July 10, 2025 • 47 mins
Join Tom Strachan and Andrew Erickson as they break down the biggest things you need to be aware of when transitioning from best ball drafts to standard re-draft leagues, including differences in positional value, planning for bye weeks, balancing player exposures, and much more!
Timestamps: (May be off due to ads)
Intro - 0:00:00
What's The Biggest Difference in Redraft vs Best Ball? - 0:00:15
Understanding The Pockets in Value - 0:02:25
Adjusting for Positional Value in Redraft - 0:03:27
What Positions Is It Better to Be aggressive on in Redraft? - 0:06:38
Understanding The Benefits of Floor vs Ceiling - 0:10:15
Bye Week Strategy - 0:12:15
FantasyPros Best Ball Streams - 0:17:45
Spreading Exposure Across a Portfolio - 0:18:50
Consider Exposures for High-End Picks - 0:24:50
Late-Round Picks We Want To Be Overweight On, Rashod Bateman, Tyler Allgeier, Diontae Johnson, - 0:28:10
FantasyPros Best Ball Draft Kit - 0:34:40
Listener Q&A - 0:35:27
Our Thought Process On The Clock - 0:35:55
How Many QBs is Ideal Through 5 Rounds? - 0:41:00
FantasyPros Draft Intel - 0:44:30
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Yes, it is July, which means football is right around
the corner, which means redraft as well as Best Ball,
is going to take over for the next few weeks,
and if you've been drafting a lot of teams, it's
time to kind of consider how to adapt to redraft
and how to take the best possible approach to your
league's this year. Andrew as someone who ranked top five
(00:23):
in the Fantasy Pros Expert consensus frank is for twenty
twenty four drafts. What stands out for most you when
it comes to adapting for twenty twenty five when you've
been drafting a lot of Best Ball drafts and then
looking at redraft, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Know, for me, I have to take some time off
of drafting bestball teams. I need to kind of reset
the brain into redraft mode, into I actually have to
push the start button on these certain players. So as
great as it sounds to say, oh man, this wide
receiver is gonna have so many spike week it's gonna
be great. I never have to project when to start them.
Not the case in redraft. You have to be able
(00:57):
to click the button and think, oh my god, I
have to put Kean Coleman in my starting lineup. Am
I going to feel good about that in Week one? Maybe?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Not so.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I think that's one of the big things. And I
think with Best Ball it's obvious that it sets your
lineup automatically, but one of the things that's different is
there's no access to the waiver wire, and we know
how integral the waiver wire, playing the waiver wire during
your redraft league, how important that is to building a
winning team. And I think that you made it a
great point in the outline Tom where you talked about
(01:27):
the later rounds and Best Ball drafts, where you're getting
into fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, evening twenty rounds, you're
basically trying to draft the waiver wire players before they
become available on the waiver arg before they become targets
in redraft leagues.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, massively so, because, like you spin berk to a
couple of years ago, Karen Williams Pookinikuba were guys who
in the vast majority of redraft leagues, if you're talking
about fifteen rounds, potentially we're undrafted and they with the
guys that you could unload for and you know, you
felt confident paying massive amounts for, But we don't have
(02:02):
that in Best Ball. So I think in Best Ball,
this is the time of year where we want to
start shaping our takes. You know, we've had the off season,
we've had OTAs, we've had mini camps, We've had so
many pieces of information that start to give us an advantage,
and we if you've been drafting, then you know what
the pockets in the draft are like. Currently, there's this
(02:24):
round eight to around round twelve range where there's so
many quarterbacks, are so many tight ends, and I kind
of strongly believe that for Best Bawl, if you can
hit on the best quarterback and the best tight end
in that range is probably going to lead to being
quite profitable. But in redraft every year we see it
like as you say, you need a break, you need
(02:45):
like a cleansed mind and prepare yourself for redraft because
ad is so different and nothing is as different to
mock drafts or anything like that as your home league
is like my home league is to keep a league,
so val always throws things a little bit. But like
you can go from drafting on a site like Underdog,
which is quite wide receiver heavy to go in and
(03:07):
look in at redraft ADPs and rather than being five
running backs in the first round, you might be seeing
six seven. We're seeing guys like Chris McCaffrey now firmly
in the first round, but then Ashton Gent, Derek Henry,
Devin Na Channa kind of all around that turn. Does
your approach of running back position in general switch when
you're drafting in redraft compared to Best Ball?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I think it does. I think it always has to
change a little bit. And I think that J. J.
Zacheresen brought up a good point on his Best Ball
show where he talks about how the what you can
take from Best Ball ADP that you can apply to
redraft is the way that the players are ranked in positions. Right,
so you're taking the running back ranking, so those maybe
not won't change as much. Maybe you get a little
bit different when it comes to rookie players, but for
(03:49):
the most part, you're going to see the better running
back kind of go in the same order. But it's
where they are drafted overall that changes from Best Ball
to Redraft Because of again, underdog is very wide receiver heavy.
You're not going to see that in your redraft home leagues,
you're going to see more running backs taken. So just
considering that, and I think that that's why we talk
about using the mock draft simulator, especially when you can
(04:10):
sync it to your specific league, especially when you use
draft Intel, where it can tell you exactly how often
running backs do go based on your historical trends and
data for each Pacific manager in that league. They say
that Jovirahm Accounting always takes a running back in round three.
So when it happens, you're like, I was ready for this.
I knew this was going to happen, and you can
adjust on the fly accordingly and even be prepared for
(04:32):
that to happen. So that's kind of my approach with it.
I think that you can definitely get an opportunity to
get better receivers later on. So yes, maybe you feel
a little And that's part of the reason why I
talked about earlier where you have to get out of
the best ball mindset because if I think, oh, I'll
just get all these receivers, There're gonna be so many
late receivers that I like, and I'm like, these guys
are usually never here, so I wish I'd taken running
back a little bit earlier and give usted more traft
(04:53):
capital earlier on at running back versus waiting for receiver,
because I didn't really have to.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, I think it's such an point point, because you
know you, I know your typical leanings towards a hero
RB built in Best Ball mine over the last two years,
it's been hero RB and zero RB, and I'm very
comfortable pushing the boundaries of zero RB and really testing
just how far you can push it as long as
I've got that elite quarterback and elite tie. And but
(05:20):
in redraft leagues, the running backs get pushed up so
quickly that you might be thinking, right, well, I'm going
to hit on this tier where there's guys like DeAndre Swift,
you know, James Connor, and I'm going to be okay.
But before you know it, particularly if you're at a
turn in redraft leagues, it can get wiped out and
(05:41):
it can be very difficult to recover from that because
then you're immediately in a situation where you are forced
to make aggressive swings on waivers. Now, look the year
that Puka and Nakua and Karen Williams were waiver wire
heroes or even Jamaal Williams the year before that that's fine,
back can work out. Last year, I'm not sure if
(06:03):
there were many successful wave wire guys like Isaiah Likely
was the guy that everybody was taking a huge swing
on last year after that tight end one performance where
he had like over twenty five points against the Chiefs
in Week one, and then he ended up being very
not good. Let's just say for fantasy football, particularly redraft
(06:25):
leagues for the vast majority of the season until late on.
So do you have particular positions where you're willing to
be more aggressive in redrafts compared to your approach to
them in Best Ball?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I think that's a really great question. I know that
I think that I do prefer elite tight end a
little bit more in the best ball format than necessarily
redraft because I think that having access to the waiver wire,
we see that a lot of early round tight ends,
especially last year, they busted at a really high rate
and late round was definitely the way to go. And
we see late round tight ends produce every single we
(07:00):
see a guy that drastically outproduces his ADP. If I'm
betting on one guy to do that this year at
stuck a craft for me, like, like, that's the guy
that I'm circling as my kind of late to the
middle round tight end to draft, especially in redraft forms
and in best Ball. So I think that's one thing
I'll I'll change a little bit. I think that the
archetype of player is also important to recognize talking about
(07:20):
how you feel about clicking a player, like does this
guy get volume? Right? You can't bank on efficiency as much,
I would say, just because you need to have that
projectable volume that you feel confident faith putting a player
into your lineup every single week. Whereas again, when it's
best ball and it's automatically scoring, you're less dependent on oh,
he has to get the targets this week. If he
doesn't get the target this week, it's okay, someone else
(07:42):
can pick up the slack.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So does that affect kind of your approach to rookies,
because like in most fastball drafts, I'm looking at and
it's like, right, I want probably three to four rookies minimum,
particularly in a year where we've got a good class,
because rookies typically can be some of most undervalued assets
in fantasy. Like you look back. Even Jama Chase when
he came out was what like round four.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
No.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Obviously, Marvin Harrison last year was the polar opposite and
was overvalued, but we've had plenty of other guys that
have been massively big wins compared to what their ADP
has been. Do you feel better say I'm only going
to take the rookies I have supreme confidence in earlier
on in drafts, and then later on I've just played waivers,
(08:25):
or do you see it kind of more as a
situation where it's like you're just leaning on your gut
instincts about those players.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I think it's better to take the swings on the
rookies that just are coming out a little bit more
of a discount, and even that that's comparing it to
the other rookies in their specific draft class, because I
think that sometimes gets lost in the rookie analysis, where
the reason why rookies have been so good in fantasy
football is because they're usually cheaper. It's really been the
last couple of years where their prices started to increasing
increase increase, and now we're getting more rookies that I
(08:55):
would say bust because the expectations coming in are so
so high Aran Harrison. If he had been going last
year the same range as Milik Neighbors, he still would
have been disappointing, but not to the extent that he
was as a basically a round one two fringe pick.
So that's something to keep in mind that you know,
kind of ask yourself. Most rookies have to face some
(09:15):
type of hurdle as year one players. I know that
someone that I've been kind of warming on it says
I think about is a guy like Dylan Samson, where
you know he's kind of buried because there's another really
talented rookie in his on his on the same team.
The Browns drafted two rookie unning backs. But part of
me is always thinking, man, any veteran has to just
be looking over their shoulder because a rookie got drafted
(09:36):
in this class. I mean, I just want as much
exposure to this rookie unning back class as possible. And
that's not going unnoticed by the market. A lot of
these rookies are steamed up. But when there's two rookies
in the same backfield where the market has decided, well, no,
it's quin John Junkins like he is the guy because
he got drafted first. And maybe that's the case, but
Dylan Sampson was a really talented player in his own right.
And it's also the Browns, right if this is the
(09:57):
worst office in the NFL, can Quinn John Jenkins hurt
me if I don't draft him in this Browns offense
is terrible? So those are things I'm looking for. And
I think even of the top rookie running backs, I
like Cale Johnson a lot too. He goes a lot
later than some other guys because he was drafted in
the third round. But I think the Steelers if they
had a second round pick, they probably would have taken
Cale Johnson, but they didn't have one, and they just
(10:17):
got lucky that he fell to him. So those are
things that I kind of been thinking about when it
comes to like floor and versus ceiling with the rookies.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, And that's like such a good point because it's
like floor feels like something much more viable in re
draft league than ceiling. Like so, like contrast this with
the DraftKings Milli Maker Final last year. There was ony
twenty one teams in the final. The winning team had
(10:44):
to hit on not just the players who carry you there,
which last year was Brian Thomas, Like just Jefferson, mont
Rasse and Brown were all some of the wide receivers
who carried players, where Jered Guff who was forty percent rusted,
was one of those players. But then when you're in
the you have to be able to have enough of
the differential and the roster of that when it will
(11:05):
last year taking home like two million dollars or one
point five million dollars whatever it was, they had only
three players on their roster who were more than ten
percent owned in that final. I think Bucky Irving was
one of them, Brian Thomas the other, and then Jared Goff.
