How to Prepare for Your Auction; Plus Guest Matt Harmon from Yahoo and Reception Perception

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the Auction Brief. They'reto join in these games or not,
taking you on a journey through fantasyfootball, the law and life we saw
yours. It depends on how muchyou want. And now you're legal analyst

(00:22):
and auction draft expert here to helpyou dominate your fantasy drafts. Your host,
Drew Davenport, there are full heartsles play. Hey, everybody,
welcome into the auction Brief. Asthe lady said, I am your host,
Drew Davenport, you're fantasy football lawyer. Thank you so much for joining

(00:44):
me for a season four episode seven. That means we are past the midpoint
of the summer and we are welland truly on our way to some real
football. Let's celebrate that for amoment, because as I'm speaking to you
on Thursday, there's already teams whohave their rookies reported to camp, and

(01:07):
by the time you listen to menext time this week, the entire NFL
will be in training camp. Ohmy god, that's exciting. Frankly,
I can't believe it. I wasjust talking to my buddy Drake earlier today
and I said, you know what, man, I can't remember one damn

(01:29):
thing that I've really done between Januaryand July. We're in the middle of
July. What have I done thisyear? Pushed a lot of content.
Hopefully you're excited about that part ofit. Hey, when on vacation with
my family, I remember that,But yeah, really I don't. I
don't know how the heck. We'rein the middle of July. That's really
all I'm saying here. It iswild to me that we are there and

(01:52):
that we are actually going to belearning real football things. And it's an
exciting time of the year because rightnow we're full of optimism and hope for
what a fun fantasy football season we'reabout to have before that first devastating injury
walks into our lives and reminds uswhat we do for a living. But

(02:13):
hey, that's all right, becauseI am here to walk you through all
that and hopefully win some championships withyou. Last week we did some fun
stuff talking about how to read peoplein an auction, But I want to
get back to some basics today becausethe nuts and bolts of why you're here
and what we're trying to do.We don't have a lot of time left,
folks. We don't have a lotof time left. We've got this

(02:36):
week and then I believe four moreepisodes after that before my favorite episode of
the summer, where I give youeverything I think you need to know about
auction drafting in one episode. Yeah, it's going to be hard to do
because I ramble with my FWM thisoul fat wet mouth every week and it's

(02:58):
hard to put it down into oneepisode. But that's clearly the favorite episode
every summer, and I can't waitto do that. But in the meantime,
we got to get some of thisstuff done, and today's one of
those nuts and bolts episodes on howto prepare for your auction. I think
you're really gonna like this because alot of people ask me questions. I
need more specifics. I need moreof this than that. And I do

(03:19):
have a tendency to get caught upin the nebulous concepts the ideas that we
have that are just hard to pindown, and I'm gonna I'll say,
for example, last week, Igave you four players that I really like
as being players that the rest ofthe community is down on a little bit.
And I don't mean down on likethey don't like them, but just

(03:40):
down from where they should think aboutthem. And a lot of times in
auctions, that means that if youtime your nomination right or that player comes
up at the right time, you'regoing to get a deal for them.
Now, I just went and dida mock right after I did the show
this past week, and that mockmade a complete min Ooh, that mock

(04:00):
made a mockery. Oo, we'restarting off good, We're starting off good
man, I was really dumb man. Anyway, the mock made a mockery
of my four players I picked lastweek because every single one of them went
for more money than I thought theywere going to go for. And you
know that's going to happen. Andthat's part of the reason that I shy

(04:23):
away from the nuts and bolt stuffsometimes, because I know that in an
auction draft room, you just neverknow what's going to happen. And I've
said this before in past summers,and you've heard me talk about it,
but there's always one person in aroom that can screw up your auction.
And I shouldn't say always, therecan always be one person. And in

(04:44):
this particular mock I did, therewas some people that liked those players that
I liked they were too expensive.That's okay, but that's the whole point
of the exercise. Do you feellike they're too much money? Do you
feel like you can still work theminto your team? Going through the exercise
is what helps. Maybe my fourplayers are going to turn out to be
just absolutely, just bald faced wrongby the time we get to middle of
August. But the whole point isto go through that exercise yourself and pick

(05:10):
out your own players that you feellike are going to work in your leagues,
because, as what we're going totalk about later today, leagues have
a personality and that stuff's important,that thought process is important. But today
we're going to go through the nutsand bolts of how to prepare for an
auction, and then we're going totalk to reception perception King Matt Harmon from

(05:31):
Yahoo. He's got his site thatgoes into mapping every receiver's success points,
things they're good at, things they'renot, and he puts them into a
nice little color coded route tree thattells you that player's success against man,
against zone and for the each routethat that receiver runs. You're gonna love

(05:55):
hearing from Matt Harmon. I saythis every week. But he's a smart
dude, and that's what we liketo do on this show is get smart
people on the show, and MattHarmon's one of them. Okay, before
we get to how to prepare foryour auction, let's do a couple quick
things. Number one, the ListenerLeague. Ding ding ding, ding ding
ding. I know everybody's been excitedabout that. Brah, where's the Listener

(06:16):
League? Bra Excuse me, sir, sir, I there's there. I
haven't heard about the listenerly yet.And also that I don't think that there
was enough ranch on my salad,Sir sir, excuse me, sir.

(06:38):
Folks, if you don't know theranch guy yet, you're not listening to
the show enough. I just don'thave enough ranch for my salad. The
Listener League. Back to the point, the Listener League. Yes, we're
doing it again year three. I'mgonna hope not to suck for the third
straight year. I have really gotmy butt kicked in the Listener League and
I'm not happy about it. Soa renewed effort to come out swinging in

(07:00):
the Listener League this year. Ialready know a couple of people that I
want to put in. But Ibelieve after talking with Ian Harditz last week,
we have our guest participant this year, and Ian's gonna do it because
he doesn't get a lot of chanceto do many auctions that he's excited about
doing the auction with the Listener LeagueSo not only me, but Ian Hartitz
this year. So it's going tobe a fun Listener League. You're going

(07:23):
to have to earn your way in. I think we're going to do the
thing maybe where we do leave areview something like that. I don't know
exactly how we're gonna do it.Maybe it'll be a password. I'm not
sure. But the Listener League informationis coming up, don't you frets.
We're not drafting until maybe third weekof August, so we got about a
month. Don't you worry. Butthat's coming okay. Also, don't forget

(07:46):
my two ways that I earn alittle bit of money on this show.
Please consider supporting me for all thework that I do on this show.
Number one is FJA Fantasy Draft Boards. I say it every week and I
mean it every week. They arethe best draft boards in the business.
Whatever your sport is for fantasy,use FJA Fantasy Draft Boards. And use

(08:07):
my promo code Auction one zero orAuction Brief one zero. You'll get ten
percent off of your order. Andif you don't like those draft boards,
then let me hear it, becauseI'm so confident that you're going to like
them that I don't think I'll hearany complaints. And then the other thing
that I do that is really importantto me is the Patreon network. The
Fantasy Football are Patreon Network. It'sonly four bucks a month. I'm putting

(08:31):
out custom par sheets and putting outa ton of content over there. I
just dropped my auction values. Youwant to check that out because all of
my values for quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends in
tiers with auction values and market pricesare now up on the Patreon network.
That's the only way you can getmy rankings and my auction values is on

(08:54):
the Patreon network. All right,Well, I think that's enough of that
stuff. We have a little bitof preliminary business today because before I went
on the air, we all heardabout Jordan Addison. So we need to
do a little bit of an FFlegal update. So let's hit that first
and knock that out. We'll talka little bit about Jordan Addison and what

(09:15):
we can expect from his recent troubles. Then we're going to launch into how
to prepare for an auction before weget onto discussions with Drew and Matt Harmon
from Reception, Perception and Yahoo Sports. All right, let's get to it.
Now, it's time for your legalupdate. All right, real quickly,
on the FF legal update, wedon't need to do a whole lot

(09:35):
with this yet because there just isn'tthat much information. However, the allegations
are that Jordan Addison was found passedout behind the wheel on the roadway.
I believe it was on an exitramp in his vehicle. When they woke
him up, they had a suspicionthat he was intoxicated, and then they
did some tests on him and arrestedhim on suspicion of driving a vehicle while

(09:58):
impair. So Jordan Addison is goingto be facing a charge of DUI.
Now, we don't have a lotof information about this, so we don't
necessarily know exactly what the charges areor if they ended up filing them.
He was arrested on suspicion of it. But not every time you're arrested,
do charges get filed. So wedon't know a whole lot yet. This

(10:20):
is really hard for me to guess. But what I can tell you is
this particular situation has a ton oflittle legal nuances to it that are going
to be really important for this case. So don't go off half cock thinking
Addison is just going to get slammedto miss half the season. He had
a speeding ticket last summer of onehundred and forty miles an hour on a

(10:41):
highway. Obviously not great, andit's obviously not great that he's picking up
another charge. This is really withina twelve month period of time, because
I believe the speeding ticket was lastJuly, So we are really right in
that twelve month timeframe where he's pickedup two different charges and that's not great
for a young player, and theNFL will take that into account. But

(11:01):
we have to understand that duys arereally interesting from the standpoint that there are
a lot of moving parts. Hewas passed out behind the wheel, which
means that nobody saw him actually operatingthe vehicle. Now that doesn't mean that
that's going to be a great defense, because there is case all out there
at least in my state. Thatsays if the only way the vehicle could
have gotten there was because of thatperson driving it there, then you could

(11:24):
infer that they were operating the vehicle. But there are certainly lesser charges for
somebody who's actually not driving the vehicleat the time that they are pulled over
or excuse me, stopped and detainedby police. You wouldn't get pulled over
if you're not driving, but ifwhen you're detained by police, if you're
passed out behind the wheel. Iknow that sounds bad, and it is
very bad. However, there aresome legal arguments I can make there.

