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

9:54Jason Moore:you want it's like having a quadriceps injury after having a quadriceps injury for mike evans

10:00Mike Wright:yeah yeah carnell tate undisclosed absence from practice it was he took a very big hit and they

10:08Jason Moore:weren't saying whether or not he had a concussion um but he didn't participate in the next day's practice so dealing with something but it was um it seemed like it was head related did you know

10:19Mike Wright:jerome ford was a member of the commander's jason i did yeah and he is now on injured reserve

10:24Andy Holloway:i so is he so then he's toast he's out for the year um i just see injured reserve i don't think

10:31Mike Wright:injured reserve guarantees loss for the year right now is it is it the whole year and i don't jerome ford was not a no but rashad white is not practicing i mean right now it's it's bill

10:47Mike Wright:so and then jaylen mcmillan back of practice for the buccaneers which

10:50Jason Moore:that is news that that team needed yeah i mean there there was uh more news on emeka buka he was wearing a uh one of those like hard sole like shoes to protect the toe um which from what they were saying that you know things came back clean it's a it's just not a great sign for the grade of whatever turf toe, if it's turf toe he's dealing with, which it's turf toe. But what about me, Jay? Yeah. Give me something to break. Ted Hurst. Yeah.

11:27Jason Moore:Really, what about Chris Godwin? Who cares?

11:30Andy Holloway:Yeah. And Tez? No, Chris Godwin looking like a mighty nice value right now.

11:38Mike Wright:All right. I don't think we have other news unless anything's been happening. I mean, we either have, like, injury news that's real or injury news where they're like, that player just left and went to the tent and then went right back out on the field,

11:49Jason Moore:and then you're like, oh, okay. We get those a lot. I freak out many times a day. Oh, man, that Olave pump fake yesterday. Oh, yeah. Unnecessary. Olave's taking news. That was head injury, right?

11:58Mike Wright:Wasn't it a concern about head?

12:00Jason Moore:Oh, man, I didn't see that. If it was that, I would have probably peed my pants. I think I really would have peed my pants. Really? If it was a head injury. That's what your reaction is to a real extreme injury. I would have done it on purpose. I would have done it. In protest? Yeah.

12:16Andy Holloway:So not like a scared pea.

12:17Jason Moore:No, no, no. I would have sat there until it was time. This is for you, Olave. This is for you.

12:25Mike Wright:Golly, golly. Well, we have our 10 tips and tricks we want to share with you. It's a big show, so we're going to kick it off right now.

12:35Jason Moore:Tips and Tricks.

12:40Mike Wright:All right, it is time to jump in. Each of us contributing three different ideas for 2026 in terms of things to pay attention to, things that we're learning. We always try to bring you something new in this episode each and every year. So let's get it going. Number 10. All right, number 10, loosely titled Out of Your Depths. I wanted to take a look and see how much depth you actually need to win at Fantasy. I've said it for years that Mike's championship last year and his Dynasty team have been built on a lot of depth and the unwillingness to trade away some of that depth midseason. And he held on to it and it paid off.

13:23Andy Holloway:You had to know when to consolidate.

13:25Mike Wright:And I've always said I adore putting together that perfect best starting lineup. But how much depth do you actually need? So let me give you some uncomfortable math to start off. 27%. That is the chance. That is uncomfortable. That is very uncomfortable. Yeah, I hate that. That is the chance of Jason peeing his pants on a daily. No, the chance of a running back playing a full season, 27%. That is, you know, any running back. Seven out of ten missed games. Last year, here's some more math, only six of the top 24 wideouts that were drafted played a full season. Two of the top 12 drafted receivers played every game.

14:05Mike Wright:so some some uh level setting there for the amount of injury and things that you're going to deal with here's uncomfortable math part two since 2010 only about 36 percent of running back one picks actually beat their draft slot gross uh so you have injury risk you have missing games and then you have performance risk so basically the math is saying that roughly half of your first nine picks will either underperform their cost or get injured and you're probably going to cough up 12 to 15 starts due to injury so not surprisingly you need depth that is the answer to the question so uh it maybe we don't always realize it and you try to thread the needle maybe you can get really lucky some of the best nfl teams are the healthiest teams at the end of the year that's nice but what strategy do you apply per position and how should you think about that so briefly i just want to talk about running back position when it comes to depth injuries transfer value for that team very predictably in the sense that the backup for the team or the committee back generally steps into that role so you know i mean we've named a bunch of guys this offseason blake quorum tank bigsby you know that there are top tier backups and committee situations that are valuable to target monunga is one of them kenny gainwell is one of them these are draft day targets that you can add knowing that they're going to have a direct predictable value if the starter goes down on the other hand top tier wide receivers if they go down the targets on that team tend to scatter around not very many teams are the pickens cd lamb situation so what that means for wide receivers or what this tip kind of alludes to is that it's much tougher to predict or pre-draft the players are going to benefit from injury even though you know injuries are going to happen at the wide receiver position.