So in best ball, we're always trying to say, well,
let's look for ceiling and whether that comes through stacks,
(11:26):
where that comes from bringbacks. But in redraft there is
a lot to be said for flow now obviously, like
if your league rewards most points scored, or if there's
some plays like on FFPC redraft where Week six you
have an all play format where every team in the
league isn't playing a direct head to head. You were
(11:47):
just it's the six teams you've scored most points that
week get the win the six teams, you don't get
the lost so understanding that is definitely there. But I
think you can you can survive a lot easier in
ret and just make the playoffs and just simply bet
on having the right players at the right time. And
I think so much of that kind of comes back
to conviction, comes back to rankings, comes back to all
(12:11):
the little things that we preach here over a Fantasy pros.
But one point which we should probably touch on is
bye week strategy. Like in Best Ball, I don't really
consider bye week strategy too much. Like obviously, if you're
going with a double tight end build or a two
QB build, having them both on the same bye week
(12:31):
could be pretty catastrophic, particularly in like a total points
format like Drafters, where if you end up taking the
zero that week, it is really going to harm you.
But do you have a particular strategy that you tend
to go for with redraft? The one strategy I play
every year is trying to find a kicker with a
really late by week, so I can just set it
and forget it because I just don't want to deal
with kickers. But Graham, commissioner of a league, does a
(12:52):
great job. Shout out of Graham, but please let's get
rid of kickers. Let's make this the year.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Tom's doing the lazy man's guy to uh kift kickers.
Just take the guy on the latest buy week. That's
that's how you do it. Yeah, some people say it's lazy,
but you just think it's smart. So if you even
if it works out, I can't, I can't, Uh, I
can't push against it.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I think for me, I mean sorry, just to be
if it was any money involved in the home league,
then maybe I play it differently. But overthles, get out
of my life. Kickers.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I just look for kickers that playing domes like that's
basically the amount of kicker. And Arizona Cardinals have thirteen
games indoors this season, the most many NFL teams, So
keep that in mind.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Google Arizona Cardinals kicker?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Is it Zan Gonzalez? I cannot remember?
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Was it Matt Prayer? For a while?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
He was the guy that was there for a long time.
I don't know if he's there anymore. Remember Zan Gonzalez
was there for a cup of coffee at some point.
I don't know who the kicker is, right, it's Matt Freyer.
It's Matt Freer and Chad Ryland, who is the Patriots
draft picked a couple of years ago, who I'm sure
you remembered. But yeah, just sign me up to Matt
Prey and Matt Pray has still got a good leg.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
We are all aboard. There is twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
The Freighter Creators. Oh man, how is that the first
time I've ever heard that? And I feel like I've
drafted my prayer and a lot of my fantasy teams
throughout the years. Wow, that is that is legendary.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Tom.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
You just can continue out to yourself. So bye week
strategy for me. So again, you don't have waivers in
the best ball format, so you do have to fill
these bye weeks in some way, some short, some form.
I kind of wanted to pick your brain though, Tom,
about when you draft players on the same bye weeks
at the quarterback position, at the tight end position in
(14:35):
a way to get unique. I thought that, I know
that's a conversation that people have brought up in terms
of well, a lot of people aren't doing it because, Okay,
it doesn't really make a lot of sense because you
are going to take a zero for that particular week,
but now you're getting in a combination of players. Now,
I haven't looked and seen if there are teams that
play in Week seventeen that also have the same bye week,
so I'm not sure if that would be kind of
(14:55):
the ultimate correlation play. But what we were thinking, well.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I was just going to say, like train Bride brought
Bowers as one that I know a lot of people
are starting in the scott fish Bowl drafts right now,
and the scoring in scott fish Bowl is always quite funky.
It always benefits tight ends quite a lot, and I've
seen people talking about wanting the double dip on the
tight ends, and it's also something which I'm doing a
lot of FFPC super Flex drafts at the minute. FFPC
(15:20):
reward tight ends with the Titan premium, and there's times
where you're at the back end of round one picking
like ninth tenth where brock Bowers falls to you, and
you're like, if this comes back around, can I punt
quarterback and just go double elite tight end, which is
which is a strategy which has worked a little bit
on f FPC over the years. But the problem is
(15:41):
they have the same bi week, So is it worth
saddling up and saying I can get a huge amount
of points from these guys week to week. Be quite
unique because a lot of people will be avoiding this
and then just stick at two or are you gonna
have to twist and got three? So yeah, my general
feeling is I'm a little it's scared of doing it
and scared money. Don't make no money, So I will
(16:03):
mix it in occasionally, but it's it's not comfortable you
with me, or do you kind of stray against that.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I think that I probably would stray against I think
that when you have when you're max entering a lot
of these teams, if you're putting one hundred and fifty
lineups into some of these bigger tournaments, I think that
there's a case to be made to hey, we got
to get wild at some points, like we got to
do some weird things just to kind of get unique.
But I would say if you're more of a normal
best ball draft, or you're looking more at twenty five
(16:31):
to fifty teams, I don't think that that's necessarily necessary
to draft players on purpose that have the same by
weing now, I'm sure that people have done it by accident,
or in some of these pre draft best ball leagues
where you didn't know when they would the bye weeks
would happen, so naturally you have some uniqueness in those
types of formats. So maybe that's kind of Hey, I
(16:51):
got plenty of exposure to quarterbacks with the same bye
weeks already. I don't need to overindulge like you alluded
to where you're taking a zero on purpose. So I
I think I agree with you. I think that it's
probably just, Hey, it doesn't take that much effort to
just make sure your quarterbacks and your Titans don't have
the same bye weeks. But besides that, I'm not necessarily
worried about, oh well I have too many receivers or
running backs, but the same bye week. As long as
(17:13):
you have enough guys, I think for the in the aggregate,
I think that you'll be okay. And you know some
of your players are going to get hurt anyway, So
even if you think that you're okay for one week,
you know injuries might happen and you're going to end
up taking some zeros anyway.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, and in redraft, like I'll just I'm completely fine
with that. I think it's one of those things that
you can just if people are fading somebody because of
a bye week or anything like that, it's just a
chance for you to be a scoop it up. But look,
no draft tonight. We are just chatting all things strategy.
But next week we'll be back in the Best Ball
streets and each and every Monday all the way through
(17:46):
until the season starts. Myself, Tom Struck, and Andrew Exon,
who you of course know, We're just going to try
and help you dominate your best ball drafts all someome along.
We'll talk strategy, stack, sleeper is so much more, we'll
talk about the many great articles in the Fantasy Pros
Best Ball Kit, and we'll be in those drafts with yourself.
If you are over here on Twitch, Twitch dot tv
(18:06):
forward Slash Fantasy Pros, you will be able to see
when we jump into those drafts. You will be at
a draft alongside, as we will happily give you feedback
on your draft as well as listening to any criticisms
you've got about ours, because occasionally we've been known to
click the wrong button or pull a player up way
above ADP, but that's all part of a fun and
(18:27):
game and why its advantage just for you to come
and draft against us. So yes, each and every Monday,
four pm Eastern over on twitch Twitch dot tv Forward
Slash Fantasy pros get involved as we try me It's
the best best ball summer ever. Andrew, Let's talk about
another aspect of best ball that felt like this was
a good time in the offseason to get to all
(18:49):
about spreading exposures out. So, look, your risk tolerance plays
a big part in how you want to build a
best ball portfolio. Now, if you're just drafting ten fifty teams,
then by all means go pick the guys that you want,
unless this is like you know, ten K buyings or
something like that. But if you are just here to
have a bit of fun, you just enjoy low stakes drafting,
(19:12):
perhaps then get the guys you want. Have for conviction,
because ultimately, this is your money. You're the person who
should feel best about how you spend it for at
least now. But if you're building a portfolio of teams,
I mean last year I was close to four hundred,
it can definitely pay off to take a varied sort
(19:32):
of portfolio, deciding which rounds you want to be heavy
on players My kind of rule of fun is a
bit of a sliding scale. Round one to three, I
don't really want to be much above fifteen percent on
a player. Round four to six that kind of increases
up to twenty percent, Round seven to ten twenty five percent,
and then round eleven to fourteen thirty percent, and then
(19:54):
the last five six rounds thirty five percent. There's never
really been a point where I've stopped drafting because I've
hit these, but those that's just kind of like a
rough guideline. I like to keep an eye on my
portfolio of players and say, right, you've gone above where
you feel confident normally, is it time to stop drafting
that player, or is it time to double down and
(20:15):
really say that this is the year, this is the player.
And the reason why it's kind of beneficial to do
this is just we see so many late breakouts from
guys you know, last year, for two years in a row,
we've kind of seen it at a tight end in
twenty twenty three, Sam Laport last year, Johnny Smith, zach Ertz.
You go back to the Karen William, Puoka and Nakua
(20:36):
year like and no matter how good any of us are.
Analysis we do have to kind of be humble and
say there's a lot that goes on in fantasy football
that we just can't predict that we don't know where
to coming from, Like Zay Jones breakout year, the Jamal
Williams breakout year, these players who haven't necessarily shown it
to us. So having spread out your exposure can be
(20:59):
an easy your way of maybe hitting on these players.
Andrew thinking about specifically round one, what's like the lowest
and the highest that you'd be kind of willing to
go on players based on this year's ADP.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
So I'm glad that you brought this up because I
was thinking about when it comes to fading players in
best Ball. And so I'm someone that doesn't draft nearly
as many teams as you do, So I've drafted more
teams this year with fast draft just because it's really easy.
It's again, they're really fast drafts, so it's really easy
for me to draft a lot of teams, especially with
the Turbo mode. But in terms of DraftKings, underdog drafters,
(21:36):
these types of drafts, I'm probably more in the fifty
range overall, So that does give me some What.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I've found help is if you draft five teams at once,
but tends to speed FI up and you get more
drafts of just say.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
That is that is true? So again more tips from
Tom just exactly how to how to win it. Life
is doing this. So for me, I feel like I
can be a little bit more. I guess the word
is it will be aggressive in terms of having like
a fade guys a little bit harder. I can be
exposed to the guys a little bit harder when it
comes to drafting, just less teams. Like you said at
(22:08):
the beginning, get your guys that you want on your teams.
So I'll peel back a little bit with exposures to players,
specifically on fast Draft. When it's guys I have ranked
back to back, obviously I'm taking the guy I have
ranked higher and more often than the guy I have
ranked below him. But when I look at the exposures
and I see one guys up at fifty percent and
one guys at ten percent, I think, Okay, I don't
(22:29):
need to keep drafting this particular player. You know, prime
example will probably be some of the Jets players, So
Garrett Wilson and Bresol, so they going round three. I
probably have an unhealthy amount of Garrett Wilson. And now
I'm ready. Okay, I've got my fund with Garrett Wilson.
I've made the bet that Justin Fields can he give
be Dj Moore in this offense, And now I'm ready
to draft Bresaw like like, that's who I want if
(22:49):
I'm going to be drafting a Jets player. And Tom
is laughing at me because clearly drafting Jets players is
just it's it's not going to work this year. But
that that's besides the point.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Well, also, just Seth put in a private chat producer
Sef put tips from Tom sounds like a good segment
from the show. Maybe we will have to run that back.
