Auction Mailbag - AAV, Par Sheets, and Keepers; Guest Brian Drake from Fantasy Points - Auction Brief with Drew Davenport

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Auction Brief. There's a joy in this
game or not.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Taking you on a journey through fantasy football, the law,
and life.

Speaker 1 (00:17):
These all yours. It depends on how much you want.
And now you're legal analyst and auction draft expert here
to help you dominate your fantasy drafts.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Your host, Drew Davenport, there are full hearts.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Hey, everybody, welcome into the Auction Brief. As the lady said,
I'm your host, Drew Davenport. You're a fantasy football lawyer,
and thank you so much for joining me for another
episode of The Auction Brief. As we roll on this summer,
helping you get ready for your fantasy drafts, for your
auction drafts, for your snake drafts, for everything you're going

(00:55):
to encounter in your draft rooms in this fantasy season.
I think The Auction Brief is one of the most
informative podcasts out there. I know sometimes we go an
hour and a half to two hours, but you're learning
so much in that time that I firmly believe this
show is helping people win. I wouldn't be doing it
if I didn't think so. And that is what I

(01:17):
love doing every week when I get on the bike.
I love thinking about how can I help you win?
That's what I'm here for a lot of times, it's
easy to lose the plot and to say, hey, I
want to do this this week, or I want to
do this this week and not be focused on what
it is people need. As we sit here about to
turn the calendar to August and so I'm focusing on

(01:39):
what you guys need, and I'm hoping that you feel
that way when you listen.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
To the show.

Speaker 1 (01:44):
We have a fun one this week. I'm going to
do a mailbag episode and I'll explain a little bit
about that in just a minute. But I've also got
Brian Drake here from Fantasy Points and Fighting Chance Fantasy.
Brian's one of my best friends in the world. Happens
to be somebody I met through the industry, but we've
become pretty close over the last couple of years. And
you all know that this is one of the most
popular episodes of the Auction Brief every summer because Brian

(02:05):
and I just have a great time screwing around. I
don't think this week's discussions with Drew and Brian will
disappoint I think you're going to enjoy that, So stick
around for that discussion with Brian. You're gonna learn a lot,
but you're also gonna have a good time and probably
find yourself laughing along with us at times. I hope,
and I hope maybe some of you get out to

(02:25):
campon hang out with us. But if you don't, I
understand and I appreciate you supporting the auction brief. Don't
forget you can find me on Twitter at Drew Davenport FF,
on TikTok, and Patreon the Fantasy Football Lawyer. Head over
there to the Patreon network for just four bucks a
month and get information you can't get anywhere else that
I don't put out anywhere else. My values are already

(02:48):
there on the site and I will be updating those
in just a couple of weeks as camps come to
a close. Also, don't forget you can get ten percent
off the best draft boards in the business at JAY
Fantasy Sports. Use my code Auction twenty twenty five, that's
Auction two zero two five to get ten percent off
the best draft boards in the business at FJA Fantasy

(03:11):
Draft Boards. All right, Well, I have been getting more
and more antsy to get into the content every week
without telling stories about kelp on the whole or how
I played a pair of aces. I'd just like to
get into the content because I feel the pressure of
fantasy drafts coming, and I hope you feel that pressure
and want to get right down to business. This week's

(03:32):
episode is going to be a little bit different. We
don't have a legal update because we are still waiting
on word from the NFL about a couple key pieces
that I talked about before with Jordan Addison and Rashie Rice.
So no legal update this week, and we will continue
to monitor the Queen John Jugkins story as well, but
we don't have to get into that this week. We're

(03:53):
going to get right into the content, and it's a
mailbag episode. Don't get nervous, Okay, don't get nervous, all right,
just listen here for a second. I'm not gonna pull
individual questions that you're gonna get bored with or that
you're gonna think like, why am I listening to this.
I'm giving you what I believe are broadly applicable concepts

(04:14):
by answering these questions. So I'm hoping that you're taking
away something that maybe you're wondering about or something that
applies to your drafts. That's what I'm trying to do here.
So all of these questions are from the Patreon network.
One percent of the questions are from the Patreon except
I had a conversation with somebody over DMS that he
brought up a good point that I wanted to talk about.
But all these questions are really insightful, interesting questions about auctions,

(04:39):
and we're gonna have a conversation about all of them.
I think I got like eight different mail bag questions,
and once we're done with that, we'll get over to
the conversation with Brian for discussions with Drew. What do
you say we get it going, let's do an auction
mail bag auction talk. Well, I teased this a couple
weeks ago that we were gonna do the mail bag,

(05:00):
and I don't want you to sit here and be like, boy,
this is going to be boring, because I think it's
going to be helpful. And that's like I said, that's
something that I think about every week. How can I
help you win? I wouldn't be doing the mail bag
if I felt like it was going to help like
six people. I think You're going to enjoy the conversation
around these questions because I bet a lot of you
out there have some of the same questions. The first

(05:20):
one is a really broad concept that I want to
talk about because I feel like I skirt this issue
a lot, and I do it for a reason. But
let me explain what I mean here by giving you
the question. And this is from Moody in my Patreon network.
Also sal Kusamano ask a similar question, but basically it's this.
If you say that AAV is essentially meaningless, like I

(05:44):
talked about last week, because every room is different, then
when I'm creating my par sheet, how will I know
how much to ballpark for each position? This is a
great question. There are so many layers to this question,
but I first of all, I have to hit it
from a really thirty thousand and foot view, because the
question isn't really like hey, Drew, give us your exact

(06:04):
numbers this year, or hey, Drew, drill down for forty
seven minutes on this topic. I know the nature of
the question is well like, look, if I can't use AAV,
then what am I doing here? Like? How do I
get these values? And that's a completely reasonable question. Let
me say first of all that whenever we discuss this stuff,
we discuss it with a two hundred dollars cap. It's

(06:24):
impossible for me to discuss things with one hundred dollars
cap or a two fifty or a three hundred or
because you've got to figure out that stuff for your leak.
But it's a two hundred dollars cap. We're discussing things
in that general idea. But on top of that, if
you're not allowed to use AAV, how do I do it? Well,
let me first of all say I do think you
can use AAV for those purposes, and I want to

(06:48):
say this very clearly. I know I've been on an
anti AAV kick this summer. I still firmly believe that,
but I did tell you that there are some exceptions
to win you can use the AAV. The first exception
is if you're new to this, because I get I've
been getting a lot of questions from new folks that
are popping up and have just started to do auctions.

(07:09):
That's awesome, I love that, by the way. That warms
my little hearts. But I'm getting a lot of those
beginner questions and this is kind of what it revolves around.
So I want you to understand that I think in
that instance, you should be using the AAV. You should
take some general average auction values and just be getting
an idea a ballpark about what players should be going for.

(07:31):
For example, I want to land Lamar Jackson, You're gonna
have to spend twenty five to thirty bucks. I want
to land Jamar Chase, You're gonna have to spend fifty
five plus you might have to go over sixty. I
want to land Saquon Barkley or Bijon Robinson, You're gonna
have to go over fifty bucks, maybe over fifty five.
So I'm giving you some general ranges here, but I'm
just giving you an example. So how do you know

(07:54):
what to use when you're creating your par sheet. Well,
first of all, what you want to do is pay
attention to the settings in your league and then get
some general AAV values. This is really the only time
I encourage you to use them as a beginner sort
of starting point. So go get a hold of some
of those. That's totally cool. Then look at those values
and say, Okay, that's my starting point for how I'm

(08:16):
going to build out my par sheet. Am I gonna
go quarterback heavy, tight end heavy heavy on neither one?
Am I gonna go hero running back with one top
running back? Or am I going to go with two
good running backs? Figure that stuff out and the general
ranges that you want to think about. I'm just going
to give you some concrete examples here with the caveat
that you understand that in your leagues these things may

(08:40):
play out quite differently. But the purpose of this question is, Hey,
give me some general ideas, and I'm going to do
that for you right here. So, like I said before,
if you're gonna go for the top range, when we're
talking about running back, it's almost always going to be
over fifty five fifty ish. Sometimes it can hit sixty
and with white receiver this year, I think Jamar Chase

(09:02):
has a chance to hit sixty dollars. This is a
two hundred dollars cap. Don't forget. I think Jamar Chase
has a chance to hit two hundred. Excuse me, that
would be a treat. Jamar Chase has a chance to
hit sixty bucks. I don't blame people for that valuation.
I'm not going to pay that myself. But that's not
the point here. So we're talking about top end talent.
At the running back and wide receiver position, you're definitely

(09:23):
getting over fifty to fifty five dollars. At quarterback and
tight end you're getting over twenty five. Now, tight end's
a weird thing because in some leagues you're gonna be
able to land trade McBride for like twenty nine bucks.
In some leagues he's going to be thirty five, he's
going to be forty because when Travis Kelcey was here,
people went nuts for Kelsey and sometimes he'd go for
forty bucks. Forty five bucks. That could happen, But for

(09:46):
the most part, at quarterback and tight end, you're talking
about over twenty five bucks to get the top of
the very top of the position. And sometimes then we're
not talking about superfucks again, so the top of the
position is going to be twenty five plus, sometimes over thirty.
But since there's kind of a flat tier at the
top at quarterback, I don't think you're going to see
a lot of leagues that it goes over thirty two.

(10:07):
Often in the middle ranges, when you're talking about wide
receiver two RB two, you really just want to chop
it down a little bit from there, and you want
to make sure you're paying attention to your tiers. So
when you're going into RB two territory, you at the
top of RB two territory, then you're talking about more like, hey,
maybe we're in the thirties, maybe we're in the upper twenties.
A lot of times it drops off down there into

(10:28):
the upper twenties to mid twenties for those RB twos,
And same thing for wide receivers. A lot of times
it's so flat and people feel like it's all kind
of the same area. They like certain players, but there's
like thirty wide receivers that people like, so a lot
of times that's going to drop off quickly after the
top guys, maybe your top seven or eight guys going

(10:50):
for probably over forty dollars and sometimes over fifty or
fifty five. Then we're talking about dipping down into the thirties,
and as you go down, it goes down a little
bit lower than that. You can check out my values
for how I see things over on the Patreon, but
in general, what you want to remember is that the
tiers are what controls how quickly those prices drop. So

(11:13):
if you're going down into the fourth tier, sometimes that
price is going to drop off pretty quickly. Maybe your
running backs go from twenty four dollars to seventeen or
nineteen or something like that. But just keep in mind
that I can't really give you exact numbers here. Use
my values on the Patreon, but then also use these
general ranges for the top end, and then work your

(11:34):
way back from there. Use some aav use these general
guidelines that I'm giving you right now, and then start
dialing in your par sheet how you want to do it.
You'll find that when you're dialing in that par sheet,
when you're trying to get those exact numbers, those dollars
don't go nearly as far as you think they're going
to go. Hey, I want to have a top running back.
I want to have a top wide receiver. I also

(11:55):
want to go after trade McBride. Okay, then that's it,
you're done. Just kidding, But it's sort of it's weird.
And that's why I always tell people the exact numbers
on the par sheet are so important, because you don't
realize how quickly those dollars dry up. All right, So
I think that answers question number one, go out and

(12:16):
use that AV. It's totally cool to get a starting
point and then go from there based on your league
and based on some of these values I've spit out
here today. All right, So that's a very general look
at the first question. Don't be too rigid in anything
you do. If you need it, you need it, it's fine.
I just don't want you to take it in the draft,
and I don't want you to rely on solely that

(12:37):
AAV in the draft. You gotta rely on what's happening
in the room. We've talked about that before, all right.
Question number two from the mailbag is from Steve Saunders
from the Patreon and he says, do you suggest stacking
when debating between two or a couple of players? And
stacking is one of those things that's become in vogue
more recently because of the Best Ball Bros. There's a

