Fantasy Football - Preseason Hype + Fantasy Curses - Podcast for 8/14

28:36Is it change of employment? No, change of employment is part of it. I got a fix for it. I'm not hitting that drop again, but you're going to be doing it. You're going to do the music. Solo. You're going to do the music and the mailbag. Get the camera over there. You're doing the whole thing. You're going to be the guitar. You know how the drop sounds. Keep in mind, your job might depend on it. Let's go. Let's get into the mailbag. Alright.

29:02Mailbag. Yes. Oh, you know it's good when you can hear Al Borland probably on our microphones. I promise you are responsible for more than two car accidents right now. All right. We're in the mailbag. We're in the mailbag. We're going to get it started. Lots of questions. Lots of things to talk about. Also, I will say that was terrible. I mean, like you didn't hit any of the beats. You're in here for every show. He's heard it before. He's heard it before. He heard it right before. And he went,

29:40real Kolar situation. All right. Kolar. Matthew writing in, the Madden curse has given many reasons for us to believe it is somewhat true. Can we really be high on Caleb Williams? And then I've got the chart here of the Madden. There's a lot of curses. Well, listen, here's what the Madden curse really is. And I don't know if we just want the joke answer. Here's what the Madden curse is. It's called you can't be the best at the game two years in a row. That's Madden curse. So was Saquon Barkley curse last year? Because Saquon Barkley wasn't – he didn't win the Super Bowl and finish number one at the position.

30:18He was okay. He wasn't good. Was he okay? I mean, I would say he's a medium level of curse. But I'm just saying Saquon Barkley last year – Let's say we didn't expect him to be – I mean, he was being drafted him maybe to be the running back one again, but he wasn't even a running back one. If you want to say he's cursed, that's fine. The year before, McCaffrey cursed. But before that, we had a run of four straight guys. Mahomes. Josh Allen, Lamar, Mahomes twice with Brady. To me, it is you reward the guys that played the best by putting them on the cover. Then why did they reward Caleb Williams?

31:00That's the real question. Because he didn't play the best. He had one play that was worth putting him on a cover for, the fourth down conversion. I'm high on Caleb Williams. I'm high on the offense. I like that he lost some weight. I'm high on Caleb. I don't think he's cursed. I think you were already cursed as a bear. Yeah. So this is the uncurcating. This is the reverse, the curse. Yeah. Put him on the cover. I agree. I'm in on Caleb. Can't triple stamp a double stamp? You can't triple stamp a double stamp. You just can't do it. No. I uh Caleb Williams should be very good this year the the the fact that he changed his diet lost the weight but then the accuracy reports are very good everything that I've been watching like camp videos not the ones that are like the team puts out the one highlight but like when I'm watching pass after pass after pass there's no it's just it's been very accurate and that's if Caleb Williams could be accurate in fact here's a stat that i shared um in the golf video is the fact that caleb williams the only two players that were worse in accuracy last year for caleb williams uh was matt falcon who who was who were the two jj mccarthy and shadur yeah jj mccarthy and shadur sanders were the only guys worse now you could say well that's really bad for caleb but that's also like what if he's average what a what a step up for this offense if he's not throwing you know 58 percent of his passes for completions it's it's a huge growth opportunity for a guy who wasn't bad last year but still it's like he doesn't need to go from 27 passing touchdowns to 42 no no and i think he's going to run a ton i think the upside of these you know a full season of Loveland, Burden, Adunze, that head coach, that offensive line, Swift and Manungai.