But yes, sorry, I mean, well, we talked about it
last year when the Jets players were in Round one,
like drafting two Jets players highly won't possibly go wrong.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And yeah, I mean no, it's round three at least
at least it's round three this time and not round one.
But I would say, yeah, I'm more prompt to probably
fads some guys entirely, like Sequon Barkley for me. Again,
I've talked about the touches, the workout he's coming off
of if he's a top five pick and I'm not
drafting enough teams where I feel, oh, I just have
(23:34):
to draft at least a couple of Saquon teams just
in case he does stay healthy and he completely goes
on another sun run, because that's still in a range
of outcomes. Again, he could stay healthy the entire year.
It could be wrong. He could be Ezekiel Elliott when
he was in the first guy to return a top
five finish after leaving the NFL and touches. So it's
not impossible. But when I'm only drafting fifty teams, okay,
(23:55):
I can take a fade on Saquon Barkley and the
other guy that I'm not super high on the round
one is I'm on Ross Saint Brown, where I just
think that there's a lot of other guys. I like
the other lines. Pripe Lions priced players more than Saint Brown,
and he had this weird offseason surgery that we just
kind of heard about and we didn't really get that
many details about it, and he missed kind of all
the OTAs with the new offense. John Warren comes in.
(24:16):
The first thing he says is Jameson Williams breakout season.
I just like that means a lot to me that
the guy coming in again he was with the lines
in twenty twenty two, but was with them for the
last two seasons and immediately steps in and just says, hey, yeah,
Jameson Williams breakout season. That just I don't know, that
means a lot to me. So those are two guys
in the round one for an example that I would
be comfortable not clicking the button on basically ever. But
(24:37):
would I do that if I was drafting one hundred
and fifty teams. Probably not.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, Like Round one in particular, this year feels like
such a strong year. There's very few guys, But I
want to take any kind of conviction on Saques, not
somebody that necessarily overly high on. But I think it's
like when you're drafting multiple hundreds of teams, there will
be occasions where it's like you can get sake one
(25:02):
Barkley at pick five, pick six, and it's like, Okay, well,
maybe that gives me access to a slightly different build.
So I'm not going to pass him up now, but
I'm not necessarily going to take him at ADP either.
My general rule of thumb in round one is if
I can kind of try and keep things fairly smooth,
like if all players could be above five percent, which
isn't that difficult to make happen. I mean, we're expecting
(25:25):
average exposure base rate is eight point three percent. If
you took each one of twelve players twelve times eight
point three, basically one hundred. So yeah, the thing to
be mindful of in round one is how much a
bad year from a Round one talent can absolutely crucify
your season. So last year, Christine McCaffrey, the one to
(25:47):
one in many drafts, had a four percent advance rate,
which was the lowest for any player in bestball Mania
on the DraftKings Millie Maker finalist team. Out of ony
twenty one teams, he was on zero point three percent
of them. Like, he was an absolute lineup killer, and
it can really harm you, which is why I think
it's worth being mindful and not going, Okay, I'm going
(26:10):
to take thirty percent, Jimmy Gibbs, I'm going to take
thirty percent Nico Collins, even if you believe that those
guys are guys who can be the difference making. I mean, look,
last year Jamar Chase was on forty five percent of
teams that made the BBM Finals. He was on a
healthy amount of DraftKings finals as well. So if you
(26:31):
hit on that right, then, don't get me wrong, you
could make a good amount of money. But it's weighing
that against saying, if that guy took tares his ACL
in week one or even before the season starts, how
much money have I just put down? And it can
be it can be quite difficult, and I think you
really have to balance how miserable you want to feel
(26:53):
throughout the entire fantasy football season, whereas later in drafts
it's so much easier to car zero. So the DraftKings
Millimaker team last year, we talked about this a few
weeks ago, but they had Trey McBride, who went off
in the final week of the season, finally scored a touchdown,
and he also had Theo Johnson and Bensonatt on his team. Now,
(27:16):
THEO Johnson got injured in Week thirteen, didn't have more
than eight points in any game all season, I don't think,
and then Benson not I think, combined to score about
nine points across the whole year. Like, those guys weren't
giving you anything. But that team invested really minimal amounts
of draft caple in them and they hit on Trey McBride.
You go to the Best bo Mania winner last year,
(27:40):
they got zilch from Jamaine Burton. They had a Bengals
megastack with t Higgins and Jamal Chase, but when everything
for them and they got absolutely nothing out of Jamaine
Burton all year. You can carry those kind of late
round players if you hit on your top end talents
and obviously if you can hit on the back end
talent as well. That's the ideal scenario with that's guys
(28:00):
like Jordan Love, Gino Smith, Jamal Williams, you know Kium
pook of list goes on of people oh the years,
like Andrew. Have there any particular guys this year that
you're getting into that back quarter of drafts and you're
willing to make quite a high level bet on them
being excellent this year?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Well, I just wrapped up or just submitted my late
round Best Ball Strategy piece to the Best Ball Draft kits.
So you think that this would be top of mind
for me, But I have to quickly look and see
some of the guys that I listed off here. So
the tippy or sorry, I just pulled it up right now.
So I did want to say, although he's not really
going super super late, I mean ra Sean Batman still is.
(28:42):
I think that he's a round twelve, round thirteen type
of guy. He's a player to me, and I know
you're asking about late run guys, but I think we
gotta we got to whack some poetic armor shot Baitman.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Because okay, you must.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
So Bateman. To me, I think that he's such a
great best ball pick because because right now, the opportunity's
not really there for him. We're projecting him. Okay, he
plays in a run heavy offense, but what if there's
an opportunity that changes. Because right now we're drafting a
lot of these teams like this, opportunities and situations aren't
going to change dramatically. All the depth Chartri said, we
(29:17):
know for the most part, who's number one wide receiver,
who's the number two receiver, who's the number one tight end.
So we'll get more of this information as training camp starts,
as injuries start to pile up, and as the season progresses.
But once the season starts, we can't draft more basketball
teams like it's over, So I want to lock and
load on guys that maybe they don't have the opportunity
right now. But if Shod Batman got an expanded role
in the Ravens offense, I think he would be great.
(29:39):
I really think that he could be effective again if
he doesn't get hurt. But he's coming off the season
we finally stayed healthy. He's not rehabbing another new injury
this offseason, so he styled in the Ravens. We're turning
down trade offers for Sean Baateman because they know he's
a good wide receiver. He's a former first round pick
and I think that he Looking at the Ravens offense
last year, this offense was relatively healthy, one of the
(30:00):
healthiest offense in the NFL last season. So if Save
Flowers miss his time, if Mark Andrews gets banged up again, yes,
Isaiah like that, I think is really exciting. But what
if Bateman is the guy that takes on a large role.
We saw when Save Flowers missed some time at the
end of last year, Baven really stepped up. He'd over
a thousand air yards last year. He also scored a
boatload of touchdowns, so maybe that's not replicable. But when
you have Lamar Jackson as your quarterback, I think that
(30:21):
you have a high ceiling inherently. And Rashad Batman to
me in round twelve, I think that he's way too
talented be going that late. And he's one guy that
I'm always circling regardless of my bills, honestly because of
where his where he wins, especially because he wins down
in the field and he sees targets in the red zone.
So maybe he doesn't get a boatload of targets, maybe
he's not getting ten targets per week, but when he
does get a target, he scores touchdown. Oh he catches
(30:43):
a forty yard touchdown.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Things like that high value, aren't they, And like he
had a higher catch rate than Zay Flowers despite his
average step for target being four point one yard steeper,
really show him towards the end of season. So I
love that call. I'll give you one in kind of
a similar ish range. Tyler lg is one of the
easiest clicks for me in every single draft. I just
find all the arguments that we build for Bijon Robinson
(31:07):
about why he can be the one O one overall
and I'm firmly in that camp. Look, it's naive to
say that Bijan couldn't get injured. And if Bijean gets injured,
then we've seen it from Tyler l J before. Now,
I'm not saying he can be the RB one overall,
but I think he can be a top twelve running
back for the rest of the season. From any point.
He's excellently you know, he's a very good pass catcher.
(31:30):
He finished top ten in duke rate last year, top
ten in miss tackles forced. Like, it's a guy who
has shown is it so? Okay? Andrew digging a little
bit deeper than that anybody towards the very ends of
rounds who you keep clicking?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Okay, So this is a guy that I think he
can be total zero.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Right, I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
I'm excited, but I think the talent is still there
in some shape or form. Deontay Johnson.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
I love Deontay Johnson. Yes, ah, I I was on
some of these show drafting with them last week and
we got to round twenty and I said, I interest
you and Deontay Johnson. It was a good little puff
piece from Mary Kay Cabot of the Brown Speed report
last week talking about how we have been line to
be you know, on the field and wide receiver two
(32:20):
sets and the girl I was drafting with almost screw up.
But Andrew carry on.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Well, when you look at chemistry with Brown's quarterbacks, right,
Jerry Judy doesn't have much chemistry with any of the
current Browns quarterback He wasn't there, you know, Joe Flacco.
They didn't overlap Joe Blackoe's chemistry, Cedric Tillman, Canny Pickett,
who did he play quarterback with at Pittsburgh with the
Pittsburgh Steelers, Deontay Johnson. So I hadn't even thought about
this scenario. Yeah, So is this a scenario where I
(32:50):
think that we're probably going to see three or four
quarterbacks play for the Browns. I know they have three
or four quarterbacks on the roster, but it could be
Flacco and then they go to Picket and then they
go to one of the rookies, and we don't know
what the rookies are going to do. So last year,
if I told you Cedric or if I told you
Jerry Judy or Deontay Johnson, who's better, right, You'd probably
be like, maybe it's a toss up. I mean at
(33:10):
that point, Deontay Johnson had had better seasons overall and
Jerry Judy Johns. So yes, Deontay Johnson obviously carries so
much baggage in terms of where he is mentally. He
was on three different team four different teams last year.
I don't even remember. I lost track, And clearly the
Steelers have a track record of moving on from Steelers
receivers before they kind of go off the deep end.
(33:31):
So yes, he could be a total zero nothing burger
as a twenty round pick. But I mean, if he's
a starter in three receiver sets on the Browns, who
could be one of the past happiest offenses in the NFL.
Then and he's talented, like he is a good wide
receiver when he is playing an offense that he cares about.
So in the twentieth round, I mean, you're gonna take
Deontay Johnson or players that we don't even know if
(33:54):
they're going to have roles in their offenses, like some
of these rookie receivers, and at rookie class that's not
that talented. So for me, Deontay Johnson just really pops up,
as are we just like totally overthinking this of a
player that we know is really talented, that commands targets
at a really high level, and basically last year was
a wash because Carolina was trying to offer him because
of the contract, and then he just couldn't really find
(34:16):
his footing with a new team. I mean, he wouldn't
be the first receiver to kind of not hit when
getting traded in season, Like that's hard for some guys.