(13:00):
lot of people out there playing best ball, and what
they're involved in is a large tournament field where they
have to stand out for the rest of the crowd.
So if you want to win one million dollars and
two hundred and fifty thousand people are playing in a tournament,
you got to stand out. You got to have a
different build, and a lot of times what that involves

(13:20):
is having a quarterback wide receiver tight end kind of
combo or quarterback running back wide receiver combo. Where the
game absolutely blows up in the final week in Week seventeen,
bad defenses, good offenses, just slinging the ball all over
the yard. My buddy Dan Hendry over at Football Guys
won half a million dollars last year because he was

(13:42):
on Burrow Higgins Chase, and hey, that's what hits at
the end of the season, that's how it wins. I
want to caution to you that stacking is more of
a best ball thing. However, However, however, it's not that
I don't believe in it altogether. And what's interesting is
we've started calling it stack now in the business. It's
something that people have been doing in my home league

(14:03):
for a long time, and we just had a name
for it. We didn't know what it was called or
that it even had a name. We called it having
a double dip so you get two touchdowns. You get
a double dip when your quarterback throws a touchdown to
either tight end, your running back, your receiver or whatever.
Most often, though, it's quarterback to pass catcher to get
that double dip. But the double dip, the stacking, whatever

(14:25):
you want to call it, I think it's okay. And
one of the things Steve references here is can you
use that as a tiebreaker when you're deciding between players. Yeah. Absolutely,
here's my problem with it. My problem with it is
that you get too invested in trying to put that
stack together and you're going against one of my chief
rules that I talked about last week was to try

(14:47):
not to force things. Auctions are often like poker tournaments,
sometimes you cannot force it. You can try your hardest
to force things, and sometimes they're just not going to
go the way you want them to go. And if
you're stuck on a stack or having that stack, I
think it can hurt you. So I want you to
have the idea that I would love to try for
this stack. I'm going to go super cheap and I'm

(15:09):
gonna get Matthew Stafford and I'm going to try to
get Davante Adams or Pookinakua. So I have that stack. Okay,
that's fine, but I just don't want you to try
to force it becomes then it becomes a problem. So
do you like stacking? Yeah, I do, sure, if I can,
that's fun. A lot of times I'll do it with
the tight end because it's a little bit cheaper to
get the tight end and get the quarterback and the

(15:30):
tight end combo, like a Dak Prescott Jake Ferguson kind
of thing, a Jordan love tucker Craft kind of thing.
So if you're going value at those positions, you can
really get those spike weeks by having those two players
on the same team. Keep in mind, the big caveat
is sometimes you get in a situation where you have
that sort of killer thing that happens in the playoffs.

(15:53):
And I talk about it from time to time, and
I talked about it last year, but there are what
I call stoppers in the playoffs. And if you have
a stack and you're up against a stopper. What's a stopper. Well,
that's a defense that's really really tough on offenses and
depresses the fantasy value of the players in the game

(16:14):
just naturally because it's going to be a low scoring game.
My example this year would be saying, like Denver, if
you play against Denver in Week fifteen, sixteen or seventeen.
It may stop you from winning a title because you
got to win those three weeks. You can absorb that
stuff in weeks three and seven. You can't absorb it
in fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen because then you're out. So

(16:35):
if you invest in a stack that runs into a
stopper in the playoffs, it really hurts you and it
can cost you your season. So be careful. That's the caveats,
you know. The caveats are watch out for those stoppers
in the playoffs, and also, don't force the issue. If
you can put it together, great, but don't force it.
All right, Thanks for the question, Steve. The next one

(16:56):
I'm going to go to is, Oh, yeah, it's my
buddy Nas who everybody has him to thank for the
beautiful graphics on my values on the Patreon page. Thank
you to him for donating his time and making those
things look awesome. He said, do you love CJ. Stroud?

(17:18):
Oh that's a funny little joke. I don't think I
got the start sit on CJ Stroud right once. Last year,
Nas kept coming back for more. Sorry buddy, that it
was a horrible situation to try to figure out with
c j Stroud last year, but no, his question is
actually a real question, and he says every year, I
have a hard time narrowing down my plate, so to speak,

(17:42):
because auction gives you the freedom to get anyone you want,
no excuses. That's great until you're in the mindset of
I'm not leaving without player X, which can quickly spiral
to multiple guys as we get closer to draft day.
How do you go about navigating this whole and pairing
your list down? How do you go from like I

(18:04):
want because I understand what he's saying. All summer long,
you look at certain players and you're like, I'd love
to have these fifteen guys, but you're not going to
be able to get all of them because the money's
finite and blah blah blah. We know why you can't
get all of them. So how do you go about
narrowing it down really to just guys that are key
to your roster that you want, or how do you

(18:27):
rule out some guys? And I think I have an
answer that maybe is it going to be super satisfying.
The answer I have that's not very satisfying is I
don't want you to do that and I'm not saying
that you shouldn't have guys that you like, because part
of the fun of being in an auction draft is
going after guys that you want to have in your roster.

(18:49):
I get that that part of it's fine, and I
want you to go through and say these are my
targets and whatever. But it gets back into the point
that I just made to Steve on the previous question
that you don't want to get into forcing this issue
by trying to say I want these guys, because once
you do that, you end up waiting on those guys
and either you nominate them and don't get them, or

(19:10):
you nominate them and you overpay for them. But if
you're waiting on those guys, I think it can backfire,
And so I don't want you to pick a lot
of guys. What was the comment that I made In
the last couple of weeks, We've talked about it being
player agnostic. So I want you to focus more on
finding some value pockets and finding what your strategy may

(19:32):
be with respect to some specific players, but what your
pivots are if you don't get those players, and how
you're going to approach trying to get those players quickly
and early, because again, I just don't think it serves
us very well if we hone in on too many
guys and then we kind of sit around and wait
for those players to be nominated. Number one, we need

(19:54):
to nominate them, and number two, I just don't think
we should be sitting around waiting on that kind of thing.
So I'm not saying that NASA's question is completely off base,
because I totally get it. I go into auctions and
I'm like, go, like this guy, like this guy, and I
guess it's like, you're not gonna get all those guys.
So he has a legitimate question here, how do you
pair that down? The first thing I would tell you
is just pare it down to the guys that are

(20:17):
going to be super key to your par sheets. So
that's the first part of it, and the second part
of it is try not to get too invested in
certain players. That's not a very satisfying answer, but that's
my answer. Just try not to get too invested. Pick
your guys, like your guys, do whatever you want to
go after them and nominate them and try to land them,
but don't get too attached to them. Okay, don't get

(20:39):
too attached. That's when things go wrong, all right, that's
question number three. Question number four on the mailbag is
from Ed Heath. I gotta give Ed a shout out.
Ed is one of my biggest supporters, and I'm not
sure if I've ever shouted him out on the show.
So shout out to Ed Heath just always liking my tweets, reach,

(21:00):
eating my stuff, engaging in conversation, messaging me. I've never
shouted him out before anyway, Ed, thank you so much
for supporting me in the auction brief and all the
work I do. But Ed's got a question about his keepers. Now,
I know you're gonna be thinking to yourself, well, why
do I care about Ed's keepers? Well, you don't neither,
do I Just kidding. The point is you're going to

(21:25):
learn something about how to pick your keepers from me
answering this question. So Ed's got the question. I'm in
a ten team auction PPR keeper lead. We keep four
players and we keep them at the amount that we
drafted from the previous year. And he's also in a superflex,
which means you start two quarterbacks. He starts two quarterbacks,

(21:46):
two running backs, three wide receivers, two flex and you
got a two hundred dollar budget. So he's got some
keepers that he lays out here, and he's talking about
a superflex. So the first thing I'm going to tell
you is Number one, your biggest factor period is going
to be whether you're in a one or two QB league,
because nothing skews the prices more than being in a

(22:10):
one or two QB league. If you're in a two
QB league, the quarterbacks are going to be insane, and
you're gonna be able to get values on wide receivers
and running backs. And don't forget that when you're in
a superflex league, the top level players are still probably
going to go for the top level prices that I
mentioned before, over fifty bucks, over fifty five bucks. But
what happens is the market falls apart at the RB

(22:33):
two wide receiver two and down below because people are
spending too much money on the quarterbacks and the top players.
It creates a big market for that massive group of
RB two to three wide receiver two to three area,
all right, So don't forget that in a superflex the
money flows to the quarterbacks and the very top of
the running backs and wide receivers and tight hands. Of course,

(22:54):
that's the first thing I want you to think of.
The second thing I want you to think about when
you're trying to decide on your keepers is a lot
of times locking up a top player is more valuable
than just taking some great value. And I know that
we've done a lot of banging on Zamir White on
this show, but let me just say that last year,

(23:14):
Zamir White for one dollar seemed like a decent deal
at the beginning of the year. But if you had
Zamir White for a dollar and you had Justin Jefferson
for fifty two dollars, which would you rather do? Well,
White was the much better deal because he's only a buck, right,
and what if he falls into the end zone eight times?

(23:34):
But sometimes it's not about the deal, and it's just
clearly and solely and completely about locking up a top player.
Price matters a whole lot less when we're talking about
the top of the position groups. So if you're talking about, hey,
I have Jamar Chase, but he's going to be forty
nine bucks, first of all, that's a nice deal, But

(23:55):
second of all, it kind of doesn't matter what the
price is if he's fifty seven. I don't know that
it matters a whole lot. You're locking up the number
one player, so of course I don't want to spend
sixty eight. But the point being a lot of times
the price matters a lot less than we think it
does when we're considering top players. The second part of
this that's ancillary, I guess sort of tangential thing that

(24:18):
kind of hangs on to that is who's being kept.
Because when you're talking about whether or not to keep
top level players, it matters how many top level players
are being kept. Right, I mean that sounds simple, but
you have to go through that, and if you don't know,
try to predict it. Try to go in there and
be like, who's going to keep who? I saw these
prices last year. I think these guys are going to

(24:39):
keep these players. Sometimes it'll be published ahead of time
and you won't have to worry, But if not, you've
got to go through that exercise yourself and figure out
which guys are being kept. Try to predict it. You
may not be completely right, but you're going to be
mostly right, and that's going to tell you how much
elite talent is left out there. So try to predict
who's being kept. That matters on what you you're going

(25:00):
to keep and the level of player that you want
to keep. The next thing I want you to pay
attention to is can you keep this player more than
one year? And if you keep the player, does the
price change in future years? Those are two things that
a lot of keepers. Keeper leagues do differently, So you
have to figure out if I keep this player this year,

(25:23):
can I keep them next year? Because sometimes that matters,
That factors into the equation. And on top of that,
if you get a big penalty for keeping him for
a second year, that's a huge difference too, because what's
the point of keeping a guy and being like he's
gonna be awesome next year? Who cares? The other thing
I want to talk to you about is in keeper leagues.
A lot of times people have the tendency to overestimate

(25:45):
future value in the keeper leagues because let's just say,
for instance, you're in a twelve team league with sixteen
roster spots and you're allowed to keep two players or
four players. It's not a big enough difference for you
to go into your have to just start going crazy
and drafted a bunch of rookies and it's not enough
of a difference for you to say, oh, I want

(26:06):
to build out my rookies and all my young players.
That doesn't do anything for you in a keeper league.
This isn't dynasty. And a lot of people have the
problem with conflating the two and saying I'm going to
do this or that because this guy's young and he's cheap.
That doesn't necessarily work unless you're keeping a larger percentage

(26:26):
of your roster. In my home league, we have twenty
two spots. We keep seven guys. That's borderline. I mean,
that's a third of the roster. It's nice, but again,
it's not that impactful that we should be constantly going
after young players or deals for keepers that we have
to look years and years into the future for. It's

(26:48):
okay to go for that stuff, but just remember things
change really fast, and those things that you think are
going to be true for the next two or three
years sometimes they change in like three months. Sometimes it's
October and a guy you're like, hey, I got this
one dollar player, and by October you cut the player
and you're like, I'm going to keep this guy for

(27:09):
four years. He's awesome, And then you end up cutting him.
Don't overestimate the value of keepers in the future. Play
for this year in keeper leaves, all right, play for
this year in keeper leagues, all right. So those are
my general ideas about how to pick your keepers, and
I'm going to tell you what Ed's possibilities are here.

