Late-Round Perspectives: Scott Pianowski

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Scott Pianowski is a fantasy analyst with Yahoo Sports who's
been there since two thousand and eight.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
He's a Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall of.

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Famer, an award winning analyst, an avid golfer with multiple
hole in ones, and he's honestly a sports encyclopedia. These
are his Late Round perspectives. This episode is sponsored by DraftKings.

(00:34):
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(00:55):
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Speaker 2 (01:07):
Now back to the show.

Speaker 1 (01:11):
You're like one of the people that are just an
Encyclopedia of Sports Knowledge. I remember, you know, growing up
in stuff like you know, whether it be in like
middle school, high school, or whatever, like, I was always
the person that people would talk to about sports because I,
you know, at least in my era and in my
time frame, like I knew what was going on across sports.
And then you go out in the real world and

(01:32):
you see people from not just your little bubble and
you're like, oh, these people really know a lot about
what's going on. And I feel like you're one of
those people.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
You just have a.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Very wide breadth of knowledge across many, many sports. So
it's always it's always a pleasure to talks involved with you.

Speaker 3 (01:48):
That's a really nice compliment. I appreciate that. It's just
I always say when when people say something to me
like that, and sometimes they say it, you know, with
a little bit of amazement. I just point out that
whatever you're naturally interested in, you're going to throw yourself into.
You know that that could be cooking, that could be gardening,
that could be coaching, youth league basketball, whatever it is.

(02:10):
You know, everybody's got stuff, you know. I'm a big
dog person, has always been a dog in my life.
For like the last twenty five or thirty years, although
I can't say I know a lot about that. I just,
you know, try to be the best dog father I can.
But of course, you know, so whatever it is that
you're naturally interested in, and you know, jj when I
was growing up, if you were to look at my

(02:30):
house or in my library or you know, I had
all these reference books, right, I had the Baseball Encyclopedia,
and I had all these annuals, all these annual magazines.
I didn't want to throw out because I wanted to,
you know. And now the Internet comes along, and the
Internet is one gigantic reference tool, and just the unbelievable
stuff we have. Pro Football Reference is amazing, and the

(02:51):
Fantasy Points data suite is fantastic, and there's just so much.
And obviously you're you know, the work that you do
is always data driven, and we could not do our
jobs without the Internet. So I just feel so lucky
to be in this time period where all the stuff
that I used to get at the library or on
microfilm or i'd try to buy, I buy old sports
illustrateds at a garage sale or something like that. And

(03:12):
then man's sad to see Sports Illustrate kind of die
off because that was part of my childhood. But it's
all on the internet now, so if you want to,
you know, I love going back at old NFL drafts.
I love I did a piece this week about Jonathan
Taylor about how he stacked up historically in the first
eight games of a season, and I can just go
on to Football Reference and about thirty seconds. I had
a list that I needed, you know. So I just

(03:34):
love that we're in the era that if you love sports,
if you love history, if you love stats data, we
can watch any highlight and guy makes a great play.
It's on social media and thirty seconds. So what a
time to be alive.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, there's a lot of nostalgia because I was probably
at that like I'm like the last part of because
I'm like right in a smack dad middle millennial, right,
and so I'm like, I'm like right in the last
area of when I was born, of growing up without
really the Internet and stuff like like you know, as
a child, like not having all of that at my
disposal and stuff like to the point where when I

(04:07):
was playing you know, NHL ninety four or something on Sega,
I was going to the newspaper to see what rosters
looked like, so that I could update rosters and trade
players and stuff like that based on you know, what
the newspaper was saying.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
Or you know, I.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Collected baseball cars and hockey cards and football cars, and
you'd have to get the Beckett right and like go
through that to be to see what the card is worth.
And so like it's I feel, in one way, I
feel really lucky that I was, I mean born when
I was to be able to have experience that. But
then and then you get that nostalgia right of just
like thinking back to opening up a sports illustrated and

(04:43):
getting in the mail and just getting excited about that.
But then at the same time, you're like, but it's
so freaking awesome that we can literally just do all
of that stuff in thirteen seconds as opposed to you know,
having to spend so much time and doing But at
the same time, you know, I do think that there's
like a little bit of that, you know, the the
fact that it took as much time as it did

(05:03):
to do certain things, you know, with baseball cars whatever,
you kind of you just naturally learn stuff a little
bit more easily through doing that as opposed to just
using you know, AI and stuff. I know, I sound
like a boomer right now, but you know, instead of
just like looking it up so quickly and so easily,
because you're you're just learning a little bit differently.

Speaker 3 (05:22):
I mean, my fantasy football experience goes back to a
time when we scored by hand. Yeah, and when the
idea of having an advantage was you read the USA
today and somebody else didn't. One of my early advantages
was I was online. I was on the Prodigy service
before the Internet really kind of popped. And I had
a friend of mine and you might know Dan Williamson
who's in the fantasy football space, and he was a

(05:43):
Minnesota guy, and he told me the year Randy Moss
was a rookie. He's like, well, they just had a
practice and Randy mosscored seven touchdowns. You're gonna want to
draft him. And this was back in an era where
rookie receivers you don't want to go near those guys.
You'll see you in year three, you know, it's a yeah,
And I realized Moss was kind of a unicorn. Then
that all changed in twenty fourteen, of course, but you know.
My early advantages were, you know, I read newspapers. My

(06:04):
early advantages were I had some Internet contacts when most
people weren't on the internet. And now I think that
news advantage, that information advantage, is just about nothing now
because everything is shared and even the weakest manager in
your league can get pretty good advice if they just
have their eyes open and their ears open, if they
have their phone turned on part of the day. So

(06:25):
that's gone away. It used to just be by paying
attention and maybe taking a little bit of an extra step.
Manded you of an edge.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Yeah, well I got to ask you.

Speaker 1 (06:32):
Your a hockey head, and I got to I gotta
ask you post nineteen ninety. So this is my because
I was a late eighties baby, So post nineteen ninety,
give me your your hockey mount rushmore.

Speaker 2 (06:43):
Give me, give me, give me for this. This is
on the spot for.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
The record, so I know that this is But there's
going to be a couple that are givens here.

Speaker 2 (06:49):
But I'm very curious who who these four players would be.

Speaker 3 (06:54):
That's a great question. So I'm going to use my
own rules, and I'm not sucking up to the host.
But I'm Marilyn mew Is on the Mount Rushmore period,
even if he took out the restrictions, so I know
his career started in the eighties. I still think his
peak offense is perhaps the best I've ever seen. So
I'm going to get Lemu in there. Economic David is
the best current player I've ever seen, the best stick

(07:15):
hndler I've ever seen. I got to see an Edmonton
Detroit game a couple of years ago, and regular season game,
you never know what version of players will show up.
I mean, David showed up. He had like seven shots
on goal, it felt like twenty seven, and I just
watched him all night. It was dazzling. So go with
those two guys and a lot of other people I
can name, but you know, I'm just looking up Ovechkin
and Crosby. Obviously, Ovchkin set the gold record. Him and

(07:38):
Crosby came into the league at the same time. There's
the lockout, loaded time for an influx of talent, and
hockey has done a lot of things. Look, Gary Bettman
gets a lot of criticism. He deserves it, but the
game's gotten a lot better in the last ten or
fifteen years, and I think a big part of that
hockey getting where it needs to go has been just
the influx of talent. And you know, Ovechkin the most

(07:59):
natural goal score we've ever seen. I think he would
have scored one hundred goals if you played in the eighties. Yeah,
and Crosby with his resume, that speaks for itself. The grace,
maybe the best stick handler I've ever seen. What a
great pass or what great vision. So yeah, I had
to shoot Hoorn a couple of Penguins in there. I'm sorry,
Boby's not going to make the list. It's not going
to make the list, you know, maybe all to say

(08:20):
Michael Michael, Michael Motorcycle. Yeah, Michael's there for the late
announcer Mike Lang. Yeah, who was fantastic. But yeah, much
love to the Pittsburgh area. I mean I was at
Providence College when send It in Jerome happened. Yeh. Dave
Danischeck and I are are longtime friends. He's obviously a
Pittsburgh guy, and I just love the just the vibe

(08:42):
of that city that all the teams have the same colors,
which I think is cool. The ballpark is a gem,
you know. I mean Steeler fans I think are usually
you're really cool people. They obviously travel really well a
road games, so there's so much history in that city
that that I care about, even though as a Bruins fan,
I always hated the Penguin. Yeah, of course, don't get
me started on Alf sampleson. But I can never hate

(09:03):
on I can never hate on you. He He was incredible.

Speaker 2 (09:06):
I mean, I mean, I know this is a football podcast.

Speaker 1 (09:08):
The Lemus stuff is crazy, just because he battled health
related things that you know that people when they look
at the statue, you know, and they do google and
they look, they're not going to see that, you know
that that that what he did fight. But yeah, I mean, look,
to be fair, to be fair, you have your the
Patriots don't have dominated.

Speaker 2 (09:23):
The Steelers over the last two decades.

Speaker 1 (09:25):
So let's let's uh, you know, at least at least
the uh, you know, the Patriots have their dynasty that
they can they can fall back on.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Let me let me ask you this guy. I've never
asked you this before. And I know there's kind of
a split with Steelers fans on Mike Tomlin. A lot
of people like, hey, you know, we have one of
the right answers. A coach that's great, and a lot
of other people like, well, what's what's this los in
the playoffs every year nine and eight, ten and seven.
That's not acceptable. Yeah, what's your stance on Tomlin?

Speaker 1 (09:50):
I genuinely I've been saying this to people, like I've
been a borderline apologist because it's always grass is always
greener with head coaches, as we know. But I do
think that oddly, like the straw for me was that
Bengals game. There was no there was no adjusting, you know,
And even the things that he says, and I know
that it's just they're just sound bites, you know, you know,
through the media, but even the things that he talks about,

(10:12):
like the first thing he talked about in his presser
after this past game was the fact that the offense,
you know, couldn't finish drives and stuff, when like very
clearly and obviously and he's you know, saying that Arrell
Austin's fine, Terrell Austin's fine, and that it's it's it's
not the you know, d C's fault, and you know
it's it's it's it's.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
More on the offense.

