,

133:10depending on sort of the value, you know, the way, the way the room has fallen and then seven, eight, I think

133:16you can get back into running back pretty easily at that point.

133:20Ideally, you probably went wide receiver, wide receiver five, six.

133:23And at the three, four, you went wide receiver tight end.

133:26So now you have three receivers already back at seven, eight, you can hit running back, running back again.

133:31And you said, it's only a two wide receiver league.

133:34I don't need that much wide receiver depth. And then nine, 10 is when you come back and you're like, okay, I

133:40can get receivers here and get golden. I can get the worthy type.

133:44And so through round 10, I have, you know, I have my, my two anchor running back start.

133:49I get a couple more running backs in like the seven, eight range.

133:53I've taken my elite tight end. I got like three pretty good early receivers.

133:57I added to that with my four, five in like rounds, nine, 10 wide receiver, four, five, 11, 12.

134:02It's like do whatever I want. I mean, I feel like I've done, I've accomplished what I needed to through 10.

134:08I'm playing the room a little bit, whether I continue to build running back depth, probably running back depth, but potentially wide receiver depth.

134:15And I'm probably still pushing QB. I mean, I'll take QB in 13, 14 or 15, 16 or something.

134:20The trickier ones for me. So, and I think I can do similar from the one-on-one where I would take Gibbs.

134:26I think, I mean, there's different pockets of players, obviously.

134:29And the trickier ones for me are, what do you do when you're in a position where you have to take chase or puka?

134:36Cause it's just so much more obvious. If you're at the three or the four, cause I'm with you.

134:41I'm like in a perfect world, I want a running back, but I'm, if I'm at the three, I'm still taking chase or puka.

134:48I'm not taking McCaffrey or Taylor. So I think that's the most challenging spot.

134:52And it makes the, those spots. The second round is trickier.

134:55I've taken breeze as high as that. But I don't like a lot of the running backs that are available that tend to be available there.

135:03All the ones I just named are the ones I kind of like, and then I'm not as into Barkley, Henry, HN,

135:09although they tend to go higher too, but I would potentially take breeze in the second, or it was like the, the

135:15potential to take breeze and love together. I did that in the apex experts league.

135:19I did a puka breeze love start. And then they both got hurt after that.

135:24It's a slow draft that like I took them before either of them was injured, but I, and then I went back

135:30to receiver and, or no, I took Tyler Warren and four, he came all the way back.

135:35And then I went receiver five, receiver six, you know, continue to build.

135:38I know I took worthy in that one. Um, but I, yeah, I took a couple, I actually went back to take here.

135:45I'll look it up. I went puka breeze love Warren.

135:48So through four, I had one receiver, two running backs and tight end.

135:52Same as what I just said at the, at the 12.

135:55Then I actually took Mike Evans in the fifth, which is very unlike me, but this is a really receiver heavy draft.

136:01Took Josh downs in the six. This was before the Keenan signing.

136:04I did go back to Jalen Warren in the seventh.

136:07So I went and got a third receiver and then Xavier worthy in the eighth.

136:11Cause again, this is a really receiver heavy league.

136:14Uh, he was wide receiver 49 already. And then I took Concepcion at the ninth.

136:18So I took a Concepcion. I took after scribbling, but why did you were 49?

136:23Why did you were 52 at nine Oh four is where I took Concepcion.

136:27So I had five receivers through nine rounds still.

136:29Uh, even though I went hall love and Tyler Warren two, three, four.

136:33And then I, by then I came back with, um, running backs in 10 and 11.

136:37I took Dak Prescott in 12. Cause I mean this it's an experts league.

136:41Everyone pushes the QBs. Like it's a very different kind of format than most leagues, but there's, yeah, there's different, there's different ways to navigate that.

136:49I didn't love the Evans pick for example, but it's a pick that I felt like I needed to make at that point.

136:55Um, there's, that's the area where I, I, I probably do want to be taking receivers typically.

137:00Um, the other thing I would say is the late first thing where I said running back, running back, it doesn't have to be running back, running back.

137:08I still like taking seating Liam. I there's like, you can still take a receiver in those ranges.

137:13Um, I still want to get exposure to Brock powers and the fact that he could completely destroy the season.