(27:30):
Now he's in a superflex league, so that means that
the quarterback values are much more important than any other value.
His possible keepers are Brian Thomas for five bucks, Oh
that's nice, Drake May for a dollar, Jaden Daniels for sixteen,
Rashi Rice for sixteen, Lamar Jackson for thirty one, and

(27:50):
Jamar Chase for forty six. Now he can keep four
of those players, and I just named off six. So
for me, this is a fairly easy to say, and
I think it got easier with the Rashie Rice situation.
But it's a superflex So right out of the gate,
I'm keeping Lamar Jackson for thirty one bucks. Absolutely got
to do that. And then also I'm keeping Jayden and

(28:10):
Daniels for sixteen. You have to you just those two
guys for less than fifty bucks, monsters, And then I
know this might surprise you a little bit, but I'm
also keeping Drake May for a dollar. You go into
a draft with a massive advantage if those are your
three quarterbacks in a super flex league, because you know why,
because everyone else is going to be scrambling for whatever

(28:32):
quarterbacks are not kept, and they're going to be scrambling
to land the quarterbacks that are going to give them
depth in the superflex format, and you're just gonna be
hammered away at other positions. So I want you to
keep the three quarterbacks, Lamar Jackson, Jaden Daniels, Drake May,
and then Rashie Rice is out for me. So it
really comes down to I keep Chase for forty six
or Brian Thomas Junior for five. Now I think that

(28:55):
Thomas for five is an awesome deal, but I want
to refer you back to the comments I just made
about locking up top players. I'm sure that the top
players are with four keepers. That's that's a fairly substantial
hit to the player pool. I want to keep Chase
over Thomas. I know that Thomas deel is awesome, but
you pretty much have to lock up Thomas for five

(29:16):
and say he's my wide receiver one because you're not
going to probably be able to get another wide receiver
one for a reasonable price, and you're already spending forty
eight dollars on your three quarterbacks. Again, that's that that
price is fine, but it's going to be harder to
go out there and spend seventy bucks on a wide
receiver because the prices are nuts. So I'd prefer to

(29:36):
keep chase and know that I've got a bona fide
wide receiver one and the forty six dollars price tag,
while not like amazing, it's pretty darn good, and you're
gonna have to pay fifty five to sixty bucks in
typical leagues, and in a keeper league. Never forget that
prices go up because of the keepers, and that money
tends to flow to the top. All right, So that's

(29:58):
going to lead me into my next mail big question,
which is from the Wayward Sun on Patreony. He says,
I'm in a twelve team keeper league, and each team
gets two keepers, so each season there's only a couple
of truly elite wide receivers running backs available on the market.
Considering that there's some serious scarcity there, is it crazy

(30:19):
for me to be considering bidding eighty plus dollars on
the top target. I have two reactions to this. One
is visceral, Hell no, don't spend that. But number two
is a more measured approach, because I want you to
remember that in keeper situations, the money's going to flow
to the top because there's scarcity at the top, because
all the top players are going to be likely kept.

(30:42):
And I don't mean all of them, but a lot
of them. It's unusual for people not to want to
keep the top players because they don't care too much
about the deals. They care more about just having the player,
which is something I'm advising as well. So the money
flows to the top Wayward Sun, You're not crazy, but
I do think it negates the advance that you have
with your own keepers when you talk about spending that

(31:03):
kind of money. So if you spend five dollars, Let's
say you got Molik Neighbors for eight bucks last year,
and you're going to keep him as your wide receiver
one for eight bucks. If you turn around and spend
eighty on Justin Jefferson, then that means you essentially spent
forty four in your top two receivers. Now that's not
too bad, So I'm okay with you doing it, And
I'm okay with you understanding that this is a one

(31:26):
shot deal. Go out and get one of the top
players remaining, and if you can keep it under seventy, boy,
that'd be great because then your average price is still okay.
But just remember it is going to negate some of
your advantage, and if you want, you can go build
out a really nice team by kind of letting people
go nuts with the eighty dollars and then instead drop

(31:47):
down and spend forty to fifty on some of these
other players and just build out this super sick deep
roster with no holes. So I think you can approach
it either way. I don't think you're crazy for those numbers.
I'm spending that eighty bucks, but I do think it's
a bit of a bit of overkill. I'd like to
see you get a guy for a little bit cheaper.

(32:08):
But having said that, I think you can absolutely do it.
And what you want to do is you just want
to average out what you're spending on your own wide
receiver one or running back one or whatever with what
you're going to spend on the next guy, and then
just kind of average those two out and just say,
turn off your brain a little bit and just be like, Okay,
I didn't just pay eighty one because I spent two
bucks on Josh Jacobs. I mean, just dumb example. I'm

(32:28):
just trying to think of a player, but I spent
two bucks on Josh Jacobs, so I can go ahead
and spend eighty one on Ashton genty. So eighty three
to out of by two forty one and a half
for two running backs. That's not too bad, Okay, So
my point just average that out, kind of turn your
brain off and ignore the eighty one. That's the raw
dollar fallacy that wants to kick in your brain, like, no,
how did I spend eighty It doesn't matter in this room.

(32:51):
Like I say all the time, it matters in this room,
and in this room, if you got to pay the
eighty bucks, you got to pay the eighty bucks, all right.
That's number five. Question number six is a procedural question
from Steven F. Sorry Steve F, my bad, And he
says basically that when I'm in an in person auction,
it moves super fast. The auction ends for a player,

(33:14):
and then I start to record his name, position, cost
on the team sheet. You know he's got one for
each team, so he's doing a great job of recordkeeping,
which is what I love. And then he says, before
I'm even done with all that, the next player is nominated,
and then I start to get flustered because I'm trying
to juggle all these things at once. Steve, this is
a very valid question, but I want to tell you

(33:36):
a couple different things. It sounds to me like maybe
you're doing this by hand. What I want you to
do is pay for a program. Get somebody to write
you an Excel program something like that. I use the
draft Dominator from Football Guys. I know I'm employed by
football guys, but I've been using the draft Dominator for
a long time. So just use the draft Dominator something
like that to record this stuff, so that you can

(33:57):
just enter the number and the player and just hit
enter and it will automatically subtract and you can follow
that stuff on your computer. It's just so much easier
to do on your computer. The other thing to do, Steve,
is I don't think it's wrong to speak up and
just be like, guys, we got to keep this stuff straight.
Can we just have a five second pause in between
and people can record stuff. Now, people may not want

(34:19):
to do that because they know that that's giving you
an advantage. But I think it's reasonable to say, hey,
we're having a live auction. We got to make sure
all these numbers are correct. Can we just have a
you know, five ten seconds after each nomination before somebody
puts up a new player? Feeling that, I really think
the key here is a computer program. All right. I
know that's not a super satisfying answer, but that's how

(34:41):
I keep up. I'm the I'm the auctioneer and the commissioner,
and I'm trying to pay attention to all that stuff,
and I just, you know, I just make people wait no,
but I use the draft dominator, and the draft dominator
just does it for me. So I think a computer
program is huge. All right. The next question I have
is from Bobby All and Bobby says this, how does

(35:02):
your approach to budget allocation change in larger leagues? I'm
the commissioner of a sixteen team league full PPR one quarterback,
two running back, two wide receiver, one tight end, one
flex six point passing TDS. Well, I'll tell you what
the way that it changes. I've always said this think
of it like a sliding scale. If you're in an
eight team league, the key for you is to load

(35:25):
up your starting lineup because number one, the wire is
going to be richer. So think about it like that.
From eight all the way up to sixteen, eight ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen,
the wire gets worse and worse. When you have the
shallower leagues, you can build a better starting lineup and
not worry so much about your bench because you can
pick players up off the wire and you can fill
injury holes and by weeks that way. So that's issue

(35:47):
number one. Issue number two is it's much harder to
put together a starting lineup that doesn't have any holes
in it. The larger the league gets. You, guys, hear
me talk about Kings Classic all the time. It's a
fourteen teamer. It becomes much harder to have no holes.
So what you have to do is you have to
step down from your top level expectations. So I'm not

(36:08):
saying that you shouldn't get difference makers. My approach last
year in The King's Classic was to say, I'm going
to spend thirty to forty bucks on a couple of players.
I want them to have top level potential, but they're
gonna have some warts of some kind. That was Jonathan
Taylor and Chris o'lave and Rashie Rice. For me, those
guys all had top level potential, but they were cheaper

(36:30):
because everybody was concerned about them for one reason or another.
So that's a lot of times what I'm going to
do in a deeper league. But on top of that,
just remember that the prices do flatten out a little bit.
People are still going to chase the top level players,
but the prices do flatten out because people realize they
don't have the money, and so you're really going to
have to be disciplined with your par sheet By saying

(36:51):
this is a deeper league, I'm going to have to
go deeper into the tiers and spend the money in
a more sort of flat fashion. A lot more eight
to ten to twelve dollars players than a bunch of
thirty five or forty dollars or a bunch of twenty
eight dollars players, So you just have to build flatter.
I'm not saying that you can't go out there and
get and you know, get the top level players in

(37:12):
a sixteen teamer. It's just way harder. So I don't
think that's the play that you should make it a
sixteen teamer. I think you need to be looking at
the bottom of wide receiver one and RB one territory
to get one of those players, and then you just
need to lock up a ton of wide receiver twos
and threes and RB twos and threes, so get one
or two difference makers, and then the rest of them

(37:33):
just goes super flat and just you know, one of
those things that I always say is, hey, don't fall
in love with every deal in sixteen teamers. I think
you've got to take some deals that you may not
want to take, because that's how you build a team.
So a player is going for far too I used
Jacoby Myers all the time, but let's say that he
comes up fairly early on. You don't have any plans

(37:55):
to have Jacoby Myers, but the bidding stops at seven bucks.
You got to say eight, because if you land him
for eight, that's just filling one of your roster spots
with a solid player that you know can be a
producer for a price that's far below what the value
probably is in that big of a league. So I
would encourage you to take more deals in the bigger leagues.

(38:17):
Build out your roster a little bit flatter, don't go
for the top level players, be open to taking more
deals early on in the auction so that you can
go for some players later. I think that's how you
handle the bigger drafts. All right, let's get one more
question in. We've hit a lot of them here, and
I think this has all been a super fruitful discussion.

(38:38):
But I got a question on Twitter, and I want
to end with this question because he had an excellent point.
This question is from Kyle Munson. Thank you Kyle for
providing my last question because I really like what he
said because it's something that I don't think about nearly
enough when I'm talking to you guys, but it's super important.
What Kyle said was do you make new sheets every year?

(39:01):
And he says, I was happy with what I made
last year with the dollar figures I had, And since
we don't really care about AAV, does it make sense
to just reuse the same park sheets with the scenarios
that I like. Well, this is a great question, and
I'm glad he brought it up because it's something I
don't think to talk about enough. I think you can
fall into a trap with this kind of stuff, so

(39:22):
I'm glad he brought it up. The first thing I'll
say is you absolutely can go back and use the
same par sheets if you think your league is going
to treat things the same. But this is a huge butt.
I don't necessarily think that's going to be the case
very often, that your league's going to be static from
year to year to allow you to reuse those par sheets.