15:57Mike Wright:So the way I like to think about it is you can get predictable value transfer with depth running back selections, but the waiver wire is really going to be the place that you win when it comes to finding a valuable wide receiver. And this is why I like to take swings later on high upside guys at the beginning that may be beneficial to your team. And you can see right away, depth is not fully solved at the draft. That's the point is you can draft a bunch of really good players, but you're going to deal with these injuries. You're going to deal with wide receivers and those are going to get solved on the waiver wire more than they'll get solved by drafting the next man up type of thing at wide receiver.

16:37Mike Wright:So the math is tough. The math I don't like. I don't like, I mean, we don't like it right now in preseason, the amount of injuries and things that don't, the unpredictable is going to happen.

16:47Jason Moore:It is inevitable. Yeah, it sucks. I do like the idea, just the mathematical reality that stashing more running backs at the end of your bench is probably wiser than the wide receivers. Because wide receivers, I mean, we've talked about this before. We'll talk about it again. The rookies get better as time goes on. Not first rounders, but the later drafted rookies. There's also guys that come out. Jawan Jennings last year. Sorry, dude. Breaking news. Oh, no. Don't be bad. Don't be bad. Don't be bad. Is it bad? It's bad.

17:24Andy Holloway:Jaden Higgins is a torn ACL.

17:26Jason Moore:Oh, man. Houston Texans.

17:29Mike Wright:He was one of the big publicity guys like the Pat Bryants and Cyrus Allen. Jaden Higgins' talk was, that's Texans' wide receiver.

17:38Jason Moore:He was. That's a big bummer.

17:39Mike Wright:That is a major injury for them because.

17:42Jason Moore:Was yesterday the sleeper episode? I don't know. Yesterday, this week we had the sleeper episode. I went Jordan Mason, but it was close between Jordan Mason and Jaden Higgins, but then he had the injury. That stinks. That is brutal. Obviously, Tank Dell now has a shot.

18:01Andy Holloway:It's, yeah. I mean, their depth chart is, so Tank Dell, which that's a complete wild card of, number one, will he ever really be back after that type of an injury?

18:13Mike Wright:And, you know, there's Hutchinson and other players involved.

18:15Andy Holloway:Yeah, and their third rounder from last year, Jalen Knoll. I don't know that he's a player that can take over for Jaden Higgins. It's probably Hutchinson and Andy, the slowest man alive. Dr. Schultz is freaking there. He is so there on the team. Bro, if you're in a tight end premium where you get boosted reception totals, Dalton Schultz is probably going to have 80-plus catches.

18:41Mike Wright:I didn't want to start the 10 tips and tricks with that kind of breaking news. but yeah the tldr there build your draft around starters spend the back end on running back backups you know are gonna have a shot and receiver lottery tickets and then realize that you're gonna need to you build the team in august but it's finished up in november right you keep the waiver wire going play the whole season recognize that you can keep adding like i think maybe another thought that just hit my mind too is that like don't be don't wait so long to take a shot on guys that you know are going to have chances at the waiver wire to start the year just add more and more depth never think that you're done yes on adding down i very much agree with that all right we are going to take a quick break and then we'll move it on to uh one of jason's picks no matter what triumphs are in store this season legendary game days start with a

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21:39Mike Wright:All right, we're into our 10 tips and tricks, and we're on to number nine.

21:47Jason Moore:Mock it like a ding dong, baby. Mock it like it's hot. Mock drafts are exceptionally important. I know our mock draft episodes, people love watching. But you need to be doing mock drafts, and you need to know how you should be doing mock drafts. This is one of the most important tools available to have success in fantasy football. We just built a mock draft tool in the Ultimate Draft Kit. We have it now, and we've had probably at this point over 200 ,000 mock drafts done on our mock draft tool. We've had a lot of feedback. people are loving the fact that you can actually put it to the platform you're playing on, and you can use it to where you're seeing what you're going to see.

22:32Jason Moore:I want to give you a couple examples of why that's important. Kyron right now is around cheaper on ESPN than he is on Sleeper, like just better values. T. Higgins right now is around three on Yahoo and a fifth rounder on ESPN, whereas Garrett Wilson is the exact opposite. You got David Montgomery, a guy that in the offseason, I was like, I like David Montgomery. Now it's like, he's a fifth rounder. But then I was like, he's a seventh rounder on ESPN. I was like, okay. Even I can get with that. All right. Travo. You know, Travo's a seventh rounder on ESPN, a fourth rounder on Sleeper. I mean, those are wildly different.

23:08Jason Moore:So what you do is you put in the platform that you're playing on so that you can see what the ADP is. ADP affects drafts. ADP, it affects even our, like, we make these rankings.

23:18Mike Wright:There's the psychology of every player in your draft when they see the board and they feel like they're passing on somebody perceived to be better because the system tells them that it is. Yes.

23:27Jason Moore:And so then once you are doing mock drafts with your platform ADP in there so that you can get an idea, the way that you do it, we say this all the time, right? Stay water, not stone. Like be willing to pivot. That does not mean have no plan. Don't just know players and have no idea where you're going. when this happens, you know, genuinely, a draft is if this, then that. I go into every League of Record draft knowing if this happens, then I will do that. You know, look at if you don't know where you're drafting from, you should be doing mock drafts from the second pick, the seventh pick, and the twelfth pick because at that point you get to know who is available around the 2-3 turn or the 3-4 turn or if I'm in the middle of the draft, You get to know what player types are there.