Speaker 1 (10:30):
And I think anyone with with you know, two eyes,
that's watched football for any amount of time knows that
the problem in Pittsburgh is is the defense. And if
you were to if you were to say that Pittsburgh
was going to get this kind of play from Aaron Rodgers,
you would probably say that they would be a top
comfortably a top three to five team in the AFC,
probably like entering the season. And so, you know, I

(10:51):
think that they're stuck in you know, like the two
thousand and five to twenty ten time frame in terms
of how you play on defense. What matters what you
stop and what you do offensively, and there's just not
enough adjustin going on.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Obviously, a player's coach, people love to play.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
For him, and that matters to a degree, but at
some point, you know, it's just a tiring thing. I mean,
they've literally been doing the same thing now for eight
years defensively.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
I mean I mean literally the whole time.

Speaker 1 (11:17):
But I mean like it's been a problem for a
good like eight years or so. And because of that,
I'm now more you know, I'm probably more in the
middle because you know, I go to Facebook or something,
and all these yensers are just screaming about, you know,
firing Tomlin and they've been doing that for the last
couple of years now.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
I'm probably not like.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
So so far in that extreme, but I can understand
that sometimes in these situations you need to kind of
move on and let that person hopefully thrive somewhere else,
and then you find someone that can that can thrive
in the environment that you're in, right.

Speaker 3 (11:47):
I mean, you think about the Patriots. You know, there
was a time when the Patriots and Tom Brady needed
a divorce. There was a time when the Patriots and
Belichick needed a divorce. And it's kind of been sad
to see Belichick kind of devolve into the Tyson zone,
where any headline that you hear about Belichick now would
sound somewhat plausible, no matter how crazy it was. NFL
coaches all coaches, by the way, we were talking about

(12:08):
hockey earlier. The shelf life of a hockey coach is
incredibly short. But NFL coaches generally there are more mediocre
ones than good ones, and long term answers are extremely rare.
And even with that, at some point that comes a
time where the Steers maybe saying, I know they're so
prior to their coaching legacy, they've only had a handful
of them they've had. Chuck Noll was coached for such
a long time. Cower was such a long coach and

(12:31):
decorated coach and all that, and wonder if people remember,
why do they keep calling him coach? Kywer Oh, you
actually used to coach the steel It feels like a
hundred million years ago. But at some point you just say,
I know this is a good man here, and I
know this is a good organization here, but it's just
time to do something else. Yeah, you know, and Mike
Tomlin would you know, he would have an announcing job
if he wanted one. He would have a head coaching

(12:52):
job in several places if he became available. But at
some point it just you need to move on. As
a Patriots fan, man, I'm just thrilled that Tennessee. I
think wrongly did that with Mike Vrabel. I don't think
maybe it was the time to move on. I realized
there was a power struggle going on there. Jonathan Mayo
was obviously nice guy, obviously over his head last year.
I guess Kraft had promised Mayo at the job, which
is why they didn't hire a Vrabel the earlier year.

(13:14):
But it's just It's just so nice to have these
press conferences where Verbel says all the right stuff. He's
smart enough to appeal to the smart players, he's emotional
enough to appeal to the emotional players, and I've always
felt that tom One was that too right. He's great emotional,
great motivator, and he's obviously dealt with some mercurial talents,
shall we say, during his Pittsburgh time, but he's smart
enough to appeal to you intellectually as well. There's not

(13:35):
that many You Usually coaches do one or the other,
either the egghead, you know, or they're going to get
you to run through a wall, but somebody else is
doing the excess to nose. If you have somebody you
can do both of those things. He's really got it knocked.
But I've been I think we probably line up on Tomlin.
I've always been the apologist or on his side, But
at some point things just have You're not meant to

(13:56):
be a head coach for thirty years, you know, on
one team. Eventually you have to go do something else.
And I wonder if they're getting to that point.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:03):
I also think today's NFL is is going to be
driven by smart play callers and good you know, offensive
schemers and he you know, he he Tomlin Steelers were
best when they had good offensive coordinators and good you know,
the ability to do things that were different offensively, while
you know, the NFL couldn't necessarily adapt to what he
was doing defensively where they have now. And you know,

(14:26):
I also think that that the way they've built the team.
They went through years Kevin Colbert, their old you know,
GM who's running the squad. They had horrible, horrible drafts,
like over and over and over again, and they couldn't
replicate what they were doing in like the late two
thousand you know, the the two thousand and five to
twenty ten time frame, into the into the twenty fifteens.
I mean, it was just bad draft. Go look at this,

(14:47):
anyone listening, Go look.

Speaker 2 (14:48):
At the Steelers drafts from like twenty fifteen to twenty
you know, twenty two, basically when the Kenny.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Pickett draft happened. Horrible draft after horrible draft, and that
can take, you know, and push a team back pretty
tremendously as well.

Speaker 2 (15:01):
So we'll see, we'll see.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
You could point that out because I think I probably
overlooked that sometimes because they've hit so many times on
receivers outside the first round. Yea. And for fantasy obviously,
we're always going to be focused on the skilled position players,
even though everybody is important to the shape of a roster,
and maybe that it just obscures that so many misses
they've had at other positions. So I'm gonna have some fun.
We talked about the internet and you know, getting lost

(15:24):
in football reference. I think after we finished this call,
I'm going to go do some it's most facto drafting,
and man as a Patriots fan, you know, nik kill
Harry is like a trigger for me. Yeah, that year
they had all these right answers at wide receiver. I
just like seven or eight guys who were screaming values
that they took to kill Harry, who basically couldn't play
in the NFL. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (15:41):
I mean, look, if you're looking at the Steelers rafts,
you're gonna you're gonna be prepared to just your jaw
will drop with some of these some of these selections.

Speaker 2 (15:48):
Let's talk a little fantasy football here.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
When we look back on this fantasy season, what narrative
or narratives do you think that we're gonna walk away with, like,
do you think that, given the way that tight ends
are performed, we're gonna see that position a certain way,
maybe late round quarterbacking, Like what would that thing be?

Speaker 2 (16:04):
Maybe multiple things be when we look back at this season.

Speaker 3 (16:08):
You're certainly right the tight end. This was a year
that the second tier was the place to shop. And
I'm curious to see how people spin that at the
end of the year. And I'll do a series where
I go over every position at Yahoo at the end
of the season and do kind of I call an
exit interview. That's certainly one of the themes. You know,
last year, other than McCaffrey, the running back position generally
just so low with the injury rate, and a lot

(16:30):
of the older running backs had really great seasons. A
lot of running backs escape bad teams, went to good
teams and they smashed. And then this year, you know,
it's been a reality bites kind of season for Derrick Henry,
although he's been okay, but he hasn't been quite what
we expected. Obviously, Jackson's injury has been tied to that.
Alvin Kamara looks like there's maybe nothing left with him.
I know Barker has had a disappointing season, although that's

(16:51):
tied to a lot of different things. And this year,
you look at before the season, people are like, you know,
who do I stack? Where are my stacks? How am
I going to win this big contents? And I'm talking
to people before the season trying to locate the right ones,
and man, you look at the top three or four
rounds and almost every major receiver quarterback stack you could
have come up with has failed for different reasons. A

(17:11):
large part of that is the injuries at the quarterback position. Obviously,
once Joe Burrow gets hurt, the Burrow Chase stack is
dead on the vine. It's been nice to see Joe
Flacco at least make that offense somewhat competent the last
few weeks, so that we have to be realistic with
Flacco expectations. But I think this is a year where
stacks have fallen short, and I try to figure out
what that means and really simple trade off it. Last

(17:33):
year talk about Burrow right, Cincinnati, perfect fantasy setup, leave
the ball concentrated, target tree usage, Tree can't stop anybody
weekly forty or thirty nine football. They played the Ravens twice,
I think, and they're still scoring points. Yeah, this year
Dallas has become that team. Maybe not quite as explosive
as that carnival was in Cincinnati last year, but defense stinks.

(17:57):
Dak has largely been very good. I realized he didn't
play great against it, and you know, they pulled him
early because the game was out of hand. But you know,
he's had a really nice season. Pickens has ascended. They
have lamdback now Ferguson because that concentration is so tight.
He's kind of the third of me, Go and Javonte Williams. Man,
there's something I didn't see coming. Yes, I thought, you know,
I have him one of the EXPO teams I drafted him.

(18:18):
It was just one of those exactly the same thing
that happened to me too. Yeah, and it was not
a target. I can claim no credit for this, JJ.
It was like, oh, I got to pick somebody. Devonte
Williams is still a football player. You know, maybe I
thought he might just be like, okay, I might have
to play him if injuries hit. You know, right, you
always say it running back. I always say, can I
get ten touches projectable? Here? Can I get touches projectable?

(18:40):
Now that there's so many platoons around the league that
makes somebody playable. So I thought maybe Williams had the
slightest amount of value. I saw no upside. If somebody
said to me, what's the upside Javonta Willams, I would
have said zero.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
Right right, floor play not a ceiling play or floor.

Speaker 3 (18:53):
Play, depth play and somebody I'll cut in week five.
That's where I thought was coming, and instead he's turned
into like one of the five or six most important
guys to land on.

Speaker 2 (19:01):
Yeah, same exact thing happened to me.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
I do think that there is a like people always
ask like, oh, do you dominate you know, home leagues
and versus analyst leagues and stuff like that. I'd say, like,
generally speaking, I'm probably a little bit better in like
home leagues and more casual leagues especially, But there's a
thing with like, you know, you're mentioning the Expo drafts
and you know the King's Classic drafts and stuff, and
there's definitely a sense of you know, this isn't to

(19:25):
like trash any of the analysts that we play with,
because we're guilty of it too. There's a sense there's
ego to this right where like we feel like we
know what's going to happen to a degree, like we
want to stake our claim on certain players. And when
you realize that, when you're drafting amongst other players or
other managers who are thinking the exact same way, you
end up finding really great values. Like the I tell

(19:47):
this story all the time on the show, but like
when I drafted Javonte Williams and the Snake Draft, I
literally right before I picked him, I said, I'm about
to vomit. I'm gonna take Javonte Williams, and and I
literally got booed by by the people who were in there.
Like it was just you know, fun atmosphere, we're all
just joking around and stuff, but like nobody wanted him.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
Nobody.

Speaker 1 (20:04):
And a lot of that though, is definitely you know,
we're all guilty of piling on and having you know,
similar takes based on you know, just just it's not
groupthink per se, but it's it's this idea that like
we respect one another, and if one person is seeing
something and someone we then go look into that thing
and we're like, oh yeah, I kind of see that too.
But a lot of times in those leagues, you can

(20:26):
go against the grain just a little bit, and you know,
get Javonte Williams, and he's a he's a sliding value,
and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, I
ended up having a really good team, and that team
that I drafted seven and one right now because largely
because of Javonte Williams.