32:55It may be a lot of bluster for the Bears. Their head coach is overconfident maybe, but the personnel are capable of executing it. Bauer's question from RJ, is Brock Bowers at the end of the first round crazy? I like him better than most around that ADP. I think a funny question or part to throw in here for context, Jay, you got to pick 10 yesterday we talked about Jefferson I mean I don't see it being out of bounds to draft Bowers over Jefferson we had a question recently on a different show where it was like where is too high and 10 was the spot where I said I'm okay drafting him there would I personally probably not there's still some guys there that I I really like but if you're taking that tight end if you believe he's going to be a point different you know like two points better than second place that is absolutely where the first round pick and so you know once you get past james cook jonathan taylor the five wide receivers and the and the and the superstar running backs i feel like you're at the back of the first and you could make an argument that brock bowers is just as good as any of those guys so yeah the back of the first it's earlier than you maybe should take him but if you don't take him there if you want Brock Bowers and you don't take him there you're probably not getting I guess no you're not if you if you are drafting at the turn at the turn specifically then you're you don't have a chance no you don't take them or yeah and I don't think it's bad to take them at the turn uh G Thorpe writing in my league always has a huge quarterback run after after the first one gets drafted should I stick to ADP value or grab a quarterback early so this is tears you you know your league now that's that's one of the things that this show is all about is you cannot perfectly apply everything we say to every single league situation we want to give you like advice that you apply to your league context and then you go and benefit if you know that that's what's going to happen let me tell you what's going to happen if there's a huge quarterback run after the first quarterback gets drafted that means a ton of wide receivers and running backs are dropping further than they should in their ADP.

35:08So that's a guarantee. When we did our mock yesterday, I was thrilled when two or three quarterbacks went right in front of where I was able to take somebody because they get knocked down the list. So I wouldn't get caught up in the run, right? I mean, I definitely wouldn't get caught up in the run at quarterback. There are certain positions where what happens with the tiers, tier-based drafting, and if you've got the UDK, all of our rankings are in tiers so that you can kind of group certain players it's not just like oh this guy's the fifth ranked quarterback and this guy's the ninth ranked quarterback if they're in the same tier they're basically saying the range of outcomes is so similar to those guys when you're drafting by tiers that's where the the dictate of you look at which guys you want like what tiers you're happy with leaving the draft for me there are lower tier quarterbacks I am happy leaving the draft with If you're not, then when you start running out of the tier above that where you're like, this is where I'll be happy, then yeah, pull the trigger even if it's ahead of ADP.

36:11But I agree with Andy specifically on quarterbacks. If your league pushes quarterbacks up, that is the perfect opportunity to just keep smashing running backs and wide receivers, getting better value than you should, and then grab the late guys that have the chance. There's a handful of late quarterbacks this year. There's a lot of them. There's actually a lot. Yeah, that are really exciting. I mean, there's a world where you're getting Matthew Stafford wildly late, and he's great. I mean, Goff is another one. Purdy is another one. Dak is another one. I mean, even Darts. Caleb is another one. Darts going, last I saw was in the ninth round.

36:52That's an exciting one. The funny thing is there is a. . . I'm at my maximum scared at this exact moment, by the way. With Darts? With Darts. Oh, for sure. For sure. I mean again Nagy ruins all but there is a quarterback who was the quarterback 7 two years ago and that was his rookie year then he was the quarterback 6 this last year then they added a wide receiver 1 to the team lost nobody and he's being drafted as like the quarterback 15 so if you're in a single quarterback league he's basically not drafted which is Bo Nix and Trevor Lawrence and I mean the list goes on so just keep bear that in mind scarf up them running backs and wide receivers we have obviously we were supposed to do our top 10 tips and tricks show today Mike is out we've kicked it back to next week it's going to be great but one of the things I'm going to talk about as a teaser oh no spoiler okay tease is fine spoiler teaser I'm going to talk about how important it is to keep grabbing those running backs and wide receivers in the context of the last 20 years of fantasy and what you need that's good that was a good teaser i didn't say anything honestly yeah i want to hear it yeah and you and you're going to awesome if you subscribe unless i catch that lettuce diarrhea can you get that from another person i think so yeah really you gotta kiss yeah i think i think you'd have to like yeah yeah so yes uh league tendencies uh we just talked about that with the quarterbacks let's go to t grove here dynasty question is Devontae Adams were trading a 20, 27 second round pick.

38:28No. To get. I don't think so. I mean, if you are, this is the nuance of Dynasty. If you're a contender, I'm happy to add Adams for a second round pick. Why? Because that second round pick is going to be late if you're an actual contender. And Adams, I think, can give you another year of high production. You need the depth and Dynasty. I'm okay with it if you're a top three. If you're, the nuance matters there. If you are really, truly a one of the best, not like I'm competing for a championship, but I'm one of the seven. There's seven of us that are in it. If you're like a top three team and you know this is going to be near a third round pick if you do well, okay, you can convince me.