24:20Jason Moore:And your first four rounds of your draft should really, maybe even the first three rounds, should really dictate where you go. And it's different for everybody. Because what you think of certain players, you know, you might be out on Tyler Warren, Colson, Loveland. You might be totally in on them. And that makes a big difference. A perfect example here of knowing what your game plan is, is if you do mock drafts, first of all, you should not be just, every time you do a mock draft, it's like, I'm just drafting the players I like the most every time. And then you end up with the same type of team over and over.

24:56Jason Moore:You need to explore other options. I have found personally that when I choose to draft Brock Bowers or Trey McBride, if I pull the trigger on them, which I'm happy to do, I hate my team if my first round pick was a wide receiver. Because then in the third round, I'm drafting my first running back. It gets kind of like I just don't love where it goes personally. so if in the first round I I just learned from mocking like oh if I ended up with a really good stud running back then I can grab Brock in the second or McBride and then license to Brock license to Brock and so you can't get that experience without trying like take an early quarterback punt quarterback just explore and I'm telling you your drafts will be a hundred times better if you spend and you can do this in one day you just do four or five mocks from the spot where you are or if you don't know do beginning middle and end mocks and just have a plan saying if if i start this way the end is good or the end is bad and and you'll have far more success

26:02Mike Wright:in fantasy football yeah and you know less likely to have those panic picks in the middle of a draft I'd say as well. All right, Mike.

26:11Andy Holloway:Number eight. All right. These tips and tricks, you know, sometimes we like to get, you know, in the weeds like Andy's digging through a bunch of data, a bunch of numbers and analytics and things. My tip is real easy because this is just, this is a reminder. We're calling this tip Mark My Words, and it's literally that. Mark your players. like at the bottom of the draft in the bottom of the ADP and I say this because you're like oh of course I do it's so obvious it's real easy to forget man like do it right now I you know we've had several times in our league of record drafts where you're you're going through the draft we're in like round eight or round nine and then a name gets called out and I go oh because I literally forgot to mark that player like it was just i'm telling myself in my head over and over i'm gonna do this so i don't forget this player i never get to marking that guy so do it right now like players who are uh lower in adp that you're you're interested in you know um like stefan diggs he's gonna be way down in adp because he just he's not gonna get enough time to climb up the the actual board but people are gonna know keen and keen and out exactly these these types of players that you know you do want to get value on that player but everyone else does as well and just they can get lost in the shuffle they really so really can and there's there's different ways

27:40Jason Moore:you can mock like if you mark them if you've got the udk we have you can you can literally highlight them if you're printing a cheat sheet circle them go to the bottom and circle them um you you have to do that otherwise you forget that tank bigsby is out there you're like i wanted to leave the

27:57Andy Holloway:draft with him and exactly and then like right tank dell uh i'm seeing a 16th rounder there you're not gonna see him he's not gonna naturally see him he's not yes you won't just catch because you won't scroll down far enough because you're in the middle of it and other other teams other fantasy managers are going to be targeting those players as well and you're going to hear their name or see it pop across the screen and you're gonna go gosh darn it i forgot to mark that guy

28:22Mike Wright:Right before your draft, the preceding three or four days, news can break. Sure. And those guys are not going to have enough time to move up in ADP. Like if this Higgins news happens one or two days before the draft, like you said, Tank Dell, or maybe it's Hutchinson, or maybe you want to raise another player up, or Dalton Schultz, you know what I mean? Like just things to pay attention to. It's just being prepared.

28:46Andy Holloway:It's very simple, but we're all humans, and we all do dumb things all the time. So I'm just, hey, just do it right now. Just start marking the players off, especially if you've got the UDK. That will really help to mark them. But just do it right now, man.

29:02Mike Wright:Yeah, I mean, I do the printout, you know, but in the UDK you can go mark out, you know, four different types of players so that they're highlighted.

29:09Jason Moore:Yeah, I mean, if you don't have it, then just get a piece of paper and just write the names of those guys super low in ADP that you don't want to forget.

29:20Mike Wright:Yeah, and it'll make you feel like your draft went much better if you steal three or four of those guys at the end. So moving on. Number seven. All right, I'll call this panic-free tight end, and this is something that's been emerging a little bit over the last month, I think, with some different names. But, you know, we've talked a lot in the offseason during our top ten rankings episode for the tight ends how badly we want one of those elite guys. Jason just talked about how if he drafts a running back, he feels a little bit of a license to draft Brock or McBride. But I'll throw Loveland, Warren into that group.

29:49But if you don't get them, maybe you have Kraft, maybe you have Kittle.

29:53Mike Wright:If you don't get the big time tight end, I want to highlight what you should be looking for at the tight end position, either late in the draft or more so on the waiver wire throughout the year, things that we need to pay attention to, to actually get viable tight ends later in the draft on the waiver wire that produce. So we looked at the last seven years of data and here are four things that we pay attention to. The big one, target share. this is an easy one for us to understand um it's a go-to on the show all the time but targets for i mean i remember doing this 10 years ago sorting by yep sorting the waiver wire tight ends by targets when i'm looking for a streaming tight end just who's getting the ball targets have the highest correlation year to year for fantasy i just it just acknowledges how involved the player is in the offense what we're looking for 17 plus percent target share closer to 20 percent receiving yards per game again another easy one to look at um you need 45 plus receiving yards a game to be a top 10 tight end if you want to be top six you got to be up over 54 maybe you look at route share when they're on the field for a pass play are they blocking are they running around there are lots of different types of tight ends so are they actually running routes what's the percentage of routes they run on their snaps.