(11:48):
On top of that, we didn'thear anything about a BAC a blood alcohol
content test. We heard that hewas screened for intoxication, So this makes
me think that maybe it wasn't alcoholrelated. There is a couple of reasons
why there could be not be aBAC test. One would be that he
refused it. The other would bethat they didn't need a BAC test because

(12:09):
they didn't smell any alcohol, butthey suspected intoxication anyway. So a lot
of times that comes down to maybeis it marijuana, is it edibles,
is it something like that, andkeep in mind that that stuff is legal
in California where he was found.He was out by Lax Airport, I
believe is the allegation. And keepin mind this is all stuff that I'm
just hearing secondhand. I don't havethe police report, and I don't know

(12:33):
the truth of any of this stuff, So be very careful about what you
hear about Addison. Come to me. I'm going to post in the Patreon
network about the Addison case and aboutwhat you should be expecting. But it
comes down to something pretty simple.In the old personal Conduct policy, I
believe it was a mandatory three gamesif you were found guilty of a driving

(12:54):
offense that was related to impairment oralcohol. I don't see that in the
version of the NFL's Personal Conduct Policy. However, there is plenty of room
in the Personal Conduct Policy for thisto be a problem. But I think
you really have to start out withthat comp of right around three games,

(13:16):
and I think that because of hisprior problems, it could be more than
that, so it could end upbeing four or something like that. But
I really don't think we're talking aboutan eight game suspension or anything crazy like
that. And there's a very goodchance that his lawyers work something out because
he doesn't have a criminal history.Now you may say, well, what
you just said that he had ahistory last year. Yeah, but he

(13:37):
doesn't have a history of impaired driving, So that matters when we're talking about
whether or not he can get adeal from the prosecutor. Sometimes they can
go to them and say, hey, look, you don't have a test.
You don't have a blood test,you don't have a yearine test,
you don't know how much let's sayit's a marijuana allegation, you don't know
how much he's got in a systembecause you don't have a test. So
you've got a guy who's like sleeping, and the argument's going to be,

(13:58):
well, he was sleeping, andyeah, maybe he had smoked some marijuana,
or maybe he had taken some edibles, but he was just tired.
Whatever the case may be. Thereare plenty of arguments you can make,
and a lot of times, becausethere's no prior history, there is an
avenue to have the case reduced.And if that's the situation, then sometimes
he's not even going to get avery big suspension at all. So I
really don't think Addison's in a tonof trouble here with the league. It's

(14:22):
not good, and I think there'sgoing to be a suspension, but I
don't think that we have to worryabout it being a long one. That's
the best I can say right now. This is a misdemeanor in California.
This is not a felony. Ido believe this case will move fairly quickly.
You got to knock Addison down yourdraft boards a little bit. But
if you're one of those that understandsthat having the players near the end of

(14:43):
the season is what's most important,then you can aggressively attack situations like this
to acquire Addison below market value atthis point. All right, well,
we don't know a whole lot,like I said, so I'm not going
to go any further into that.But that is your FF legal update on
Jordan Addison. Stay tuned to myTwitter account at Drew Davenport FF, and
also stay tuned to the Patreon networkthe Fantasy Football Lawyer for any further updates.

(15:07):
I will be handing those out assoon as I know something. All
right, Well, that's enough forthe preliminary stuff for this week. What
do you say we get into someauction talk on how to prepare for your
auction draft auction talk. So there'sa sizeable contingent of my followers out there
that love this episode, and there'sa sizeable contingent that don't. I've gotten

(15:31):
feedback both ways on this episode,and frankly, I understand it because when
you hear, oh, we're goingto hear how to prepare for an auction
draft, it sounds kind of boring. And I understand that it sounds kind
of boring. But I don't thinkyou're here because you want to be half
assed about this. You're not herelistening to this because you're thinking to yourself,

(15:52):
Oh, that sounds kind of hard. I believe that my listeners are
by and large motivated people who wantto get better at critical thinking skills and
how to attack auctions because they've moldedtheir brain and shaped their brain into the
right mindset. And that's really whereI want to start today. I want
to talk about mindset because I thinkit's underrated in this space. How important

(16:17):
mindset is. Snake drafts are justdifferent, and I could talk about that
until I'm blue in the face.It's not important, it's not really germane
to the episode, other than tosay that you cannot go into an auction
draft and think that your mindset thatyou use in snake drafts is going to
work. Now, I'm not talkingabout preparation or what you think about players

(16:37):
or anything. I'm talking about yourgeneral mindset. So it reminds me of
a quote that I heard a gosh, I don't know what it was a
couple of years ago. I gotinto this thoroau kick, and I know
that we talked about this maybe asummer or two ago. But one of
the quotes that I love from himis a very simple one. Threw said,

(16:57):
go confidently in the direction of yourdreams, live the life you have
imagined. Now that's pretty heavy,that sounds that's a lot. Okay,
go confidently in the direction of yourdreams and live the life you have imagined.
I love it because it makes mefeel it just inspired just to read

(17:18):
it. Go confidently towards your dreams, Okay, But it makes me feel
good and I like saying it.And I think the reason I like the
quote so much is because the olderI've gotten I'm forty eight years old now,
and the older I've gotten, themore, I've realized that people that
do extraordinary things and people that succeed, they don't do it by taking individual

(17:44):
extraordinary acts. Of course, thereare situations in which people do things that
are extraordinary, but for the mostpart, those extraordinary things that happen are
as a result of a lot oflittle, non extraordinary things, a lot
of little, tiny things that theydid to make that moment happen. It's

(18:06):
it's the work behind the scenes thatallows you to accomplish what you're trying to
accomplish. And so Thoreau's quote makesme feel like, Hey, this is
what life's supposed to be. Livethe life you imagine, and what do
you want that to look like.So that's not just about life. Obviously
we're going to relate this back toauction drafting, but think about that,

(18:29):
Think about the life you imagine andwhat it takes to go get it.
And that's the problem I think rightnow for a lot of people. And
I'm really trying to teach my kidsthis because it's easy to say, oh,
I didn't win, or belly acheabout why you didn't win when you're
not being critical with yourself about whatit is that you didn't do in order

(18:52):
to get that win. So theresays, go confidently in the direction of
your dreams, live the life youimagine. And you can't do that unless
you point your ship in that rightdirection. And you can't succeed in an
auction draft room unless you figure outhow to get the ship moving in the
right direction. I have said thisbefore and I'll say it again. The

(19:17):
times that I don't feel like I'mprepared when I go into an auction draft
room, I see the difference inthe results. I promise you there is
a difference in the results that you'regoing to see when you follow these steps.
Don't skip the steps, and don'ttell yourself, oh, I'm going
to pay lip service to that.Oh I did a little bit of thinking
about this or that before I wentinto the draft. I'm sorry, but

(19:40):
that ain't gonna do it. Youmight have decent results, you might even
have good results because you're good atthis or you've been around for a while,
but that's not what we're here todo. We're here to get great
results. We're here to win titles. You don't win titles by being half
assed. So we can't go inthe direction of our dreams live what we
want to imagine. We can't havethat perfect auction. We can't have that

(20:03):
kick ass roster that you walk outof an auction and think, oh my
god, look at this team thatI just I just took everybody out behind
the woodshed, beat their ass,and walked out with the best team.
You can't do that without pointing yourship in the right direction, with a
proper preparation for your auction. AndI think about this all the time because

(20:25):
it's something that I don't think thatI ever internalized until the last maybe ten
or fifteen years of my life,and I've internalized it even further every single
day that goes by. I waswatching the show Receiver on Netflix the other
day and I tweeted about a'man rossSaint brown boy? Is that an impressive
young man? Impressive? It justdoesn't even begin to describe how interesting that

(20:51):
guy is and how driven he isto be successful. And it made me
think, that's what this show isabout. The preparation that we have to
have to be successful in an auction. Draft feels a little boring when you're
doing it, although you know,for me, I've always felt like that's
fine, Like for me, thatprocess of sitting down, flipping on a

(21:14):
movie, going through my thought exercisesabout what I'm gonna do when I get
inside the auction, what I'm gonnado with my par sheets. Oh,
I can imagine, I can tryto get this tight end and this wide.
I love going through that stuff.That's fun for me. But even
if it's not, going through thatpreparation is the key to success. And
I'm going to go out on alimb like I did earlier in the summer