Speaker 2 (20:39):
So it's it's just an interesting dynamic for sure.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
And it's hard. I mean, if I have a stance
on something, if I'm not dugging on something, and I
see you feel a certain way, and which Rebar agrees
with you, and Pat Fitzmorris agrees with you, and Ian
hart Tits agrees with you, Evan Silver agrees with you,
it's hard to think, Okay, well, these are all smart guys.
I like your perspect you know. I mean, it's it's
hard not to line up sometimes. But it's funny. My

(21:04):
friend Mike selfhi know, a lot of times, talks about
he's trying I think he goes too far with this,
of course, but he's always trying to avoid the hipster picks.
He's trying to not make the picks that are going
to win the favor of the room. And he's trying
sometimes to go with the ugly picks, and again Williams
comes under that heading. The thing about Williams is that
I thought maybe if he was going to have that
spike year after the injury, I thought was going to

(21:25):
happen last year. He did so little last year, right.
And also we talked about like, so, okay, JJ feels
this way, Ian feels this way, Pat feels this way.
I Drew Davenport feels this way. Right, we feel good
about that. The converse to that is I've seen Dallas
do so many dumb things over the years that when
they added Gervonte Williams, it almost made me like him
even less. I'm like, of course, Dallas is adding Javonte Williams.

(21:46):
What you know, they couldn't get seek Elliott on the phone.
What's what's going on here? And you know, the first
week he had the touchdowns against Philly, I'm like, that's
a fluke. You know those are going to be touchdown
passes eventually. You know, somebody eventually is going to emerge
and push them out of the way. And it's just
a great reminder that nobody knows anything. I mean, we
have guesses, we have all we can do. And then

(22:08):
you know this as well as anybody. You put the
work in, you watch the games, you run all sorts
of data, and you have such intelligent you have an intelligent,
smart reason for what you project. But it's still a projection.
It's still a guess. It's a it's an intelligent guess,
it's a reasonable guess. It's the way to play, but
there's still such air wide error bars and everything that
we put out one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
I mean, look, there's a peer to peer game right
where we're playing other people who also are going to
have those very wide range of and they're going to
have errors as well. And I think that's part of
the problem with the way that people consume fantasy content.
If I'm being honest, is that and I try to
be so honest about what I'm saying about players like
this could go this way, but this is the media
and outcome. Let's think in terms of range of outcomes.

(22:50):
And I think that like what we what we do
need to realize though, is that it's a game of probability.
And in that game of probability, you're playing amongst other
managers who are also playing a game of probability. And
so if you can just increase that probability. You don't
have to be perfect. You're you're never gonna be. Like
I look back at drafts where I diversify or I
make certain choices that I'm like why did I? And
I see people in my discord all the time where

(23:11):
they're like, why did I draft this guy over this guy?
You can play that game all day long, all the time,
as long as in the moment when you're making that decision,
you were logical with what you were doing. You can't
hurt yourself and be mad at yourself over that decision
that you made. That that's my stance at least, right.

Speaker 3 (23:27):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
What pisses me on yeah yeah.

Speaker 1 (23:30):
What angers me more is when, like I think my
process with Javante in hindsight wasn't as strong as it
should have been. If we're just gonna use Davante as
the example, you know, I was like four or five
running back spots even below the market with Javante. It
is one of my biggest like errors in my rankings
this year. You know, obviously there's good stuff, there's bad sotuf.
There's just the way that it goes. But one of

(23:51):
the errors that I made is that part of my
process is to not overstate running back metrics in general,
because we know they're so dependent upon what's going going
on around them, et cetera, et cetera. And then you
add on, like you said, there was the injury with Javonte,
we did expect more last year. Totally agree with you there,
But then you look at like, Okay, we know that

(24:11):
Miles Sanders is almost definitely dust right, and.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
Then you look at Jayden Blue. And I like Jayden Blue.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
As a prospect because I thought he was very electric
and he had an interesting ceiling like maybe they could
use him in like a in like a Tony Pollard
rookie year, you know, early career Tony Pollard type of way,
or even like a Jumior Gibbs, but you know, not
as much and he's not nearly as electric. But at
the same time, doing all the prospecting work with with
Jayden Blue, I knew he wasn't a.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Bell cow back.

Speaker 1 (24:36):
Like I knew that the whole time, like even the offseason.
Go read any of the blurbs or anything that anything
that I wrote and talked about with Jayden Blue.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Never did I say he would be a Bell cow back.

Speaker 1 (24:45):
So why didn't I just merge all that together and say, no,
Javonte is actually a decent pick. And there's one other
player that I did this with from a process perspective
that I look back and I'd love to hear if
you have any of these two.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
But like Calvin Ridley, Okay, I decided.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
In like earlish August that I was going to buy
into Calvin Ridley at ADP, and I am very upset
about it because I've done so much research in my
history on wide receivers with rookie quarterbacks very rarely beating expectation,
and I decided to buy into this player who was
decent last year, but not necessarily elite. Like there wasn't

(25:22):
this like obvious and massive elite trait to Calvin Ridley
that I absolutely needed to buy into. And so those
are the two players I look back on the season.
You know, I miss stuff like Trayvon Henderson and all that.
Kind I get all that, and like, I have regrets
for some of that stuff, but the process in which
I went about, like getting to those players wasn't as
frustrating as it was, specifically for Calvin Ridley and Javonte Williams.

Speaker 3 (25:45):
Yeah, I got Ridley wrong too. I thought, well, if
he could succeed in that offense last year, if cam
Ward can be even half a step better than the
bad quarterbacks they had, then how can Calvin Ridley not
be successful? There's just not that much behind him on
the depth chart. Well, the award played a little bit
worse than I thought for the first month, and the
coaching staff was over its head. I also wonder why

(26:06):
I wasn't picking and or betting against Brian Callahan for
his entire career, because he basically never covered. Now that's gone,
we'll never have We'll never get that back again. That's
this wasted opportunity. And this stuff all makes sense in hindsight,
but you have to live life forward. Life only makes
sense looking backwards, but you have to live it moving forward.
So really was when I got wrong, And I also
thought much in the same vein. I thought, well, Brian

(26:27):
Thomas was so great last year, and look a lot
of it was with Mac Jones, who I probably wasn't
giving mac Jones enough credit for that. I just thought
Mac Jones was just another kind of guy, kind of
a goofball, as my colleague Matt Harmon might say, and
I'm like, well, I know Hunter's good, but he's going
to play defense some and I like Liam Cohen, and
I didn't want to give up on what the ceiling

(26:47):
might be for Trevor Lawrence, which I've clung to that
way too long, and I'm wondering if maybe I shouldn't
cling to that anymore. I just thought Brian Thomas was
too good to fail, and I'm seeing through two months
of the NFL season that's that's actually not true. And
I feel extremely lucky because a player like Thomas, you're
gonna have to have very specific draft slots to take
him right. And I didn't have those slots. I would

(27:09):
have been overweight on Thomas. If I had reasonable, maybe
just an average distribution of draft positions, I would have
had more Thomas stake. I just didn't have the positions
that made sense for him to be taken by me,
and so I avoided that. But that was just happenstance.
You know, if you followed my advice on Brian Thomas,
I've led you into a ditch. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:26):
You know, what's interesting is that I don't remember there
being a season where it was so obvious which draft
spots and slots you would ideally want to be in.
I mean, if you were in the front half of
the draft from a snake draft standpoint, you're probably crushing
right now. There's at least a good chance that you're
having a good fantasy season. Whereas the back half, you
could have taken multiple wide receivers that we all thought
were in a really good spot and they failed. And

(27:47):
then there was that wall that you would hit in
the third round where you start to get question marks
and you're like reaching for running backs and stuff like that.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Hopefully you fell into James Cook, you know, in that
three four area.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
But if you're in the front half, you get a
CMC type, you get a you know, a Bijon or
a Jamier Gibbs. Second round you could have gotten Josh
Jacobs or Jonathan Taylor. Potentially third round you get JSN
and you know there's just there there were so many
more and better outs in that front half that I mean,
it's wild because it just goes to show that, you know,
don't be so overconfident in your ability to project that

(28:21):
kind of stuff. Because over the summer everyone was talking
about how this was the deepest first round and the
best you know, first round and a half that that
we've seen in fantasy football in some time. And you know,
looking back, it's the front half of the first round
and then the back half of the second round. So
it was those spots that were like in the one
to six, one to seven range.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Yeah. Let me let me tell you a quick story
about Jonathan Taylor, who's on one of my expot teams
that also has Javonte Williams. That team I think is
seven to one, and it's I got to call that
team an accident because I saw draft Taylor in the
second round. That was the Snake draft team we do.
We do a draft in an auction during that weekend.
What a fun time is try to get down to it.
By the way, I you haven't gotten to the expot.
It's a great chance to just hang out with people

(28:59):
in the industry and talk and share ideas. And then
we played golf this past year as a blast. So
I draft Taylor if Taylor and Jacobs were on the board,
thought about it, thought about thought about took Taylor. They
have me on Fantasy Radio, serious radio after and I'm
kicking myself. I'm really beating myself up for not taking Jacobs, well,

(29:20):
you know, you get a bet on the safer infrastructure,
and at that point we don't know who the Colts
quarterback is.

Speaker 2 (29:25):
Right, Yeah, you could argue as leaning Anthony Richardson at
that time.

Speaker 3 (29:29):
It just feel that way we drafted in early August,
I felt like it leaned Richardson. And I want to
be you know, I know you're extremely transparent. One of
your strengths as an analyst, I think is your process
is so transparent and you you explain what you're doing,
You own your your wins and losses and all that,
and this it's why you're such a great follow in
this space. So transparently. I want to say that I

(29:49):
thought Jones was the quote unquote right pick. I never
in a million years saw this range of outcomes that
he would have the season that he's having, this renaissance
and the Colts would be. When I rewatched the games
every Monday, JJ, I can't wait to put the Colts
tape in. I don't want to watch the Browns, I
don't want to watch the Saints. I want to see
what the Colts are doing because there's so much fun
and the receiver room compliments each other so well, and
Jones is playing in such a high level, and Steichen

(30:11):
is reminding us while we fell in love with him
like four or five years ago. But at the time
I took Tailor because I've always loved Taylor, and then
I thought, now Jacobs was the right pick. He's just
got such a safer backdrop, and Jacobs has been a
perfectly fine player. Taylor is smashing. Taylor is is just
having a season where if the person who has Tailor
in your league is almost guaranteed a great team. Right

(30:32):
in many leagues, it's the first place team. And it's
just so funny. How after I made that pick, I'm
kicking myself. I'm like, I should have taken the safer pick.
I should have taken Jacobs. And it turns out that Tailor.
I fell into Taylor, loving the player, not trusting the infrastructure,
And it turns out that was the right answer.