31:14Mike Wright:And then air yard share is something you can look at just to show downfield potential. There are certain tight ends that are just going to be close to the line of scrimmage. Not a lot of them are going to go way down the field. Air yards measure the distance of football travels through the air from the line of scrimmage to the target. That's the definition of it. And so we want downfield threats, not necessarily, uh, I, Kyle would say like Austin Hoopers, right? So you want something above 15 % in that metric. And so some late round tight ends to highlight this year that meet that that aren't the top guys kyle pitts who i really like i do i do i really like it but his target share what did he say his target share is 21 route percentage is 86 air yard share 21 he checks all those boxes sam laporta target share 18 same thing i mean he checks all the boxes dallas goddard and then the one that we haven't said a lot maybe because he's always infinitely boring in our minds but hunter henry who just signed another extension target percentage 17 last year route percentage 72 15 air yard share just kind of a tried and true guy there are lots of guys at the end i mean i think isaiah likely is going to be in that category sure this year but um predicting touchdowns is really tough but looking at target chair looking at air yards that's your best chance at not panicking at tight end not feeling forced to submarine your draft if you're if jason's in the first round and he takes a wide receiver because that's the best player available to him and he doesn't go for one of those big names there are some things that you need to pay attention to at the tight end position so i

32:55Jason Moore:just wanted to highlight some of those yeah i mean this is why personally i i hate middle round tight ends i just think you're wasting opportunities to get quality running backs and wide receivers because at the end of the draft, when the draft is over and every team has drafted every player imaginable, I can look on the waiver wire and see five tight ends that I'm like, those are just as good as some of these. Like maybe they're a point worse or their opportunity is a little less good, but it's like not that big of a gap. You don't need to freak out about tight ends in the middle of your draft.

33:26Jason Moore:I like that tip.

33:27Mike Wright:All right. We are moving on. What are we on? Six? Is that right? Six.

33:31Jason Moore:Yep. Cool.

33:32Mike Wright:Because the seven's on the board.

33:33Jason Moore:Yeah. That's good. Number six. We are moving on. We are moving on from the Dustys. What does that mean? That means that the Dusty picks at the end of the drafts move on from them. Do not just hold them because of promise of the future. What if they're super good? Then they're not Dusty. Then they're not Dusty, and you don't need to move on from them. But I want to make it – I think the best way to realize this is not making a move is in and of itself a move. That is your transaction.

34:10Andy Holloway:Every action has an equal opposite reaction.

34:12Jason Moore:You are choosing to keep that player. That is an active movement.

34:18Mike Wright:Just to clarify for listeners, you're talking about the – when you take those shots at guys very, very late in the draft, You're saying quickly move on from those players when they don't show you something. Don't stay on the promise that you will see something.

34:32Jason Moore:Exactly right. And there is so much data behind this to just say that we're playing an odds probability game. And the odds are that those guys who don't do something good in week one aren't going to do something good in the first month of the season. It doesn't mean that they won't be good the second half of the season, but you can pick them up off of waivers later. you holding on to them for the six weeks it might take before they finally show up that's not a good transaction for your team um i talked about this on a former tips and tricks episode of take dumps now not later with regards to week one and week two um yeah matt takes dumps now and later uh He dumps like a truck, you know?

35:20Jason Moore:Here's the thing. Those week one and week two waiver wire pickups, they are statistically... Yeah, there it is. Oh. Shout out Leonard Fournette. They're just statistically so much more valuable, not only because you get more weeks, but just because they perform better. The guys who show up in week one tend to do better. Here's a perfect example from last year. Rounds 11 through 15. okay no kickers or defense so that's 60 picks other than you know taking out kickers and defense there were four players of all of them that made an impact in the first month of the season it's just like take how many four four of those rounds 11 through 15 yeah it's just most of the quarterbacks it's like it makes sense of they're they touch the ball every every game you're gonna know be willing to move on quick Like, just don't hold on.

36:14Jason Moore:Like, draft them. You got to draft someone in the 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th round. That's a rule. You have to. But if they don't hit in week one, be fine moving on. Now, the only exception to that, I would say, is kind of going with Andy's tip of depth, those insurance running backs. You know, Blake Horm's going to be rostered everywhere. Yeah, you're not expecting to see something. That one you're holding on to so that you don't have to bid 100 % of your fab when and if they have the chance to become a superstar. Outside of that, and I would say especially lower NFL-drafted wide receivers, those guys, Cyrus Allen, you talked about him as a sleeper.

36:52Jason Moore:If he's not on the field week one in getting 75-plus percent of snaps, punt him off a bridge. Baxter this thing. Okay. All right. It's Mike's turn.