(21:36):
and say that it's easily over halfof your success in an auction draft.
Easily, it might even be sixtyor seventy percent. What you do in
the room is far less important thanthe months and months of preparation that you
put in ahead of time. Andthe reason I think about a'man ross Aint
Brown is not only his drive tosuccess, but a particular part of the

(22:00):
show. He was talking about howwhen he was in peewee football, there
was another kid that was a reallygood player that had really good hands,
and Saint Brown's dad went up tothat player's dad and said, Hey,
your kid's got really good hands.He's you know, he's a really good
receiver. What do you do togive him such good hands. And the

(22:21):
guy said, we have a jugsmachine. If you don't know what a
drugs machine is, it's just amachine that you slip a football into and
it fires it at the receiver asfast or as slow as you want.
It helps you work on catching theball. And the father said, we
have a jugs machine and he catchestwo hundred balls every day. And Saint
Brown's dad said okay, and theywent and got a jugs machine and he

(22:44):
went out and caught two hundred andtwo balls every day. That sounds like
something that thirty year old me wouldhave sort of laughed at. Twenty five
year old me. Thirty year oldme, thirty five year old me.
Even I don't know. I'm fortyeight now, like I said before,
but I really believe that that twohundred and two two extra balls that I'm

(23:07):
on rock catches. I really can'toverestimate how important it is to have that
mindset that Saint Brown has to catchthe two hundred and two balls. And
like I said, I think that'ssomething that I probably would have made fun
of fifteen years ago or twenty yearsago, because I would have said,

(23:27):
oh, oh, he catches twohundred and two. Oh real cool,
buddy. But I think when youdeconstruct it, it says something really big.
It says that I am of themindset that this is the best player
on the field because he catches twohundred balls every day and I'm gonna work
harder than that player. That isa mindset, and I'm going to bring

(23:49):
it back to this at the endof this conversation where I'm going to talk
a little bit about that mindset.I don't think I can overseell how important
the right mindset is to succeeding inan auction room into visualizing how to succeed
and that preparation that aman Ross SaintBrown has gone through every day of his

(24:11):
life. By theoretically catching two moreballs than the guy next to him,
that is something that you cannot underestimate. That creates a mindset. It isn't
about the two extra passes that he'scatching. It's about creating the mindset,
the tenaciousness, the ability to sayI'm going to do what it takes today

(24:34):
to be better than the best.That mindset matters, and it matters if
you're going to go into an auctiondraft room and expect to be the best
one there. All right, that'senough preachiness for now. Let's get into
the nuts and bolts of how weprepare for an auction. The first thing

(25:00):
that I want to talk about issomething that I say every year that you
probably roll your eyes at, butI'm gonna say it again. Your preparation
for this year's auction really should havestarted last year, after the auction happened
last year. Now, if you'rein a new auction league, I understand
you can't do this. But ifyou're in the same home league every year,

(25:22):
or the same analyst league or whateverleague you're in, your prep should
start right after the auction last year. And what does that mean. Well,
I think that after all this time, you guys all under you folks,
Sorry, guys, there's plenty ofwomen that listen. That's a colloquial
guys, but you all understand that. I think there is absolutely massive value

(25:48):
in critiquing yourself after you do anauction, after you finish a fantasy football
season, So your prep should reallystart one year ago when you walk out
of your auction the previous year,or you should spend time thinking about what
you did during that auction. Thinkabout the times that you backed down and
you didn't end up with a player, did you regret it, was it

(26:11):
a good decision? Or the timesyou paid up and you actually landed a
player. What regrets did you haveAnd what choices did you have that you
thought were good choices that worked outwell. How you were happy about some
things, you regretted some things.What were those things? And then follow
that up at the end of thefantasy football season and say, how has

(26:33):
that changed? Because there were somethings I did in the auction that I
thought, Ah, that was justdumb. I shouldn't have done that,
and then later on you realized thatwas actually not a bad move. So
right after the auction last year,you want to think about what you did.
You want to spend some time goingthrough some thought exercises. Discuss it
with somebody in the league that youlike, Hey, I thought it was
odd that this person did this,or I really should have paid for this,

(26:56):
or hey, this was my momentabout all that stuff. If you
don't discuss it with somebody, thinkabout it, just make a few notes
about it, it will help you. And then at the end of the
year the fantasy season, you wantto go back and revisit those thoughts about
your auction and see whether or notthey held up. That's the first thing.
Now, I know a lot ofyou aren't going to do that.

(27:17):
Whatever, whatever, Brah, youwant to ignore me, go ahead and
ignore me, Brad, I don'tcare, man, all right. The
second thing I want you to dois do some homework about your league and
about your settings and the things thatsurround the league that are static before things

(27:37):
start. And what I mean bystatic is you know that these things,
these variables, are not going tochange. They're important variables, but they've
already happened. So you can lookat those and spend some time figuring out
some predictive stats from either the leaguethat you have done in the past or

(27:57):
I say this a lot if youif you're coming into a new league,
talk to some of the owners thatwere in the league before, and if
the league is brand new itself,at least you can think about what the
league will do based on the settingsin the league and what that personality of
the league is likely to be.I've told the story before, but I'm
going to tell it again. Lastyear in The King's Classic, I thought

(28:19):
to myself, Hey, this isan analyst league that doesn't like to draft
quarterbacks, So I really believe there'ssome value in trying to secure an elite
quarterback when everyone else is fading quarterback. So I went back. I did
a little bit of homework. Ilooked at some prior seasons and came up
with the idea that right in thelow twenties is right about where I should

(28:41):
be able to get an elite quarterback. So I put down on my part
sheet twenty three dollars for Patrick Mahomesand loan, excuse me, twenty three
dollars for an elite quarterback, andlo and behold. I landed Patrick Mahomes
as that elite quarterback. I knowit didn't work out that, but that's
being results oriented. I don't carewhether or not it worked out. What

(29:03):
I love about it is that Iwas able to do some homework on league
history and then the personality of theleague and say that I'm going to get
Mahomes or Josh Allen or Jalen Hurtsfor right around load of mid twenties.
That's exactly what happened, and Iwas really excited about that. Do a
little bit of league homework, andthat league homework involves looking at prior years,

(29:26):
talking to other people in the league. If it's a new league,
of course you can't do that.But if you're coming in new and the
league has been around, talk topeople in the league and say, hey,
what did the top guys go for, what do people like to do,
what do they go after. Hopefullythey're going to help you and be
nice enough to give you some information. Also, look at the league settings
in the league personality. I mentionedthat just a minute ago. But leagues

(29:48):
have a personality. I know fora fact. My home league, my
longest running home league, it hasa personality. It's changed a little bit
in the last couple of years,and that's something really important to remember.
But this league has always been acautious one. It's always been a group
of cautious drafters. We call itthe show me league because they want to

(30:08):
see results before they spend a lotof money on guys, and that makes
it a bit more of a timiddraft room. Now in the last couple
of years, that hasn't happened.People are spending their money. The league
has a personality. Okay, thatpersonality swings around. It moves around a
little bit. It might be amoving target, but your job is to
try to figure out what that is. And the league settings are part of

(30:30):
it too, because that league hasno lineup restrictions beyond you need to start
one of everything. So you haveto start one defense, kicker, tight
end, wide receiver, running back, quarterback, but that's it, and
then you have four flexes, soit's a full flex league. That changes
the personality as well. So leaguesettings, I know people say it all

(30:52):
the time, but league settings mattera lot. If it's a super flex,
it's obviously going to push the quarterbackprice is really high. If it's
a legal mine, people aren't goingto care about running back. They're going
to spend money on receivers. That'swhat they're going to try to put in
their flex spot. This is alsoa six point passing touchdown league, so
people are gonna spend on quarterbacks.You don't necessarily need the running quarterback as

(31:12):
much as you would in a fourpoint passing touchdown league, because a guy
like Joe Burrow, if he throwsfor thirty five touchdowns, could end up
in the top three at the position. So things change based on league settings.
Prior seasons tell you what those tendenciesmight be in the league. Personality
matters as well. Even if it'sa new league, you can still try

(31:33):
to get a beat on some ofthat stuff by doing a little bit of
homework. And then the next thingthat you have to do is move into
how do I start to compile myrankings or how do I start to get
a list of players together that Ireally like or really care about. And
that is the most important thing thatI'm going to say all day to day.

(31:56):
That is your tear sheet. Theway that this is all going to
shake out is fairly simple. You'reonly going to have a couple pieces of
paper when you walk into the draftroom. So the end result of all
of this hard work is going tobe your par sheets, your tear sheets,
and a nomination list. So you'reonly going to have a couple of
things that you're carrying into the draftwith you. But those are extremely important

(32:17):
things to have with you, andI'm going to tell you how to compile
those lists and really what you're doingto get those together. But all of
that comes from one simple place,and that place is your plan of attack
for the auction. So in orderfor all of this stuff to come together.