And Amari Cooper he's not even on a team anymore, right,
He's still a free agent after getting traded, So yeah,
he could be a nothing burger. But I mean the
minute that they get reports he's starting and oh Kenny
Pickett and Deonta Johnson are flashing their chemistry from Pittsburgh,
(34:37):
Well he's not going to be in the twentyth round anymore.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah. I mean, look, if you guys want to find
out where we're of ranking these guys, you can head
over its fantasypros dot Com Forward slash beast Ball. The
twenty twenty five Best Ball Draft kit is absolutely live
right now. You not just get in strategy content stuff,
you are also getting the rankings. Include in Andrew Erickson,
who finished this the fifth best ranking my stro last
(35:01):
year in the overall draft kit. But there's stuff all
about how to correctly apply hero RB zero RB, whether
you can use robust r B, how to pittat the
running back dead zone, and so much more. Our Best
Ball draft kit is everything you need to draft smart
and wim big in Best Ball this season. Andrew, we
are going to hit on just a couple of listener
(35:21):
questions before we get out of here, and we've kind
of covered a little bit about this already. But Tim
in the discord, asked, can you go through your thought
process in different factors that go into your picks? How
maybe those factors change in the first third to the
middle third to the last third of the draft. Are
you focused on stacking? Are you focusing on Week seventeen matchups?
(35:45):
Just simply looking for ADP value? So for me and Andrew,
pop that into the chat just in case you want
to review that whilst kind of break us down. For me,
ADP is the first thing that comes into a lot
of because if I have a chance to grab somebody
who's falling way past ADP, that's a tried and tested
(36:07):
benefit to your team. Likely only have established a run
has done a lot of great work about how scooping
up ADP value generally tends to be a winning formula.
I mean, just look at the NFL draft. The teams
who trade back tend to net positive over the years.
So I want to scoop ADP value where I can
because that might allow me to push somebody else and
(36:28):
then get them at a later value. Then it comes
down to how does this pick compliment the players that
I've already drafted, Like, Am I making this pick just
because I like that player? Or does that give me
alternating by weeks? Does that give me a little correlation?
And then as we get towards the last kind of
third of the draft, that's where I'm just looking to
(36:49):
enhance that correlation. Whether it's through stacks, whether it's through
guaranteed touches at points in season where I need them,
Andrew anything that I've not covered there that you would
add to that conversation.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
I think that for I wouldn't any think that that's
a great kind of descriptor of the mindset that you're
kind of going through. And I know that I probably
overthink things when I'm in some of these slow drafts too,
where I'm looking probably more and more in depth at
certain turns about stacking and you know what does this
I guess a question, And I'm curious Tom if you
ask yourself this too, And I think that yes, scooping
(37:21):
up ADP value is a really easy way. You know, Hey,
this is how you build a good team, like build
scoop up the values that fall to you. But asking
myselfs in the draft room at the time of the picks,
is what's the best pick that this team needs right now?
You know, because in a vacuum it's easy to talk.
And that's how we have to talk about these players
a lot of the time, because we're not always talking
(37:41):
about them in accordance with a team.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Now.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
It's a little different on streams when we do actually
talk about it in relationship the team that we're actually selecting.
But because different teams need different things and sometimes as painly,
as painful as it can be, sometimes you have to
forgo an ADP value because it just doesn't fit what
you're trying to do. It's going to kind of get
you off of the script that you're writing for your
team because it's just, hey, like you drafted a lot
(38:06):
of these teams this isn't the time to take on
a scooping Joe Burrow or but Joe Burrow that's fallowing.
You have no Bengals receivers, Like you're not gonna do this,
so like you got to look the other way. Someone
else is gonna get a great value tipic ap to them.
But for your team, you don't need to pick Joe
Burrow two rounds after ADP because you already drafted Jalen
Hurtz or something along those.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
This this is a brilliant point and it's something that
really matters. It's you know, it's complimentary drafting saying how
how does this work for the team, and that matters
so much. One conversation, it's been a bit of a
hot topic on Twitter recently, has been zero RB after
it kind of was fantastic in twenty twenty three one
(38:45):
people millions of dollars playing basketball, and then last year
when everybody was leaning into zero RB, it was catastrophic
ahead like an eight percent advance rate, which is like
half as good as you'd expect just to be average.
So people are talking about whether it's where the current
landscape allows you to do it. But the one thing
that people were kind of getting wrong last year with
(39:07):
zero RB, people were prioritizing just hammering the wide receiver
position because there were so many wide receivers being pushed
off aboard if they didn't want to fall behind. Now
you go back and look at the kind of original
four process behind zero RB that Sean Siegull wrote in
twenty thirteen, and Sean pointed out back then that part
it's not just prioritizing wide receiver. It's prioritizing archetypes, saying
(39:32):
I would like to get the elite high end. I
would like to get a quarterback with massive upsides. So
I build this overall monster of a team. And then
when you do start taking shots on running back, it's
not just saying, right, I just need running back. I
just need running back. It's also looking for the late
season breakouts. So if you're building a team that way,
it's understanding what you're getting, and it's if you're playing
(39:54):
the polar opposite of that and going with a robust
r B team, is there any sense in taking just
a volume monster in the kind of like round round eleven,
Round twelve, range even round ten, Like if you've gone
out and drafted I don't know, say Christian McCaffrey, Derrick
Henry and then fourth round Kenneth Walker, does adding Giovante
(40:19):
Williams add anything whatsoever to your team. No, you're much
better taking the upside swing on Jaden Blue and saying like, now,
I'm not necessarily somebody who's drafting a lot of Jaden Blue,
but at least Jayden Blue would potentially give you something
of the unknown, something that could hit in a big way.
And if he fails, it's okay because you need those
(40:41):
early round running backs to really pay off in a
massive way anyway. So it's kind of looking at that combination.
So yeah, I think that's really smart. We got one
more question from Mano Mitch again from the Discord. If
you've got questions about anything to do with best ball
dropping in the Discord and myself and Andrew, we will
try and get to as many as possible or you
can always finds on Twitter. But Mitch asks, how many
(41:02):
quarterbacks are you trying to get in super flex drafts
in the first five rounds to feel good?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
I love this question because nobody feels good when you
wait a quarterback and super dressed, because you're sweat and
bullets because you get nervous because if you fall too
behind or you fly too close to the sun with
these super flex quarterbacks, you can get cooked. Yeah, and
then you have a team that potentially can't compete and
you're just paying the rake, and that's not fun. That
(41:30):
being said, there's also a strategic element to waiting correctly
and then hitting on that second quarterback a little bit
later on. So to answer the question, it would be
two quarterbacks. Like, if you get two within five for
the first five rounds, you're feeling good. I think that
anyone that drafts two quarterbacks kind of start things out.
You're gonna feel good about your team. You're gonna feel better.
You don't feel like, oh, I'm behind the eight ball.
(41:52):
That being said, you can build better teams. I think
if you at least try to wait a little bit,
because you can just get so much value meet the
skill position players. You can get elite guys who I
think just get undervalued in the super flex formans because
everybody's afraid of Oh I don't want to fall out
of the quarterback conversation altogether.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Well, let's go back to a week ago right here
on this channel, right about now, we were putting the
ends to an underdog super flex puppy draft where we
took Jama Chase Justin Jefferson as our first two picks,
and then we had Jordan Love and c J. Stroud,
So we got through first five rounds and we just
had the two quarterbacks. We also had Kenneth Walker at
(42:33):
pick sixty six, and then we had George Kittle at
pick fifty five, So it's like, really, those first five
rounds were two wide receivers, two quarterbacks, and a tight
end for us before we took a first running back,
and that team felt like a monster. Now we took
some sizeable swings of running back later on after pick
one hundred, we ended up with eight running backs compared
(42:53):
to six wide receivers on that team, and our last
two quarterbacks we went with Tyler Schuck pick ninety and
then Jalen mill Rowe at pick one hundred and seventy five.
So my kind of feeling with super flex is you
never want to start a run of quarterbacks if you're
not in the first round, like I would much rather
be midway through the run because quarterback scoring. If you're
(43:16):
not talking about Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen Jaden Daniels. Quarterback
scoring is so replaceable. These guys are going to score
between sixteen and twenty one points most weeks, and you
can survive that. What you can't survive is coming in
up against the team with Jamar Chase and Justin Jefferson
who go out and put up thirty five points or
more in a week. And your top wide receiver is
(43:39):
I don't know, Khalil Shakir or George Pickins, guys who
could be a bit more a bit more variable, shall
we say so? Yeah, I'd definitely try to not get
over zealous with the quarterback position in twenty round formats.
I'm generally looking for four QB bills as play data
(44:00):
out there that says in best ball formats for QB bills,
even taking a late shot can be advantageous. But my
quarterback three is pretty much always coming after round six.
I just I can't have it in me to spend
three picks on a quarterback in first six rounds.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
I have two other points on the super flex front.
I would say number one that this is probably where
so the Fantasy Pros Draft Wizard Draft Tool Draft assistant
with Draft Intel getting the Intel on your league, especially
in Superflex, this is one of the biggest edges you
can get because the key with super Flex a lot
(44:38):
of the time is just trying to figure out when
are the quarterbacks going to be drafted because it changes
all over the place. It's why there's really no true
super flex ADP. Now, when you have a format like
Underdog that's probably in its truest format, you're not going
to see quarterbacks probably fall too dramatically because there is
an ADP that's there. But whether they're playing on Sleeper,
whether they're playing on ESPN, there's not enough mock draft
(45:00):
for there to be enough data on Superflex, so it's
kind of all over the place, and it's based on
how the drafters are doing in that room and how
do you find that information with draft Intel, So if
you're in a super Flex league, you need to make
sure you look at that tool because they will help
you significantly because if you know when the quarterback runs
are going to go and when they're going to start,
and who takes quarterbacks and who doesn't, well you can
(45:21):
have your cake and eat it too, so you can
draft these elite players at the skill positions without getting
boxed out of quarterback because you know when the quarterback
runs are going to happen. So that's one point I
wanted to make, And then the other one is I
think that there's a big difference between full PPR and
half PPR when it comes to super flex formats because quarterbacks,
especially rushing quarterbacks, where they score six rushing points per touchdown, like,
(45:43):
they score so many more points than all the other positions,
So it's really hard to catch up to those teams
where you're having a quarterback score like thirty points, you know,
seemingly every other week, and your running back, receivers and
tight ends are only scoring half PPR points, whereas in
full PPA, Okay, now you can have more. There are
more skill players that can actually match some of the
(46:05):
lesser known quarterbacks. So I'm even willing to push quarterbacks
farther down the board in super flex, probably least my
second quarterback because for PPR, these running backs that catch
passes and score points as rushers in score touchdowns like
they can, they can stack up with some of these
second secondary quarterbacks. So keep that in mind. That PPR
(46:26):
verus half PPR, I think it matters a lot for
super flex, I don't think it's really talked about enough.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Love that point, which feels like a great point to
send us out on. And look, if you've enjoyed ves conversation,
if you made it this far, I'm going to assume
that you're going to smash the light button down below
and make sure you subscribe to Fantasy Pros YouTube channel.
But next week we'll be back in the best ball streets.
Each and every week we'll be talking best ball until
the season starts. Right here, Twitch dot tv, forward slash
Fantasy Pros. Come along, draft with us, talk strategy with us,
(46:54):
snipers on our picks. If you dare, we will still
try and build a good team myself and thank you
all season long for us and producer sef. We truly
appreciate you hanging out and we will catch you next time.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Just don't take away from Shadbaban from us.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Please thanks for listening to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Football podcast.