Speaker 2 (30:47):
Yeah, I mean, that's usually the right answer.

Speaker 1 (30:49):
You know, usually we overstate our ability to and I've
tried really hard to lean into that more from a
process standpoint, you know, you know, over the last handful
of years is you know, target town, make sure that
you're focused on that first and foremost and the rest
will hopefully fall in place, and sometimes it doesn't, and
you know, sometimes you get situations like I've been. I've
been really upset look the Traveon Henderson stuff. You know,

(31:12):
like I definitely think that he's had his own issues
and I think he's in his own head. I mean,
fortunately we finally saw a little bit more from him
this past week before that fumble. But the Travon Henderson
stuff just drives me nuts because I think it's a
combination of the two things. I think that New England's
not using him properly, and I also think that he
has not lived up to the prospect that I and
others thought that he was right And so it's just

(31:34):
this combination of just honestly, you know, fantasy football hell,
where where you finally see them last week. Get him
on the outside, more tons of toss plays, you know,
a lot more, because that's where he can shine. Like
that's why anyone thought, like from a pass catching standpoint,
we all just generally were like, yeah, like he can
do a lot through the air, and maybe this is
their new like James White type toy that they can

(31:56):
just get on the outside and just throw him some
dump some dump offs, and he can like let him
do his thing because he's got so much burst and
ability after the catch, and we just haven't seen.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
That that much.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
And so I do think that, like, you know, the
talent evaluation for Travion so far has been an l
but also you need that infrastructure still, you know, like
that that still needs to be there because sometimes you're
going to get mediocre talent evaluation, you know, mediocre talents
I should say, in really really great environments, and that
still can work out and pan out for those players too.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
Yeah, I find myself every week in one way or
another saying bet on talent, bet on talent, bet on talent,
we know, trade advice or a start st a question
or something like that. And also just one point I
meant to make about Givanta Williams. We were talking about him,
how running back is different than the other positions because
whoever has the baton, whoever has the usage, that's such
a huge That's the one position where ordinary talent great usage,

(32:46):
you're fine with it, or the other positions, I think
you're so much more talent driven against. Alfino has talked
about comparing this to closers in base in fantasy baseball,
where you're not necessarily in the weeds about what their
stats are. If somebody is in the ninth inning and
is competent, they don't have to be that great. They're
getting saves. You need saves in fantasy baseball, and you
roll with that. So a lot of times, just who's
got the touches, who's got the baton, who's got the

(33:08):
high value touches, who's getting the catches, who's in third down?
Hurry up? Obviously the goal line is always going to
be important, and because I think it's kind of liberating
to just throw out there just the stuff you got wrong.
I wasn't just in on Henderson like a lot of
people were, but I was pounding the table and saying,
you know, I remember when the Patriots took the wrong

(33:28):
Georgia running back. I remember when they took Sony Michelle,
and then Nick Chubb went after that, And obviously Belichick
had his ear with the Georgia coaches. I'm sure they
probably leaned him towards Michelle. But whatever, Sony Michelle was
an okay player. Nick Chubb is a great player before
the injuries hit, and then this year we saw it
with Ohio State. My take was Cleveland took the wrong guy. Judkins.

(33:49):
Henderson is really who you wanted. The Patriots are going
to get it right this time. They went second. The
other team picked wrong. Not that I thought Judkins was bad,
but he obviously had the suspension cloud over his first season,
and then he hadn't even signed yet and they had
other guys in the backfield. Aren't that bad? Sampson had
a pretty good college career as well. For it's, you know,
a player of some talent. So I'm like, yeah, man,

(34:11):
this year, the two two running backs, same team, Cleveland
and New England. This time New England's going to win
that one. Now, of course, Henderson's story the future is unwritten.
It was nice to see him pop in Week eight.
And I love that you mentioned the toss player. I
can see it in the back of my mind where
they do that misdirection left tossed to the right and
Henderson makes a chunk run. But most of the first

(34:32):
part of that run was like open space. And so
that's a play design win for Josh McDaniels, a play
design win for the Patriots. And there's no reason why
Henderson has been a disappointment. He's been a miss, he's
been whatever you want to call me, call him a
bus if you want. For a long time, people just
couldn't play him. You couldn't really cut up. Nobody wants
to trade for him. I get all that, but the
future is unwritten. There's no reason why Trayvon Henderson, you know,

(34:55):
a week from now, two weeks from now, might be
an automat starter. He's just one game away from Because
I just don't think Stevenson is ever going to be
a ceiling player. And I still Henderson younger, fresher legs, obviously,
the profile we liked at Ohio State. I still think
there's a ceiling to be excited about. And it may
just be him gaining some confidence and maybe the coaching
staff being a little bit more proactive with him.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
Yeah, no, I totally agree.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
Right now, you know, at the time this recording, Stevenson
has that that toe injury that we don't know that
much about. There's rumors right now they're going to trade
for running back and that they're and look, I think
that that people hearing that, they're like, oh, they hate
Traveon Henderson. I mean that's part of the part of
it is that like Henderson was never like the early
down bruiser type, like that's not what he projected to be.
And in fantasy, we care more about the receiving types.

(35:39):
We care about those guys that can make those big
plays and those splash plays in today's game, like that's
that's the the Jumior Gibbs way, if you will, right,
And obviously Gibbs can do a lot more. But with
the rumors and stuff, I see it more as a
let's see what's going on with Ramandre Stevenson, and they
they don't have someone that they can rely on comfortably
at this point because Trayvon Hendersin is not that between

(36:00):
the tackles guy.

Speaker 2 (36:01):
He's proven that he's not that guy yet right now,
I don't know if he ever will be.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
And so they're they're looking at this like, hey, we
have a shot this year, Like our team is actually
playing really well and Drake may is arguably the MVP.

Speaker 2 (36:12):
We got to get a player.

Speaker 1 (36:13):
Here that that can handle that workload between the tackles
And that's to me where these rumors are stemming from.
And maybe by the time you hear this podcast, they
trade it for Tony Pollard or something, right, But I
do think that, like, you're right, Like I've not been
you know, early on in his career. I was okay
with Ramandre because I generally, from a prospecting standpoint, will
lean into players to bigger bodied players and running backs

(36:36):
who can catch passes. That's always just like if you
want a shorthand for a way to spot a decent
running back prospect from day three, there it is, you know,
pass catchers who are big and so Stevenson was attracted
from that standpoint. But yeah, I mean, like, I don't
think that he's got I mean, the only two games
where he really popped, we're against Miami and Tennessee this year,
you know where of course, you know most running backs
are popping against them.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
I will oddly be Sean Robinson didn't happen last Yeah,
forget about that. I've been a Kirk Cousins problem. Nobody
you had a nice career, Kirk Cousins. If you just
walked off into the sunset and roam the earth like
Jules Winfield and pulp fiction, I think we'd all be
fine with that. You know, carry a briefcase around if
you need to. But man, that was frustrating, But Stevens
is somehow lived through fumbling too, which which is you

(37:18):
the Belichick would have sent him to Siberia. I give
Rabel credit or the coaching staff. And again, you know,
Rabel gets credit for everything. He's the top of the
food chain, but a lot of decisions are made by
his coaching staff of course too. At least they didn't
mothball him. And I like, I love that tip about
the bigger receivers you can catch the ball. That's such
a great shorthand for we've seen now in the NFL
it's not unusual for second day, third day running backs

(37:41):
to be fantasy viable and pretty quickly. So that's an excellent,
excellent thing to look for when we're trying to figure
out some of these guys when when the combine hits
and when the drafts hits next spring. It's certainly something
I'll have in the back of my mind.

Speaker 2 (37:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (37:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Pass catching in general, man, it's always it's always something
that even like Woody Marks, I didn't think whatdy Marx
was going to be that big of a early down
player in the NFL, but he had such a good
receiving profile, and I'm like, sure.

Speaker 2 (38:03):
You know if you have that, that's so important to
fantasy football. So we'll we'll lean into that a little bit.
Speak about the talent.

Speaker 1 (38:12):
I think that there's a chance too that we see
more base Shall Tutan like, I think that we could
see more of that starting to happen, and look at
the trajectory.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
I'm not saying that he's playing as well as Bucky
Irving did last year.

Speaker 1 (38:22):
He's not, and they're not the same kind of running
back at all, but it is nice to know that
you had an offensive coordinator in Liam Cohen last year
lean on the talent profile and say, I ever Shad White.
He's an okay player. He's a great pass catcher, but
he's not that great, you know, on the ground, and
not as reliable on the ground. I'm gonna start using
Bucky Irving more down the stretch. Again, I don't want to.

(38:42):
I'm not making the comp that Bucky Irving is Basehall Tutan.
But what I am saying is that Travis Etn really
lived off of some big plays early on in the season,
and if you look at his metrics right now, it's
not like he's been an unbelievably amazing back and you
look at how he's performed over the last X number
of weeks, especially outside of garbage time, like it's it's
not been butterflies and rainbows for Etn. And you got

(39:05):
to wonder, there was that shoulder injury for Tutin that
he kind of dealt with weekend and week out where
he's on the injury report and then he would just play.
Maybe he healed up during the by Maybe they want
to use him a little bit more. I still think
Tuton is a really good stash in fantasy Lea.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
I love it too. And remember they they drafted Touting,
they drafted Hunter for that matter, they inherited the other guys.
I mean, everybody would love to inherit Brian Thomas Junior.
But Travis Etn has kind of proven to be maybe
a Jag on the Jags the last few seasons. And
Tooton also got the benefit of bigsby being traded, so
at least thinks at least the backfield is a little

(39:38):
bit cleaner. Right, we can get down to two backs
of note.

Speaker 2 (39:42):
And I love what you said, guys.

Speaker 1 (39:43):
You don't have to agree with me, just you know,
at least you can walk away and say Okay, that
was that was rational, you know, like that's that's fine.
That that that's that's how it should be. You know,
like I don't want only agreement and only you know,
I want disagreement. Let's just have it, you know, in
a in a nice ration.