137:19So wherever I get exposure to him cheaply, I want to, you know, potentially do that.

137:23I just would prefer to be taking Loveland or Warren in the three, four range after doing something different in rounds one, two.

137:30Is that kind of how you're seeing it too?

137:32Like that's pretty similar. So yeah, I was, I'd given you, uh, the option.

137:36You took that end spot. So I was going to kind of talk through mine for more from the beginning.

137:42Like I'll, I'll talk to what I would do from that, that tough spot.

137:46Right. So like if I am taking chase or Puka, I think I would be, I mean, per like home league ADP,

137:52you should theoretically be able to get Bowers in the late two.

137:56So that's, that would be plan a, right? Um, plan B would be like, if, if I can just get one of

138:02like Hampton or Brown or Walker to follow to me, Walker's a riser, which has been annoying.

138:07Um, but I'm probably not super amped on like HN or Henry, even if they fall and there's a good chance they won't.

138:13So I see that group similarly. I'm probably going like, I'm going to play the board a little bit, obviously.

138:19So if Bowers is there round two, he'd be my round two pick every time.

138:23If he's not there, I'm probably either taking McBride in round two, or, or maybe if I'm, if one of the running

138:30backs came all the way back to me, I would try to push him to round three, but probably coming out of

138:36the first three rounds with wide receiver in round one, a tight end, and then probably a running back either because one

138:42fell to me in two, or I'm taking Hall or love in, in the third spot.

138:47So I'm probably coming out wide receiver, running back tight end.

138:50And then like four or five, probably, probably hitting receiver.

138:53And at least one of those spots, like I'd really like to get like Luther burden to come back to me.

138:59Um, if he does not, then I'm probably going to take JMO and like five.

139:03And then one of those younger running backs. So like in an ideal world, something like Luther burden and Bucky Irving or

139:09something like that would be how I want that turn to go.

139:13And then you come back in six. I mean, six to me, it's like literally like a prey round.

139:18Cause it's like, I hope someone falls to me because if they don't, then I'm just taking like, I feel like I

139:24could take any one of 20 players, but like, yeah, it's my, it's my ideal draft.

139:29So in this world, my guy, who's not your guy, Marvin Harrison comes back to me.

139:33So I take him in six. And then, uh, in, in seven, that's, that's when I start getting into like the, the

139:40running backs versus the wide receivers and thinking about the, the kind of comparative advantage.

139:44Right. So seven, eight is probably where I start looking at like, depending on who's there, how the draft is going, like

139:50a Steelers back, a commander's back, a Broncos back.

139:53Um, Jonathan Brooks, if he's available in seven, like that was probably the names I'm hitting there with the hopes of.

139:59Nine, 10, 11. I'm hitting multiple of the Kyle lemon Casey Concepcion, Xavier worthy, Matthew golden.

140:03Um, if I need some floor, maybe I'm looking at like Chris Godwin, Stefan digs, uh, Michael Pittman, but like ideally I'm taking more of the upside shots.

140:11That's, that's probably how I'm approaching it. Yeah. I think I would be the same way.

140:16I might even take more running backs in that range.

140:18Cause it's almost like an anchor running back build at that point.

140:22Depending. I think, I think probably where I would differ is.

140:25I don't know that I would take Bucky in the fifth.

140:28I think I would still just lean into like a one anchor.

140:32It's, it would be a less running back heavy build than I would want to do, but I'd kind of lean into

140:38like, if I got like a breeze or something in the third, I would lean more into, um, like a Puka Bowers breeze.

140:44Like you said, burden J Mo start. I think it's really fun.

140:48And then I would, I, you know, I'd probably still potentially take a receiver six, seven.

140:52And then eight, nine, 10, 11. Like I might just be hammering running back and going to like a pretty traditional anchor

140:59running back build, which leaves value on the table with the worthy golden concept.

141:03I'm going to make sure that I'm going to make sure on that build to get texture in that running back range

141:09where I get like one of Warren or Dowdle maybe.

141:12And then maybe I get one of the, like, like Corey Krosky merit, or, I mean, I think Jordan Mason is a

141:18pretty solid floor play, but then I'm also going to make sure that I get keep Mitchell in that range, who I

141:24think is like the biggest, most fun, like ceiling swing in that range.