If you love the show, the best freeway to support
us is by leaving a positive review on Apple podcasts,
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Speaker 2 (47:19):
Review, or on Spotify.
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Slash Fantasypros
Yes, it is July, which means football is right around
the corner, which means redraft as well as Best Ball,
is going to take over for the next few weeks,
and if you've been drafting a lot of teams, it's
time to kind of consider how to adapt to redraft
and how to take the best possible approach to your
league's this year. Andrew as someone who ranked top five
(00:23):
in the Fantasy Pros Expert consensus frank is for twenty
twenty four drafts. What stands out for most you when
it comes to adapting for twenty twenty five when you've
been drafting a lot of Best Ball drafts and then
looking at redraft, Well, I.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Know, for me, I have to take some time off
of drafting bestball teams. I need to kind of reset
the brain into redraft mode, into I actually have to
push the start button on these certain players. So as
great as it sounds to say, oh man, this wide
receiver is gonna have so many spike week it's gonna
be great. I never have to project when to start them.
Not the case in redraft. You have to be able
(00:57):
to click the button and think, oh my god, I
have to put Kean Coleman in my starting lineup. Am
I going to feel good about that in Week one? Maybe?
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Not so.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
I think that's one of the big things. And I
think with Best Ball it's obvious that it sets your
lineup automatically, but one of the things that's different is
there's no access to the waiver wire, and we know
how integral the waiver wire, playing the waiver wire during
your redraft league, how important that is to building a
winning team. And I think that you made it a
great point in the outline Tom where you talked about
(01:27):
the later rounds and Best Ball drafts, where you're getting
into fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, evening twenty rounds, you're
basically trying to draft the waiver wire players before they
become available on the waiver arg before they become targets
in redraft leagues.
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Yeah, massively so, because, like you spin berk to a
couple of years ago, Karen Williams Pookinikuba were guys who
in the vast majority of redraft leagues, if you're talking
about fifteen rounds, potentially we're undrafted and they with the
guys that you could unload for and you know, you
felt confident paying massive amounts for, But we don't have
(02:02):
that in Best Ball. So I think in Best Ball,
this is the time of year where we want to
start shaping our takes. You know, we've had the off season,
we've had OTAs, we've had mini camps, We've had so
many pieces of information that start to give us an advantage,
and we if you've been drafting, then you know what
the pockets in the draft are like. Currently, there's this
(02:24):
round eight to around round twelve range where there's so
many quarterbacks, are so many tight ends, and I kind
of strongly believe that for Best Bawl, if you can
hit on the best quarterback and the best tight end
in that range is probably going to lead to being
quite profitable. But in redraft every year we see it
like as you say, you need a break, you need
(02:45):
like a cleansed mind and prepare yourself for redraft because
ad is so different and nothing is as different to
mock drafts or anything like that as your home league
is like my home league is to keep a league,
so val always throws things a little bit. But like
you can go from drafting on a site like Underdog,
which is quite wide receiver heavy to go in and
(03:07):
look in at redraft ADPs and rather than being five
running backs in the first round, you might be seeing
six seven. We're seeing guys like Chris McCaffrey now firmly
in the first round, but then Ashton Gent, Derek Henry,
Devin Na Channa kind of all around that turn. Does
your approach of running back position in general switch when
you're drafting in redraft compared to Best Ball?
Speaker 2 (03:27):
I think it does. I think it always has to
change a little bit. And I think that J. J.
Zacheresen brought up a good point on his Best Ball
show where he talks about how the what you can
take from Best Ball ADP that you can apply to
redraft is the way that the players are ranked in positions. Right,
so you're taking the running back ranking, so those maybe
not won't change as much. Maybe you get a little
bit different when it comes to rookie players, but for
(03:49):
the most part, you're going to see the better running
back kind of go in the same order. But it's
where they are drafted overall that changes from Best Ball
to Redraft Because of again, underdog is very wide receiver heavy.
You're not going to see that in your redraft home leagues,
you're going to see more running backs taken. So just
considering that, and I think that that's why we talk
about using the mock draft simulator, especially when you can
(04:10):
sync it to your specific league, especially when you use
draft Intel, where it can tell you exactly how often
running backs do go based on your historical trends and
data for each Pacific manager in that league. They say
that Jovirahm Accounting always takes a running back in round three.
So when it happens, you're like, I was ready for this.
I knew this was going to happen, and you can
adjust on the fly accordingly and even be prepared for
(04:32):
that to happen. So that's kind of my approach with it.
I think that you can definitely get an opportunity to
get better receivers later on. So yes, maybe you feel
a little And that's part of the reason why I
talked about earlier where you have to get out of
the best ball mindset because if I think, oh, I'll
just get all these receivers, There're gonna be so many
late receivers that I like, and I'm like, these guys
are usually never here, so I wish I'd taken running
back a little bit earlier and give usted more traft
(04:53):
capital earlier on at running back versus waiting for receiver,
because I didn't really have to.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
Yeah, I think it's such an point point, because you
know you, I know your typical leanings towards a hero
RB built in Best Ball mine over the last two years,
it's been hero RB and zero RB, and I'm very
comfortable pushing the boundaries of zero RB and really testing
just how far you can push it as long as
I've got that elite quarterback and elite tie. And but
(05:20):
in redraft leagues, the running backs get pushed up so
quickly that you might be thinking, right, well, I'm going
to hit on this tier where there's guys like DeAndre Swift,
you know, James Connor, and I'm going to be okay.
But before you know it, particularly if you're at a
turn in redraft leagues, it can get wiped out and
(05:41):
it can be very difficult to recover from that because
then you're immediately in a situation where you are forced
to make aggressive swings on waivers. Now, look the year
that Puka and Nakua and Karen Williams were waiver wire
heroes or even Jamaal Williams the year before that that's fine,
back can work out. Last year, I'm not sure if
(06:03):
there were many successful wave wire guys like Isaiah Likely
was the guy that everybody was taking a huge swing
on last year after that tight end one performance where
he had like over twenty five points against the Chiefs
in Week one, and then he ended up being very
not good. Let's just say for fantasy football, particularly redraft
(06:25):
leagues for the vast majority of the season until late on.
So do you have particular positions where you're willing to
be more aggressive in redrafts compared to your approach to
them in Best Ball?
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I think that's a really great question. I know that
I think that I do prefer elite tight end a
little bit more in the best ball format than necessarily
redraft because I think that having access to the waiver wire,
we see that a lot of early round tight ends,
especially last year, they busted at a really high rate
and late round was definitely the way to go. And
we see late round tight ends produce every single we
(07:00):
see a guy that drastically outproduces his ADP. If I'm
betting on one guy to do that this year at
stuck a craft for me, like, like, that's the guy
that I'm circling as my kind of late to the
middle round tight end to draft, especially in redraft forms
and in best Ball. So I think that's one thing
I'll I'll change a little bit. I think that the
archetype of player is also important to recognize talking about
(07:20):
how you feel about clicking a player, like does this
guy get volume? Right? You can't bank on efficiency as much,
I would say, just because you need to have that
projectable volume that you feel confident faith putting a player
into your lineup every single week. Whereas again, when it's
best ball and it's automatically scoring, you're less dependent on oh,
he has to get the targets this week. If he
doesn't get the target this week, it's okay, someone else
(07:42):
can pick up the slack.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
So does that affect kind of your approach to rookies,
because like in most fastball drafts, I'm looking at and
it's like, right, I want probably three to four rookies minimum,
particularly in a year where we've got a good class,
because rookies typically can be some of most undervalued assets
in fantasy. Like you look back. Even Jama Chase when
he came out was what like round four.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
No.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Obviously, Marvin Harrison last year was the polar opposite and
was overvalued, but we've had plenty of other guys that
have been massively big wins compared to what their ADP
has been. Do you feel better say I'm only going
to take the rookies I have supreme confidence in earlier
on in drafts, and then later on I've just played waivers,
(08:25):
or do you see it kind of more as a
situation where it's like you're just leaning on your gut
instincts about those players.
Speaker 2 (08:32):
I think it's better to take the swings on the
rookies that just are coming out a little bit more
of a discount, and even that that's comparing it to
the other rookies in their specific draft class, because I
think that sometimes gets lost in the rookie analysis, where
the reason why rookies have been so good in fantasy
football is because they're usually cheaper. It's really been the
last couple of years where their prices started to increasing
increase increase, and now we're getting more rookies that I
(08:55):
would say bust because the expectations coming in are so
so high Aran Harrison. If he had been going last
year the same range as Milik Neighbors, he still would
have been disappointing, but not to the extent that he
was as a basically a round one two fringe pick.
So that's something to keep in mind that you know,
kind of ask yourself. Most rookies have to face some
(09:15):
type of hurdle as year one players. I know that
someone that I've been kind of warming on it says
I think about is a guy like Dylan Samson, where
you know he's kind of buried because there's another really
talented rookie in his on his on the same team.
The Browns drafted two rookie unning backs. But part of
me is always thinking, man, any veteran has to just
be looking over their shoulder because a rookie got drafted
(09:36):
in this class. I mean, I just want as much
exposure to this rookie unning back class as possible. And
that's not going unnoticed by the market. A lot of
these rookies are steamed up. But when there's two rookies
in the same backfield where the market has decided, well, no,
it's quin John Junkins like he is the guy because
he got drafted first. And maybe that's the case, but
Dylan Sampson was a really talented player in his own right.
And it's also the Browns, right if this is the
(09:57):
worst office in the NFL, can Quinn John Jenkins hurt
me if I don't draft him in this Browns offense
is terrible? So those are things I'm looking for. And
I think even of the top rookie running backs, I
like Cale Johnson a lot too. He goes a lot
later than some other guys because he was drafted in
the third round. But I think the Steelers if they
had a second round pick, they probably would have taken
Cale Johnson, but they didn't have one, and they just
(10:17):
got lucky that he fell to him. So those are
things that I kind of been thinking about when it
comes to like floor and versus ceiling with the rookies.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, And that's like such a good point because it's
like floor feels like something much more viable in re
draft league than ceiling. Like so, like contrast this with
the DraftKings Milli Maker Final last year. There was ony
twenty one teams in the final. The winning team had
(10:44):
to hit on not just the players who carry you there,
which last year was Brian Thomas, Like just Jefferson, mont
Rasse and Brown were all some of the wide receivers
who carried players, where Jered Guff who was forty percent rusted,
was one of those players. But then when you're in
the you have to be able to have enough of
the differential and the roster of that when it will
(11:05):
last year taking home like two million dollars or one
point five million dollars whatever it was, they had only
three players on their roster who were more than ten
percent owned in that final. I think Bucky Irving was
one of them, Brian Thomas the other, and then Jared Goff.
So in best ball, we're always trying to say, well,
let's look for ceiling and whether that comes through stacks,
(11:26):
where that comes from bringbacks. But in redraft there is
a lot to be said for flow now obviously, like
if your league rewards most points scored, or if there's
some plays like on FFPC redraft where Week six you
have an all play format where every team in the
league isn't playing a direct head to head. You were
(11:47):
just it's the six teams you've scored most points that
week get the win the six teams, you don't get
the lost so understanding that is definitely there. But I
think you can you can survive a lot easier in
ret and just make the playoffs and just simply bet
on having the right players at the right time. And
I think so much of that kind of comes back
to conviction, comes back to rankings, comes back to all
(12:11):
the little things that we preach here over a Fantasy pros.