(32:37):
You have to have an overarching point. You have to have an overarching
idea or theme running through what youwant to do. So often you see
people bouncing around in an auction draftroom with no plan and no coherent or
cogent theme as to what they're doingfor their teams. They're just like,

(32:59):
Oh, I like this player,that's a good deal, and they just
end up with these weird teams thatdon't necessarily work for them or don't necessarily
work for the league settings. Soplan out your attack and come at it
from a thirty thousand foot view.What are you trying to accomplish in that
auction? This is a league that, let's say, for example, this

(33:20):
is a league that loves running backs. So you think to yourself, Okay,
we have to start two running backs. I'm going to need to spend
a little bit more money. Drewalways talks about not spending money on running
backs, but I have to inthis league because people spend too much on
running backs and you've got to starttwo of them. Okay, that's fine,
that's great. That's how we start. That's how you get it going.

(33:40):
You plan your attack, you doyour homework. You do your prep
looking at the past years and theleague personality and the settings and all that,
and then your attack plan comes togetherwith these three lists. Your nomination
list, your tiershet, and yourpar sheet. So let's go with the
tear sheet first, because that's whatI started to talk about, and I
want to do that first because itis so important and I want to stress

(34:06):
something this year that I've never stressedbefore. Your tier sheets need to be
all about you. They need tobe about what you think, and that
is going to be extremely important tothe success of having the tiers. Okay,
so before we get too far intothis, let me explain what a
tier is. A tier is verysimply a group of players that have a

(34:30):
similar price point or similar value forthat year. So when you go into
an auction, you have certain tiersof players that look somewhat similar, and
there'll be players that you think toyourself, Yeah, I don't mind having
any one of these players from thistier. And what's really important about the

(34:50):
tiers and the reason that we doit is because it's going to guide you
on when you should be entering theconversation. And let me explain why.
If there is a tier of playersthat are all very similar. Your only
goal at that point is not toplant your flag on a particular player,
although if you want to do that, that's totally fine. That's what auction

(35:14):
drafts are for. But it's notreally to plant your flag on any particular
player in the tier. Your jobis to get the cheapest player in the
tier, right, I mean,theoretically that's what we're there to do.
Ostensibly, we don't care. Weshould be player agnostic. We should only
be price. We should only beconcerned about price, not player. So
now again, if you want topick a particular player in that tier,

(35:37):
then come up with that during yourplan of attack. But I'm gonna sit
here and say I really think thatthe tiers are more important for telling you,
Hey, I don't care about anyguy in this tier more than another.
I'm just going to get the cheapestone in the tier. And that's
how you build that monstrous roster.And the reason I start out by saying,

(35:57):
do you in your tier sheets?Is because so often people have tear
sheets that are composed of projections fromtheir favorite analyst or just rankings from their
favorite analyst. And I realize I'msaying this, and I'm giving out my
rankings, but people really want them, and you can do whatever you want
with them, change them up,tweak them, do whatever you want,
change the tiers. But I thinkit's really important because when you make up

(36:21):
your tear sheets, a couple thingshappen. Number One, you learn a
ton, You learn a ton aboutwhat you think about these players. And
then the second thing that happens isyou realize that there are certain tiers that
can be devalued. And I canthink of there's a huge tier of wide
receiver twos that I think have sucha devalued point in the auction ecosystem that

(36:49):
we don't really care too much,but we can get quite a few of
those players in that wide receiver tooarea because we shouldn't really care about them.
There are so many red flags forall of them, and there are
so many positives for all of themthat we really just need to shrug our
shoulders and say, we can't possiblysee the permutations and all of these players,
so don't worry about it. Justput them in tiers and get the

(37:10):
cheapest ones from the tier. Andthe reason I keep saying do you is
because a thing happens when you getinto the draft with tiers sheets that you
don't really love or trust. Ifyou're looking at that tiershet and you're saying,
Oh, that guy's too high,that guy's too low, what you're
going to do is you're going tofight yourself in the middle of that draft
if you think of players too highor too low from your favorite analysts.

(37:32):
Me, if you think that thetiers sheets are wrong, then just move
them around and get them so youlike it. And I'm going to tell
you a really unscientific way to dothis. But a way that I love
is I like going through all thebackground, the stats, that everything,
and getting my rankings ready and saying, these are what I feel the rankings

(37:53):
should be based on stats and advancedmetrics and blah yah da yards per route
run all these stats. Yeah,I use all that stuff. I put
my rankings together, and then youknow what I do. I go really
unscientifically through the whole thing and Isay, Okay, do I really believe
that I'm going to draft EX playerover Y player? In other words,

(38:16):
I have Aaron Jones ahead of vermondreStevenson in my rankings, and what it
really came down to was I thinkthat ramondre Stevenson looks like he could have
a significant role that's going to bemore than Aaron Jones's role, And Stevenson
is younger and I trust him more. But I had to put Aaron Jones

(38:37):
ahead of Vermondre Stevenson because when itreally came down to it, I thought,
am I going to draft Stevenson overJones? Probably not? And now
it's really close and I have theirnumbers right next to each other. But
the point is, sometimes you justneed to move players on field. And
I'm not saying to make your wholerankings on feel, but do that before
you get in the room, oryou're gonna fight yourself and your tiers aren't

(39:00):
going to mean as much and they'renot going to be as successful as you're
making up your tiers. Keep inmind, use your own biases there,
and use your own thoughts about whatyou believe for your tiers, and then
that there are going to be sometiers that are so big that they are
going to be devalued and you canuse that in order to get better deals.

(39:22):
But also keep in mind the boomerangeffect that we've talked about in the
past. I don't want to spenda lot of time on this because I
don't love it as much as somepeople do. But the boomerang effect is
this, if you have a tierof five players, the first player that
gets nominated in that tier is goingto set the price point for that tier.
But then the last player in thattier is also going to be a

(39:43):
fairly highly sought after player because thetiers are drying up, so the first
player is going to be pretty high, and then the prices will drop in
that tier all the way to thelast player, where the price will spike
back up again. That's why it'scalled the boomerang. But I don't love
that as much as I used tobecause I really think that the size of

(40:05):
the tiers is really what matters morethan anything that dictates how quickly you need
to strike. So if you havea small tier, For example, near
the top of my running back rankings, I have a really small tier of
Kyron Williams, Travis ETN, andJonathan Taylor, it's just a three running
back tier. If two of thoseguys are gone already, I know that

(40:27):
other player is going to be waytoo much money. So the smaller tiers
make things more urgent, and thebigger tiers mean that you can devalue some
of those players and get better deals. One of the things that I like
to stress about the preparation here andwhy it helps so much, is that
when you're making up your tier sheets, you learn so much about where players

(40:50):
should be slotted onto your team andwhat players you find acceptable to end up
on your squad. For example,this year, with wide receivers, I
only I really like about six widereceivers for my number one. I want
to have one of six wide receiversCeedee Lamb, Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase,
AJ Brown, Tyreek Hill, I'mon Ross, Ain't Brown. That's

(41:15):
about it. Those six wide receiversI want as my number one. And
then I also find out that Idon't really love a lot of the wide
receivers passed right around thirty two tothirty five ish in that range. I
don't love a lot of those widereceivers. So I really want to focus
on getting four or five guys fromthe top thirty five wide receivers. And

(41:37):
if you don't look at your tiersand spend some time doing that, you
won't realize where those drop offs are. So if you want to use my
sheets as your cheat sheets, that'swhat they're there for. But there are
some big tiers that we can attack. That attack at running back on wide
receiver this year, because at runningback, I think for my RB one

(41:58):
there's probably like about ten or elevenguys i'd be fine with as my RB
one. There's only about six widereceivers as I want as my wide receiver
one. So that's really important toremember that you've got to strike at the
right time to get those top widereceivers or running backs based on the fact
that wide receivers more thin at thetop than running back is. And then

(42:21):
likewise, as you're moving down thepage, you can kind of see that
there is a tier with about Idon't know, sixteen to eighteen running backs
in a couple of tiers, andlike twelve wide receiver twos. You know
that whole group of Dj Moore andBrandon Ayuk and Jalen Waddle and Cooper Cup
all those guys. There's a tonof wide receiver twos and then there's a

(42:45):
ton of RB twos. You canreally use the scattershot approach on both of
those. Both of those positions becauseof how big those tiers are, and
I genuinely believe there's not a lotof difference between most of those players and
those tiers. Of course there's differences, I get that, but there's not
a ton of differences, and there'snot a ton of discernible differences where you

(43:07):
should be saying, hey, Iabsolutely have to have this guy for thirty
one versus this guy for twenty two. That nine dollars is way too valuable,
and I think we should be playingsome scattershot games with some of those
wide receiver two and RB two tiers. They're just absolutely massive and you can
devalue them to the point where youcan get some deals. And I really,

(43:30):
like I said, I really wantto spend five picks on the top
thirty two to thirty five wide receiversand four on the running backs in that
sixteen to eighteen of that massive RBtwo tier. There After the RB one's
are gone, all right, Sothe tier sheet is the most important thing
you can do. Go ahead anduse mine on the Patreon network, and

(43:51):
if you don't have mine, comeup with your own. Look through the
tiers and have that stuff already infront of you. I can't stress this
enough. Do not have average auctionvalues on your tier sheets. Just have
a list of players ranked in tiers. Don't have the values on your sheet
during the draft. Okay, that'sonly going to hurt you. The next

(44:14):
thing I want you to do,and your plan of attack is to come
up with your par sheet. Okay, And this is where I'm going to
say something that might surprise you alittle bit. When you're coming up with
your par sheet, and then alsowith your nomination lists. I'm going to
talk about nomination lists last. That'sgoing to be the last thing we go
through here in just a minute.I know, I just go off on

(44:36):
aav I just can't stand average auctionvalues. But this is where they are
valuable. And I say all thetime they have their place and they're important
for baseline values. In this situation, I think you can even use ADP.
You can use average draft position,average auction values. Whatever. What
I want you to look at isI want you to look at trends.