141:28And so I'm getting like multiple paths, uh, of, you know, running back scoring and, and floor and ceiling and different things.

141:34And, um, you know, maybe I'm reaching on Marshawn Lloyd a couple of rounds later, depending on how sharp the ADP is

141:40in that room as another kind of pretty big swing.

141:43Kind of just looking at my targets in that range.

141:46But I think I would put a lot of bullets into that chamber of RB2 in that scenario.

141:51That's the one, but yeah, I mean, that's why it's so, that's so interesting because draft, uh, position matters so much this

141:57year too, based on the way that the different pockets and the values unfold.

142:01There's some areas where you feel like you can take a lot of running backs throughout the draft.

142:06There's other areas where, um, you're like, man, there, I could see a scenario out of that spot that we were just talking about.

142:13Like if you go Bowers in the second round and then the turn takes both Brees and Love, you can't take a running back in three.

142:21No, I'm not taking, I'm not, I'm not bringing Kyron up the board.

142:24So I'm, I'm taking, and I mean, luckily if Brees and Love are both gone, I probably like the receivers available, right?

142:31That probably means someone like Pickens or Nico or London fell to me.

142:34So I'm taking one of them. Zero RB. And now I'm, and now I'm zero RB.

142:39I mean, and then probably, you know, we'll see what's available.

142:42Like a Swift is a name I'd think long and hard about.

142:45That's where I would take a Swift or a Bucky in round four or five.

142:50Yes. Right. Yeah. It's not a full hard zero RB.

142:53We've always said with zero RB, you don't want to pull out too early.

142:56You don't want to stop. Keep hammering the depth, but not this year.

143:00If you start like that this year, I'm open to, because there's not even like that grade of wide receiver plays in round four or five anyway.

143:08So you make your, make your running back bets in that range.

143:11If you have to, you know, I don't think I've done a managed team quite like this, but I've definitely done like

143:18a, like a hyper dead zone almost. Um, build in best ball this year where I've done that, where I've done like

143:24something like chase and then like London and then McBride.

143:27And then I've gone like Swift Bucky. And so I, and then I'm taking a quarterback.

143:31So I am. So it's like, I have these two receivers.

143:34It's almost like the inverse of what it's almost like the literal inverse of what I feel like the traditional build is

143:41where it's like, you take your two running backs, then you hammer receivers.

143:44Then you come back to running back later after you build your receiver depth, like because of some of the wide receiver values, I don't mind these builds.

143:52If the draft goes that way, where I take two of the top 10 receivers and elite tight end.

143:58And then I, I don't really get back to wide receiver for a while, but then I, I sort of hit like,

144:04um, it'll be like Godwin and, or it'll be like downs and then it'll be, um, golden.

144:09And then it'll be conception. And then like, maybe you'll throw in like more of a four play, especially in best ball,

144:15like a coker or something like that. But it's, it's an interesting year.

144:19It's been a year where I've been a lot.

144:21Uh, I've been very non-rigid is what I would say in, in the builds.

144:25And like, I'm, I've experimented with a lot of different things.

144:28I mean, we did one, you were talking about the, the hero RB build, um, from that area.

144:33And, um, if you sign up for the Patreon, um, we did a premium stream last week where we did two drafts

144:40and we did a really fun hero RB best ball build with one of them where we took Jonathan Taylor, uh, in

144:46the first round, we went away from running back for a while.

144:49And then we, I think we took five straight at one point and it was, it was fun, um, to just be

144:56kind of like locked into one position group and hammering it.

144:59I thought we ended up with a really fun team.

145:02So check that out. And then, um, still very viable, still very viable.

145:05Yeah. I mean, I, I think people get too caught up on individual things.

145:09That's one of the things about balance is that allow, or like a mindset of balance and drafts that I'm enjoying.

145:15I mean, I've always been a pretty idealistic drafter from a structure perspective, but when you have, when you come in with

145:21an idea of like balance, like we're talking about, you can get out of your lane one direction when the draft pushes

145:28you that way and like make your way back.