But one point which we should probably touch on is
bye week strategy. Like in Best Ball, I don't really
consider bye week strategy too much. Like obviously, if you're
going with a double tight end build or a two
QB build, having them both on the same bye week
(12:31):
could be pretty catastrophic, particularly in like a total points
format like Drafters, where if you end up taking the
zero that week, it is really going to harm you.
But do you have a particular strategy that you tend
to go for with redraft? The one strategy I play
every year is trying to find a kicker with a
really late by week, so I can just set it
and forget it because I just don't want to deal
with kickers. But Graham, commissioner of a league, does a
(12:52):
great job. Shout out of Graham, but please let's get
rid of kickers. Let's make this the year.
Speaker 2 (12:59):
Tom's doing the lazy man's guy to uh kift kickers.
Just take the guy on the latest buy week. That's
that's how you do it. Yeah, some people say it's lazy,
but you just think it's smart. So if you even
if it works out, I can't, I can't, Uh, I
can't push against it.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
I think for me, I mean sorry, just to be
if it was any money involved in the home league,
then maybe I play it differently. But overthles, get out
of my life. Kickers.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
I just look for kickers that playing domes like that's
basically the amount of kicker. And Arizona Cardinals have thirteen
games indoors this season, the most many NFL teams, So
keep that in mind.
Speaker 1 (13:32):
Google Arizona Cardinals kicker?
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Is it Zan Gonzalez? I cannot remember?
Speaker 1 (13:37):
Was it Matt Prayer? For a while?
Speaker 2 (13:40):
He was the guy that was there for a long time.
I don't know if he's there anymore. Remember Zan Gonzalez
was there for a cup of coffee at some point.
I don't know who the kicker is, right, it's Matt Freyer.
It's Matt Freer and Chad Ryland, who is the Patriots
draft picked a couple of years ago, who I'm sure
you remembered. But yeah, just sign me up to Matt
Prey and Matt Pray has still got a good leg.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
We are all aboard. There is twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
The Freighter Creators. Oh man, how is that the first
time I've ever heard that? And I feel like I've
drafted my prayer and a lot of my fantasy teams
throughout the years. Wow, that is that is legendary.
Speaker 1 (14:13):
Tom.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
You just can continue out to yourself. So bye week
strategy for me. So again, you don't have waivers in
the best ball format, so you do have to fill
these bye weeks in some way, some short, some form.
I kind of wanted to pick your brain though, Tom,
about when you draft players on the same bye weeks
at the quarterback position, at the tight end position in
(14:35):
a way to get unique. I thought that, I know
that's a conversation that people have brought up in terms
of well, a lot of people aren't doing it because, Okay,
it doesn't really make a lot of sense because you
are going to take a zero for that particular week,
but now you're getting in a combination of players. Now,
I haven't looked and seen if there are teams that
play in Week seventeen that also have the same bye week,
so I'm not sure if that would be kind of
(14:55):
the ultimate correlation play. But what we were thinking, well.
Speaker 1 (14:58):
I was just going to say, like train Bride brought
Bowers as one that I know a lot of people
are starting in the scott fish Bowl drafts right now,
and the scoring in scott fish Bowl is always quite funky.
It always benefits tight ends quite a lot, and I've
seen people talking about wanting the double dip on the
tight ends, and it's also something which I'm doing a
lot of FFPC super Flex drafts at the minute. FFPC
(15:20):
reward tight ends with the Titan premium, and there's times
where you're at the back end of round one picking
like ninth tenth where brock Bowers falls to you, and
you're like, if this comes back around, can I punt
quarterback and just go double elite tight end, which is
which is a strategy which has worked a little bit
on f FPC over the years. But the problem is
(15:41):
they have the same bi week, So is it worth
saddling up and saying I can get a huge amount
of points from these guys week to week. Be quite
unique because a lot of people will be avoiding this
and then just stick at two or are you gonna
have to twist and got three? So yeah, my general
feeling is I'm a little it's scared of doing it
and scared money. Don't make no money, So I will
(16:03):
mix it in occasionally, but it's it's not comfortable you
with me, or do you kind of stray against that.
Speaker 2 (16:10):
I think that I probably would stray against I think
that when you have when you're max entering a lot
of these teams, if you're putting one hundred and fifty
lineups into some of these bigger tournaments, I think that
there's a case to be made to hey, we got
to get wild at some points, like we got to
do some weird things just to kind of get unique.
But I would say if you're more of a normal
best ball draft, or you're looking more at twenty five
(16:31):
to fifty teams, I don't think that that's necessarily necessary
to draft players on purpose that have the same by
weing now, I'm sure that people have done it by accident,
or in some of these pre draft best ball leagues
where you didn't know when they would the bye weeks
would happen, so naturally you have some uniqueness in those
types of formats. So maybe that's kind of Hey, I
(16:51):
got plenty of exposure to quarterbacks with the same bye
weeks already. I don't need to overindulge like you alluded
to where you're taking a zero on purpose. So I
I think I agree with you. I think that it's
probably just, Hey, it doesn't take that much effort to
just make sure your quarterbacks and your Titans don't have
the same bye weeks. But besides that, I'm not necessarily
worried about, oh well I have too many receivers or
running backs, but the same bye week. As long as
(17:13):
you have enough guys, I think for the in the aggregate,
I think that you'll be okay. And you know some
of your players are going to get hurt anyway, So
even if you think that you're okay for one week,
you know injuries might happen and you're going to end
up taking some zeros anyway.
Speaker 1 (17:24):
Yeah, and in redraft, like I'll just I'm completely fine
with that. I think it's one of those things that
you can just if people are fading somebody because of
a bye week or anything like that, it's just a
chance for you to be a scoop it up. But look,
no draft tonight. We are just chatting all things strategy.
But next week we'll be back in the Best Ball
streets and each and every Monday all the way through
(17:46):
until the season starts. Myself, Tom Struck, and Andrew Exon,
who you of course know, We're just going to try
and help you dominate your best ball drafts all someome along.
We'll talk strategy, stack, sleeper is so much more, we'll
talk about the many great articles in the Fantasy Pros
Best Ball Kit, and we'll be in those drafts with yourself.
If you are over here on Twitch, Twitch dot tv
(18:06):
forward Slash Fantasy Pros, you will be able to see
when we jump into those drafts. You will be at
a draft alongside, as we will happily give you feedback
on your draft as well as listening to any criticisms
you've got about ours, because occasionally we've been known to
click the wrong button or pull a player up way
above ADP, but that's all part of a fun and
(18:27):
game and why its advantage just for you to come
and draft against us. So yes, each and every Monday,
four pm Eastern over on twitch Twitch dot tv Forward
Slash Fantasy pros get involved as we try me It's
the best best ball summer ever. Andrew, Let's talk about
another aspect of best ball that felt like this was
a good time in the offseason to get to all
(18:49):
about spreading exposures out. So, look, your risk tolerance plays
a big part in how you want to build a
best ball portfolio. Now, if you're just drafting ten fifty teams,
then by all means go pick the guys that you want,
unless this is like you know, ten K buyings or
something like that. But if you are just here to
have a bit of fun, you just enjoy low stakes drafting,
(19:12):
perhaps then get the guys you want. Have for conviction,
because ultimately, this is your money. You're the person who
should feel best about how you spend it for at
least now. But if you're building a portfolio of teams,
I mean last year I was close to four hundred,
it can definitely pay off to take a varied sort
(19:32):
of portfolio, deciding which rounds you want to be heavy
on players My kind of rule of fun is a
bit of a sliding scale. Round one to three, I
don't really want to be much above fifteen percent on
a player. Round four to six that kind of increases
up to twenty percent, Round seven to ten twenty five percent,
and then round eleven to fourteen thirty percent, and then
(19:54):
the last five six rounds thirty five percent. There's never
really been a point where I've stopped drafting because I've
hit these, but those that's just kind of like a
rough guideline. I like to keep an eye on my
portfolio of players and say, right, you've gone above where
you feel confident normally, is it time to stop drafting
that player, or is it time to double down and
(20:15):
really say that this is the year, this is the player.
And the reason why it's kind of beneficial to do
this is just we see so many late breakouts from
guys you know, last year, for two years in a row,
we've kind of seen it at a tight end in
twenty twenty three, Sam Laport last year, Johnny Smith, zach Ertz.
You go back to the Karen William, Puoka and Nakua
(20:36):
year like and no matter how good any of us are.
Analysis we do have to kind of be humble and
say there's a lot that goes on in fantasy football
that we just can't predict that we don't know where
to coming from, Like Zay Jones breakout year, the Jamal
Williams breakout year, these players who haven't necessarily shown it
to us. So having spread out your exposure can be
(20:59):
an easy your way of maybe hitting on these players.
Andrew thinking about specifically round one, what's like the lowest
and the highest that you'd be kind of willing to
go on players based on this year's ADP.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
So I'm glad that you brought this up because I
was thinking about when it comes to fading players in
best Ball. And so I'm someone that doesn't draft nearly
as many teams as you do, So I've drafted more
teams this year with fast draft just because it's really easy.
It's again, they're really fast drafts, so it's really easy
for me to draft a lot of teams, especially with
the Turbo mode. But in terms of DraftKings, underdog drafters,
(21:36):
these types of drafts, I'm probably more in the fifty
range overall, So that does give me some What.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I've found help is if you draft five teams at once,
but tends to speed FI up and you get more
drafts of just say.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
That is that is true? So again more tips from
Tom just exactly how to how to win it. Life
is doing this. So for me, I feel like I
can be a little bit more. I guess the word
is it will be aggressive in terms of having like
a fade guys a little bit harder. I can be
exposed to the guys a little bit harder when it
comes to drafting, just less teams. Like you said at
(22:08):
the beginning, get your guys that you want on your teams.
So I'll peel back a little bit with exposures to players,
specifically on fast Draft. When it's guys I have ranked
back to back, obviously I'm taking the guy I have
ranked higher and more often than the guy I have
ranked below him. But when I look at the exposures
and I see one guys up at fifty percent and
one guys at ten percent, I think, Okay, I don't
(22:29):
need to keep drafting this particular player. You know, prime
example will probably be some of the Jets players, So
Garrett Wilson and Bresol, so they going round three. I
probably have an unhealthy amount of Garrett Wilson. And now
I'm ready. Okay, I've got my fund with Garrett Wilson.
I've made the bet that Justin Fields can he give
be Dj Moore in this offense, And now I'm ready
to draft Bresaw like like, that's who I want if
(22:49):
I'm going to be drafting a Jets player. And Tom
is laughing at me because clearly drafting Jets players is
just it's it's not going to work this year. But
that that's besides the point.
Speaker 1 (22:58):
Well, also, just Seth put in a private chat producer
Sef put tips from Tom sounds like a good segment
from the show. Maybe we will have to run that back.
But yes, sorry, I mean, well, we talked about it
last year when the Jets players were in Round one,
like drafting two Jets players highly won't possibly go wrong.
Speaker 2 (23:13):
And yeah, I mean no, it's round three at least
at least it's round three this time and not round one.
But I would say, yeah, I'm more prompt to probably
fads some guys entirely, like Sequon Barkley for me. Again,
I've talked about the touches, the workout he's coming off
of if he's a top five pick and I'm not
drafting enough teams where I feel, oh, I just have
(23:34):
to draft at least a couple of Saquon teams just
in case he does stay healthy and he completely goes
on another sun run, because that's still in a range
of outcomes. Again, he could stay healthy the entire year.