(39:42):
So one of the problems I have, and this is
why I never talk about this, is one of the
problems I have is I feel like every year I
learn something and then I tweak my par sheet approach
a little bit every year, even though I'm going into
the same leagues with the same people. So every year
I feel like I tweak it a little bit, like
whatuld everyone do last year, and what do I anticipate
them doing this year? And how am I going to

(40:04):
tweak my approach. So I think that's part of the problem,
is I have this manic need to change my approach
every year a little bit. But I think that's important
because I'm not sure that every year you should be
just doing the exact same thing. But Kyle, you have
a good point, because if it works, and if you
don't think the league's going to materially change, I think

(40:25):
it's totally fine. But I would tell you I think
you probably need to just refine them a little bit,
and your approach probably should be changing every year. And
I don't mean you should have some massive difference, like, Okay,
I've always spent low, you know, I've always spent five
dollars on quarterback, and now I'm going to spend forty
this year, or I never spent on tight end, but
I'm going after brock Powers. I'm not saying you have

(40:47):
to make some massive change, but I do think you
should change to the landscape of what's going on in fantasy.
And I think it's weird this year that we have
these massively flat tiers like a quarterback and tight end
in wide receiver two to three areo. I'm not sure
that it's crazy weird, but it's getting to that point
where the auctions are becoming just a little bit easier

(41:08):
because of those massively flat tears. So I think you
got to adjust a little bit year to year. So
if you have some values you like, use those as
a starting point and then refine them a little bit.
The other thing I want to point out is don't
ever forget that when you're looking at your own stuff,
everyone else is doing the same thing. Most of the
people in your drafts are not going to have a

(41:29):
par sheing in front of them. I get that. But
what they're doing is they're probably changing their approach every
year too. So last year they saw what happened with
Derrick Henry and with Saquon Barkley, and they're thinking to themselves, boy,
these running backs really produced. I'm gonna go get some
more running backs. I mean, I've talked about it a
little bit that I'm going to spend a little bit
more on RB two this year. I mean, I'm adjusting

(41:49):
a little bit because people are still going nuts for
wide receivers. I think that's the right play this year.
But that's neither here nor there. The point is I'm
changing my opinion a little bit, not drastically, but a
little bit. It so when I go into a home
league with other people that you know a lot of
them are listening to this, they're going to know like
that I changed a little bit. And so you have

(42:09):
to apply that psychology to them, like, I'm sure they
changed a little bit. I'm sure their opinion has changed
a little bit. So if people's opinions in the draft
room have changed that, I don't think you can sit
back and be super laid back and comfortable with like saying, hey,
I can just leave these the same, because they're going
to change a little bit too, and you have to
be prepared for that, so you kind of want to tweak.

(42:31):
They're going to tweak. That means you're going to have
different values. However, I do like the idea, Kyle, because
when you get a general approach that works, I start
with that general approach every year. So I think you
can use last year's numbers and use that as basically
your baseline and to say, how am I going to
tweak this to change with the fantasy landscape and with

(42:54):
the ideas that my league mats might have about how
the landscape has changed as well. Okay, well that's going
to do it for this week's auction talk. I think
that was a fun mailbag episode. Like I said, those
are specific questions from my supporters, but I hope you
got some general auction lessons from them. This is all
the ways that I think about auctions. I hope you

(43:15):
enjoyed getting a sneak peek into how I approach things.
So let's not delay any further. We got Brian Drake
from Fantasy Points. It's a fun conversation we're about to have,
So let's get on over to this week's Discussions with Drew.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
Time for Discussions with Drew, in depth conversations with the
brightest minds in the fantasy industry.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Welcome into this week's Discussions with Drew. Our guest for
this week is one of my good friends, but also
happens to be one of the biggest draws of the
summer every summer on the Auction Brief, my buddy Brian
Drake from Fantasy Points, Sirius XM Radio. My understanding, this
will be out there live announcing the King's Classic Auction

(43:59):
Draft this summer. Yet again. He's all over the place, folks,
and he's also the guy that I considered to be
one of the kings of common sense in this fantasy
bubble that we live in. And that's what we're gonna
do today. We're gonna throw a lot of common sense
at you from what forty or fifty years of fantasy experience. Brian,

(44:20):
how you doing, buddy.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
I'm doing well, doing well. Thanks for having me on.
I always enjoy coming on the auction brief every single summer.
You got a big list of names. Man to follow
up some of these guys, JJ, Marcus Grant.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
I mean, like Big Shoesday film man me.

Speaker 2 (44:37):
I feel sorry for the sucker that's got to follow
this show.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
Yeah, well, this one always does good numbers. People love
our conversations, probably because it's less structure. We're sort of
off the cuff. But what I lead it alluded to
in the beginning is we've got forty fifty years of
fantasy experience. And it's one thing to be out there
like a threadbro and telling everyone these running backs you

(45:01):
should smash for your fantasy drafts. But it's another thing
to have all this experience to draw on to know
that when we go into a fantasy draft, there are
certain things we want to do and certain things we
don't and what we're looking for this summer, because folks,
we're in to that time of year training camps are
officially open. That's crazy. It's the first time I get

(45:22):
to say that on the show. Training camps are open
and that's where I want to start today. But let
me pause real quick and make sure you're going to
Canton and you're going to be doing the Brown Division
Snake Draft right.

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yep, I'm in the Jim Brown Division. I do the
Snake Draft for Fighting Chance Fantasy, the old site that
got me going in fantasy sports. And then the auction
this year will be our Pale Ryan Hallam because Kevin
Tompkins can't make it out there, and I don't do
the auction because I'll be doing the live broadcast on

(45:56):
Sirius XM with Fantasy Alarms Andrew Cooper, So that'll be
a blast to make fun of all you guys as
you're doing auction picks left and right, and I'm eating
my fifty dollars hot dog and just you know, loving
life back there.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
You're killing me. We were going already, folks. That's a
little inside joke there. Sorry. I got to recover my
composure here. I don't know if I had any composure,
but I recover whatever I had of it.

Speaker 2 (46:24):
Yeah, you know, we'll get real off the rails here.
Like the reason everybody's listened. They thought they're either giving
out fantasy football tips or the Epstein List. So these
guys are on fire tonight.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
We Oh man, I can't wait for that semi warm,
fifty dollars Hamburger. It's going to be insane. And you
know what that that that twenty five dollars bag of
Dorito's really hits hard at nine fifteen in the morning.

Speaker 2 (46:48):
So I had to tell somebody about the They're like,
what is the King's Classic Draft? I know you reference
it a lot on the show because I actually listened
to the episodes, And the funny thing about King Classic is, Okay,
it's all these big experts. They're all doing a draft. Folks.
This snake draft starts at ten in the morning on
a Saturday, after you have been drinking for like eleventy

(47:12):
hours straight. Okay, So you're like, oh wow, there's you know,
Mike Clay and Jeff Radcliffe and you know, Bob Harris
and everybody. Nobody can open their eyes at this point.
They're just like, what what state am I in? And
are we doing a fantasy draft? Just sit me down
and let let's auto draft.

Speaker 1 (47:30):
Yeah. Now, we got fans in the back of the
room that are gonna be drafting as well. I'm not
sure that I'm down for the extra noise at ten
o'clock in the morning, probably because I went to bed
about four point thirty grabbed about three hours of sleep.
I always have to prepare the night before the King's
Classic because my content pushes me so hard that I

(47:52):
don't ever prepare for the King's Classic. And then I
get there the night before and I'm like, oh, I'll
do something the night before. Well, it's just a dumb
ass way to think about things because I know we're
gonna be out partying, so I'm not doing anything the
night before. So I get back to my room and
then I prepare half trunk three four o'clock in the morning,
I'm doing my par sheet for the toughest fantasy draft

(48:13):
I'm gonna do all season. That's maybe I ot to
do something different this year. What do you think?

Speaker 2 (48:18):
Do what I do? Don't bring a laptop, and maybe
it's different for an auction because you want to see
how much money you have and your opponents have. When
I do the Snake Draft, I literally go print out
a top two hundred sheet from Fantasy Points. My guy,
the guru, John Hanson, and I we do a podcast
together every week. I still go off his rankings like I'm,
you know, seventeen years old, and I just print it

(48:40):
out and I sit down. Everyone else has got their
laptops on their little algorithm tell them who to pick, Nana,
not me, play boy. I'm just scratching off names and
picking guys from a list, like I'm in a garage
on Labor Day weekend because that's fantasy football.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
Like, I'm in a garage on Labor Day weekend. That's perfect.
Who hasn't drafted a fantasy team in someone's garage before
everyone's done it? Right?

Speaker 2 (49:05):
Yeah? I did one. The reason I always bring that
line up is because one of the years my home
league drafted at my house. And funny story, we're back
at my house again this year. It was so humid
in my garage, like I'm shirtless, Like there's people passing out.
You know, guys are fifty eight natur days deep. You know,

(49:25):
you'd you'd love that. Then our treasurer left the entry
money on the top of his car and started driving away.
So now at midnight, we're wandering through the suburbs here
in upstate New York with like flashlights on our phone,
trying to find like twenties on the side of the road.
It was a disaster. But again, that's drinking shirtless in

(49:49):
your garage on Laborday weekend. I'm gonna go shirtless again.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Yes, yes, it's a dream come true for all the
ladies in Canton. Drake is gonna bear at all.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Look out Queen's Classic.

Speaker 1 (50:04):
He's gonna go running through the Queen's Classic Room. He'll
still be drunk from the night before.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Oh, no question.

Speaker 1 (50:10):
Oh man, all right, well, hey, I say it every
time that I'm on the air, Folks, come out and
hang out with us. It's next week, We're when this
show airs. It's going to be about ten days away,
oh from getting the Canton. Just get out there and
have a beer with us, have a shot whatever I
got natur Days. Drake actually drinks real person beer like

(50:31):
I drink like I'm a seventeen year old at a
party drinking my first beer because I drink Nataurdays or
you know, the occasional white call. But Drake drinks real beers. Man,
what do you drink right now? I'm drinking a little
beer from dogfish Head. But you don't have got into
this summer.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
And maybe it's because I'm getting old, or I just
like the less calories and it's I'm drinking a lot
more high noons and those surf sides. All the seltzers
are just they're just hitting me this year. Hey, I'm
gonna make a make a bet here. Anybody who comes
up to me in Canton and says, I heard you
on the Auction Brief podcast with Drew Davenport, I will

(51:12):
buy you a beer in Canton, Ohio.

Speaker 1 (51:15):
What an offer. I love it.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Some people get promo codes for their websites and nobody
cares about that. I'll buy you and a real beer
in Canton, Ohio if you tell me that you heard
this podcast and don't go telling your friends. You know, Drew,
I see you all of a sudden, Rich Reebar is
coming up to me looking for a free Miller High Life.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
I'll tell you what. I'm gonna double down. If you
come up to Drake and say I heard you on
the podcast, and you say with the Great Drew Davenport,
if you have to call me the Great Drew Davenport,
then I'll buy you a beer as well, so your
first two beers are free. If you come up to
Drake and I and say I heard you on the
podcast with the Great Drew Davenport. We got your first

(51:57):
two beers.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
I don't know, Bob Long is dming me right now?
Go hey, I just heard you on the show. Where's
my beer?

Speaker 1 (52:04):
But don't don't drink that beer and carry it into
the bar. You can stand on the lobby and drink
that beer, or you can stand in the bar and
drink a beer that you bought. Just be careful becauseul
I got.