Speaker 3 (40:00):
Agreement for sure, a reasonable disagreement. I will not only why,
I always welcome it. But that's how you learn, right,
That's ultimately what you should do, dear listener, is find
the people in your find your people, find your circle
and the people you respect the most. But I used
to do this with my friend Kevin Kuzo, who's a
great fantasy player. I've done it with Dan Williamson I

(40:22):
mentioned before Drew Davenport and I will do this sometimes
have a summit before the season and talk about find
like five or ten things you don't agree on and
try to hash it out and then talk about the
stuff you do agree on, talk about the different offenses.
And before the season I was talking to Kevin, like,
what do you think of this new coordinator, this new coach?
You know, and hash it out with the people that
you respect, and especially focus on where you don't agree,

(40:44):
because that's where you you're most likely to learn something,
you most likely to pick up something that may be
useful to you because you have to be careful. Again,
it's so easy to fall into the group think, into
the herd think, and a lot of times the herd
is right. A lot of times there's a wisdom of
crowds that applies. But I think the great learning moments
some times, or find the smartest people you know and
where you'd not agree and you can learn something from that.

Speaker 2 (41:04):
Yeah, love that, Love that.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
Speaking of rookie wide receivers, that with Travis Hunter, are
there any other rookies that you're excited about down the stretch,
whether they be obvious ones like a Teero McMillan or
a not so obvious one.

Speaker 3 (41:16):
Well, I'll give you. I'll give you three names I
wrote down. I believe it's him Ray DK. I've seen
it pronounce a couple different ways. He's really been a
nice player the last couple of weeks, and I think
people forgot that. You know, I am minor was getting
a little bit of buzzer in the year, and he
hasn't been bad by any means, And obviously that offense
has been hard to trust for much of the season.
But DK was drafted earlier, and because he runs the

(41:39):
slot routes, those are easier throws, they're quicker to find,
they have a higher chance of being completed. I really
He's obviously made some splash plays on special teams, which
impresses me. Also impresses Evan Silvia. He loves guys who
make punt return plays and stuff like that. But DK's
impressed me. On the tape, his stats looked good. Ward
started to play a little bit better. I wonder if
some of his early struggles Broncos rams some of the

(42:01):
better defenses the coaching change. Of course, He's already on
his second staff essentially, so a lot of up people there.
I think Tennessee will gradually improve in the second half
and not be a joke offense. They were a joke
offense for the first month of the season. But DK
is a guy, and he's roster tagging yah, who's like
twenty percent or something like that. I was looking at
sleepers for week nine and I'm like, why is DK

(42:24):
still here? He should have aged out of this now.
He should have graduated from this column, but I guess
he hasn't. I'm also really curious and I Remember the
days were tight ends, rooking tight ends. You just laugh them,
laugh them off and ignore them. You know. I talked
about that was the receiver mindset for a while too.
And then recent years, you know, Bowers was great and
Porter was great, and obviously there's one of the McBride

(42:47):
was really good as.

Speaker 2 (42:48):
A rookie, Tyler Warren obviously of course thinking.

Speaker 3 (42:51):
A Warren and the poor Bears fans, right, they're wondering
if Caleb Williams was the right pick. And now they're
wondering if Colston Loveland, who can still be a fine
NFL player, if he was just a colossal miss. Because
Warren looks so freaking good. Wore he catched like two
hundred and seventy eight passes at Pennsdale last year. I
love Ty Warren. I don't have a lot of ty Warren.
But again, the Colts have been so much fun. I'm

(43:12):
really impressed that in a Browns offense that has very
little to hang it's hat on. Judkins has been good.
Of course, Yeah, Fannin has been You notice him. This
is one of my things. I call it the Grandmother test,
where I want, okay, we drafted a rookie tight end.
We're excited about Grandma. Can you pick him out? You know,
you pick out the first round player. Some players passed.

(43:32):
If I told my grandmother who's the best player on
the Edmonton Oilers, just watch five minutes this game, I
don't sure. If you know nothing about hockey, point to
economicc David's it's him. Yeah, I think there's some of
that with fann In the first week, they're lining him
up in the backfield, and the route diversity was there.
If and Djoko gets traded, and I realized usually the
trade deadline is more talk than it is action, although
it's been more interesting since they moved it back. But

(43:55):
if and Djoko gets removed from that offense, Fannin's ceiling
becomes exciting. But even if it's not, the fact that
he has survived despite a lot of stuff that would
sink a lot of other players. I'm interested in him
and Mason Taylor to me jets on By he may
get cut in some leaks this week because people have
more immediate needs, and I'm always looking this is the
time of year where people cut people they don't want

(44:15):
to because they have to win. This week, it's getting
really important. Taylor at worst is the second target in
this offense, and if Garrett Wilson isn't healthy, he's the
first target. Now I realize it's a justin fields offense.
It's just to Rod Taylor offense. Perhaps maybe they'll even
go down to their third stringer. So I this is
a low ceiling here, but I've liked what I've seen
a Mason Taylor, and tight end isn't a very deep position.

(44:36):
Be on the lookout for him possibly getting cut because
I think he'd be a great ad for depth at
fantasy's most beguiling position at times.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah, great calls.

Speaker 3 (44:45):
Love that.

Speaker 1 (44:46):
Another rookie that at the running back position that we
were all very excited about and he was crushing and
he was really changing the culture of his offense and
helping change the culture was Cam'scattaboo. Oh yeah, And obviously
you know he has this this horrific injury last week.
He's now out for the year, and now we have
Tyrone Tracy stepping in as there RB one.

Speaker 2 (45:06):
So I want to play a game.

Speaker 1 (45:07):
Been doing this on perspectives for you know, across different topics,
different players, But we're going to say, Tyrone Tracy, are
this guy and I'm going to go.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
Through a bunch of this guys.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
Okay, first one Tyron and this is for rest of season, Tyrone,
Tracy or Ramandre Stevenson.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
Yeah. Remember when the comedian Tracy Ellman used to have
an HBO show called Tracy takes On. So I guess
this is like Tracy takes On Fantasy football style. It's
going to be Tracy over Stevenson because it's just more competition.
It's easier for me to tell myself a story that
Tracy's workload is. Say, if I don't know that Singletary
is going to be much of a factor, he'll catch
the occasional pass. But I think Tracy has enough market share.

(45:44):
And you talked about the importance of guys who have
receiving chops. I mean, Tracy obviously was a receiver for
much of his college career. Maybe he's a dire college career,
so he's got that part of the game in his bag.
And Dart's been better than expected. I saw the list
you mentioned to me. Some of them were tougher calls.
We'll get to those guys. Tracey. See Stevenson was a
clear Stevenson win. I'm sorry, a clear Tracy win for me.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yeah, what about what about Tracy versus Kenneth Walker.

Speaker 3 (46:08):
This is hard because betting on talent, I want to
say Walker, betting on the roles, especially with Sharbonnay gobbling
up those short guarded touchdowns. Seattle I think maybe the
most underrated good team in the NFL. They don't get
a lot of hot They're not even seen as like
a favorite in the NFC West, and they could win
that division. Maybe people don't want to trust Sam Darnold,
but man, he's been good for a year and a
half now and that's accepted as a real thing. Bet

(46:30):
On talent would say Walker, but Tracy's role is so
much cleaner. I got to go Tracy. I'm curious how
you see that one.

Speaker 1 (46:37):
I got Tracy as well. Yeah, all right, let's go
with j Cory Krosky, Merritt or Tyrone Tracy.

Speaker 3 (46:43):
It's just not enough passes for Merrit and we saw
last week what can happen when they fall behind. He
just gets mothballed. Right. He hardly played in the Green
Bay game. It's been a lot of the standalone games.
By the way, he hardly got in the field against
green Bay, hardly got in the field against Kansas City.
Is Jadon Daniels one hundred percent this year? Maybe not.
Terry mclaurin's already been ruled out for a week nine.
That's a warning sign. So I'd really like Merit as

(47:05):
the player, and I feel like they've left a lot
on the bone here. He's impressed me with his decision making,
with his quickness, and just to see somebody hit this
late in the draft or as a free agent. I
forget to a seventh rounder on drafted, Yeah, seventh rounder, Yeah,
seventh round, that's right, so you know you see it
once in a while. Pachecka was the seventh round pick.
I love Merit as the player, but the way and
Washington's kind of paying I realize Merits a rookie, but

(47:27):
they're paying the price for having the oldest team in
like fifteen years. Right, It's the team is crumbling and
I hate to see it. I hate to see Daniels
get hurt as well. That to me was a clear
trace you win.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
Yeah, yeah, same.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
I mean the lack of receiving for Krosskey Marriot's definitely
been a problem. And I actually talked about this on
the ten trends episode. I tweeted about this too. He's
just not like when you're so reliant on rushing work,
which is what he is, because he's not seeing that
much through the air, you've got to be really explosive.
And he was very explosive to start the year. But
over the last handful of weeks he's had like a
two point six percent rate of gaining ten or more yards,

(47:58):
which is horrific, right, really really bad. He's gonna regress
a little bit. It's not gonna be that low for
the rest of the season. But like, that's that's the
narrative shift, right. You go from oh, we're so excited
about this guy. His numbers looked really good, and they
did look good, but that's because he was breaking off
some really big runs. And then he doesn't break off
those runs. Oh he's terrible. Why are we relying on him?

Speaker 2 (48:17):
Jeremy McNichols is better all this kind of stuff. It's
somewhere in the middle. It's always somewhere in the middle,
and that's where it is.

Speaker 3 (48:22):
I think right now, you know, I think he's actually
gonna be a good value next year in draft season.

Speaker 1 (48:26):
Could very easily be I mean they have a decent
schedule rest of season. I stithing that he can He
certainly can be usable. It's just that I'm never gonna,
like heavily buy into a player who is not gonna
see much receiving work. And I think mcnichol's playing as
well as he is in that role is what scares me.
Like early in the season when no one really like
when he wasn't when Crosskey Merritt was in a three

(48:48):
way backfield and Chris Rodriguez was getting a lot of
work and stuff. I had actually had Krosskey Merritt as
like a very cheap buy, you know, just throw him
on your bench and see if something develops here. I
think that something has actually developed. It's just that I
don't think we're going to see the potential full fruition
and what we could get from him, you know, throughout

(49:09):
his career this.

Speaker 2 (49:09):
Year, you know, just because the receiving work just isn't
isn't there for Crossy Merrit.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
Totally agree.