It could be wrong. He could be Ezekiel Elliott when
he was in the first guy to return a top
five finish after leaving the NFL and touches. So it's
not impossible. But when I'm only drafting fifty teams, okay,
(23:55):
I can take a fade on Saquon Barkley and the
other guy that I'm not super high on the round
one is I'm on Ross Saint Brown, where I just
think that there's a lot of other guys. I like
the other lines. Pripe Lions priced players more than Saint Brown,
and he had this weird offseason surgery that we just
kind of heard about and we didn't really get that
many details about it, and he missed kind of all
the OTAs with the new offense. John Warren comes in.
(24:16):
The first thing he says is Jameson Williams breakout season.
I just like that means a lot to me that
the guy coming in again he was with the lines
in twenty twenty two, but was with them for the
last two seasons and immediately steps in and just says, hey, yeah,
Jameson Williams breakout season. That just I don't know, that
means a lot to me. So those are two guys
in the round one for an example that I would
be comfortable not clicking the button on basically ever. But
(24:37):
would I do that if I was drafting one hundred
and fifty teams. Probably not.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah, Like Round one in particular, this year feels like
such a strong year. There's very few guys, But I
want to take any kind of conviction on Saques, not
somebody that necessarily overly high on. But I think it's
like when you're drafting multiple hundreds of teams, there will
be occasions where it's like you can get sake one
(25:02):
Barkley at pick five, pick six, and it's like, Okay, well,
maybe that gives me access to a slightly different build.
So I'm not going to pass him up now, but
I'm not necessarily going to take him at ADP either.
My general rule of thumb in round one is if
I can kind of try and keep things fairly smooth,
like if all players could be above five percent, which
isn't that difficult to make happen. I mean, we're expecting
(25:25):
average exposure base rate is eight point three percent. If
you took each one of twelve players twelve times eight
point three, basically one hundred. So yeah, the thing to
be mindful of in round one is how much a
bad year from a Round one talent can absolutely crucify
your season. So last year, Christine McCaffrey, the one to
(25:47):
one in many drafts, had a four percent advance rate,
which was the lowest for any player in bestball Mania
on the DraftKings Millie Maker finalist team. Out of ony
twenty one teams, he was on zero point three percent
of them. Like, he was an absolute lineup killer, and
it can really harm you, which is why I think
it's worth being mindful and not going, Okay, I'm going
(26:10):
to take thirty percent, Jimmy Gibbs, I'm going to take
thirty percent Nico Collins, even if you believe that those
guys are guys who can be the difference making. I mean, look,
last year Jamar Chase was on forty five percent of
teams that made the BBM Finals. He was on a
healthy amount of DraftKings finals as well. So if you
(26:31):
hit on that right, then, don't get me wrong, you
could make a good amount of money. But it's weighing
that against saying, if that guy took tares his ACL
in week one or even before the season starts, how
much money have I just put down? And it can
be it can be quite difficult, and I think you
really have to balance how miserable you want to feel
(26:53):
throughout the entire fantasy football season, whereas later in drafts
it's so much easier to car zero. So the DraftKings
Millimaker team last year, we talked about this a few
weeks ago, but they had Trey McBride, who went off
in the final week of the season, finally scored a touchdown,
and he also had Theo Johnson and Bensonatt on his team. Now,
(27:16):
THEO Johnson got injured in Week thirteen, didn't have more
than eight points in any game all season, I don't think,
and then Benson not I think, combined to score about
nine points across the whole year. Like, those guys weren't
giving you anything. But that team invested really minimal amounts
of draft caple in them and they hit on Trey McBride.
You go to the Best bo Mania winner last year,
(27:40):
they got zilch from Jamaine Burton. They had a Bengals
megastack with t Higgins and Jamal Chase, but when everything
for them and they got absolutely nothing out of Jamaine
Burton all year. You can carry those kind of late
round players if you hit on your top end talents
and obviously if you can hit on the back end
talent as well. That's the ideal scenario with that's guys
(28:00):
like Jordan Love, Gino Smith, Jamal Williams, you know Kium
pook of list goes on of people oh the years,
like Andrew. Have there any particular guys this year that
you're getting into that back quarter of drafts and you're
willing to make quite a high level bet on them
being excellent this year?
Speaker 2 (28:21):
Well, I just wrapped up or just submitted my late
round Best Ball Strategy piece to the Best Ball Draft kits.
So you think that this would be top of mind
for me, But I have to quickly look and see
some of the guys that I listed off here. So
the tippy or sorry, I just pulled it up right now.
So I did want to say, although he's not really
going super super late, I mean ra Sean Batman still is.
(28:42):
I think that he's a round twelve, round thirteen type
of guy. He's a player to me, and I know
you're asking about late run guys, but I think we
gotta we got to whack some poetic armor shot Baitman.
Speaker 1 (28:51):
Because okay, you must.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
So Bateman. To me, I think that he's such a
great best ball pick because because right now, the opportunity's
not really there for him. We're projecting him. Okay, he
plays in a run heavy offense, but what if there's
an opportunity that changes. Because right now we're drafting a
lot of these teams like this, opportunities and situations aren't
going to change dramatically. All the depth Chartri said, we
(29:17):
know for the most part, who's number one wide receiver,
who's the number two receiver, who's the number one tight end.
So we'll get more of this information as training camp starts,
as injuries start to pile up, and as the season progresses.
But once the season starts, we can't draft more basketball
teams like it's over, So I want to lock and
load on guys that maybe they don't have the opportunity
right now. But if Shod Batman got an expanded role
in the Ravens offense, I think he would be great.
(29:39):
I really think that he could be effective again if
he doesn't get hurt. But he's coming off the season
we finally stayed healthy. He's not rehabbing another new injury
this offseason, so he styled in the Ravens. We're turning
down trade offers for Sean Baateman because they know he's
a good wide receiver. He's a former first round pick
and I think that he Looking at the Ravens offense
last year, this offense was relatively healthy, one of the
(30:00):
healthiest offense in the NFL last season. So if Save
Flowers miss his time, if Mark Andrews gets banged up again, yes,
Isaiah like that, I think is really exciting. But what
if Bateman is the guy that takes on a large role.
We saw when Save Flowers missed some time at the
end of last year, Baven really stepped up. He'd over
a thousand air yards last year. He also scored a
boatload of touchdowns, so maybe that's not replicable. But when
you have Lamar Jackson as your quarterback, I think that
(30:21):
you have a high ceiling inherently. And Rashad Batman to
me in round twelve, I think that he's way too
talented be going that late. And he's one guy that
I'm always circling regardless of my bills, honestly because of
where his where he wins, especially because he wins down
in the field and he sees targets in the red zone.
So maybe he doesn't get a boatload of targets, maybe
he's not getting ten targets per week, but when he
does get a target, he scores touchdown. Oh he catches
(30:43):
a forty yard touchdown.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Things like that high value, aren't they, And like he
had a higher catch rate than Zay Flowers despite his
average step for target being four point one yard steeper,
really show him towards the end of season. So I
love that call. I'll give you one in kind of
a similar ish range. Tyler lg is one of the
easiest clicks for me in every single draft. I just
find all the arguments that we build for Bijon Robinson
(31:07):
about why he can be the one O one overall
and I'm firmly in that camp. Look, it's naive to
say that Bijan couldn't get injured. And if Bijean gets injured,
then we've seen it from Tyler l J before. Now,
I'm not saying he can be the RB one overall,
but I think he can be a top twelve running
back for the rest of the season. From any point.
He's excellently you know, he's a very good pass catcher.
(31:30):
He finished top ten in duke rate last year, top
ten in miss tackles forced. Like, it's a guy who
has shown is it so? Okay? Andrew digging a little
bit deeper than that anybody towards the very ends of
rounds who you keep clicking?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
Okay, So this is a guy that I think he
can be total zero.
Speaker 1 (31:49):
Right, I'm excited.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
I'm excited, but I think the talent is still there
in some shape or form. Deontay Johnson.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
I love Deontay Johnson. Yes, ah, I I was on
some of these show drafting with them last week and
we got to round twenty and I said, I interest
you and Deontay Johnson. It was a good little puff
piece from Mary Kay Cabot of the Brown Speed report
last week talking about how we have been line to
be you know, on the field and wide receiver two
(32:20):
sets and the girl I was drafting with almost screw up.
But Andrew carry on.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Well, when you look at chemistry with Brown's quarterbacks, right,
Jerry Judy doesn't have much chemistry with any of the
current Browns quarterback He wasn't there, you know, Joe Flacco.
They didn't overlap Joe Blackoe's chemistry, Cedric Tillman, Canny Pickett,
who did he play quarterback with at Pittsburgh with the
Pittsburgh Steelers, Deontay Johnson. So I hadn't even thought about
this scenario. Yeah, So is this a scenario where I
(32:50):
think that we're probably going to see three or four
quarterbacks play for the Browns. I know they have three
or four quarterbacks on the roster, but it could be
Flacco and then they go to Picket and then they
go to one of the rookies, and we don't know
what the rookies are going to do. So last year,
if I told you Cedric or if I told you
Jerry Judy or Deontay Johnson, who's better, right, You'd probably
be like, maybe it's a toss up. I mean at
(33:10):
that point, Deontay Johnson had had better seasons overall and
Jerry Judy Johns. So yes, Deontay Johnson obviously carries so
much baggage in terms of where he is mentally. He
was on three different team four different teams last year.
I don't even remember. I lost track, And clearly the
Steelers have a track record of moving on from Steelers
receivers before they kind of go off the deep end.
(33:31):
So yes, he could be a total zero nothing burger
as a twenty round pick. But I mean, if he's
a starter in three receiver sets on the Browns, who
could be one of the past happiest offenses in the NFL.
Then and he's talented, like he is a good wide
receiver when he is playing an offense that he cares about.
So in the twentieth round, I mean, you're gonna take
Deontay Johnson or players that we don't even know if
(33:54):
they're going to have roles in their offenses, like some
of these rookie receivers, and at rookie class that's not
that talented. So for me, Deontay Johnson just really pops up,
as are we just like totally overthinking this of a
player that we know is really talented, that commands targets
at a really high level, and basically last year was
a wash because Carolina was trying to offer him because
of the contract, and then he just couldn't really find
(34:16):
his footing with a new team. I mean, he wouldn't
be the first receiver to kind of not hit when
getting traded in season, Like that's hard for some guys.
And Amari Cooper he's not even on a team anymore, right,
He's still a free agent after getting traded, So yeah,
he could be a nothing burger. But I mean the
minute that they get reports he's starting and oh Kenny
Pickett and Deonta Johnson are flashing their chemistry from Pittsburgh,
(34:37):
Well he's not going to be in the twentyth round anymore.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Yeah. I mean, look, if you guys want to find
out where we're of ranking these guys, you can head
over its fantasypros dot Com Forward slash beast Ball. The
twenty twenty five Best Ball Draft kit is absolutely live
right now. You not just get in strategy content stuff,
you are also getting the rankings. Include in Andrew Erickson,
who finished this the fifth best ranking my stro last
(35:01):
year in the overall draft kit. But there's stuff all
about how to correctly apply hero RB zero RB, whether
you can use robust r B, how to pittat the
running back dead zone, and so much more. Our Best
Ball draft kit is everything you need to draft smart
and wim big in Best Ball this season. Andrew, we
are going to hit on just a couple of listener
(35:21):
questions before we get out of here, and we've kind
of covered a little bit about this already. But Tim
in the discord, asked, can you go through your thought
process in different factors that go into your picks? How
maybe those factors change in the first third to the
middle third to the last third of the draft. Are
you focused on stacking? Are you focusing on Week seventeen matchups?