Speaker 2 (52:15):
In a fight with some guy last year. Nice enough kid.
But okay, folks, well we'll get to the fantasy in
a minute here. But if you've ever gone to a hotel, Okay,
a lot of people bring a cooler to a hotel.
They're like, yeah, I'm gonna drink in my room or whatever.
You can't bring those beers to the bar at the hotel,

(52:37):
Like that's not a thing. Like they paid, you know,
tax on those beers, and they don't know if you're
twenty one. They don't know if you're giving them to minors.
Like they're also trying to run a business. Imagine that,
like the old Dumb and Dumber when they lose the
briefcase and they go maybe in some weird twist of faith.
The Samsonite Company made more than one, you know, like

(52:59):
I mean, come on, what are you doing?

Speaker 1 (53:00):
Well? I got busted really easily because they don't sell
Saturdays at the bar, and here I am with my Naturday.
That didn't go over very well, but I learned my lesson.
You're at the Double Tree, of course, come.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
On day one when it opens up. I'm at the
Double Tree nexus.

Speaker 1 (53:17):
Yes, the nexus of all of the Shenanigans is the
Double Tree. All right, well, we've gone on long enough.
We could just do this for the show, but let's
actually talk fantasy.

Speaker 2 (53:27):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
One of the things I yeah, yeah, if we have to.
But one of the things I love about this show,
and I'm calling it the Common Sense Show, is because,
like I said twice already, we've got a ton of
fantasy experience. And one of the things that we talk
about on the side, you know when we have sometimes
our our side chats on text about you know, this

(53:48):
person said this, or this person said that. We're not
out here being nasty. We're just talking fantasy and we're saying,
what the heck is that about? Because a lot of
times things don't ring true for us because we've been
doing this so long, we have a sixth sense about
how these things are going to unfold sometimes. So I
thought it'd be a fun way to get into the
content this week because we are celebrating training camps opening,

(54:12):
and there's some storylines that I've been thinking about for
a couple months now, and let's just talk about those
storylines and what we want to see from training camp,
if we have a desire from the situation, or if
we just have a take on how it's going to unfold,
but then also how much we care about that situation.
And one of those offenses is the Chiefs offense. I

(54:35):
don't hear people talking about them a lot. I hear
them saying, hey, look, Patrick Mahomes could have a resurgence
because he's got a nice wide receiver corps for the
first time since Tyreek Hill left. But I'm not even
really worried about Patrick Mahomes. What's this backfield going to
look like? How do we think that's going to shape
up in training camp? And on top of that, do
we feel like we have the pecking order at wide

(54:56):
receiver down already or are we kind of overla looking
Hollywood Brown, I mean, both you and I were on
Hollywood last year that didn't go very well. But now
they got worthy. Who's threatening to take more snaps? I'm
not sure I'm on Hollywood right now. But what's the
packing order going to be here in the backfield at
the wide receiver corps. What's your overall take on Kansas
City right now?

Speaker 2 (55:16):
Well, Kansas City's trying to get their offensive line straight.
And if you watch the Super Bowl, and shockingly I
did as an Eagles fan, the offensive line was a mess.
They had to try to get that line straight. And
one of the other issues with the offensive line is
it didn't create explosive plays. Kansas City was one of
the worst, if not the worst offense in terms of
creating explosive plays. So that's a play, you know, ten

(55:39):
yards or more some people classify as fifteen yards more.
Either way, they weren't good at any one of them.
Part of that could have been the line. Part of
that also is Isaiah pa Checko was injured last year
and even when he came back at the end of
the year, drew he didn't really look like himself. And
I just don't know how good Isaiah pa Checko is.
Remember he was like a seventh round pick, so they

(56:01):
have really nothing invested in him. They did bring back
Kareem Hunt, no real interest in him either. Here's where
I do kind of have a little interest in my ears.
Perk up. What about Elijah Mitchell, the former San Francisco
forty nine er. Now, if you go to over your
real boomer like me, and you go to our lads
dot com and look up some depth charts, you can
kind of see what's going on with these teams here.

(56:22):
But Elijah Mitchell is good. He had a lot of
bursts in San Francisco and he can give this team
what they didn't have last year, explosive plays. Now there's
also this kid, Breschard Smith, and he was a seventh rounder.
And I know what you're gonna say, Isaiah pa Checko's
a seventh rounder. This kid's the next uh, you know, Pachecko,

(56:42):
and he's gonna be Jack McKinnon. I don't know that
you don't know that he's a seventh rounder. If Pachecko, Hunt,
and Mitchell all make the team, I don't know if
there's room for Burchard Smith to be honest, but everybody's
gonna tout his past catching ability and how quick he is.
That that's what I want to see in preseason, Drew,

(57:02):
Is Kareem Hunt going to make this team? How good
does Elijah Mitchell look? Is Isaiah Pacheco back and healthy?
Because all of these guys can be had for literally nothing.
So if you want to get a piece of the Chiefs,
that's a good place to start.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
It's interesting because the whole offense has the makings of
kind of like a gross committee like everywhere, because yeah,
what we Pachecko got the chance to be the bellcow
guy the year before. He was pretty strong when he
was given that shot. But you're right, he didn't look
like himself last year when he came back from the

(57:40):
injury at the end of the year. Now maybe he
does this time and they give that back to him.
But man oh man, it's a mess, And I really
want to see what develops here as as camp goes on.
If if there's a bunch of glowing reports like Pacheck
go's back, maybe you know we're back in on him.
Of course we're going to see a corresponding rise in ADP.
But but right now I'm betting on Pachecko just because

(58:02):
it's so cheap, and the upside's so huge that if
they go back and they start throwing him a couple
passes every game and he gets some goal line carries,
he is going to be an incredible value where he's
being taken right now, I know that much. But yet
the running back situation, We've got Pacheco at RB twenty
eight and we've got worthy around wide receiver twenty eight.
Those are the ADPs that I'm pulling from football guys,

(58:24):
and that's like an amalgamation of a bunch of different sites.
Pachecko and RB twenty eight. That's great. If I can
have Isaiah Pachecko as my RB three with the possibility
that he could be the guy there near the goal line,
I'm all about that. It's not that I'm excited about
Isaiah Pachecko because it does look like it's shaping up
to be a mess, But hopefully we see something in

(58:46):
Kansas City in training camp to know that.

Speaker 2 (58:49):
Well, here's the point that you made earlier about the
you know thread bros and you know six running backs
you got to leave your your draft with. It's all
about opportunity cost. When are you getting people, how does
your build look? It's great to just say, hey, draft
all these guys, but you know, how can you actually
build a winning team? And if you can build a

(59:10):
team where Isaiah Pacheco, who a year ago was your
RB two, is now your RB four or you know
you is there flex he's a guy on your bench,
I mean that's unbelievable. Now you're like, okay, if he's
back and it is who he always has been. This
guy's a steel and you're getting him over a lot
of unproven names at that point of the draft. So again,

(59:32):
it's not just oh, who can I pick because they're
on a list, it's how do they fit into the
build of what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (59:39):
I think you make a great point about who's being
drafted around him. We know that he can do it,
and we know that the Chiefs have confidence he can
do it. So hopefully that's something that we'll have some
clarity to hear about. I want to talk about another
offensive situation that's kind of messy in Jacksonville. We've got
this weird backfield again and a weird problem with trying
to figure out the team going to care about Travis

(01:00:01):
atn Are they going to give Bigsby the early down
touches and let etn be the receiving back. I'll sort
of what they did in Tampa last year, because now
they have Lion Cohen there. But then you've also got
this rookie sort of lurking, this big play pass catcher
type rookie in Beshall Tuton. So I don't know what

(01:00:21):
the hell to do with this backfield. And I've cast
a pretty wide net over the Chiefs discussion, and I'm
starting out that way with the Jaguars. But I want
to hear about the backfield, but also just directly, what
the heck do we do with Travis Hunter? Because I
want to see in training camp how much time is
he getting with the defense and also how much are
they going to allow him to play and therefore have

(01:00:44):
some volume because we know volume rules in fantasy football.
Maybe he's awesome, but if he's getting six targets a
game because he's playing so many snaps on defense, why
would we want to draft him?

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
I wouldn't, and I'm letting somebody else take him.

Speaker 1 (01:00:59):
Now.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
When I watched Travis Hunter play at Colorado, I did
not see a great wide receiver. Is he athletic as hell?
Of course did he make a bunch of acrobatic catches
through defenders backs because Shadora was throwing it out of
bounds or too short or whatever it was. Yeah, that's
why he won the Heisman, because every play he made
was a freaking highlight reel catch. Do I know if

(01:01:20):
he's a great route runner. No? Do I know if
he's gonna go out there and look like a young
Keenan Allen, I don't. So I would much rather somebody
else takes the risk. And that's something we have to
think about in fantasy football drafts. How do you mitigate risk.
Do you want to go out there and every pick
is a swing for the fence's home run play, or

(01:01:43):
do you gotta have some safety nets built in and
it builds some floor and where you have to draft
Travis Hunter. I would just rather have some other more
proven guys, because, like you said, he's gonna be playing defense,
He's got to tackle guys. He's gonna be tired. You
can't be in both rooms. You can't be in the
defensive meeting and you can't be in the offensive meeting
they're at the same time. Yeah, so I'm letting somebody

(01:02:06):
else take that. Travis Hunter bullet. If he hits and
he's like the greatest things in slice bread, Well, oops,
my bad, But yeah, I want to piggy back on that.

Speaker 1 (01:02:15):
Yeah, I want to piggyback on that because a couple
of weeks ago I had JJ zacheresin on and he said,
you know, embrace the variants, and he talked a lot
about projections or just median projections, and sometimes we don't
know if a guy like Travis Hunter is going to
go off. Your point is perfect because you have to
manage the risk, and you can get carried away with

(01:02:35):
trying to do too many make too many draft picks
that are all about variants. This is, after all, a
weekly game where we need them for yep. So don't
get carried away with the variants. Embrace it in some
spots and in other spots you've got to still have
that rock solid floor, that that projectible volume. So just

(01:02:56):
be careful. I think that sometimes people get carried away
with like they're all this upside I've got and then
week one they score seventy eight points, and like, wait,
what happened to my upside? Because each year guy's got
three targets.

Speaker 2 (01:03:07):
I've been there, I've been there. I know what you're
talking about, and I think it's gonna happen as well
with Baseiel Toutin, who right now his ADPs won thirty five,
so you know whatever, what is he running back forty
four off the board something in that regard. So, but again,
he's the third running back on his team right now.
And it's not like they spent a ton of draft

(01:03:27):
capital to get him. What was he like a fourth
fifth round pick?

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
Yeah? Like should we care about him?

Speaker 2 (01:03:32):
Like?

Speaker 1 (01:03:32):
I don't care about him? Am I wrong?

Speaker 2 (01:03:35):
I mean they got a kid in le quind Allen
out of Syracuse who's just as good, who they got
the seventh round. I know it was a deep running
back draft. It pushed guys down. But unless they trade
Travis Etn, you know who is going off the board
at picked ninety five. This is a guy who two
years ago was RB three and PPR. Unless they trade

(01:03:55):
him to like Dallas or something like, Etn's going to play.
He's going to get a ton of screens because that's
what they do in that offense. And when he was
at Clemson, he was not a great receiver, but he
was a good screen merchant, and they just manufactured ways
to get the ball in his hands and help him,
you know, try to win the Heisman. So you know,

(01:04:16):
I think Travis Etn as a weapon in the final year.
I believe of his rookie deal. Unless he's they're moving
off him. He's still the good friend of Trevor Lawrence.
He's still getting paid very well. In this final year,
they're going to use him. They're not going to eshee
him for this fourth fifth round kid out of Virginia Tech.