(44:58):
Okay, because as I've been talkingabout all summer long, auxy drafts are
more about attitudes towards players because ofthe ability to build different rosters and do
different things and spend too quick orspend too slow. Those trends are ever
more important as you head into yourdraft, So you want to study AAV
trends. Hey, this player wasfifty one dollars a month ago, he's

(45:21):
now forty two. Why is that? And if that attitude is driving the
price, you know that you're goingto get a deal on that player.
So study trends, study ADP trends. That's going to work just fine.
Hey, this player's fall in afull round, this player's jump two rounds,
whatever the case may be. Thetrends are what allow you to make
up your sheets because you know whatyour plan of attack can be to accomplish

(45:45):
your goals. So what are yourgoals? And the goals that I want
you to have come in the formof a par sheet. Now, if
you're listening to me for the firsttime, I got to explain what a
part sheet is because we get newlisteners every day, and I get people
who come and say, hey,I just found your content, I love

(46:07):
this, or that. They don'tknow what a part sheet is. So
if you've been listening to me fora long time, you know, maybe
hit that thirty second forward button.I don't know what to tell you,
but let me explain to about whata part sheet is. Briefly. That's
not going to take very long,but I have a different take on it
this year than you've probably heard before. And let me just say for one

(46:27):
second here that I wrote an articleover on the Patreon network called the Anatomy
of a par sheet where I breakall this stuff down, and I think
you'll find that article really interesting ifyou want to head over to the Patreon
network and check that out. Whatis a par sheet, Well, a
par sheet is something that I cameup with a long time ago, and
I came up with it pretty organically. What I figured out was that when

(46:50):
I'm in an auction draft room,I can have the tendency to spend at
the wrong times because I don't knowexactly what I need to be spent on
at that particular moment in the draft. So the par sheet was a way
to keep me on track. AndI'm going to say this as one of
the most important concepts in all ofauction drafting is that you must walk the

(47:13):
balance beam between spending your money toofast and not spending your money fast enough.
So walking that balance beam is literallythe entire game of auction drafting because
you have to spend enough money tohave elite players, but you also can't
spend too much money that you justhave three elite players and then nobody else.

(47:34):
So that's the entire game, andthat's what this preparation is helping you
do. The plan of attack isall about how you're going to spend your
money judiciously and sprinkle it throughout thedraft to have top level players, mid
tier players, and low tier players. That's what the par sheet is for.
And the part sheet is a toolthat you use during the draft.

(47:58):
And the way it works is this, And the reason I call it a
par sheet is this. You're attemptingto shoot par in an auction draft.
This is a nod to golf.And I've said this before. The reason
I call it a par sheet isbecause you're aiming for this number, whatever
your cap number is, let's sayit's two hundred dollars. Like we normally
talk about, your par sheet allowsyou to try to shoot exact par.

(48:22):
You don't want to shoot under orover. The goal in an auction draft
is to spend exactly two hundred dollars. That is your par you're aiming for.
So what you do is you comeup with specific dollar amounts for every
single position on your roster, andthen you're going to use that as a
guide during the draft. I knowthat doesn't sound revolutionary or anything, but

(48:45):
let me tell you why it isand why it's going to help you.
The par sheet is the single mostimportant thing that you can do to improve
your auction drafting without much effort.And par sheets. I've heard from every
single person that's used a par sheetin the in the past, or that
has started to use them since theystarted to listen to me. It is
a game changer. I promise you, so follow these steps and this is

(49:07):
how we're going to do it.A PAR sheet is a way for you
to come up with a number forevery single spot on your roster. And
when I say every single spot,I mean every single spot. Most of
you out there are still in leaguesthat have kickers and d's And what's the
cardinal rule on the auction brief?Thou shalt not spend more than a fucking

(49:29):
dollar on either one? Oh lord? Was that f word? Oh lo?
You know that reminds me. Iuse this voice with my kids sometimes
and they think it's hilarious. Butit just kind of came out of my
mouth. Last time, we wereat Disney World and we were on a
ride that was I think it wasreally dark, maybe Space Mountain or something

(49:52):
like that, and this voice justcame out of me. I was just
joking around, and I think Iwas what I was doing was I was
trying to keep my kids mind atease because they get a little nervous,
even though they like roller coasters andwhatever, but you know, they're they're
nine and seven, and it's darkand they're on a roller coaster and they
don't know what's going on. Sothis voice just came out of my mouth,
and it was the voice of likelike a southern lady who's like offended

(50:15):
by things, or like a Southernlady who's just I can't even explain it,
it's so dumb, Just a Southernlady who's who's a little bit out
of her element, like, oh, oh lord, it's dark in here.
Oh we're going fast, and now, oh, my lands, I
don't know if this is this mightbe too fast. And so they when

(50:37):
we started calling her Paula anyway,Paula, where the hell was I going
with this. Paula is one ofmy favorite voices, so we're going to
use her a little bit more.But anyway, back to the point,
which is our palm sheets, right, Okay, this is important. The
whole reason that I got Paula outin the first place was because we're talking

(51:00):
about kickers and d's. You neverspend more than a dollar on a Kicker
and d ever ever, ever,ever, ever ever, Okay, don't
spend more than a dollar. Andthe reason that's important is you're gonna have
your par sheet and it's going tohave numbers down the page for what you
want to spend for every single rosterspot, and you need to put those
dollars at the back of your roster. I know it sounds dumb, write

(51:22):
down defense one dollar, kicker,one dollar, because when you get into
a draft and you think to yourself, Okay, I've got this money,
and I've got this exact amount Ican spend, and then you realize you
have two less dollars than you thoughtbecause you just didn't bother to write down
one dollar for your Kicker and dor one dollar for your backup tight end,
or whatever the case may be.You actually want to spend a dollar
on several of your bench players.But we're going to talk about that in

(51:44):
just a second. So what youdo is you go down your piece of
paper. You say, okay,I've got sixteen roster spots, I've got
ten starters, six bench spots,and you write it out QB, RB
one, RB two wide receiver,one wide receiver, two wide receiver,
three tight end, kicker, Dflex. There's your ten starters, and

(52:05):
then come up with a dollar amountthat you want to spend on every one
of them, and the same thingfor your bench. So go and put
one dollar for kicker and D.Maybe go and put a dollar for two
bench spots. So that leaves youwith approximately twelve roster spots for that one
hundred and ninety six bucks. Sothen you're going to take a first pass

(52:27):
at writing down what you want thosedollar amounts to be. I always talk
about the need to be greedy.I said it last week and I'm going
to say it again. Get greedywith your first pass at your par sheet
and just say, okay, i'dlove to have this quarterback, I'd love
to have this RB one and thisRB two, and then just write what
you think you can get them forOkay, well, I'm going to spend

(52:50):
sixteen dollars on my QB one,I'm going to spend forty five on my
RB one. I'm gonna spend fiftyfive on my wide receiver one. Then
just go down down your wish list. It should just be like a Christmas
list, like, hey, thisis what I want for Christmas. If
I had to do it right nowand I had this much money, and
this is what I would do.Your first pass is gonna be high.

(53:12):
Okay, it's gonna be way high. You're probably gonna write down a those
numbers, you're gonna add them up. You're gonna go, whoa, it's
two hundred and sixty one dollars.You need to shave sixty one bucks off.
That's okay. It should be high, and that's part of the process.
Okay, so don't worry about that. Your first pass is gonna be
high. It might take you two, three, four passes before you get
it down to two hundred bucks.But here's why I love the way I

(53:34):
do this. It's super unscientific.That's the point. The point of it
is, you're not doing any specificthing. You're not plugging in a formula
that spits out numbers. You're goingthrough the process of whittling down that salary
cap down to two hundred bucks.And it's gonna give you three benefits.
Okay, the actual process of takingyour first pass of your two hundred and

(53:57):
forty eight bucks or whatever, yourforty eight dollars over where do I got
a cut? Here's what it's goingto tell you. Number one, when
you start making those cuts, it'sgoing to tell you what you care about.
The first place you go to makea cut, it's going to tell
you you don't care that much.So it's going to tell you what you
care about. Okay, I'm fortyeight dollars over all, right, sixteen
bucks on QB one. That's toomuch. I never spend that much.