37:04Andy Holloway:Number five. Speaking of quarterbacks, the elite quarterback prices are cheaper than ever. and you need to understand what's going on with the market because fantasy football, especially in the draft season, everything is the market. The early years of this show, we were completely late-round quarterback. That was the game theory that we subscribed to, to tremendous success because a lot of it was just fantasy football players weren't quite fully educated on the value that you could extract from the end of mobile quarterbacks.

37:47Mike Wright:I was going to say it was a little bit of the emergence of the mobile power.

37:50Andy Holloway:Yeah, and like 10 years ago, everyone, well, I've got to get Tom Brady. He's the best quarterback in the league. He's going to be the best fantasy football quarterback, of course. And it was, well, actually, your opportunity cost of giving up that first often back then and or a high second round pick is you're missing out on high probability running backs and wide receivers the market has kind of flipped that this year not kind of like it has severely uh right now so josh allen is he's the certified qb1 i think he should be right now he is going five picks later so that's not a that's not a ton but he was about the middle of the second last year yeah compared to last year and this year he's going about the end of the second and here's where stuff gets wild the qb2 in adp right now is lamar jackson compared to 2025's qb2 it's a full round and a half later so your opportunity cost is not a second round pick for the qb2 it's it's an early fourth rounder in fact this year you have uh the guys who i think can be up, you know, the most likely to be the elite game-changing quarterbacks, the end of that tier is Jane Daniels and Jalen Hurts, who are going right now in the sixth round.

39:14Andy Holloway:The QB5 and QB6 ADP-wise are going in the sixth. So, you know, I still prefer to go into my draft with the idea of, okay, I'm not going to burn an early pick on a quarterback and really hope that it's the difference maker when I need to be building up my depth. like Andy was pointing out. This year, though, there's a lot of guys who are presenting value at the position. Joe Burrow, a player I love this year. I love the Bengals. I think that Burrow can push to be the QB1 this year. He's going in the fifth. And then they said Daniels and Hurts are going in the sixth. So it's while you can go into, if you're a late-round quarterback drafter, you can go in with that strategy of, you know, I'm still going to wait.

39:58Andy Holloway:I'm going to get value. and I'm not saying there's fun guys who are going late of course someone will emerge from that crop because they do every single year but when you're building your team the highest probability is these early quarterbacks but they're not early round quarterbacks anymore they're now mid-round it changes the acclase so it's all about the market it's all about the opportunity cost so just be cognizant of the fact that you're like I'm I'm not looking for a quarterback in the fourth round I normally get them later. Just peek. Peek at that quarterback tab, and you might be like, holy crap, Lamar Jackson is still there at the turn of the fourth round.

40:37Mike Wright:Sometimes just take the value. What I've seen a lot in our mock drafts in my experience this year is that Josh will go, Allen will go, and then people will kind of wait, and then when the next shoe drops on quarterbacks, they all go real quick because it like lamar burrow may daniels hurts those guys you can see the like the game of happening a little bit which you know again you you whether you want to get in on that or not the value so much different is what mike's saying yeah and and look this is adp you got to know your

41:14Andy Holloway:league perhaps you're in a league where quarterbacks just they fly off early then you then you just chill out because there's like we said there are guys who are going later that are that are fun and And you can see what the ceiling case is. You can easily make the ceiling case for a lot of these later round guys. So just, I guess really, you know, it's just an evolution of the stay water. Don't have a rock-solid, firm plan that's rigid and you can't deviate from it.

41:42Mike Wright:And don't feel guilty at this point. Correct. Taking the quarterback. We've been in a lot of mocks. We had so many years of late-round quarterback. We get into a mock, I'm like, I like this guy at this spot, but I almost feel guilty taking a quarterback.

41:53Jason Moore:You feel like, oh, that's not the way. Yeah.

41:58Mike Wright:So, all right, we'll take a break and continue the countdown.

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42:35Mike Wright:All right, Foot Clan, whether you are on the go or at home, T-Mobile, well, they're built to keep you connected wherever you're scouting your fantasy team. And that on-the-go part, that is important. With America's Best Network, you'll be connected to the latest news and player projections. so when you're on the clock, you can draft a winning team. I can think of so many situations where that element of being connected while you're on the go is fundamental to fantasy football success. I'm in the midst of multiple leagues right now where I am responding to trade offers. We are massaging the trade offer.

43:05Mike Wright:We want to make sure that I'm the one that gets the player, not another player manager in our league. So trade offers when you're on the go, all the news that's breaking so you don't make a mistake. And my favorite thing, maybe I'll mention it. look, you're sitting and you have a quiet moment somewhere out and about. You want to jump in the UDK. We've got the player profiles. You can watch all of those in there with T-Mobile. You can jump in on the player projections and our stat projections and all the 130 ,000 words of content. Again, T-Mobile making that easy to do. Every bit of news, things are changing all the time, new player contracts, all that good stuff.

43:40Mike Wright:So from off season to game day, every play is better with T-Mobile, what you got to do is visit T-Mobile.com slash network. Fastest is based on analysis by Ookla of speed test intelligence data of national speed score results for the second half of 2025. The best mobile network in the U.S. is based on analysis by Ookla of speed test intelligence data second half of 2025.