(01:04:37):
That's just not going to happen.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
I feel like we need to be taking shots on
Travis Etn. And when you talk about embracing the variants,
I'd rather take a shot on Etn at RB thirty
three off the board and some other guy who's gonna,
you know, be on the losing end of a time share.
I'm not saying Etn won't be, but we know what
upside is there. We know, like you just said that
he was RB three a couple of years ago, he

(01:05:00):
has that in him. If they give him the volume.
We have Liam Cohen, who did a lot of good
things for Rashad White and Bucky Irving Man. I feel
like that's a bet we should be making and if
we get into week three and he's just not playing
very much and Bigsby's taking every goal on carry, like
who cares? Like, get rid of him, We don't care.
He didn't spend anything on him. It's a it's a
low end RB three, that's not there's no draft capital there.

Speaker 2 (01:05:22):
And Bigsby led this team in rushing last year and
had seven touchdowns. So you know, nobody talks about tank Bigsby.
Everyone just thinks like, ah, he's this stiff. What if
he is the goal linebacker? What if he's there David
Montgomery and he does this again? I mean, there's value
in a guy that runs for seven hundred and sixty
six yards and seven touchdowns, you know, and if you

(01:05:45):
can get him again, if he's your RB five six.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
What is going right now? As RB five forty seven
off the board, so low end RB.

Speaker 2 (01:05:54):
Four yeah, okay, Now does he carry massive upside? And
that's what the conversation always becomes. It's oh that late
in the draft you need to be swinging for the
fences with massive upside? Well, what if Etn gets hurt
or gets traded. What if Baseial Tuton is a rookie?
You know, and Leaquin d Allen's a rookie and they

(01:06:15):
don't set the world on fire. What if Tank Bigsby
becomes like a low end Leonard Fournette? You know, is
that crazy to think? Who knows? We've seen stuff like
that happen to fantasy football. Now. Do I want to
go out of my way to draft Tank Bigsby or
or any of these Jags? Yeah? Probably not. It's like,
just give me, Yeah, you don't have to be too strange.

Speaker 1 (01:06:37):
Yeah, exactly. I feel like even though Liam Cohen's there,
the optimism isn't necessarily there for Jacksonville outside of a
couple of players. Everyone else people just don't care about.

Speaker 4 (01:06:48):
So and why are we talking enough about what Brian
Thomas Junior did last year and the fact that ninety
percent of it was with Mac Jones and you know
a lot.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
I did a post on Reddit and people went bananas.
They're like, what are you talking about? Brian Thomas is
a stud? Sure of course he is. I watched him
play at LSU. He's great. But let's not forget that
most of his work came with a backup quarterback. So
let's see, we don't know if Trevor Lawrence Mehan comes in,
has a great relationship with Diami Brown, who's on the team. Now,

(01:07:25):
maybe he really takes the Travis Hunter and gets him
the ball a ton they're to me, and I know
he's good, and I know everyone sweats Brian Thomas Junior
right now, but there's a non zero chance that Brian
Thomas Junior also could fall way back down to earth
because Trevor Lawrence just spreads the ball around to a

(01:07:46):
bunch of people in the new offense and doesn't pepper
Thomas with double digit targets like he saw at the
end of last year with Mac Jones.

Speaker 1 (01:07:53):
It has me nervous enough that I've been sort of
passing on him in spots where I really thought I
was going to be excited about him because of William Cohen.
In fact, it's kind of the opposite for me, because
one of the things that Trevor Lawrence doesn't do well
is get to second and third reads. And that's at
least what I'm hearing from people who watch film. So

(01:08:14):
that makes me nervous. And if they feel like, hey,
we're going to force a number of targets to Travis Hunter,
then I am a little bit concerned. About Brian Thomas
just because of where he's going. It's not a player thing.
It's a pricing at this point for me, jackson.

Speaker 2 (01:08:30):
Gave up a ton to go get Travis Hunter multiple
draft picks and really mortgage their future in a way,
maybe stupidly, they're going to try to use this kid. No. Again,
it goes back to what I just said. I was like, Oh,
I don't really want him. I'll let somebody else draft him.
There's just too many unknowns here I don't want. If

(01:08:53):
I'm trying to win my fantasy league, I don't necessarily
want to tie my ship to multiple pieces of the
jet Eximville Jaguars draft players on good teams. It's that simple.
And Jacksonville is not a good team right now.

Speaker 1 (01:09:06):
Yeah, well, you brought up a team that I want
to talk about next, the Cowboys. You mentioned him in
your last answer.

Speaker 2 (01:09:11):
Speaking of not good teams. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:09:13):
I want to latch onto that because I mean, one
of the training camp storylines that I've been thinking about
a lot is what am I going to see out
of Dak Prescott Because the injury talks that I follow
say he's still not going to be one hundred percent
when he gets into training camp and he may not
be one hundred percent until he gets halfway through this season. Boy,
you talk about nervous, a massive evulsion of your hamstring

(01:09:38):
that these docs say he's going to be eighty percent
for a while, Like, oh, that really makes me nervous.
Then again, what if he's you know, old Dak and
now he's got a new weapon with pickens. Their running
game looks like a complete disaster. How are we feeling
about Dak and the and the injury. But then on

(01:09:58):
the other side of the coin, who are you betting on?
In the Cowboys backfield. It's an atrocious mess there. With
Javonte Williams. I don't know what they saw on him
to want to sign him, and let Rico doubt will go.
I know Rico is not the best player on the planet,
but I'm not sure what they saw there. And then
on top of that, you know, they go draft this

(01:10:19):
the rookie that everyone seems to be excited about, Jaden Blue,
and they think that he's going to do something. I
just don't have faith in any of them. Javonte Williams
coming off the board as the RB thirty nine right now,
of course that doesn't cost you anything, But do I care?
This is one of the storylines I'm really looking at.
Looks like Jayden Blue is RB forty four. Nobody else

(01:10:39):
knows what to do with them either. What are you
doing with the Cowboys?

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
Well, last year, if you remember, I was really in
on Uncle Rico Rico Dawdle, and it was kind of
a bit that I did, but there was reason for it.
There was nobody else in this backfield, and Rico was
talented enough where he's going to get work and he's
going to be a viable asset for your fantasy team.
And as absolutely was where you got Rico last year

(01:11:02):
at that cost, he completely paid off for you. And
now this year everyone's going like, well, which one of
these guys are going to be? I mean, Miles Sanders
looks completely washed. Jayden Blue is kind of a little
guy who is more of a change of pace guy.
Maybe I don't know. I don't want to sit here
and say that I completely know the kids game because

(01:11:23):
I saw him play a couple of you know, college
football playoff games at Texas. But I mean, he doesn't
strike me as in every down back at all. So
I think it's going to be a mix of all
of them. Javonte maybe leading the way, which means I
want none of them. So just steer clear another team.
If they can't run the ball, I don't need to

(01:11:45):
I don't need to be invested. Sometimes you go, oh,
at what price do you want to get in? Sometimes
there is no price, Just go the hell with it.
I'm just taking somebody else, Like there's got to be
a different backfield I can invest in. And look at
there's Dak Prescott. You can get in the eleventh round,
one hundred and twenty five picks into a draft, Ceedee
Lamb if Dak is healthy now, with another option on

(01:12:07):
the outside and George Pickens, I mean, he has every
opportunity to be wide receiver one in fantasy. There's no
question about it, just like he was two years ago.
And I love it. If I'm drafting like fifth, sixth
and I can get my hands on Ceedee Lamb and
hopefully Dak is is feeling up to himself this year.
I think Ceedee Lamb is going to have an absolutely

(01:12:28):
monster season this year. And Pickens where you can get
him whatever. I mean, he's a wide receiver two on
that team, and they're gonna throw some goal balls to him,
and you know he's gonna have the weeks where he
catches four balls for one hundred and fifty yards and
a touchdown and you're like, Oh, I'm so glad I
have this guy. But you know, there's probably gonna be
a lot more weeks where he catches, you know, three

(01:12:48):
for thirty five. But that's just the way it's going
to go there. I think this team's gonna throw the
ball a lot. And if I can get, like, at
the end of a draft, go Dak Purdy as my
two quarterbacks instead of investing and Josh Allen in the
third round or whatever, I'm all for that.

Speaker 1 (01:13:03):
Funny you should say that I drafted Dak and Purdy
in my mock auction last week.

Speaker 2 (01:13:08):
Wow, would you end up spending on both of them combined?

Speaker 1 (01:13:11):
Three bucks?

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
That's incredible. Brock Perty's gonna be a top ten quarterback
this year. You got him probably for a ballot.

Speaker 1 (01:13:19):
Yeah, got him for a buck. No, he was two
and Dak was one, But yeah, three bucks for those
two guys. You don't have to pay much. Again, we're
talking about a Dallas offense where the price tags aren't
very high. So I really want to see what develops
here in training camp in the next couple of weeks,
because if blue, if they are talking like, hey, this
guy's gonna catch passes, he's gonna play all right, then

(01:13:41):
maybe I'm gonna take some shots on him. Yeah, Javonte
Williams says he feels like his old self. Now, of
course that's off season talk, but I've seen some Twitter
docs say yeah, sometimes it takes a couple of years
and maybe he never gets it back. But if he
feels closer to himself, he's gonna have the opportunity. The
Cowboys obviously saw something that they liked. Again, I don't

(01:14:04):
know why they picked Javonte over Rico daudo. I don't
think rico' dadda is a great player, and that tells
you what I think about Javonte. So I don't know,
it's a mess. I really want to see what develops
here in Dallas. I want to ask you about another
situation that's kind of weird in Texas. In Houston, we've
got Joe Mixon, who has a for all intents and purposes,

(01:14:27):
very good fantasy season. When he was on the field,
I think he was RB six in fantasy points per
game when he played a full game. That's really strong.
But that's on based a lot on his touchdowns, and
it's also based on high volume. Because the guy's never
been efficient as a as an NFL running back. His
efficiency just sucks. So I don't want to rely on

(01:14:49):
that and say, oh, his efficiency stinks. I think he's
going to be bad this year because he's always had
that problem. But the Texans obviously thought that their backup
running back situation was not very good. They go insign
Nick Chubb. I really want to know how they're splitting
up carries in Houston. I'm going to be paying close
attention to training camp on that. How do you think
that division of labor goes? And are you okay drafting

(01:15:12):
Joe Mixon as your RB two?

Speaker 2 (01:15:14):
Oh boy, that Nick Chubbs scenario is one that I
haven't thought a lot about. And now that's a brutal
knee injury that he's trying to come back from. You know,
Joe Mixon's no spring chicken. He and Christian McCaffrey came
out in the same class, so it's not like these He's,
you know, a third year guy coming into his prime

(01:15:35):
he's kind of at the end of it. What worries
me more than anything Drew is this offensive line in Houston.
Now they go on, they add Laken Tomlinson and Cam Robinson,
but there's also kind of a reason those guys are available.
You know, Jared Patterson comes back at center, Blake Fisher.

(01:15:55):
You know, I wasn't really sold on him, and not
that we're gonna get deep in offensive line talk here,
but this offensive line was a mess last year. I
don't think they're a whole lot better this year. So
if Mixon's got to try to make some hay on
his own, I don't know if that's gonna work because
it's not really Joe Mixon's game. I could see Nick
Chubb being cut. I could see him being a pup

(01:16:16):
guy and then maybe late in the season he comes on.
He's just kind of a backup. But I can't imagine
true that he comes back and he's like severely challenging
for with what they signed him for. When they signed him,
like nobody was looking to bring Nick Chubb in, And
I mean Cleveland would have just brought him back if
he had anything left, because you know, everyone loves him

(01:16:37):
in Cleveland. He's a good guy, and that's a team
that needs some good guys.