39:08But otherwise, I do think in general, just taking teams out of it, a 2027 second round pick is probably worth more at this point than davante adams who it's not outside the range of outcomes that davante adams this season is done like he could come out this year and be like oh okay he you know he's 33 and 34 this year he just kind of lost it's funny because i'm i'm like leaning on mcveigh and the rams and their moves at wide receiver to tell me that adams still has it in some regards. But they did that with Allen Robinson. And they were wrong before. I was wrong, but they were wrong. Yeah, you can't always do it.

39:53We just make probability bets here. And probability bets say a guy turning 34 this year doesn't have a lot left in the tank. Help me understand this question on Instagram here. Westbrook writing in, better 2026 for Carnell Tate or any Bears wide receiver? Is that just – so Tate versus – Tate in the sixth round versus Burden in the fifth or Dunsay in the sixth? Exactly right. That's what it is. So Tate or the Bears? Yeah. Okay. I know what he's going to vote. I think I'm going to vote it too. I am not. I like Tate, but I can't imagine that one of the Bears don't outperform Tate. I can easily imagine Tate.

40:37You have a good imagination. Well, the thing is, is Colson Loveland could very well be the number one target. It could also be Rome. It could also be Burden. And should all three be very, very involved, I think that there's a world where you're disappointed definitely with the two wide receivers because a tight end doesn't need to do as much to be valuable at that position. but if Colson Loveland has a breakout season really good if he dominates and becomes like hey he is a tier one tight end which a lot of people are projecting I know we are pretty bullish on him if that happens I don't think that Burden or Odunze splitting the rest will be a top 15 wide receiver in which case Cardinal Tate should easily lead this team in targets I think he gets 140 plus targets this year as a rookie oh yeah that's a lot yeah and if he does it would be not worried about the like wandale and ridley and no any of those guys contributing to the it wasn't i mean it wasn't a good day last night for tate not that it needed to be he didn't catch a pass um but i was just curious what you thought there let's take a break and we'll jump into some more mailbag i'm still mad at falcon by the way that was one of the That's one of the worst things that's happened on the show in a long time.

41:59We were literally doing a recording of a podcast listened to by millions, and he made it worse. But then you made it better. Okay. By making him do that. By making him do it again. Yeah, it's good, but it's been a tough two days for him. We'll take a break.

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43:09PrizePix, run your game. If you're a smart business, the right hire can be a make or break. Indeed Sponsored Jobs gets you quality candidates when you need them most. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. Listeners of this show will get a$75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at Indeed.com slash podcast. That's Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? then this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. A lot of people don't understand that it's owl, O-W-L, Borland, right?

43:56Not owl Borland. A lot of people don't know that it's not falcon, it's failcon. F-A-I-L-C-O-N. That's right, falcon. The falcon. Fly. Fly, falcon. I accept. Oh! All right. I sensed a tiny bit of humility in his reply right there. A tiny bit of humility, a tiny bit of shame, a tiny bit of sadness. Not enough of any of those. Not enough of any of those. That's right. That is what I was saying. Instagram question from GSLaney41. People say, I want to work for the ballers. No, you don't. Good job on that video yesterday. Great job. Thank you. No, he was talking to me on the swing. Yeah, yeah, because you left the microphones at home.

44:41When is a time you threw analytics out the window on a player you had a gut feeling on? I mean, I think part of me is doing that with Devon Achan right now. Because, you know, I understand you can comprehend all the arguments of something and still choose to reject them because arguments, analytics, those are percentage odds of something happening. Let's say you have something that has a 70 % chance of happening. You might say, well, I'm really up against it. Well, there's a 30 % chance that you're wrong. And so for me, I'm throwing out Malik Willis' lack of passing to the running back. Why? Because it's a chance, and he doesn't play starting quarterback very much.

45:22I love that take. It's true. You are spitting in the face of the probabilities, but you're right to point out that the probabilities are not guarantees. So if you believe that this is the exception to that rule, there are exceptions to that rule. I would say this year the player that I am that way with is Travion Henderson. Okay. I totally recognize that Ramondre Stevenson is kind of that starter, that Ramondre Stevenson is good, that Ramondre Stevenson is a better pass blocker, that Ramondre Stevenson is an important part of this offense. And I'm like, I don't care. Travion is better, and he will take over this backfield and score a ton of fancy points.