145:30Like I've drafted, the team that we drafted that you just described, I've drafted that way a million times, right?

145:36Like it's not that hard, but you can let the draft take you where the value followers are.

145:41And those things, if you're leaving yourself in a balanced position, that one, we did that through the early rounds and we hit on the wide receivers.

145:49And then later we had to take our medicine and take a bunch of running backs in a row.

145:54But that's when the room was moving back toward us.

145:57And a lot of running backs fell to us.

146:00It was a really fun draft. And we're going to do a ton more.

146:04We're going to do some high stakes stuff. We're going to do, well, I don't know about a ton more, but we're

146:10going to do as many as we can before the season starts.

146:13Both of us are drafted. We'll do at least a couple of high stakes ones.

146:17I hope I'm, I'm for sure. I'm promising that.

146:20Yeah. I will also say before we go, Chris Adamski just tweeted Jalen Warren and Rico Dowdle introduced as starters, pony backfield for the win.

146:27So now they're trolling us in their Friday night preseason game.

146:30They had them both out there at the same time, which is probably still a plus for Dowdle and for those reports, to be honest.

146:37Yeah, that is funny. Well, you got anything else?

146:40Otherwise I'm good to go, but that actually gets to my point too.

146:44We're like, they, yeah, the reports weren't wrong and right.

146:46They liked out all, but they're not just going to forget about Jalen Warren is what I was.

146:52That's what I said. They hope the whole first hour, like I was like, when we talked about it and they have not forgotten about Jalen Warren.

146:59They're not just going to make him a backup.

147:02That's not how this is going to work. No, no, I think that's it.

147:06I got a, I'm, I'm pretty draft strategy doubt, but I'm excited to draft with you.

147:10I think we have a lot of overlap next week.

147:13We're going to do, some of the players that we disagree on the most.

147:17You just teased the Marvin Harrison thing. I'm sure he's going to be on that list.

147:22I know you've been looking a little bit at our ranks.

147:25I haven't compared them too much, but I think you mentioned, I haven't done, I haven't done like a full charting yet,

147:31but I'm going to do it and prep for the show.

147:34I'm going to, I'm going to get three categories.

147:37So it's going to be guys that both of us are way higher on than the market guys that the market is

147:43way higher on than both of us. And then guys that we disagree on.

147:47So we'll, we'll get, we'll get each of those three categories that we'll hit on.

147:51A fun player specific show, which will help us kind of complete what we wanted to do for our first several shows.

147:57We start, we had had this plan. We talked about it when we started this show.

148:02We've been talking about doing the show for most of the off season, but we had this plan to kind of get

148:08through some stuff and then do some drafting together after we talked through a bunch of things.

148:13And so we kind of mapped out the things that we'd want to talk through.

148:17This is kind of the last thing I think before we'll do some drafting, maybe we'll do a draft on the, on the free channel too.

148:25I don't know. I'm just throwing this out there and you and I have not talked about it yet, but like, we'll

148:31have to figure out what we're going to do the last couple of weeks.

148:35And like before the season or the last week.

148:38But next week is sort of the last one that we had planned pre week one to kind of get down to

148:44the player specific stuff and iron out some of that stuff so that we're good on the clock and we can be

148:50ready to draft together and all that stuff. So we'll do that next week.

148:54We'll definitely do some drafting both, you know, we'll we're going to do drafting behind the paywall.

148:59I was just saying, maybe there's a possibility we'll do one in front of the paywall too.

149:04Who knows? We'll, we'll figure out what the plan is two weeks from now, which would be the last week before week one.

149:10And then in season, we're going to be doing stuff on Thursdays every week.

149:14I think recording Thursday mornings. I don't know if they'll post maybe Friday or whatever, but be a late week.

149:20We both do a lot of early week writing.

149:22It'll be a late week check-in on like player value.

149:25Hopefully you guys can use that for like trades and things like that.

149:29Um, and yeah, it'll, you know, we'll do some fun stuff in season.

149:33We'll do some rest of season drafts or, or things like that.

149:36We've talked about a lot of different fun ideas.

149:39So, um, yeah, we're a couple of weeks away, man.