44:06Mike Wright:All right, our top 10 tips and tricks continue. Number four. All right, This one I'm calling the Bad Old Days. The Bad Old Days. This one was B-A-T-T-L-E. You going to battle? No, bad. Bad. Space. Old. Old. Days. Space. It was O-L apostrophe. Because there's a phrase. People say the good old days. So this one's like the. These are the battle days. These are the battle days. The battle days. I hate you guys. All right. This is my favorite one because it was a journey to discover these numbers on my own. I was very curious. So I took a look at the last 10 years at the 10 oldest players drafted each year in fantasy.

44:53Mike Wright:So that's a lot of players. And I wanted to look which ones were what I'd consider a win that would be exceeding their ADP, a loss much worse than their ADP or a push kind of met their ADP. So 10 years worth of data, the 10 oldest players each year. Here's the, here's the numbers, 30 wins, 50 losses, 20 pushes. So a true hit like winning on that pick has a 30 % hit rate. But I was like, let's look at it by position because maybe age has a correlation more with a position. And it did. The worst bet you can make, and it's ironic timing with the Evans news this morning, is on older fantasy wide receivers.

45:41Mike Wright:In that 10-year span, they went 7, 19, and 8. So that's 7 wins above ADP. So 21 % of the time above ADP. 19 losses below ADP and 8 pushes. so the receiving age cliff seems to be very steep like when it goes it goes we've been there with the julios and aj greens we've been there with you know so who is that this year that's davante adams that's yeah i'll give you them all i'll give you all those so old tight ends in that span did the best but you kind of yeah that's kelsey you kind of know why that's just travis kelsey that's not fair i mean he wasn't old he wasn't in the sample for uh you know 10 year ago sample but they were six, two, and one.

46:25Mike Wright:But if you weren't Kelsey, if you weren't a Hall of Famer, they were horrific. So if you were a non-elite, you were 0 and 5. You never outkicked your ADP. Also, one of the things I think that was interesting looking at it is that over the years we've had Hall of Famers that were older, that performed super well, and it kind of made us think that old guys perform better than they do. If you look at Brady, Breeze, Rivers, Big Ben, Fitz, Gore, like those were these older elder statesmen that always performed but that's what scares me about

47:00Jason Moore:like kelsey even no no no like two years from now dak because i i love dak i love him forever but it's like we we look at these guys who are playing at 40 brady and and and stafford and go well dak's gonna freaking crush when he's only 37 but it's like is he is he that level is he a hall of fame level quarterback because they because most people don't well look i'm going

47:22Mike Wright:to try to tell you what to pay attention to to try to figure out who will perform if you're an older player one thing to know half of the losses were availability not declined so in other words injuries were prominent for older players yeah i can i can attest one thing you can pay attention to and we've seen it with some of the older guys recently or one of them especially the encore effect is actually real if a player was old and already performed old they're more likely to do it again so derrick henry travis kelsey those guys if you did it once if you broke the mold if you out kicked the 30 you're more likely to do it again that's something to pay attention to if you don't want to take derrick henry off the board which i won't yes exactly so i will give you here are the oldest players.

48:14Mike Wright:I'll give you the oldest players being drafted this year. The TLDR is basically that over the last decade, drafting one of the 10 oldest players in the first nine rounds lost you money half the time. It's just something to keep in mind. Profitability, doing well with the pick. Old quarterbacks did well. Travis Kelsey did well. This year it's Matthew Stafford. He's 38 years old. It's Travis Kelsey, 37, about to be. it's davante adams and mike evans travis kelsey's 37 36.9 i'm just saying that the fact that he is yeah still out there so like matthew stafford is but so these are drafting the first 12 rounds this year stafford kelsey adams evans kittle yeah we we kind of we're like excited about him but we forget there's an age component on top of the injury so availability for kittle is going to be a question stefan diggs okay derrick henry and aaron jones so to jason's point yesterday when his sleeper was jordan mason aaron jones at running back that's a tough one because i would

49:21Jason Moore:not say the encore effect is in place for aaron jones no he hasn't been special henry it is an

49:26Mike Wright:old age henry it is stafford it is um i wouldn't have said that kiddo probably fit kiddo's just breaking into the older group so that was one where we're going to see but evans and adams i think are the biggest decisions for fantasy players there was a part of this offseason pre-substation jason where i feel like your your evans has gone yes i was so high when down when

49:48Jason Moore:he signed with san francisco i was like holy crap yeah i love this he's perfect for their system perfect for their quarterback i loved everything about it and then it's just like man he's so old

49:59Andy Holloway:and broken and he's playing next to a substation yeah oh the graphic with no sound that's the

50:08Mike Wright:but Jason do it again what is the sound that a substation makes

50:14Jason Moore:thank you yeah well that's disappointing I thought Terry McLaurin might crack this list that's why I was really curious if he was so he's not one of the 10 oldest he's 30.9 he'll turn 31

50:26Mike Wright:he's not one of the he doesn't technically fit the uh the age he's a little scared doesn't mean he's fine but it just means he doesn't fit the uh the stats so uh there you go do it do with that what you will um we're moving on number three the hangman is back we are revisiting the dead zone

50:49Jason Moore:this is the dead zone for running back we just got a question on that yeah and and i i knew this was coming um if you've been playing fantasy football long enough you know about the running back dead zone for years it was like the rounds four through eight they were they were you know not great hit rates to draft running backs because usually what happens in those rounds is people who um they've got a lot of red flags they just get pushed up it's the desperation yeah

51:16Andy Holloway:it's the oh no i'd have to get a running back here and so you burn a pick on a running back who is only there because supply is running out. You're like, well, he's a starter, so I've got to take him in the fourth. And you're like, you're missing out on high-level wide receivers or tight ends.