Speaker 2 (49:14):
All right, We'll go to Tyrone Tracy versus David Montgomery again.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
And I'm not going to say Tracy against the world,
but again I'm going to take Tracy over Montgomery only
because Montgomery can never hit any kind of ceiling. If
Gibbs is playing this well and they've shifted before it
was like, oh okay, it's like sixty forty, it's close
to fifty to fifty. They've finally Detroit has leaned into
the idea that gives is the alpha, and Montgomery's a
really nice secondary piece, but he is just that it's

(49:40):
an A and a B. It used to be a
one A and a one B. Now it's a clear
line of delineation. Gibbs has ascended, Montgomery is the CounterPunch,
So Tracy just has more opportunity upside every week.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
Yeah, and injury is really the only way I think
that that would switch for me. This is where I
think it starts to get a little bit interesting.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Is JK. Dobbins versus Tyrone Tracy.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
This was the hardest one of the names that you
listened to me. I went back and forth on it
to the point that if somebody just said they really
felt one way or the other, I'm not sure i'd
want to talk anybody out of it. I'm gonna lean.
I'm gonna lean to Dobbins because he's played so well
and I realized he's not catching passes, but they do
like him in pass pro, so he stays on the field.

(50:21):
Harvey is a really weird player right now because he's
what four touchdowns in his last thirteen touches, but his
role hasn't expanded that much. Also, do we count the
touchdowns against the Cowboys to count on them? I'm not
really sure if they do or if they should. So
that's a difficult situation. And maybe that Tracy's got a
better floor because not much competition. I lean Tracy on
that one, but I would have no problem with Dobbins too.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
Yeah, I think I'm Tracy.

Speaker 1 (50:45):
I had Dobbins as a cell this week, just because
the schedules really tough, and it's you know, with him
not being as much of a pass catcher and with
their being the chance that they use RJ. Harvey more
down the stretch, it could be a chance for you
to get out with Dobbins. But yeah, I mean it's
not certainly not easy. Rico Dawdell is the next one.

Speaker 3 (51:03):
I'm smiling. It's a little bit of a rueful smile
because I don't think I have Reco Dawdle anywhere. And
I was convinced when Hubbard came back that Donald would
still be the guy, and they have been stubborn about
that for two weeks. They've split the work. But I
give Dave Canal's credit another coach who's not afraid to
be kind of forthright in the media. It's a I've
covered football on all levels, high school, college, pro, and

(51:25):
they generally don't even want to admit there's a game
on Sunday, let alone what they're going to do with
their team. But Canals pretty much said, Okay, it's going
to be the reco doubts. So I'm not paraphrasing here,
but he basically conceded that Dowdell has won. Hubbard's the
two and reco Donald to the moon. Man. I realized
his big games came against ideal opponents. We talked about

(51:46):
Dallas just giving it away, but Rico Dowd's their best
running back. And this is from somebody who had a
lot of Hubbard shares last year and has more Hubbard
shairs than I would like to have this year. Not
a ton, but enough that I'm more if they're even
going to be useless in a week or two. I
think Rico o'donald's shoves Hubrid out of the way. They
have to play their best players. They have to respect
the integrity of the competition in the locker room, and

(52:07):
that's going to happen this week. So Rico o'donald is
going places.

Speaker 2 (52:11):
How about Travis Etn you're there.

Speaker 3 (52:13):
I'm going to go with Tracy because we talked about
this new staff. They inherited Etn, they targeted Tutin. This
is right, and we're going to see it again. This
is a reveal week. You know, all these teams coming back.
If Tuton's going to have a role on this team,
I think some of it will show this week, and
I'm thinking it probably will. Not that people are banging
down your door to get Travis Etn, But this is

(52:36):
the case with how do you make trades right, especially
if you wanted to trade Etn, who I think is
a great person to trade. Right now, you say to somebody, hey,
I got good running back depth, looks like you could
use a running back. Let them come to Etn. You
don't scream out I'm trying to trade Travis Etn. It
just seems fishy. People are on guard. Ask them, hey,
wreck my running backs? How do you rank them, how
do you sort them out? Let them tip their hand.

(52:58):
If you can just have a conversation. You know, sometimes
you talk about boiler room. Just get them to say, yes,
it's something. You know, if you were drowning and I
through your life preserver, would you take it? Yes? You
know it's kind of a silly example, but Ben Affleck
sells it. You know, just have conversations with people and
don't necessarily lead with where you want to end up,
and see if you organically get there. I think it's
a great time to get out of the et in business.

(53:19):
I think toot is a good chance to ascend it.
Even if that doesn't happen. Etan's upside is pretty tempered.
So that's a Tracy win for me.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
All right.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
Last one, and I want to ask you where you're
at with this guy too, But Chase Browns versus Tyrone Tracy.

Speaker 3 (53:33):
Yeah, that's a Chase Brown for me. And it's just
nice again. You know, Flacco older guy. I mean, I
guess he's forty. It looks like he's fifty two at times,
but I mean he's playing better than Browning. I will
see who plays this week. Hopefully the shoulder entry for
Flacco isn't that bad? He obviously loves nothing more than
the pump targets. To Jamar Chase, He's got man eighteen

(53:54):
targets a game, but no catches over twenty yards.

Speaker 1 (53:56):
So yeah, I mean he like, it's crazy. I talked
about this my mail bag that when we're recording this,
the mailbag's not out. But it's just wild that Jamar
Chase over the last two weeks is like a fifty
four percent target share. I mean, we're we're talking like
there's only been five wide receivers since twenty eleven who
have had multiple fifty percent target share games in a season,
and Jamar Chase has done it in back to back weeks.

Speaker 2 (54:19):
Like it's just the amount of volume he's seeing. No
one could have predicted this, you know, to this.

Speaker 3 (54:23):
I know on pace can be kind of a silly game,
but if you take the three Flacco games, yeah, Chase
his production and on pace it for a full season,
he had over three hundred targets.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
Yeah, it's just ridiculous.

Speaker 1 (54:33):
It's ridiculous, and clearly it's not going to maintain to
this degree, but for sure, for sure.

Speaker 3 (54:37):
But here's here's the thing. Here's the thing, Blacko is competent, right,
the offense is competent again, and I realized p Ryan,
you know, he had the nine carries last week, he
had a touchdown, he had ten touches. Overall, They've always
teams like him as a pass blocker. He's got the
chops to play in the receiving game. So Brown, we
always kind of knew. Last year's snap share and participation
rate was, you know, at the high end to like
those Matt four tay type stats like never coming off

(54:58):
the field. That was a little bit unrealistic to keep that.
But all Brown really needed is that the offense to
show the ability to be competent. And I realized part
of that was the coaching Burrows injury. Of course, as
a killer, the offensive line has been very bad. But
now that Flacco can make this offense at least competitive. Yeah,
to meet Chase Brown is an easy punch. I would
take him over Tracy and I actually think he'll just

(55:21):
be a kind of a set and forget running back
to the rest of the season.

Speaker 2 (55:24):
Yeah, I mean that'd be great.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
I mean I think that that that Chase Brown, you know, yes,
he was a volume play in an offense play, you know,
a situation play like where we were drafting him and stuff.

Speaker 2 (55:36):
But at the same I think he's good like I too.

Speaker 1 (55:38):
I don't think that he's like a bad running back
that oh, now that this is not many running backs
could do anything in the situations that he was in,
the in the line, in the way that was performing
earlier this season, that he was running behind. And I
think we've seen if you watched last two games, granted
you know easier opponents, and you know, obviously we're gonna
we're gonna see him shine a little bit more, but
he's created a lot on his own too, and you

(55:58):
just give him a little bit of space and can
do that. So, you know, I think that if there
is any downside here, it's that again you mentioned this
Smajhi p Ryan. The receiving stuff hasn't been as strong
under Flacco. Hopefully that regresses a little bit because his
route participation rate hasn't changed that that dramatically. This is
sort of where, because I'm I'm relatively high on Tracy,
I think that this is sort of where, you know,

(56:19):
the Rico stuff after after all the coach speak and whatnot,
I feel better about so I'm pretty much on par
with you, with with uh with everyone that you had
you had mentioned there do you.

Speaker 3 (56:27):
Have Tracy share? So? How how it's because once Scataboo
came in, I just thought Tracy was almost valueless.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
Yeah, I mean, like I I, I was mostly splitting
the two in drafts, you know, best ball wise, I
probably had a little bit more Tracy because I got
nervous down the stretch when I'm drafting a little bit
more volume about the Scataboo injury that he was dealing with,
you know, throughout August and whatnot. I liked Scataboo as
a prospect just fine, like I. He had the I
said in in the in the late round prospect guy

(56:55):
that he had the second best production profile in the
class behind Ashon Genty.

Speaker 2 (56:58):
I mean it was literally those two guys, you know.

Speaker 1 (57:01):
And he comped a Kareem Hunt too, which was obviously
pretty interesting and in attractive. But I've been a Tyrone
Tracy guy too, Like I think they had a situation
where both running backs are just good, and I think
Tyrone Tracy is still a good player, and so I'm
I'm excited to see what he can do, you know,
in this role, you know, with a more competent quarterback situation,

(57:21):
given what they're doing offensively this year, and they had
last year when when Tracy was was getting a lot
of work. It's crazy because I talked to you know,
Late Round subscribers and they're saying, you know, some of
them are in like pretty casual leagues, and they say that,
like some of their leagues didn't even bid on Tyrone Tracy,
Like there are people who just don't think that this
is going to be like a very fantasy viable thing.

(57:42):
But I think Tracy's a really good player. To me,
there's not a big gap and talent between Tracy and
some of the running backs we just talked about, And
so I'm fine with buying into that and leaning into
him as an RB two.

Speaker 3 (57:54):
Yeah, for sure. And if you know, I was telling
people if they were in a position to be bit
on him this week, I would have been aggressive with it.
You know, obviously by now that that stuff has sorted
itself out, but right, and who knew? I thought Jackson
Dart was going to be you know, kind of fun
but ineffective, and he's been I realized he makes mistakes
every game, and it still takes on too much contact,
but at least he's made the Giants. Even with malink
neighbors being heard they missed Slayton for a while. Who's

(58:16):
at least a useful player. I had no idea I'd
actually look forward to watching the Giants, but that's been
the case since Start took over.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
Once again, I got to give my guy, Jim Snis,
who comes on the show every every winter and spring
to top quarterbacks. He's a quarterback model and that model
pre draft had Jackson Dart as a top ten quarterback
over the last decade and he nailed it.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
He had Jayden Daniels last year, nailed that. So the
model has been and it was high and Drake.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
May two those are huge hits. All of those.

Speaker 2 (58:45):
Yeah, he's been. He's been crushing it. So I want
to because he That was what really got me on.
Jackson Dart was talking to Jim talking through it and
all the the data points that he was making, and
I gotta I gotta give him some love because he
absolutely crushed it.