(54:21):
I want to spend eight bucks.Okay, you slash off the sixteen.
You're writ eight for your QB one. Bang right there. You know that
you don't care as much about quarterback. You care more about running back and
wide receiver. That tells you,first of all, what you care about.
The first places you go to makeyour cuts are going to tell you
that you care about other positions more. The second benefits, it's going to

(54:43):
have for you is it's going toteach you the value of every single dollar
in an auction draft room. BecauseI tell you what people don't understand,
they really don't and that's how peopleget caught, and that's how people spend
money too quickly. Here's a perfectexample that I used in my article over
at Football Guys recently. You cango over check out my Mastering the sary
cap draft series over on Football Guys. But I use this example of people

(55:07):
who say, okay, well,I want to spend forty percent of my
budget on wide receivers. All right, great idea in theory, but you
actually have to come up with thenumbers because saying forty percent is too much
of a vague concept. You're freelancingtoo much in the middle of the auction
and it's going to screw you upbecause translate that forty percent into numbers with

(55:29):
a two hundred dollars cap, thatmeans you're spending eighty dollars on wide receivers.
First of all, I don't thinkthat's enough, but this is just
an example. So what you're goingto do is say, okay, well,
I've got eighty bucks to spend inmy wide receivers. And then a
wide receiver comes up and you bidup to fifty two dollars and you say,
hey, I got my wide receiverone for fifty two. But what
you don't realize is that now youonly have twenty eight dollars left to spend

(55:52):
for the rest of your wide receivers. That's not nearly enough. So you're
going to learn having that eighty dollarsnumber, that forty percent number. Probably
number one is too low, butnumber two it tells you that you can't
go out and spend fifty two dollarsin your wide receiver one. That's not
possible because you can't put together areal wide receiver cord with twenty eight bucks.

(56:15):
So you have to spend less thanthat fifty two. And people that
don't go through the process don't understandthat, don't understand that value. And
another example I used, and thisis straight I'm lifting this straight from my
Patreon article, and that is thatwhen people get in the situation where they've
already bought their wide receiver one andthey let's say they have a budget for
their wide receivers, they buy theirwide receiver one for fifty bucks and they're

(56:38):
feeling pretty good and they're saying,okay, now my wide receiver two.
I'm going to spend twenty eight dollars. That's what they have in their par
sheet. So AJ Brown comes upand AJ Brown starts to slow down and
bidding in the mid thirties. Andthe person who just got their receiver for
fifty is thinking, oh, man, this is a pretty good deal for
AJ Brown. I shouldn't let thishappen. And they start bidding, and

(57:00):
then they end up getting AJ Brown, not because they made a bad bid,
but because they realized, hey,that's a pretty good deal. So
they get AJ Brown for thirty eightbucks. They think, man, what
a great deal for AJ Brown.He's one of the top six receivers.
I got a good deal. Butwhat they don't realize is they wanted to
spend twenty six dollars on their widereceiver too, and that means now they're

(57:21):
twelve dollars behind the eight ball here. They're twelve dollars behind early in an
auction because they spent fifty on onereceiver and then turned around spent thirty six
on another. But somebody with apar sheet in front of them will know
that they can't spend that money onaj Brown, and they're going to know,
hey, that's a good deal.But like Scott Pianowski and I talked

(57:43):
about two weeks ago, I haveto pass it up. I just can't
spend that money because I'm going tobe way too far behind and accomplishing my
goals and accomplishing my plan of attackthat I laid out when I came up
with my par sheet over the summer. So the second benefit. The first
benefit is it tells you what youcare about. The second benefit is it

(58:04):
teaches the value of each dollar.But the third thing is it's going to
help you in the middle of thedraft because when you spend too much or
too little on a player, you'realready gonna know, hey, I whittle
down this position or that position,and now I have extra money, I
can put money back in that position. That was the last position I cut
because I didn't really want to cutit, but I had to because I

(58:27):
had to get under the cap.And then you find yourself with a few
extra bucks in the middle of thedraft. You know where that money is
going to go because you went throughthe process of taking that first pass,
that second pass, that third passat getting your numbers down to two hundred.
You know exactly where that money cango or you overspent, and you
say, okay, well, hey, look, I didn't care about quarterback
when I went through the process.I cut quarterback. I cut quarterback again.

(58:51):
I know that that's what I cando. You already did the process,
so in the middle of the draft, you don't have the anxiety or
nervousness about where that money should comefrom or where it should go because you
already did all that thinking ahead oftime. And that's where the preparation comes
in. You know, I didthis mock last week, and I didn't
do a par sheet for it becausenumber one, I was in court having

(59:13):
a trial right before I had togo home and do the mock, but
also because I'm like, it's justa mock. It's not that big a
deal. I'm gonna be fine.And you know what, I ended up
with twenty bucks left over Cardinals sinterrible thing. Now, what ended up
happening was I got deals on playersthat I probably wouldn't get in a real
auction, So I saved money forplayers that just went way cheaper than I

(59:34):
thought. Of course, I wouldhave loved to throw that twenty bucks at
a better running back because I didn'thave a great RB one. So it's
a huge mistake. And I leftthat twenty bucks because I didn't have a
par sheet and I didn't have agreat plan. I thought I had a
good plan, but I didn't andI didn't execute when I needed to execute.
Having the par sheet helps you doall that. It helps you walk

(59:57):
that fine line to make sure thatyou're not the person sitting there with twenty
bucks left over. So what isyour par sheet actually going to look like?
Well, a perfect example of apar sheet that I like is something
like this. Five dollars for QBone, thirty one for RB one,
twelve for RB, two fifty forwide receiver, one twenty eight for wide

(01:00:21):
receiver, two fourteen for wide receiver, three sixteen in the flex, eight
at tight end, a dollar forkicker and D and then twelve ten,
six four one one on my bench. Now I always put a couple bench
spots for a dollar. Like Isaid, these are guys that are just
going to be complete flyers. They'regoing to be cut candidates right after the
season starts when you want to picksomebody up. And also don't forget you're

(01:00:45):
likely going to save a few bucksalong the way. That's going to allow
you to bump up those last onedollar spots to two or three bucks,
And that's really what you're working towardsduring the auction. But that's a good
example of a two hundred dollars capand a sixteen man roster of what my
PAR sheet might look like. Andnow a lot of people say the only

(01:01:06):
criticism I ever hear about the parsheet is well, then you're locking yourself
in and you're taking your flexibility outof play because you want to spend an
exact dollar amount. Well, that'snot how par sheets work. And here's
how the par sheet actually works ina draft and why that notion is incorrect.
So for those of you who arenew, you've got your par sheet

(01:01:28):
sitting in front of you for whatyou want to spend out every single player.
And there is a benefit to preparingmore than one PAR sheet, to
saying, Okay, I want togo wide receiver heavy, here's my PAR
sheet. This is the one Ilove, But I'm going to have a
backup PAR sheet where I spend alittle bit more money at running back or
tight end or quarterback or whatever.Have a couple different options. Sometimes I

(01:01:50):
have up to three. I don'tthink you should have more than three.
I think four is too many.But having one to three par sheets is
great. I would say have twoor three and then you have a couple
different options. So what you're goingto do is you're going to nominate players
early in the draft that send thatset you up to be able to execute
your plan of attack based on yourpar sheet. And why does the par

(01:02:15):
sheet help so much? Well,here's the whole ball game. Let's say
that you have fifty dollars allotted foryour wide receiver one. You end up
getting that wide receiver one for fortythree dollars. You got a great deal
on let's say AJ Brown again ora'mon ras Saint Brown. You got them
for forty three bucks. You wantthem to spend fifty, so you have

(01:02:36):
seven extra dollars to play with.Now, let's say that you wanted to
get a top tight end and you'rethinking to yourself, I can get one
of these top tight ends for eighteenbucks. Well, the draft goes on
and you don't land a couple ofthe top guys. Kelsey goes and then
Laporta goes, and then Andrews goes, and all of a sudden, you
realize Trey McBride is the only oneleft, and you really want to get
one of those top guys. SoTrey McBride comes up, and you're bidding

(01:02:59):
up towards your limit of eighteen dollars. You have eighteen written on your par
sheet, and you think to yourself, I don't really want to spend in
the twenties, but I do havethis seven extra dollars from the forty three
I paid for my wide receiver one. So the whole ballgame is right here.
And why the par sheet works.You know that when the bidding gets

(01:03:20):
up to eighteen dollars for McBride,you don't have to stop. And a
lot of times where you're gonna feelnervous if you wouldn't have a par sheet,
the gods shouldn't be spending twenty twobucks on trade McBride. You know
that you can spend up to twentyfive bucks because you had eighteen allotted and
you got seven extra because you onlypaid forty three for your wide receiver one.
So now you can spend up totwenty five on McBride. You wouldn't