51:37Jason Moore:Yeah, you were. And then the last couple years came, and it didn't really work out that way. Those rounds weren't just a dead zone and weren't terrible. But I think we're back. This year, looking at ADP, I think we are back. See, what's happened now is you've got a lot of running backs being drafted. I mean, more than half of the first two rounds are running backs. The studs are being drafted very high. But what is happening is that is pushing up the lesser good backs into a range that they haven't been the last couple of years. I'll give you a couple examples here. The running back 24 in 2024 was in the seventh round.

52:19Jason Moore:The running back 24 right now is a mid-fifth round pick. It's significantly higher. An eighth round pick was the running back 36 in 2024, so that's like a fringe flex play. Eighth round, that's okay. I'm sorry, he was 10th rounder, and now he's up in the eighth round this year. Those players being pushed up really means, I mean, part of this is the correlation to your quarterbacks going a little bit later. Running backs are being drafted. Mediocre middling running backs are being drafted higher than they should go. And we have a tool on the website, the Value Scout tool. It's in the UDK. It's a really cool thing we came out with last year where it takes our projections, looks at basically what the true value would be according to historical precedent for what you would expect them to be drafted at ADP-wise, and then it compares to where their ADP currently is.

53:24Jason Moore:And so there's a handful of guys right now that if you look at the value scout tool, you just see they're being significantly overdrafted what the expectation of their ADP should have been. Travis H. Hand Jr. right now is being picked 10 spots ahead of ADP. Now, obviously maybe this changes with the Alvin Kamara being out for a month uh David Montgomery uh right now you know we've got him priced basically 15 picks behind where he's being drafted in ADP Jalen Warren looks like an eighth rounder according to our consensus projections but he's being pulled up to the sixth round on sleeper and Tony Pollard another one where he's going uh you know 11 spots ahead of where we project his ADP should be you can you could check out more of these players in the value scout tool.

54:10Jason Moore:But this is basically, it's not to say, don't hear what I'm not saying. It's not to say that there won't be any good pick in the rounds four through eight for running back. But what matters that you need to know is that when you are drafting the running back 24 through 36, you are paying a lot more right now than you have in recent years. And if you are, it mathematically means that other players at other positions are being pushed down and they are a better value than in years past. So you just got to play the market. The pendulum swings back and forth. The health of running backs the last two years has just pushed running backs way too high in those middle rounds.

54:48Mike Wright:Do you want to know something cool?

54:50Jason Moore:Yeah, I do. Heck yeah.

54:51Mike Wright:If you take two awesome running backs at the top of your draft, you don't have to worry about that. You don't have to worry about no RB strategy.

54:59Jason Moore:Just do. Just draft great running backs. I pretty much require two of my first four rounds to be running backs, and potentially three because I love to just, you know, shotgun those wide receivers for a while afterwards. Yeah.

55:15Andy Holloway:Number two. We're calling this one hot or not. Number two made me think of Matt. I remember that. Oh, hot number two is not a place you want to be.

55:25Jason Moore:Oh, goodness. Been there.

55:27Mike Wright:Let's not focus on that. This is a PG show, remember? Rim.

55:32Andy Holloway:What did he say? So we actually, we just fielded a question about this, where people were saying, you know, what is the kind of the emphasis on early season schedule? Because we're talking about hot starts, and it does factor in. The first month of the season, it carries a lot of weight for fantasy, for emotion, and also a part of that is like, because when you go 0-2, or oh and three it's really difficult to not panic because you feel you feel under the knife you're like i gotta make i gotta make moves here and you can end up making trades that are are just they're bad decisions you get on tilt yes you tilt and we don't want to do that so we want to have you know hotter starts so for a strength of schedule a different way to look at that last year we looked at we took the data we had eight teams that were projected as underdogs this is overall the nfl team they were projected as underdogs in three at least three of their first four games before the season even started of those eight teams only one of them won more than a single game and it was the jacksonville jaguars and that was like oh this is the team that people were pretty wrong about like the Liam Cohen effect on on the Jags really took them to a different place over those first four games they won three they had a a positive point differential that was a great year six of those eight though bottom 10 in points per game scoring six of the eight scored less than one uh rushing touchdown per game so it's like look the sports books they're they're not trying to lose money they're trying to put lines where they think they can win it but But these people know what they're talking about.