(35:45):
Just simply looking for ADP value? So for me and Andrew,
pop that into the chat just in case you want
to review that whilst kind of break us down. For me,
ADP is the first thing that comes into a lot
of because if I have a chance to grab somebody
who's falling way past ADP, that's a tried and tested
(36:07):
benefit to your team. Likely only have established a run
has done a lot of great work about how scooping
up ADP value generally tends to be a winning formula.
I mean, just look at the NFL draft. The teams
who trade back tend to net positive over the years.
So I want to scoop ADP value where I can
because that might allow me to push somebody else and
(36:28):
then get them at a later value. Then it comes
down to how does this pick compliment the players that
I've already drafted, Like, Am I making this pick just
because I like that player? Or does that give me
alternating by weeks? Does that give me a little correlation?
And then as we get towards the last kind of
third of the draft, that's where I'm just looking to
(36:49):
enhance that correlation. Whether it's through stacks, whether it's through
guaranteed touches at points in season where I need them,
Andrew anything that I've not covered there that you would
add to that conversation.
Speaker 2 (37:00):
I think that for I wouldn't any think that that's
a great kind of descriptor of the mindset that you're
kind of going through. And I know that I probably
overthink things when I'm in some of these slow drafts too,
where I'm looking probably more and more in depth at
certain turns about stacking and you know what does this
I guess a question, And I'm curious Tom if you
ask yourself this too, And I think that yes, scooping
(37:21):
up ADP value is a really easy way. You know, Hey,
this is how you build a good team, like build
scoop up the values that fall to you. But asking
myselfs in the draft room at the time of the picks,
is what's the best pick that this team needs right now?
You know, because in a vacuum it's easy to talk.
And that's how we have to talk about these players
a lot of the time, because we're not always talking
(37:41):
about them in accordance with a team.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
Now.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
It's a little different on streams when we do actually
talk about it in relationship the team that we're actually selecting.
But because different teams need different things and sometimes as painly,
as painful as it can be, sometimes you have to
forgo an ADP value because it just doesn't fit what
you're trying to do. It's going to kind of get
you off of the script that you're writing for your
team because it's just, hey, like you drafted a lot
(38:06):
of these teams this isn't the time to take on
a scooping Joe Burrow or but Joe Burrow that's fallowing.
You have no Bengals receivers, Like you're not gonna do this,
so like you got to look the other way. Someone
else is gonna get a great value tipic ap to them.
But for your team, you don't need to pick Joe
Burrow two rounds after ADP because you already drafted Jalen
Hurtz or something along those.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
This this is a brilliant point and it's something that
really matters. It's you know, it's complimentary drafting saying how
how does this work for the team, and that matters
so much. One conversation, it's been a bit of a
hot topic on Twitter recently, has been zero RB after
it kind of was fantastic in twenty twenty three one
(38:45):
people millions of dollars playing basketball, and then last year
when everybody was leaning into zero RB, it was catastrophic
ahead like an eight percent advance rate, which is like
half as good as you'd expect just to be average.
So people are talking about whether it's where the current
landscape allows you to do it. But the one thing
that people were kind of getting wrong last year with
(39:07):
zero RB, people were prioritizing just hammering the wide receiver
position because there were so many wide receivers being pushed
off aboard if they didn't want to fall behind. Now
you go back and look at the kind of original
four process behind zero RB that Sean Siegull wrote in
twenty thirteen, and Sean pointed out back then that part
it's not just prioritizing wide receiver. It's prioritizing archetypes, saying
(39:32):
I would like to get the elite high end. I
would like to get a quarterback with massive upsides. So
I build this overall monster of a team. And then
when you do start taking shots on running back, it's
not just saying, right, I just need running back. I
just need running back. It's also looking for the late
season breakouts. So if you're building a team that way,
it's understanding what you're getting, and it's if you're playing
(39:54):
the polar opposite of that and going with a robust
r B team, is there any sense in taking just
a volume monster in the kind of like round round eleven,
Round twelve, range even round ten, Like if you've gone
out and drafted I don't know, say Christian McCaffrey, Derrick
Henry and then fourth round Kenneth Walker, does adding Giovante
(40:19):
Williams add anything whatsoever to your team. No, you're much
better taking the upside swing on Jaden Blue and saying like, now,
I'm not necessarily somebody who's drafting a lot of Jaden Blue,
but at least Jayden Blue would potentially give you something
of the unknown, something that could hit in a big way.
And if he fails, it's okay because you need those
(40:41):
early round running backs to really pay off in a
massive way anyway. So it's kind of looking at that combination.
So yeah, I think that's really smart. We got one
more question from Mano Mitch again from the Discord. If
you've got questions about anything to do with best ball
dropping in the Discord and myself and Andrew, we will
try and get to as many as possible or you
can always finds on Twitter. But Mitch asks, how many
(41:02):
quarterbacks are you trying to get in super flex drafts
in the first five rounds to feel good?
Speaker 2 (41:08):
I love this question because nobody feels good when you
wait a quarterback and super dressed, because you're sweat and
bullets because you get nervous because if you fall too
behind or you fly too close to the sun with
these super flex quarterbacks, you can get cooked. Yeah, and
then you have a team that potentially can't compete and
you're just paying the rake, and that's not fun. That
(41:30):
being said, there's also a strategic element to waiting correctly
and then hitting on that second quarterback a little bit
later on. So to answer the question, it would be
two quarterbacks. Like, if you get two within five for
the first five rounds, you're feeling good. I think that
anyone that drafts two quarterbacks kind of start things out.
You're gonna feel good about your team. You're gonna feel better.
You don't feel like, oh, I'm behind the eight ball.
(41:52):
That being said, you can build better teams. I think
if you at least try to wait a little bit,
because you can just get so much value meet the
skill position players. You can get elite guys who I
think just get undervalued in the super flex formans because
everybody's afraid of Oh I don't want to fall out
of the quarterback conversation altogether.
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Well, let's go back to a week ago right here
on this channel, right about now, we were putting the
ends to an underdog super flex puppy draft where we
took Jama Chase Justin Jefferson as our first two picks,
and then we had Jordan Love and c J. Stroud,
So we got through first five rounds and we just
had the two quarterbacks. We also had Kenneth Walker at
(42:33):
pick sixty six, and then we had George Kittle at
pick fifty five, So it's like, really, those first five
rounds were two wide receivers, two quarterbacks, and a tight
end for us before we took a first running back,
and that team felt like a monster. Now we took
some sizeable swings of running back later on after pick
one hundred, we ended up with eight running backs compared
(42:53):
to six wide receivers on that team, and our last
two quarterbacks we went with Tyler Schuck pick ninety and
then Jalen mill Rowe at pick one hundred and seventy five.
So my kind of feeling with super flex is you
never want to start a run of quarterbacks if you're
not in the first round, like I would much rather
be midway through the run because quarterback scoring. If you're
(43:16):
not talking about Lamar Jackson, Josh Allen Jaden Daniels. Quarterback
scoring is so replaceable. These guys are going to score
between sixteen and twenty one points most weeks, and you
can survive that. What you can't survive is coming in
up against the team with Jamar Chase and Justin Jefferson
who go out and put up thirty five points or
more in a week. And your top wide receiver is
(43:39):
I don't know, Khalil Shakir or George Pickins, guys who
could be a bit more a bit more variable, shall
we say so? Yeah, I'd definitely try to not get
over zealous with the quarterback position in twenty round formats.
I'm generally looking for four QB bills as play data
(44:00):
out there that says in best ball formats for QB bills,
even taking a late shot can be advantageous. But my
quarterback three is pretty much always coming after round six.
I just I can't have it in me to spend
three picks on a quarterback in first six rounds.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
I have two other points on the super flex front.
I would say number one that this is probably where
so the Fantasy Pros Draft Wizard Draft Tool Draft assistant
with Draft Intel getting the Intel on your league, especially
in Superflex, this is one of the biggest edges you
can get because the key with super Flex a lot
(44:38):
of the time is just trying to figure out when
are the quarterbacks going to be drafted because it changes
all over the place. It's why there's really no true
super flex ADP. Now, when you have a format like
Underdog that's probably in its truest format, you're not going
to see quarterbacks probably fall too dramatically because there is
an ADP that's there. But whether they're playing on Sleeper,
whether they're playing on ESPN, there's not enough mock draft
(45:00):
for there to be enough data on Superflex, so it's
kind of all over the place, and it's based on
how the drafters are doing in that room and how
do you find that information with draft Intel, So if
you're in a super Flex league, you need to make
sure you look at that tool because they will help
you significantly because if you know when the quarterback runs
are going to go and when they're going to start,
and who takes quarterbacks and who doesn't, well you can
(45:21):
have your cake and eat it too, so you can
draft these elite players at the skill positions without getting
boxed out of quarterback because you know when the quarterback
runs are going to happen. So that's one point I
wanted to make, And then the other one is I
think that there's a big difference between full PPR and
half PPR when it comes to super flex formats because quarterbacks,
especially rushing quarterbacks, where they score six rushing points per touchdown, like,
(45:43):
they score so many more points than all the other positions,
So it's really hard to catch up to those teams
where you're having a quarterback score like thirty points, you know,
seemingly every other week, and your running back, receivers and
tight ends are only scoring half PPR points, whereas in
full PPA, Okay, now you can have more. There are
more skill players that can actually match some of the
(46:05):
lesser known quarterbacks. So I'm even willing to push quarterbacks
farther down the board in super flex, probably least my
second quarterback because for PPR, these running backs that catch
passes and score points as rushers in score touchdowns like
they can, they can stack up with some of these
second secondary quarterbacks. So keep that in mind. That PPR
(46:26):
verus half PPR, I think it matters a lot for
super flex, I don't think it's really talked about enough.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Love that point, which feels like a great point to
send us out on. And look, if you've enjoyed ves conversation,
if you made it this far, I'm going to assume
that you're going to smash the light button down below
and make sure you subscribe to Fantasy Pros YouTube channel.
But next week we'll be back in the best ball streets.
Each and every week we'll be talking best ball until
the season starts. Right here, Twitch dot tv, forward slash
Fantasy Pros. Come along, draft with us, talk strategy with us,
(46:54):
snipers on our picks. If you dare, we will still
try and build a good team myself and thank you
all season long for us and producer sef. We truly
appreciate you hanging out and we will catch you next time.
Speaker 2 (47:06):
Just don't take away from Shadbaban from us.
Speaker 3 (47:08):
Please thanks for listening to the Fantasy Pros Fantasy Football podcast.
If you love the show, the best freeway to support
us is by leaving a positive review on Apple podcasts,
at Fantasypros dot com, Slash.
Speaker 2 (47:19):
Review, or on Spotify.
Speaker 3 (47:21):
Follow us on x, Instagram and TikTok at Fantasy Pros
and subscribe to our YouTube channel at YouTube dot com
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Joe Pisapia
Derek Brown
Thor Nystrom
Ryan Wormeli
Pat Fitzmaurice
Matthew Freedman
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