(01:03:44):
know that if you didn't have apar sheet. And the way it works
is real simple. When you buyAJ Brown and you get in for forty
three, what you do is yougo out and you write plus seven on
the right side of your par sheet. I have a little call on that
says two par where am I withrelation to par? So you get AJ
Brown, you have seven extra dollars, you write plus seven. Well,

(01:04:06):
the next player you get, you'regoing to do the same thing, and
you're going to subtract or add whateveryou saved or didn't save. So let's
say you want to get Trey McBride, you want to spend eighteen. He
ends up going for twenty two.Okay, you spent four dollars over what
you wanted to spend, but youhad seven dollars, right, so you
got Instead of the plus seven,you're gonna write, You're gonna cross out

(01:04:29):
the plus seven, and then you'regonna say, okay, I spent four
extra. That means I'm plus threenow. And then you're gonna write plus
three and you're gonna circle that.You're always going to cross out the previous
number and circle the new number,and that circle is going to be what's
your current situation to par and thatis why you're able to walk that fine

(01:04:51):
line between spending too fast and notspending fast enough because you always have that
number out on the right side ofyour PAR sheet that tell you do I
need to make up money or doI need to spend more money, And
that's what keeps you on track justspending throughout the auction. That is why
PAR sheets are so huge, andthat's why you're going to find them as

(01:05:12):
a game changer. Prepare your PARsheets as part of your plan of attack,
and then the last thing you're goingto do is prepare your nomination lists.
This isn't something I need to spenda lot of time on, but
you have to come up with someplayers that you want to nominate throughout the
draft for different purposes, because we'regoing to go over this ad nauseum in
the nomination episode. But there areplayers that you simply don't want. There

(01:05:38):
are players that you feel like,ah, they're fine, but there's too
much hype and I want to wastesome money with them. And there are
players that you might like, butthey don't further your strategy or your plan
of attack. So you want toput these players into different categories. Okay,
I want to have a list ofplayers that I can call on in
the middle of an auction to accomplishone of these goals. And this is

(01:06:02):
particularly important for online auctions. Separateyour nomination lists, all right, And
here's a perfect example. Let's saythat you want to go cheap at quarterback.
Like the par sheet I just gaveyou had five dollars for my QB
one. So you're going to putplayers on your nomination list that further your

(01:06:23):
strategy or they don't. So it'snot that you don't like Jalen Hurtz or
Josh Allen. It's just that thatdoesn't further your strategy. So you don't
care about those two players. They'regoing to go on a different list.
If they don't further your strategy,then don't put them on the list of
players that are going to push yourplan of attack. And likewise, just

(01:06:43):
because the player is cheap doesn't meanthey belong on your list of players that
are going to help your strategy.So for example, Sam Bradford is going
to be a dollar, but hedoesn't belong on your nomination list just because
he's cheap. He only belongs thereif you feel like he can help you
with your overall strategy. All right, So I want you to come up
with a couple of different lists.Number one list is going to be players

(01:07:05):
you simply do not want, andthat's okay. A lot of people say,
hey, don't hate, don't hatethis player. If they're cheap enough,
you should draft them. Well,I'm sorry, but I don't subscribe
to that strategy. I talked aboutJavonte Williams all last summer, and I
turned out to be absolutely right.Williams had a game or two that you

(01:07:27):
liked him. The rest of theyear, you didn't want to start him.
He was an absolute albatross on yourroster. There are simply going to
be players you just don't want,and those players should be on one nomination
list. Hey, I don't wantthese players at all, and you can
call them out at any time duringthe auction when you want to punch your
nomination. All right, that's onelist. I want you to have another

(01:07:50):
list of players that you can wastemoney with. So maybe this kind of
be the same list. You canput them on the same list. But
the point being, come up withyour overhyped list your players that you just
don't think are going to be thatgreat. Let's say, for example,
you think Dalton Kincaid's going to beoverhyped. Put them on the list of
players that you want to call outwhenever you need to waste money. I've

(01:08:13):
told you in the past you don'twant to do that early in an auction,
but there comes a time during anauction when you want to waste people's
money and you want to spend timewaiting on the draft to come back to
you. You want to have alist of overhyped players that are going to
waste money. And then finally youwant to have that list of players that
you actually can draft and put onyour team and how they can further your

(01:08:34):
strategy or not. So you're goingto have these nomination lists, You're going
to have your par sheets, andthen you're going to have your tear sheets.
I don't want you to spend alot of headspace with all of these
sheets in front of you when you'retrying to draft, all right, So
just have your tear sheets, havesome nominations that you can use during the

(01:08:56):
auction, and then have your parsheets. I want you to be nice
and clean and have all of thatin front of you before the draft starts.
And that's where I want to leaveyou today, because we've gone long
enough on how to prep for yourauction. Again, I feel like I
can't even get into these concepts verymuch. And here bang, it's seventy
five minutes. I'm really trying toget into all the details that I can

(01:09:17):
because we just don't have that manysessions to go. We've only got five
more episodes. But I want toleave you with this today, and I'm
going to harken back to the beginningof the show where I talked about preparation
and mindset. Your mindset. Iwant you to think about a couple of
things that you might feel are notsuper important, but they promise you they

(01:09:40):
really really are. I've talked aboutthis in previous summers, but I'm going
to say it again. When youare about to have an auction or start
an auction, whether it's live oronline, there are things you can do
to get yourself ready that give youthe proper mindset to go in there and
win and crush the auction. Eitherway. You must do these things ahead

(01:10:01):
of time, and I don't wantyou to blow them off. I'm reminded
of a story I heard a coupleyears ago where there was a poker player
talking about the long days at thetable during the main event. And I'm
reminded of the story because the mainevent going on right now as I'm recording
this show. But the things thatthis person talked about I thought were a
little bit interesting because it's been awhile since I heard the story. So

(01:10:26):
I was a little bit younger backthen, and I never really gave a
lot of credence to the idea thatcertain things help your mindset and help you
be successful. Number one would bemaking sure that you eat before you play,
that you get a good night's sleep, that you are properly hydrated.
All the things that you need inorder to succeed in a long poker tournament

(01:10:48):
are the same things you're going toneed to succeed in an auction room.
So don't blow off the simple thingsthat can help you have a positive edge
in the room. Are going tobe players all the time that show up
late to the draft. They're notready to go, they're feeling frazzled,
they need to go to the bathroom. They're hungry because they skip dinner,

(01:11:10):
whatever the case may be, allof those things wear away at their ability
to focus, concentrate, and comeout of the draft with the best team.
So I sit here and tell youthis stuff not to convince you that
I'm right, because if you don'tthink I'm right, this isn't going to
convince you. But I really stronglybelieve that I am correct here, And

(01:11:31):
if you believe that, then takecare of those things before the draft starts.
Don't be lazy about it and referback to Thureau. Go confidently in
the direction of your dreams and livethe life you have imagined. Put in
your mind's eye. What is goingto be the best way for you to

(01:11:53):
start that auction. What nominations areyou going to use, How are you
going to attack to start the auction? And then set yourself up beforehand to
be ready to execute that plan.Get the proper drinks. Do you want
beer? Do you want water?Do you want soda? What do you
want? Go to the bathroom.Bring snacks so that if your stomach starts

(01:12:15):
rumbling during the auction, you havea snack right there. Get into the
draft room early. Power up yourdraft dominator, your Excel spreadsheet, whatever
you using to track the draft.Power that up early when the online room
opens up, be in the room, be ready, check your software,
Be ready for the software you're goingto use. Are you going to use
Sleeper, ESPN, Yahoo, whatever? Be ready with the software. Why

(01:12:42):
wouldn't you take care of these thingsif they give you an edge, if
they give you the proper mindset.And it comes back to the mindset.
I can't sell it enough. Donot underestimate the importance of mindset to winning
your preparation. All these steps wetalked about today, and then your preparation
with the little things ahead of time, being in front of the computer before

(01:13:06):
the draft starts, with plenty oftime to get set up, to look
at your sheets. Take one lastglance through your sheets. Your nomination is
your par sheet. Spend those fewminutes centering yourself, having a drink,
going to the bathroom, being readyto go. All that is an important
mindset. And it's not just aboutcatching two extra passes than the guy next

(01:13:27):
to you. It's about how muchwork am I going to do to say
that I worked harder than the bestplayer in the room. All of this
prep makes you feel ready to tackleanything, because once you get in that
draft. Things are going to change, things are not going to go as
you want them to go, andyou're going to have to adjust on the

(01:13:48):
fly. And all the prep youdid and the winning mindset that you have
going in is how you're going toadjust on the fly and crush your auction.
All right, that's going to doit for this week's auction talk.
I know that's a lot of stuffI threw at you there, but it's
all so so important. I reallybelieve that it's as much as sixty to

(01:14:09):
seventy percent of your success in anauction draft room is all about the prep
and the time you spend in themonths leading up to the draft, because
in those moments when you have tomake those difficult decisions, when you did
the prep, you're gonna love theanswers that that prep gives you. All
right, let's be done for thisweek with the auction talk. Instead,

(01:14:30):
I think we ought to move onto Matt Harmon. We've got such a
great guest. Let's not dawdle anyfurther. Matt's going to do a fantastic
job, as I know you're goingto enjoy his first time on the auction
brief. Let's get over to Discussionswith Drew and Matt Harmon. Time for
Discussions with Drew, in depth conversationswith the brightest minds in the fantasy industry.