149:42I'm excited to, we're right, we're right here. The, the start and all of the takes to be done and the actual games to be, to be going.

149:49That's always where I hit at this point. Like this is always around the point, especially preseason.

149:54Cause it's the preseason is just right for reactions, overreactions.

149:57You know, we don't know what's an overreaction or what's an underreaction yet, but I'm very ready for it to start, but

150:03I'm also so excited for the rest of the drafts.

150:06I have, uh, between ship chasing and then another stream, I have four consecutive main event drafts Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, next week.

150:13I'm unbelievably pumped for that. So, um, we'll, we'll schedule some drafts between the two of us.

150:18Um, we got one on the books. We got our free roll with our buddy Lawrence, uh, that we got scheduled too.

150:24So it's been, it's been super fun. This is an awesome, awesome time of year, um, to be drafting and, uh, we're happy to do it with you.

150:32And then you want to plug before we head off?

150:35No, I was going to say, oh, I was going to tell the listeners, I hope they liked my mic.

150:40This is a, I got a new mic. Uh, anyone who's been watching on YouTube has been seeing me fidget with a new, uh, mic stand as well.

150:48Cause I'm still getting used to that. I think I got to move it further where it's connected to my desk and

150:55I'll probably stop fidgeting with it so much. It's, uh, not ideal, but hopefully the audio is, is improving.

151:00Um, but yeah, new, new mic over here. Uh, we probably should have mentioned that earlier in the show, but hopefully, uh, people enjoyed that.

151:07But yeah, no, I mean, I guess the, the other plug is the, the book that you had me talk about in

151:13the beginning of the show, the, the best of stealing signals or come to the newsletter, Ben Grash.

151:18So it's that.com go to Jacob's newsletter, Jacob Sanderson.

151:21Sub sack.com subscribe to the Patreon by my book, win your leagues.

151:24Yeah. I can use, you got anything. I'll, I'll plug one thing, which is that if you were listening to all this

151:31and you're like, man, I'm really stressed about snake drafts.

151:34But if you don't have to do it this way, I wrote up an auction draft guide this week, so you can go check that out.

151:41I'm thinking about thinking. Um, and, uh, It was fun.

151:44I've never done auction content before. Um, and I've, I'm like very transparent that I don't play in a high volume of auction league.

151:51So I've been trepidatious, but people were asking for it.

151:53You're very good at auction rules being. It's like, it's a great thing for an ex lawyer to do.

151:59You need a certain understanding of, there's a lot of layers to auction.

152:03I've done auction content before and it's, it's really fun.

152:05I skimmed yours. I clicked on it and skimmed it a little bit.

152:09And I was like, this is, I didn't get a chance to read the whole thing.

152:14I'm not doing a lot of auctions either. That's why.

152:16But, um, I was like, this is probably awesome.

152:19So anybody, anybody who's doing auctions, 100%, make sure to check that out.

152:23I'm certain that is fantastic content, whether, you know, we always feel like, Oh, if we don't have skin in the game, whatever.

152:29And we both feel that way. We don't like doing a lot of content on stuff that we are not actually actively playing in a ton.

152:37Auctions are something that there's so much philosophy to them.

152:39You can, you can talk about it without being in a ton of, if you've done auctions before, I mean, if you've done, I've done auction.

152:47I used to do a ton when I was younger, I loved auctions.

152:51So, but I, I, I feel like I, you need to learn the first few people make a lot of mistakes in their first auctions.

152:58But by the time you've done like 10 career auctions, you've done enough.

153:01Like you, you, you can talk about what the, you don't have to be doing 10 every year to talk about what

153:08the deal is, what levers can be pulled, what the edges are.

153:11And you clearly your different sections, the things you were hitting on where you were clearly hitting on the stuff.

153:17So anybody who's in auction, definitely make sure to go check that out from Jacob.

153:21Yeah. Anything else? That's all good for me. Bunch of streams.

153:24Yeah. For bunch of streams. And I don't, I don't know.

153:27Let's maybe, maybe let's stop vamping. We, we almost got this in under two and a half hours.

153:32This is, this is our shortest episode in a while.

153:35Let's, let's get the hell out of here. All right.

153:38We'll see you guys next time. Later.

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