57:30Andy Holloway:It was Jacksonville, Carolina, the Titans, Cleveland, the Jets, Raiders, Giants, and Saints. Dang. It wasn't good. So I bring that up for, you know, maybe it's going to help you make some tiebreaker decisions. And the running backs from those teams, guess who ended up being a value? Travis H.A.N. Jr. Because he's on a winning football team. It's like, gente. There was a great game. Slow start. There was a great game in there, but overall, for that pick that you made, it was a big bummer. Chuba, a couple good games, and then it was rough. Brees Hall, it was not a strong start. Kamara, the same.

58:09Andy Holloway:If you're looking at those four games, and Tony Pollard, these weren't running backs that you could plug and play and feel good about. So let's look at 2026. who are the teams projected to their underdogs in at least three of their first four games

58:26Mike Wright:get the numbers for this year

58:29Andy Holloway:it's tough because it's Arizona Cleveland the Colts

58:36Jason Moore:that's interesting because Johnny Taylor's splits and wins and losses are pretty wide

58:42Andy Holloway:see if you can spot what's going on

58:44Mike Wright:Keenan didn't become favorites instantly

58:47Andy Holloway:see if you can see what's going on with you okay colts raiders yeah dolphins yeah dogs they are dogs in at least three of their first four games and those are first and second round running backs and taylor and so jets breeze uh surprisingly the broncos are in there too because their their opening schedule is tough but it's it's this is not to say that all of those guys all those running backs are going to be bad or bust picks. It's just

59:15Jason Moore:uphill battle.

59:16Andy Holloway:It is definitely an uphill battle for guys who are going very early in your fantasy football draft. So, you know, it's when you're deciding, maybe it's a maybe it becomes a tiebreaker for you.

59:29Mike Wright:Yeah, that's interesting and kind of sad. Yeah. Because of the players we love this year. All right, we're there. Number one. All right, our tip. it's always been something a little bit like this every year number one is just wipe the slate clean we all suffer the fantasy burns the bad memories and thoughts well Mike didn't have any bad memories last year

59:53Jason Moore:he wants to keep his slate dirty but we are recommending to you Mike wipe that slate clean remember nothing

1:00:02Andy Holloway:that's what I'm doing you gotta move I won last year I will remind you that I won last year but we're on to this year remember that but i was it's funny i was i wiped the slate clean yeah i followed the rule i was on uh uh i did a guest spot for tony reality show and we were talking about like bad beats and i brought up the how i had lamar jackson week one he takes me up by 1.8 points they end up going into overtime and he fumbles and i lose and it's like this is a horrifically bad beat it turns into one of the worst not what it turns into the worst fantasy football season where i'm just getting bad beat and he's like well did you ever go back to lamar jackson i'm like of course yeah of course i went back like you can't when when a player of of that caliber it's like christian mcafree there's there are many people last year who are like i will never yep ever draft christian mcafree again

1:00:59Mike Wright:because of what he did to me the phrase the phrase whoopsie doozles phrase that people probably used was like, well, I'm just willing to let him be great and I won't deal with the risk. But they might not think that anymore. They might think, I wish I had drafted him.

1:01:13Andy Holloway:And I'm not saying, sometimes a player burns you and then they burn you again. It's a new year. It's a new you. Yes, thank you, Jason. A brand new you. If a player destroyed you with injury last year, just wipe the pain, man. It's tough, but you have to do it.

1:01:34Mike Wright:yeah i feel like jason's hat is so perfectly blending with these back wall graphics it's like all the dudes the ducers are just like nodding like you don't even have a top of a head oh i mean now do you need to make a little psa for people that the other day you had gotten a haircut oh yeah and people a lot of people was like oh so welcome to the bald club night

1:01:55Jason Moore:i got i got i'm not we got bad news for you we got bad not bald yet got bad news for you baldies Look at these luscious.

1:02:04Mike Wright:He's not one of you. Not yet. All right. His slate is not wiped clean up top.

1:02:12Jason Moore:Am I right?

1:02:13Andy Holloway:Team bald down bad. Yeah.

1:02:16Jason Moore:Sorry, bald. He's losers. I mean.

1:02:19Mike Wright:Oh, yes.

1:02:20Jason Moore:I love that. Josh.

1:02:21Mike Wright:I love the idea of you just turning horribly against.

1:02:24Jason Moore:For sure. If you're balding, you just need to know what a loser. Oh, my God. I mean, man, what are those, cul-de-sacs? Oh, I would never.

1:02:35Mike Wright:Get real. Oh, my gosh. There you go. Hey, one final reminder here. The Megala. Megala Ball. It is available. Entries right now. Grab a draft spot. Come play with us. We'll be playing 20 ,000-plus players, a chance to win the ultimate Foot Clan for life and a spot in the Listener League.

1:02:56Jason Moore:Let's set the new record. Every year we've had a new record. Let's do it again, Foot Clan. You are undefeated. Megalobowl.com.

1:03:03Mike Wright:Yeah, that'll be so awesome. And then tomorrow we're going to get into bust and value picks. And on Friday, it's mock draft mayhem. So you do not want to miss an episode. It is go time. If you're drafting tonight, tomorrow, soon, good luck. Hopefully some of these tips and tricks helped you out. We will be back tomorrow with another episode. Take care. Goodbye. Goodbye.

1:03:26Jason Moore:Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Join our fantasy football community on jointhefoot.com and follow us on Twitter at the FFBallers.

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