46:04I feel like it's almost a great segment is I don't care. It's just called I don't care. don't care yeah yeah there are there are going to be players and you know what i'll tell you this one we tell you to go with your gut all the time yeah so if you don't don't just go blindly with adp or our opinion go with your gut and that way you can be mad at yourself right but you can also there is no better feeling than when you press back against the consensus opinion oh yeah and win oh yeah you're a hero yeah i mean it feels great so and by the way all the consensus opinions they're not going to be right not all of them and that point i was talking about earlier on the 10 tips and tricks we're going to talk about some of that as well um skyler what a show coming up skyler jensen writing in would i be a dog if i took cd lamb in the first and george pickens in the second oh man or is that cat like so it that that can win however genuinely no joke if you draft those guys you absolutely have to get Dak Prescott the there are there are um large-scale tournaments that have been won by a double stack at wide receiver for a quarterback if you pick the right time the right season the right team the quarterback with their two main weapons can work uh I would I won with Reggie Wayne Peyton Manning and Dallas Clark before I ran I won with Peyton Manning, Demarius Thomas, and Julius Thomas before.

47:26So you have to have Peyton Manning as part of this? I did notice that part. Yeah, no, but I mean, Jimmy Graham and Drew Brees with Colston, those things happen. They can happen. If you believe, go with your gut. It's putting a lot of eggs in a basket, but it might be a real nice basket. It's like, whoa, that's comfy. Those eggs ain't ever freaking. That's a nice basket. uh trey would you do that would you be tempted if you had cd lamb no i wouldn't either no i'd pivot away uh why isn't bashal tootin high i mean i also don't want to play chasing higgins on the same team i mean i i just don't it's just not part of the way i want to run my roster uh trey wants to know why isn't bashal tootin higher on draft boards um the reason tootin isn't higher on draft boards is simply the reality that he might not be the pass catching back and he might not be the goal line back if he's if he's neither of those he's a terrible pick right now he projects to be the starter and therefore have the most work which would include some goal line and some pass catching LaQuint Allen has been working in as a pass catcher Crod was not there for the offseason so he was not we didn't really see what the split would be but this could turn out to be a three-headed backfield now the the you know the coaching fallacy of like will they do the right thing or what is the right thing if Tootin is truly good enough to take over the backfield he's so much more explosive I mean it's like four three two speed if he really takes it over he'll be an outstanding pick in fantasy football.

49:18This could be a very good offense. I think the Tootin bros are super bullish, but if you're asking the question, why isn't he higher on our rankings, it's because we project more of a timeshare. 40x40 writing in on Instagram. Does Jay Grizz prefer smoked or unsmoked salmon? Of course smoked. He's been so domesticated. He's like, oh, raw fish. Yeah, it used to be raw. Right out of the river. Or he'd bite that head right off. But then he's like, I'm cardboard now. Smoke that. But you said smoked? Yeah, he won't smoke that. Smoke that. Mark, for defense and kicker leagues, does it make sense to reach for studs?

49:58It actually kind of does, but less so at defense. Is that like the Brandon Aubrey and the Seahawks defense? The thing about the defense is a lot of times in years past, it's been very hard to predict. You think it's easy. before the season you're like oh well this is clearly going to be the one and then all of a sudden you know defenses take 11 people on the field at once and if things don't work out great you go okay well I reached for this defense but then they're the fifth best defense which is not a good place to reach for the fifth best right exactly now if if I had to like if I had to guess on the defenses right now like the the Texans defense is unbelievable yeah I mean I think you're very safe there I think you're safe with Seattle um I think you're safe with Denver yeah Denver those feel like the safest ones but I wouldn't I mean again I give you three names so why take the first of the three yeah that's fair I I could not I could not confidently say one of those three teams will be the number one i'm very confident i mean the rams if you've got miles garrett and aaron donald maybe they should be the number one i i don't know whereas i i think at kicker it's like okay brandon aubrey yeah go ahead and reach on him he's going to score more fantasy points than probably everyone else tyler brings up a good uh a good question here because i almost it was almost the answer to my quick question of the day is adenai mitchell the best sleeper no one is talking about i think that is absolutely the case i mean i think he's one of the best it was him or me mentioning nailer adnay mitchell is going to have a prominent role in a jets offense probably playing every down all the arguments that you know you have made for your boy geno smith apply to adnay mitchell in terms of more targets more yards for the jets than they've had in your years past and i i think he showed when he arrived in new york last year that he could play with not good quarterback performances so to me he is a deep sleeper but that's the category for me is deep sleeper I think he would have been an appropriate answer for the quick question of like who would be the snap goblin keeping someone else upset like the if there's Omar Cooper Jr.