Speaker 1 (01:16:41):
You know, Joe Mixon being in a walking boot in
the middle of July doesn't give me a lot of
confidence either. The guy's dealt with ankle and foot injuries
over the last couple of years, and now here we
are again he was he's in a walking boot in
the middle of July. I just don't I don't have
any confidence in mixing. You point to the offensive line,
which is absolutely a concern, and you make the perfect point,

(01:17:04):
which is some of these guys that they signed to
sort of be stop gaps, sort of fill in where
they lost players. There's a reason those guys were available,
and their best offensive lineman, Laromie Tunsel, got shipped out.
So I don't know if that's addition by subtraction. I
don't know what the O they're doing. I tend to
trust Nick Cassario, I do. He's made some really nice moves.

(01:17:26):
He's turned over this roster what was a bad roster
a couple of years ago. People forget when they brought
him in. He started signing all these veterans to these
one year deals, and he was just loading up that
team with a bunch of veteran contracts that he could
get out of and that he could just plug these
guys in. He flipped this roster fast, and I trust him.

(01:17:49):
But man, I do not know what the hell they're
doing with that offensive line. So I'm concerned. I really
want to see what develops here in training camp and
what people are saying about Nick Chubb.

Speaker 2 (01:17:57):
Well, here's the other great thing, and we love to
talk about. If you're going to build a team and
a roster in Fantasy, how are you gonna do it? So,
if you're gonna draft Joe Mixon right now, RB nineteen
coming off the board, you know, forty seventh, forty eighth,
that is end of the fourth beginning of the fifth round,
is where Joe Mixon's coming off the board. Let me
throw some names at you. You tell me in that range

(01:18:19):
if you'd rather have these guys or Joe Mixon forty.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Three overall these guys.

Speaker 2 (01:18:26):
Yeah, these six players should be drafted ahead of Joe Mixon.
I'll make a thread tomorrow.

Speaker 1 (01:18:32):
I'm going to pick all of them.

Speaker 2 (01:18:33):
Okay, go ahead, Alvin Kamara, you'd rather have Kamara, Omari
and Hampton?

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
Oh, that's close. But I take Hampton ken Walker Walker
and it's not close for me.

Speaker 2 (01:18:43):
Almost the exact same ADP Cuba Hubbard.

Speaker 1 (01:18:47):
I'd rather have Tuba all day and twice on Sunday.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
There you go. Those those are the backs going right
next to.

Speaker 1 (01:18:55):
Compared to those guys.

Speaker 2 (01:18:56):
The next running back going after Joe Mixon in ADP
is James Connor, and he's going what six seven picks? Afterwards,
I'll take James Connor. That guy was a machine.

Speaker 1 (01:19:09):
Yeah, so let's say Connor too. And that's what it
comes down to. It's like, Okay, well, the price doesn't
seem that bad for a guy who had a pretty
good year. But then I look at who's going around him.
I don't care. I don't I don't want. I don't
want a guy with ankle and foot problems. Already. We
have a long enough, difficult enough season. I think Scott
Pianowski's the one who says it all the time. I

(01:19:30):
just don't want to draft injured player. I don't want
to have a problem. That is.

Speaker 2 (01:19:37):
I could listen to him read the phone book.

Speaker 1 (01:19:39):
Yeah he is, and it's not like that's a novel concept,
but his his voice is the one. I hear like
the season is long enough, we have enough problems, don't
draft a problem. And that's how I feel. So I
just can't imagine me drafting either one of these guys
unless I'm taking Nick Chubb as you know, my RB
four in King's Classic or something. I can't. I can't.

(01:19:59):
I can't see myself doing it.

Speaker 2 (01:20:01):
Yeah, let me ask you go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:20:03):
Sorry, yeah, let me ask you about one more situation
that we're looking at in training camp. And then I
just want to bullshit about some guys that we like
and don't like before I get you out of here.
I can't believe him going forty minutes already, like what
I guess maybe the ten minutes on Saturdays we could
have done without some.

Speaker 2 (01:20:19):
I'm okay, I could use Anaturday right now. I'm getting
ready for a refill.

Speaker 1 (01:20:23):
Yeah, I want to talk about Pittsburgh. It's just such
a train wreck there. I have a problem with double
counting and triple counting what I feel about players. I
just think it's such a mess in Pittsburgh that I
can't bring myself to draft anybody there. Now. I took
Dk Metcalf. I think in a like maybe a football

(01:20:45):
guy's mock or something for the magazine. I don't remember,
Like I drafted him somewhere and I felt dirty doing
it even when I drafted him. I think there's going
to be volume there for DK Metcalf. But what I'm
really paying attention to in training camp is the backfield split.
What do they say saying about Caleb Johnson? What are
they saying about Jalen Warren? Because I think Jalen Warren
is a good player, and I think somewhere along the

(01:21:06):
line we lost the plot with Jalen Warren because everyone
last year was like, give Warren more touches, give you know,
Harris is a stiff, And now we've got a rookie
in there and people just haven't said a word about
Jalen Warren, which I don't understand. But then, like, what
do we expect to get from an offense with a
forty two year old quarterback and Mason Rudolph on the

(01:21:27):
bench like and Art Smith? Like are any of these
things making you feel good about Pittsburgh? What are you
watching foreign trading camp?

Speaker 2 (01:21:35):
You're right about this backfield And Jalen Warren's a guy
that I never really touch because is he gonna score
any touchdowns. I don't know, probably not. You know, is
he gonna get a heavy workload of rushing attempts? No.
They also went out and they signed Kenny Gainwell from Philadelphia.
And what does Kenny Gainwell do? Really well? Well, kind

(01:21:56):
of the same stuff Jalen Warren does. He's very good
in past protect what is an old ass immobile quarterback
like Aaron Rodgers need somebody that can protect his backside.
So I think between Warren and gain Well, one of
those two guys is going to be their designated third
down pass blocking back. Now, Caleb Johnson I liked. I

(01:22:19):
think he could be a one for one replacement for
Najie Harris, and you're getting him at a drastic discount
from what you ever paid for Najie Harris. But he
was boring and he went to a boring school in Iowa,
and nobody cares because nobody's watching noon Iowa Big Ten
games unless they're playing Michigan or Penn State or whatever.
So I'm kind of in on Caleb Moore. I can't

(01:22:41):
wait to see what he looks like in camp. But
in terms of Jalen Warren, I don't know. To me,
it's a lot of hype for nothing, for not many results,
you know, like, great, you averaged eight points a game
last week or last season, Like what am I doing
with that? So but in terms of the wide receivers there,
I mean, if you want DK, great, I think he'll

(01:23:02):
get Pepper, but targets somebody else has to catch the
rock there. Maybe God, could you imagine if Rogers like
exhumes the corpse of Bobby Trees Robert Woods and makes
him a thing again, Like, you know, it's week three
and people are spending twenty percent of their fab budget
and Robert Woods after back to back one hundred yard

(01:23:23):
weeks to open the season, Like that's the NFL. That
could totally happen.

Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
Oh God, I haven't talked about Robert Woods once yet,
So congratulations for bringing up old Bobby Trees in the
Year of Our Lord twenty and twenty five.

Speaker 2 (01:23:39):
If Robert Woods comes up to me at the expo
and says he heard this, I will buy him a
drink as well.

Speaker 1 (01:23:45):
I hope he calls me the great Drew Davenport.

Speaker 2 (01:23:48):
Oh, the great Bobby Trees.

Speaker 1 (01:23:50):
That'd be amazing life moment. Oh my god, it's Robert Woods.
Shouldn't he be in Latrobe, Pennsylvania right now? But here,
here's a NATA day. You don't have to go down
and have some cheese curds at the what's the what
the hell's the name of that bar? I don't even
know what the name is. George's Georgia's there, it is, there,
it is.

Speaker 2 (01:24:10):
And I want you next year when Robert Woods is
a top twenty PPR wide receiver thanks to the complicated fella,
I want Robert Woods swag at the poker tournament. So
instead of giving out Ceedee Lamb and all these other
big names, Robert Woods autograph jersey.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
Well, it'll be like thirty nine bucks. Yeah, it'll be
pretty cheap. But folks, for those of you who don't know,
Drake is kidding. He doesn't think Robert Woods is going
to be a top twenty wide receiver. I don't want
to hear from somebody in.

Speaker 2 (01:24:45):
My Patreon it's happening.

Speaker 1 (01:24:51):
My patre is going to be like, were you serious.

Speaker 2 (01:24:53):
I'm gonna be like those guys and we will not
name names, but they throw out every single player in Fantasy.
This guy's gonna hit. He's my sleeper of the year. Yeah,
because you touted everybody. No kidding, you know. It's like
Ben Scronic is gonna be the leading receiver for the stealer. Okay,
welly and some McCutcheon.

Speaker 1 (01:25:14):
Well, hey man, I'm all over Calvin Austin. I don't
know what you're doing with Robert Woods.

Speaker 2 (01:25:18):
No sucker, Just wait, baby, just wait. Scotty Miller coming
up next.

Speaker 1 (01:25:23):
I never knew Drake was a sucker. Here we are.
I got him while he was drinking. He couldn't respond,
all right. What I like to end my discussions with
Drew with is talking to everybody that I have on
here about some guys that we think maybe are mispriced. Sure,
guys that we're targeting, guys were fading, some get some

(01:25:44):
names out there for some guys. As we're in the
thick of training camp right now, what are some guys
that you think are just mispriced? Right now?

Speaker 2 (01:25:52):
Chris Godwin pops off the list to me, this is
a guy who was like wide receiver three when he
got hurt. Right now, you can get him in au
and okay, coming off a bad injury, I get it,
But look at the price tag. Sixth round, seventy picks
into your draft that's cool and everyone can sell me. No,
they got a Miko Buca now and all that. What

(01:26:13):
do you think he's gonna come in, He's gonna take
his job day one. That's not happening. Chris Godwin is
a guy I want to have on my team. Now.
I don't want a whole team full of Chris Godwins.
Guy's coming back from major injury. But hey, if again,
if he's your wide receiver three and we're talking about
round six. Hell, the way some of you guys draft,
he could be your wide receiver five at that point

(01:26:36):
or four.

Speaker 1 (01:26:37):
Well, in auctions, it's easy to get him as a
four or five because he's not that nobody cares about
him for some reason.

Speaker 2 (01:26:42):
Well, nobody cares so and.

Speaker 1 (01:26:44):
He got hurt in Week seven. Let's keep in mind
this wasn't a Week fifteen injury. The guy had had
a three month head start on the off season.

Speaker 2 (01:26:52):
Yeah, so I'm in on him. Another guy, DeAndre Swift.
All right, maybe I was joking partly about Bobby Trees,
but listen, go back and look at Ben Johnson calling
plays with DeAndre Swift as his running back. You don't
have to go that far as twenty twenty two, DeAndre

(01:27:13):
Swift averaged five targets a game in that offense. If
you go back to last season, there were only two
running backs two in the NFL that beat that number.
You're telling me. As a starting full time running back
in Ben Johnson's offense, DeAndre Swift is gonna see those
same numbers or more so, like he's the Jamior gibbson

(01:27:33):
this offense. They invested in the line, their defense is
loaded with new additions. The bear should be fairly good.
It ain't gonna be Rohan Johnson tote in the rock, like,
get Deandres Swift. He's in the seventh round, for god's sakes.
He's this year's Uncle Rico where you're not excited to
draft him, but then you realize you're like, damn, I'm

(01:27:54):
starting this dude every week.

Speaker 1 (01:27:57):
Well, keep in mind, like you said, Ben Johnson knows
Dean Ray Swift. So what did he do when he
came to Chicago? What did he do with the backfield?
He did nothing with the backfield. They've got a seventh
round or sixth I don't remember what.