Speaker 3 (58:59):
That's another thing. Another tip, right is that if you
have somebody who specializes in something, you know, just have
their brain. You talked about Jim how well he's evaluated
the quarterbacks that I obviously work with Matt Harmon, who's
known for his wide receiver work. So whenever I'm unsure
about wide receiver stances, I just you know, I send
that a text or you know, I send him an
email and and I say, look, you know this stuff,

(59:20):
you study this stuff, You've charted this stuff. What do
you got for me? And you know, if somebody is
such a smart but in this case, specially you know,
Matt Harmon is all about receivers, you know you're calling.
Jim is all about the quarterback evaluations. And they both
have the track record that back it up. So if
somebody specializes in something, you know, have a trouble putting,
go go to the putting guru, you know, Cose, I'm
not afraid to. I'm not afraid to crib off the

(59:41):
people who know what they're doing.

Speaker 2 (59:43):
Yeah, one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
I've been texting Harmon every week, just commiserating about Caleb
Williams and not being able to get Roma Dunes the
ball and being so inaccurate over the last ye Finally,
last week we had a more competent.

Speaker 2 (59:56):
Performance from Caleb to Rome. But yeah, I mean Harmon.
Harmon's my with a lot of the just making sure
that I'm seeing this properly, right, Like I had a
I was doing research on Quentin Johnson this week and
I'm like, hey, this is what I found and is
this what you're seeing too? And I think it's you know,
it's a it's a good thing to do.

Speaker 3 (01:00:11):
What would a QJ takeaways?

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
QJ takeaway was that over the last couple of weeks
they've been running a lot more go routes with him
and basically using him like they did last year as
sort of as what Harmon would call the sacrificial X.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Right, yeah, yeah, And so I don't know if that's
going to continue.

Speaker 1 (01:00:28):
But I think that the bad part for QJ is
that Aronde Gatston has emerged, and that's the like the
offense is cooking, and so why would they really change
it up that dramatically.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
That's the issue.

Speaker 1 (01:00:40):
But then you could also tell the story of like,
this is what's happened after his after he came back
from injury, and maybe that injury still lingering, and so
there could be an opportunity just shouting this out to
everyone listening. There could be an opportunity to really really
buy low on QJ if this continues, because then we
could latch onto the injury narrative and say, may they

(01:01:00):
start to change it up a little bit and use
him in different ways. But if we're looking at strictly
from like a descriptive perspective, which is what that really is,
like my QJ take isn't so much like this is
what's going to continue happening.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
It's a this is why this is happening. They're just
using him, not like they were at the start of
the year, which is a little unfortunate.

Speaker 3 (01:01:18):
I know this will feel like cheating, But at the
same time, I feel like QJ stock is down. And
yet there's a possibility that people who roster him right
now may have just bottomed him out, Like you know,
they don't trust him anybody exactly. They see the bad
drop exactly, they see Gatson emerging, which is obviously a thing.
So while I have to rationally lower my expectations for Johnston,

(01:01:38):
it's also possible there could be an overcorrection by the
people who've coster him right now. So those two things
can exist in the same.

Speaker 1 (01:01:44):
World exactly like in my opinion, the if this continues
then he's basically Jamison Williams, you know where where like
sure we can use him during bye weeks and then
a pension, you know, fingers crossed that they do, like
speaking of coming out of the buy and changing things up,
there's already been some coach speak about them using Jmo Moore.
Let's hope that that happens because I think it just
makes that offense a lot more dynamic. But regardless of that,

(01:02:06):
like like this is you're you're totally right. When a
lot of times when this stuff happens over like a
two or three game span, you will see fantasy managers
just not want to have anything to do with that
player and just think, you know, the absolute worst about
that player. It could be a time if you haven't
gotten QJ, or if you want more exposure, find someone
on your bench that you can trade away that might

(01:02:27):
even just be a one week start like a BAM
night or something like that, and get QJ and say, hey,
maybe this turns around and maybe this is this is
just really an anomaly that's going on.

Speaker 3 (01:02:35):
Right, And never forget too, that wide receiver is a
variance position. You know, there's just going to be it's
boom and bust and one play, one play being called
a catch or not a catch or a foot out
of bounds or whatever it is, will radically change what
their outlook is and how we feel about them, the
taste in our monels at the end of the week.
So and even the best players, you're justin Jefferson every

(01:02:56):
once in a while, ever three for twenty four game,
it just happens. It just happens. This position, It's is
just more variance deposition, which is why you need to
take these broader views sometimes to make a good decision
that makes sense moving forward.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
All Right, one more for you before I let you go.
Been asking for some bold takes for the upcoming week.
We've had some pretty big hits. The biggest one I
think so far, James Co said that Stephan Diggs was
going to be the wide receiver one the week, like
overall wide receiver one the.

Speaker 2 (01:03:22):
Week that he played Buffalo, and he was I think
the two that week. So he I mean, I'll give
him the w who for that one.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
That's a great one.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
Yeah, give me a bold take for week nine.

Speaker 3 (01:03:31):
Yeah. James Co another smart guy and he and Harmon
do a lot of work together. So certainly somebody on
the Fantasy approoved list. I'm not sure this is going
to be anywhere near as bold as that, But so
Pete Carroll gets hired for the Raiders job he's in
his seventies, and Chip Kelly takes over the offense and
beat the Patriots in Week one. Almost nothing has gone
right since Bowers obviously got hurt. Gino Smith has been

(01:03:53):
a mess. We know that's you know, the red zone
problems are kind of a Geno Smith thing anyway, and
Ashton Genty, their high priced rookie, really hasn't done much.
I have to believe that chip Kelly didn't forget. Not
that I'm at all bullish on the Raiders long view,
but Genty was a really good pass catcher in college.
I have to feel that they are going to eventually
realize what they're missing here. I think this is the

(01:04:14):
week Genty finally catches like seven passes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Nice. Nice, I like it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:18):
I like it. Yeah. There.

Speaker 1 (01:04:20):
He's been one of the players that every time I
post my rest of the season rankings, there's someone that
is like, why are you still relatively high?

Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
And it's not relatively high.

Speaker 1 (01:04:28):
It's just like I'm at market with with Genty, but
no one has you know, they don't have that context
with what the market is generally saying about him.

Speaker 2 (01:04:34):
You know, why are you so high on Genty? And
it's just he's go a do it all back, He's you.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Know, like we talked about Travon Henderson earlier and how
he hasn't it hasn't clicked for him yet. Don't forget.
It didn't really click for Genty the first couple weeks
this season. It didn't click for Mari and Hampton the
first couple weeks of this season. Sometimes it just happens
like sometimes they just they just realize, this is what
I gotta do. And I do think that that it
did click for Genty, and hopefully you're right, hopefully that

(01:05:01):
that Raiders coaching staff decides to use him a little
bit more in ways that they should be using him
because he is a very, very talented player.

Speaker 3 (01:05:09):
But Scott Man, big big reveal week Man again. Yeah,
six teams off by We look at those six teams
very carefully. I'm going to give you one more tip
by the way, just for fun. Yeah, because we're still
in the teeth of by Week season, right, Yeah, remember
that anybody who's on by Monday morning, go over to Yahoo,
find someone in your bench who lost value, and pick
up somebody who's on by you didn't play because they're

(01:05:30):
a free agent in your league. People forget that, like
all those gap pickups. People even get mad at me
sharing this tip because it's such a like a It's
like the bar without a sign on it. You know.
It's like, you know, you mentioned NHLPA ninety four. That's
not so much for me. It's ronic he's good, right,
but so good? Yes, so good, but dead. So remember
Monday morning, make those gap pickups. And again in by

(01:05:52):
week season, people are cutting guys they don't want to
Mason Taylor. Maybe one of those guys he's on by.
Maybe you don't have room for Mason Taylor. And then
Monday morning one of your backups get hurt or something.
He's not worth anything anymore. Like I had to cut
Kendrick Miller, who I was really high on a few
weeks ago, because he got hurt. He's out for the season,
you know. But then I made a gap pick up
on Monday morning. So yeah, if you're playing at Yahoo,
and I hope you are, just keep that in mind

(01:06:13):
for your Monday plan.

Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
Yeah, you can do that with with streaming defenses at
the very least, you know, I love it. Yeah, that's
that's the easiest way to do that. But man, this
was this was awesome. I love chatting with you, love
talking ball with you. Let everyone know what you're working on,
where they can find you all that good stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:06:27):
Sure. Yeah, Scott Panowski easy to find on Twitter and
Blue Sky. I am part of the Fantasy newsletter of it. Yeah,
who get to the points which you know you should
be reading. Right after you read JJ's stuff in the morning,
we come to you, I think three days a week
periodically on the podcast as well, and then you know,
all sorts of NFL content and I will cover fantasy
baseball when that comes around too. But if you follow
me on social media Twitter, Scott underscore Pianowski. I arned

(01:06:50):
Blue Sky just searched Scott Pianowski. Pretty unique name. You'll
find me and I'll linked all my stuff and also
love to talk about anything nonsports. You've seen a great movie,
you knew album, you like, you got dog pictures, whatever
it is. You know, we're all human beings too. You
give food food a food food photo to show you
know cost the recipe. You know, I'm open to anything.
Let's have some fun. This is all supposed to be fun.

(01:07:12):
It's a game about a game, and I'd love to
have you along for the ride.

Speaker 2 (01:07:16):
I see you, I see you golf, and I saw
that you had that hole in one right like a
month ago or so.

Speaker 3 (01:07:20):
I did my second one. Yeah, that's very lucky. I
wish everybody can have that once. I'm about a fifteen handicap,
which means I'm an okay golfer. I can shoot in
the eighties, I can shoot in the nineties. I'm never
going to be great, but the gods have smiled on
me twice. And you know that's I wish everybody who
plays golf gets experienced that at least once.

Speaker 1 (01:07:39):
Did you have any urge to just quit playing after
that that hole in one, like just just to end
it on a high and just be done.

Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
I'm kind of obsessive about golf. Yes. In fact, the
joke I always tell people that said, if you knew
how much I practiced, you'd wonder why I'm not better. Right,
I love it. You know, all the people the driving
range know me, and the people at the putting green
know me and stuff. What really happened, JJ is when
the pandemic hit. Yeah, and I always liked golf. I
really loved golf, but I didn't like practicing. I used
to actually dread it. Yeah, And when the pandemic hit,

(01:08:07):
one of the few things we could do was was
get outside and do things like play golf. So I
went to the drive and range a lot, and you
could play. They'd have the whole setup, so nobody's going
to touch the pin, spread germs and all this stuff.
And so golf kind of kept me saying as much
as it could during the pandemic, right, I mean that
March of twenty twenty was the longest month of our lives. Right,
I think we're crazy. Is the NFL even going to play? Right?