52:19believers out there first round draft it's so weird I don't remember the last Cooper's getting negative I don't remember the last time we had a first round NFL drafted wide receiver who's not injured that's like I mean he's on drafting he's on draft a ball it's funny because that that you know in fantasy I mean it was Omar Cooper and Sadiq there right yes neither a guy no looks like they're going to be super relevant Sadiq is trying to get back by week one I think Adonai Mitchell will be the clear wide receiver two for this team I don't know my my Gino argument of the jets having more passing work volume yardage counting stats than they did last year is true.

53:00But I do think Garrett Wilson soaks up. He's, he's such a target hog and I think he's going to have a 30 % target share of this offense. Yeah. I look at Mitchell more like, you know, what Trey Tucker could do at times in Las Vegas last year, which ironically was with Gino. Like there were games like Trey Tuck, like Adonai Mitchell is going to be a downfield threat very often. I think big play potential for him. He's going to be up over that 13, 14 yards of catch. But yeah, I mean, you should have more arguments against the sleeper than for them. That's what makes them not drafted or drafted very, very late.

53:37Last question from Joshua. It's a good one. Right now we're in the middle of our UDK for life giveaway. What is the best way to use the UDK to do tier-based drafting? I think you touched on this earlier. But what about specifically with the way the UDK functions in terms of the app or the so you know marketing players functionally i like doing it personally on an ipad i mean not everybody has an ipad you could do it on your iphone you could do it on your laptop your desktop whatever but if if you have one i really love putting that sucker landscape and you mark all your players um you highlight the ones you want to target highlight the ones you want to avoid you've got all the tiers right there you scroll yeah you can mark players as drafted i think people don't necessarily know that swipe and mark them as drafted so as your draft goes along you can just follow it you can make sure that those highlighted players aren't missed alternatively and i know we're old men but like andy your favorite way to use the udk we have customizable printable cheat sheets and you print it you bring a marker and a piece of paper to every single draft that i can remember and that is a really easy way to see everyone at a glance.

54:49You never miss anybody, any players further down the list. Even if you're using your iPhone, your computer, web browser, iPad, it is nice to have that printed cheat sheet handy right next to you. So maybe check that thing out too, because you can turn on what you want on, if you want ADP on or not. It's a very valuable resource. Those of you that have already been in there using the mock draft tool that's coming to the web very soon it's right now on uh ios and android but this is the perfect time to jump in your drafts are on the way i can't imagine a better next week of shows breakout sleepers values bus 10 tips and tricks so i think it's gonna be here baby a fantastic week and a mayhem mock draft is is taking place next week the udk for life giveaway if you pick it up before august 24th we're doing a live stream that evening we're giving away a udk for the rest of your life we just decided we'll let you bequeath it if it's in writing to your next of kin so it's a udk for life this lives this will of course be a udk plus this will be you know cream of the crop yeah cream of the crop you get the best forever um but ultimate draft kit.com jump in there everybody that's purchased it up until that date will be entered to win even in for as long in the past yeah well i mean this season this season but uh we'll give away a signed jamar chase jersey as well communities over at join the foot.com but we're going to say goodbye for today we'll be back uh i think tomorrow we have adjust the tips showing up on youtube so you want to get up we do and uh check that out youtube.com slash the fantasy football take care thank you for listening to another episode of the fantasy Footballers podcast.

56:33Join our fantasy football community on jointhefoot.com and follow us on Twitter at the FFBallers.

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57:22This is one of the great mysteries of human nature. Every minute, a new question. You were buying access to the president. Every week, a deeper understanding. When we take the field, the expectations are to win. It's time. We're preparing to go out on this race. For the new season. It was gunfight. All the way in, all the way out. 60 Minutes, CBS Sunday, September 13th, and streaming on Paramount+.