Speaker 2 (01:28:11):
Right around, some kid, I.

Speaker 1 (01:28:13):
Think, yeah, yeah, he's who just doesn't look great in
my opinion from what I've seen. But he came to
Chicago and had the chance to go draft somebody fairly
high at a free agent, do something. You didn't do anything.
And he knows the player, so that carries a lot
of weight to me. So I totally agree with the
swift pick. Love it. I'm so far I'm two for

(01:28:35):
two in on the picture making. That makes me a
little scared. I'm out on Bobby Trees. But what else
you got?

Speaker 2 (01:28:41):
And let me give you this guy. And I I
know there's a lot of people that love Davante Adams,
but right now you can get Davante Adams in the
fourth round. That is stupid. Okay. He was wide receiver
eleven last year, a thousand yards eight touchdown in only
fourteen games. Remember he faked an injury for three weeks,

(01:29:03):
drew to get out to get it what have like
a hamstring, and oh my god, it miraculously healed itself
when he went over the Jets. Guy was a top
twelve wide receiver, missed three weeks of this season. Now
he's gonna go play with the best quarterback he's played with,
probably since Aaron Rodgers in what twenty twenty two. So

(01:29:25):
you got Davonte Adams, stutter on the goal line, gonna
play the Cooper Cup role in that Sean McVay offense.
Very small target tree. We know that they'll target the
hell out of those receivers. And oh, by the way,
there ain't a chance in hell I'm drafting Pookinakua in
the first round, who's a train wreck every time he
touches the ball, when the guy only played what eleven

(01:29:45):
games last year? When three rounds later, I can get
Deavonte Adams, who I think is gonna outscore him. So, yeah,
nice note. He let somebody else draft Pooking Aakua gave
me DeVante Adams three rounds later.

Speaker 1 (01:29:57):
Well that's a nice pick. I'm worried that when I
get what I always talk about on my show is
that when I get into my auctions, the opinions of
a couple people can magnify the price, either good or
bad for certain players. And I'm afraid that Davante Adams
is just going to be in every auction. I'm going

(01:30:18):
to go in there and be like, I'm going to
get Adams. He's gonna be my wide receiver. Two, He's
gonna be like thirty eight bucks. I think he's going
to go for forty eight or fifty every time, and
I'm just gonna be like, Okay, well, I thought there
was going to be value there. There's no value there.
But enough people are nervous about his age and about
Matthew Stafford's age, which I understand. You know, the funny
part about this whole thing is they still have Jimmy

(01:30:38):
Garoppolo as the backup, and boy did DeVante Adams hate
catching passes from Jimmy Garoppolo. I can't imagine if Stafford
gets hurt what's going to happen there in LA. But okay,
how about some fades. What are some guys that you're
just not wanting to draft right now?

Speaker 2 (01:30:55):
Terry McLaurin third round, guy's going to enter his year,
his year at thirty years old. Remember he was an
old player coming in. He was twenty four years old
as a rookie, signed a new contract few years ago,
so he's on the final year of his deal. He
wants to get paid. I don't think the Commanders should
pay him. There's just no way with the Commanders adding

(01:31:19):
Deebo Samuel and those modified touches that McLaurin had around
the line of scrimmage last year, those are not going
to be there this year. Those are going to go
to Deebo Samuel. So I think mclaurin's just gonna running
a lot more vertical routes down the field. Again, can
you score on those? Sure, But also as a massive
outlier season in terms of touchdowns for Terry McLaurin, double

(01:31:40):
ditch touchdowns never came close to that last year or
in his entire career. So I'm out on Terry McLaurin
in round number three. Another receiver next round. I'm not
touching DJ Moore. There's so many miles defeat in that offense.
Dj Moore. I believe Fantasy Points Data just tweeted out
the other day that DJ Moore led the league in

(01:32:02):
targets at or behind the line of scrimmage. Well, yeah,
it just went out and drafted Luther Burden out of Missouri,
who does exactly that same thing. So I'm not touching
Dj Moore. Too many guys there. And lastly, I'm gonna say,
Jerry Judy, you're getting him in the seventh round. So
people might say, oh my god, he was like a
top fifteen wide receiver last year. Yeah, but it was

(01:32:24):
on the back of a couple of big games, and
I just don't want to bet on that quarterback situation again.
Draft players on good teams, like, do you really want
to get tied to Kenny Pickett and to Shador? No,
I'm I'll let somebody else draft Jerry.

Speaker 1 (01:32:40):
Judy the only one I disagree with so far of
your six targets and fades. DJ Moore, that's it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:47):
I'm eving, screw you. I'm out here.

Speaker 1 (01:32:51):
I gotta say he had a really weird year last year.
They couldn't protect Caleb Williams. I think Jim Coventry was
the one who made the point they couldn't protect Kayleb Williams,
and so they just started turning around and throwing bubble
screens to DJ Moore. I'm not sure that's Moore's fault,
and I'm hoping that Ben Johnson will be a little
bit more inventive. The one thing that worries me about

(01:33:12):
more is that the first thing that Ben Johnson did
when he came to Chicago was say to DJ Moore,
I don't like your body language. I watched you last
year and I didn't like your body language. I think
that's huge. Now it could cut both ways. It could
be one thing where if more can't clean it up,
then he's going to be a disaster. You won't want

(01:33:33):
to touch him. But if he cleans it up and
he becomes Ben Johnson's guy, we could be looking at
another big season because you know, he had thirteen hundred
yards with freaking justin fields. So if Ben Johnson can
do something with him, I believe in the talent, but
I do worry. That body language comment really got to me.
But I think it got to Dj Moore too, because

(01:33:54):
he commented on like I gotta clean that stuff up,
and I see what he's talking about and it looks
like he's taking it to heart. That's something I'm paying
attention to in training camp. Also what the buzz is
for Dj Moore and Romodnze. But all right, man, well,
I gotta get you out of here. You've been generous,
it's getting it's getting on. We've we're going almost an hour.
I told you'd be thirty to forty five minutes. Let

(01:34:14):
me get you out of here. This has been fun.
I can't even believe it's been almost an hour. This
is just like so easy, just talking to you and
dropping knowledge here.

Speaker 2 (01:34:22):
I can't believe I had one beer in an hour.

Speaker 1 (01:34:25):
What are you doing? We're gonna be in Canton in
ten days. You got to get in shape, brother.

Speaker 2 (01:34:31):
I know, yes, I gotta start doing my twelve ounce curls.
And this is a light ipa. It's only four percent.
So these are the kind of beers I'll gladly buy
people in Canton again if you say you listen to
this show, this is what I need. I need Bob Harris.
I need Coventry, all the guys that don't drink to
come up and say, hey, I heard on the show
and I'll get you a coke.

Speaker 1 (01:34:54):
All right, man, Well, I can't wait to hang out.
It's coming fast. Remind everyone your socials and where they
can find your work, where they can where they can
hear you on there.

Speaker 2 (01:35:03):
Yeah, you could find me over on Blue Sky and
Twitter at Drake Fantasy, and I guess I have a TikTok.
I don't really go on there very often, but just
search Drake Fantasy on there see what comes up. Who
knows it's either it's me or a porn site. It's
one of the two, So congratulations. And then yeah, listen
to the Fantasy Points podcast with me and my boy

(01:35:23):
John Hanson. Wherever you get your podcast, just search Fantasy
Points Podcasts and I'll be doing my articles over there
again this season. So it's a lot of fun over
there at Fantasy Points. We got eight bazillion guys writing
like world class articles. I'm just trying to keep up.

Speaker 1 (01:35:39):
They got a good crew over there at Fantasy Points.
And yeah, your shows, your shows are always informative, so yeah,
give get some eyes on Drake's stuff. I just had
the conversation with him off the air before we came on.
I clicked on his Twitter bio and he's over ten
thousand followers on Twitter. And it's something that irritates me
about some of the people that I know are good analysts.

(01:36:03):
You're one of them. Doug Worth is one of them,
you know, Jim Coventry. The fact that you guys can
only have like eight or nine thousand followers on Twitter
is just annoying to me because you deserve a lot more.
And I don't know what the hell it takes to
get a follow but if you're listening, please go follow
Drake Fantasy on Twitter. It's absurd that he doesn't have
more followers. He's always out there. Like I said, drop

(01:36:25):
in common sense on you. It's a hard thing to
find sometimes when you're in the middle of July, you're
going into training camp and you're saying You're seeing people say, well,
I'm fading this player because he's had this many touches
in the past, you know, five years, and you hear
all that nonsense all the time. I crave some stuff

(01:36:46):
that just cuts to the bone, that gets right to
the heart of the issue, and Drake's great at that.
So give him a follow there at Drake Fantasy on Twitter.
Thanks again, my friend. I appreciate you.

Speaker 2 (01:36:55):
No problem. And by the way, I'm just looking back
at my tweets why people don't follow me. My last
like four tweets are about AEW Wrestling Drew Davenport retweet
and then me making fun of Dave Portnoy and Emmanuel Oto.
So maybe I understand why people don't follow me.

Speaker 1 (01:37:11):
Dude, this made me laugh. Uh, that's that's pretty funny.
But it's entertaining. I mean, I don't know, that's that's
how I see it. I think it's entertaining. That's part
of what we're doing here. But you mix in the fantasy.
The fantasy is there too. You're doing all kinds of content. Course,
don't sell yourself short. All right, well, thanks again, let's
end it there. I'll see you in ten days in Canton.

(01:37:32):
This has been another fun week for discussions with Drew.
Thank you so much. Brian Drake from Fantasy Points. Boy,
that was that was off the rails there for a
little bit, but we got it back on and we
talked plenty of fantasy stuff. I hope you enjoy the

(01:37:55):
different approach to fantasy talk this week. Then you know,
say like a John Day or a rich Reebar dropping
forty seven stats a minute. Those guys are awesome. They're savants.
They're really good at what they do. But Drake's really
good at what he does too. And you know, Drake
and I have something that some of these young guys
out there don't have. And I'm not calling like Dagel

(01:38:16):
and those guys young. I'm talking about just in general.
There's a lot of young fantasy players out there and
they don't have the experience to see what's going on.
And that's part of the reason I'm successful with auction
drafting because I have a lot of experience, and you
can't buy experience. You can do draft after draft, but
you can't buy experience because there's only so many seasons

(01:38:36):
of football. You can do a billion drafts, but there's
only one season of football every year, and you learn
things every year. And Drake and I have fifty years
of fantasy experience between us, So I hope you enjoyed
that conversation. All Right, folks, I'm gonna get you out
of here. Don't forget. You can find me on Twitter
at Drew Davenport, FF, on TikTok and Patreon at the
Fantasy Football Lawyer, and don't forget to buy the best

(01:38:58):
draft boards in the business. Jay Fantasy Sports Auction twenty
twenty five is your code for ten percent off auction
two zero two five. We'll get you ten percent off
your order. I think they're the best draft boards in
the business. All right, that's gonna do it. I cannot
believe it's August. I'm gonna drop one more episode before
I go to Canton, and when I get back from camp,

(01:39:20):
we've got Matt Harmon from Reception Perception, and then not
long after that, I have my Auction Manifesto coming everything
you need to know in one episode, so we are
far from done here on the Auction Brief. Thank you
so much for joining me for another episode. The Auction
Brief is adjourned, and I am out.

Speaker 3 (01:39:39):
The Auction Brief is adjourned. That'll do it for this
week's episode. See you next time on the Auction Brief

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Auction Mailbag - AAV, Par Sheets, and Keepers; Guest Brian Drake from Fantasy Points

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Auction Mailbag - AAV, Par Sheets, and Keepers; Guest Brian Drake from Fantasy Points