(01:08:28):
They had a truncated baseball season. I don't know how
they played an NFL season, but whatever they did, and
golf kind of kept me kept me going, and I
practiced a lot and got better again. I'm mediocre by
anybody's account, but I I'm always working on something. I'm
always watching golf videos, you know, or whether it's practice tips,
the nineteen ninety five Masters, you know. I just love

(01:08:51):
that stuff. So the other thing too, is that JJ.
Growing up, I played everything. I played hockey, I played basketball,
I played softball, and even my adult I really can't
do any to play. I couldn't skate now, you know.
I couldn't I could run in a basketball game, you know.
So golf is the one sport I can play for
the rest of my life. It's a great social game too. Yeah,
much much love to the game.

Speaker 1 (01:09:10):
Yeah, no, it's it's a great game. Ever since kids
have come for me, it's been a lot more difficult
to play. But I'm making I've told my wife, I'm like,
I'm making it my New Year's resolution next year to
play more golf. That is my That is my my
official resolution for twenty twenty six.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
Let me ask you a fun question on the way out. Yeah,
as a UNS there, as a Pittsburgh guy, who's your
all time favorite Pittsburgh athlete? Oh?

Speaker 1 (01:09:32):
Man, I mean I think that I have to say
Lemieux because of what he's meant to the city. I'm
not I'm too young for Robert Clemente uh and to
be you know, to say him, although I know that.

Speaker 3 (01:09:44):
The meaning is stargel and stuff like that, right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:46):
Right, I'll say that my favorite Steeler of all time
is heinz Ward because he embodied sort of that era
really well, and he was just a really fun player
to to watch. But I think it's got to be,
you know, just based on I mean, he saved the franchise.
He literally saved the franchise from from moving, and since

(01:10:06):
then they've won three Cups. So I you know, it's
just that that man himself has brought me a lot
of joy.

Speaker 3 (01:10:11):
Yeah, do yourself a favor. Gone to YouTube, not you,
but the people listening and look at some Mario Mu
highlights and it always Damagedeck and I always talk about this.
The nineteen eighty nine MVP, well, Lemu had eighty five goals,
Gretzky had fifty four goals. They both had one hundred
and fourteen assists, and Lemieux did not win the MVP
because Gretzky had gone to La and Lemieux, who would

(01:10:34):
eventually have unbelievable teammates eventually, you know, they had Ron
Francis and all the all the other stuffs and everything.
That year he was playing with Bob Airy and Rob Brown.
He made Rob Brown into a fifty goal scorer. Just
because Lemieux was a god and Bob Ary was like
a third line player who was on this line with
lemou because they had nothing else at the time. Yeah,
he was basically playing with a two journeymen, you know.
And he had one hundred and ninety nine points and

(01:10:56):
thirty one more goals. You know, I know, I'll never
and the supporting Castinelli was actually pretty good. I mean
Bernie Nichols, who was a very good angel player. I
think scored seventy goals that year. No disrespect to Gretzki
or anything. That was one of the all time wrong picks.
I got to say one more thing. I know we've
gone way over, but as far as MVPs go, NFL MVP,

(01:11:17):
all right, it's become the best quarterback award. The only
non quarterback who's won recently has been Adrian Peterson. That
was like thirteen years ago. Taylor's having this great year.
He'll never win MVP. I just wish he was most
outstanding Player, the player who defines the season, because to me,
like Cooper Cup was that guy in twenty twenty one,
j J. Watt was that guy the year that Rogers

(01:11:39):
beat him out, Jerry Rice could have won In eighty seven.
Randy must didn't even get an MVP vote the year
he had twenty three touchdowns. I realized he can't separate
him and Brady. Brady had fifty touchdowns whatever. Brady was
a great pick, had nothing wrong with that, But man,
it's funny how receivers can win or running backs can
win an MVP in like a game and a Super Bowl.

(01:11:59):
But why can that be the MVP of the season
If it was most outstanding player, if it didn't turn
into everybody's personal definition of what valuable means, Yeah, then
I think we just have a more interesting voting for
that award. I gat I thought Cup was the guy
in twenty one. I think Taylor could easily be that
guy this year and he'll never win it.

Speaker 1 (01:12:17):
Yeah, he's yeah, exactly. I mean, I do think that
It's just one of those things, like I've distanced myself
since I've been at uh, you know, since I was
at number five where we had to write more of
that kind of content and stuff like that. I've distanced
myself from like having strong opinions on coaching hires and
you know, MVP stuff, all that all that kind of
you know, and like real football stuff. I'll randomly throw
out some takes, but it's you know, nothing that I'm

(01:12:40):
the expert on. But I do think sometimes with like
the MVP, I'm like, can we just dumb this down
and just be like, who do you think is the best?
You know, like like just very simply without you know,
going into that nuance, because yes, when you go into
that detail, it would be a quarterback as we know
there you don't have that player, you know, like the
Jonathan Taylor thing. It's it's it's pretty interesting because the

(01:13:00):
biggest change year over years is Daniel Jones, right, like,
nothing like what has dramatically dramatically changed for Jonathan Taylor.
And it's it's that that would be the biggest change
is the changing quarterback. And yet we're seeing such dramatically
different results from from Taylor. So then you could deduce
and say, okay, well then he's not the MVP because
there was there's this other piece that would hypothetically be

(01:13:23):
that MVP. But then that other piece is not nearly
the best player at his position, so you can't call
him the MVP, right, And so like, yes, you can
get into that detail, but I do think that You're right,
it's like who defined that season and right now it's
got to be what Taylor is doing unless we see,
you know, the continuation of Drake May playing as well
as he has to me, like I think, I think

(01:13:43):
Drake May has been the MVP so far.

Speaker 3 (01:13:45):
Like like that, you know, the average cast around him,
Diggs is not the same player unless James co is
on your show promodium. You know, Booty's a nice player.
And was it interesting that he had better stats than
Thomas and neighbors that one season at l you who's
actually there kind of their alpha receiver?

Speaker 2 (01:14:02):
He was a good project.

Speaker 3 (01:14:03):
But May, Drake May is so freaking good, Okay, I swear.
Last question, Yeah, I is the pumpkin risk for Daniel Jones.
When I say pumpkin risk, it's the risk it Oh
my god, he just forgets everything. He goes back to
being mediocre. We're getting close to zero pumpkin risk on
Jones and you still have a little bit of that.
It's almost Halloween, you know, the monsters under the bed,

(01:14:23):
the monsters hide in the closet. Daniel Jones is going
to get me. Where are you at on that?

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
I think that it is still there.

Speaker 1 (01:14:30):
Because I do think that we can see certain quarterbacks
and certain situations even get hot for twelve games and
it's still you know, exists because it's such a cerebral
position and such a mentally based and mentally driven position.
But yeah, I mean like he's he's to me, he's
going to get a contract with them, like a long

(01:14:50):
term contract, and he'll he'll probably be their quarterback for
the immediate future.

Speaker 3 (01:14:54):
So I probably comps pretty similar to Darnold last year,
great season, Oh my god, what is Minnesota gonna do?
And then he plays terrible against Detroit, he plays terrible
against the playoffs, and it's like, Okay, well they're gonna wave.

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
And I think that's a very real possibility for Daniel Jones.
You know, I said it on Living the Stream this
week on you know, more of a of a relaxed
I mean this is a pretty relax show too, but
more of a you know, relaxed style show. I wouldn't
be surprised and this is this is just completely vibes based.
But if this is the week that like the Steelers
beat the Colts, right, like just the most NFL thing

(01:15:25):
of all time, the most Mike Tomlin thing, of all time,
and then all of a sudden, we're having these conversations
in the opposite direction. For Daniel Jones, I don't think
that's the median outcome, but I think that, like that's
the way that the narratives are are driven in this
league and in this game is and this is what
we talked about throughout this entire show, is like one
game from a player that's not up to some standard

(01:15:47):
that they've set, we almost take it too far then
in the other direction, so, you know, defending depending on
how you would define like turning back into that, he's
gonna have a game or two where he's not flawless
or we're not even flawless, but like you know, he's
played well basically every single game, and so he's gonna
have a game or two in there where people then
start to question and he's not gonna have the same

(01:16:08):
kind of leash that you know, a younger up and
coming quarterback like a Drake may or like an established
one like Patrick Mahomes or Josh Allen when.

Speaker 2 (01:16:15):
They have a bad game, Okay, it's just a bad game,
they're gonna bunce back. But we just don't. We will
never have that with a player like Daniel Jones. Unfortunately,
when we probably should.

Speaker 1 (01:16:22):
I think the Colt's front office though, will like they'll
they'll sit there and be like, Okay, we know that
we have something okay that can that can function in
this offense.

Speaker 3 (01:16:29):
And that speaks to the fact that nobody hits the
high end of their range every week. And that's why
we always talk about outlier performances, good or bad. You're
never probably as great as you look on your best day,
and you're probably not as horrible as you exact worst day.
And you know, how do the Falcons beat the Bills
and then get trounced by Miami? You know that that's football, right,
It just happened range of outcomes in football.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
Yeah, it's like just just be okay, Like that's the thing.
You don't have to have answers for all of this stuff.
You just have to be okay that this stuff happens.
You know that that just like when you go out
for a run, you're gonna be slower one day than
another day and you don't know exactly why, but there's
reasons why.

Speaker 2 (01:17:03):
These are all humans as well, right, sure, and.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
There's going to be days where they just don't have
it together. Where the coaching staff is calling horrible plays,
where fumble doesn't go their way, where it does go
their way, that kind of stuff is just gonna happen.
And if you don't let yourself react too harshly to
those things, you can be a better fantasy player and
just football watcher in general, you know, over the long term.

Speaker 3 (01:17:23):
So well said, you have to make peace with the variants.

Speaker 2 (01:17:26):
Yeah, you really don't, You really do well. I appreciate
the time man.

Speaker 1 (01:17:28):
As always, everyone can follow me on Twitter, on Blue
Sky at Late Round QB, check out my work lateround
dot com. Make sure you're subscribed to this show, both
via podcast, but also on YouTube YouTube dot com slash
at Late Round FF. Happy Halloween everyone, Thanks to Scott
once again, really appreciate it, and thanks to all of
you for tuning in.

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