(01:14:56):
Welcome into this week's Discussions with Drew. Our guest this week is Matt
Harmon and from Yahoo Fantasy Sports.He is a writer and analyst over there
with Yahoo. But also you mayknow him more from his work on reception
perception, the creator of reception Perception, which we're going to get into a
little bit here today. But I'mreally excited to have him Matt On.
Never had him on the Auction Briefbefore, and I know a lot of

(01:15:17):
you follow him and enjoy listening tohim, so this is a great thing
for the Auction Brief, but alsofor me. I'm just excited to finally
meet Matt last year in Canton.Thank you so much for being on the
show. Matt. How you doing, Hey, Drew. I appreciate it.
It's my pleasure, man. Yeah, but looking forward to this conversation
for a long time. And itwas great to meet you last year in
Canada, along with a ton ofgreat people. Meeting last year sometimes in

(01:15:40):
the pouring rain last year at thefantasy football x we So hopefully we get
some better weather this year that wouldbe great. But always a good time,
and again, thank you so muchfor having me. This is such
a fun time in the calendar.Man Like football feels very very very close,
and that makes me excited. Itis close. It's exciting. And
I was talking about that when Iwas recording my portion to the show,
about how by this time next week, all the camps are open, We're

(01:16:03):
about to get to talk about realstuff. So you are, Well,
let me first of all ask theimportant question, are you going back to
camp? Oh? Hell yeah.Last year was my first expo. I
don't know about you first, second, third, anything like that, but
yeah, last year is my firsttime. And you know, in previous
years, I'd been kind of like, uh, you know, I honestly

(01:16:26):
I'm like a little nervous about bigevents like that, Drew, And you
know the listeners might find this weird, but you know, you're just maybe
you don't have the same feeling becauseyou're not as much of a bizarre person
as I am. But you know, you go to these events where you
know so many people, but youalso only know them online, right,
and it's just like one of thoselittle like kind of social anxiety things where

(01:16:46):
you're like, oh my gosh,all these people are about to find out
what a what a weirdo I actuallyam or something or just something like that,
so you just get a little nervousabout it. So I hadn't gone
in previous years. My boss islike, now you got to go this
year. You gotta check it out, the whole thing. A lot of
people had said it was a greatevent. It was a great event,
so I would definitely never I'm nevergoing to miss it again. Long story
short, Well, that's great,and this is actually I started with King's

(01:17:11):
Classic back in twenty nineteen, butthe expo wasn't really that big of a
deal pre pandemic. It was justgetting off the ground. So really in
twenty one, twenty two, andtwenty three were my favorite years because,
like you said, so many peoplethat you just meet online you get to
actually hang out with them. Andyeah, some people you find out they
aren't quite their online persona, butfor the most part, you know,

(01:17:31):
people are just it's just a nicegroup of me just good people. Yeah.
Yeah, and that's you know,there's always going to be that ten
percent. But everybody else is justso nice, so easy to approach and
talk to, and it is justan absolute blast. So I'm looking forward
to that. We're really about threeweeks out. That's crazy. I can't
even fathom that we're back here.Like I said on my show this week,

(01:17:55):
I said, I don't know whatI done since January. I can't
remember how the heck we got tothe middle of July. But here we
are. I know what I've beendoing. It's been a lot of charting,
a lot of charting. Still feellike there's a lot of players left
to chart to get up on thesite. That's my one hang up about,
like, oh, football is back. It just feels like, Okay,
there's a lot of work still leftto be done. But the fact

(01:18:16):
that football is so in the air, honestly, it makes it just that
much more infectious and more excited todo that work. Yeah. Well,
and that's a great segue into whatwe're going to talk about. So I
want to ask you a little bitabout reception perception, because I take for
granted that everyone knows who you areand what it is that you do,
but there's gonna be a lot ofpeople listening that don't know you well,

(01:18:38):
maybe not a lot. That's poorturnip phrase. There. There are gonna
be people who are not familiar withit. So tell me a little bit
about the background of it, howyou came up with the idea, and
what it is that you do atreception perception. Yeah, I never take
take it for granted because there's alwaysa handful of people that will even mention

(01:18:59):
me on Twitter and be like,oh, I didn't realize you were the
one that did these route charts orwhatever. So which is why I always
encourage like, hey, if you'regoing to post a route chart like link
to the site, people don't knowwhere you got it from, you know,
so it's good. I never takethat for granted basically. So reception
perception for those who are not familiaris the methodology that I came up with.
I want to feel crazy like apassage of time ten plus years ago.

(01:19:21):
Now, the first year I startedcharting league wide data was twenty fourteen.
Started kind of the early process ofputting the charting together and sort of
getting the idea together in late twentythirteen, just how to evaluate the wide
receiver position because to me back then, my biggest question about football was how

(01:19:42):
do we measure the one thing awide receiver can control, which is how
often do they run good routes?How often do they get separation? Because
I mean you know this, yourlisteners know this, of course, like
wide receiver production is so inherently dependenton outside variables. Obviously, they got
to have a quarterback that can getthem the ball, but is the coach
putting them in the right position.That's another thing I've thought about more and

(01:20:04):
more as time has gone on,Like a wide receiver is not a wide
receiver is not a wide receiver.As Josh Norris from Underdog Fantasy likes to
say it, there are the guyswithin the position that have wr next to
their name, And this is tentimes more true now than it was ten
years ago. Is so different,right, like just beyond like what we
understand as a slot receiver, asan outside receiver. There's so much distinction

(01:20:28):
there. Then you know the differencebetween an X receiver and a flanker,
the big slot versus kind of yoursmaller slot player, your speed slot players.
So reception percepts, really trying tobreak those down into positional archetypes.
But really the main goal is andthis is what most people like, is
to try to tell you who's goodbefore they're good. You know who's running
routes at a high level, whois separating its man's own press coverage,
who's separating across the route tree.And hopefully as those guys continue to show

(01:20:53):
that they play well isolated from thosesurrounding variables that we talked about, maybe
opportunity can come their way. Wecan get some early breakouts and things like
that. I didn't ask for thisat the beginning, but I should have
tell everyone, what is your Twitterhandle? Yeah, Matt Harmon Underscore byb
Okay, and that's I want youto check that out because if you haven't
seen his work before, it maybe hard to conceptualize a little bit about

(01:21:15):
what he's saying with his route charts. But he's got these beautiful color coded
charts that show you each route andhow successful they are on the routes as
compared to different defenses that they're seeing. Press zone man, that kind of
thing. So go check out thosecharts because it really puts it into perspective.

(01:21:35):
But you talked about something, andit's a perfect way to lead into
what we're going to talk about today, and you talked about all the variables
that affect a wide receiver's production,and you're charting the things that they can
control. And I've had this inI had a lot recently because of the
stuff going on in San Francisco abouthow everyone thinks that they're going to trade

(01:21:56):
a wide receiver. Of course,lately it's been Brandon Ayak, but there
were rumors that maybe Debo will beon the move, and I thought to
myself, well, which guy isgoing to be able to succeed post Shanahan
without his scheme? Because I knowthat there is a lot of belief that
Shanahan's offensive ability, you know,as a mastermind is helps the players in

(01:22:18):
his system. But the guy Iwant to ask you about is Brandon Ayuk
because you recently tweeted about his receptionperception profile. And when I was thinking
about, okay, well, ifDebo gets traded or if Ayuk gets traded,
how does that affect them? Arethey're going to be able to succeed
outside Shanahan? And it sure lookslike Brandon Ayuk has that ability because the
things he controls on his own.You had him charted in the ninetieth percentile

(01:22:41):
over the ninetieth percentile against man's zoneand press. Is it possible that we're
underestimating how good this guy is onehundred percent. I think most people do
not understand just how good Brandon Ayukis. You mentioned he cleared the ninetieth
percentile in man's zone press coverage,ninety six percent in man, ninety seven
percentle against press. I mean thoseare truly elite numbers players, you know,

(01:23:06):
And again I don't use the wordelite lightly. I've been trying to
kind of be harsher in terms ofmy criticism and sort of ranking on players
as i've gone on through reception perception, not just throwing out like, oh,
yeah, he's an elite player,he's a superstar player, you know,
really trying to be tough about thetiers and things like that. But
again, ninetieth percentile and over onall three coverages and reception perception histories only

(01:23:30):
happened nine times since I've been chartingwide receivers since twenty fourteen. Yeah,
these are the following players that haveaccomplished that feat. Davante Adams, Justin
Jefferson did it twice. Stefan Diggsdid it twice, Antonio Brown did it
twice, Michael Thomas with New OrleansSaints, and now Brandon Ayuk in twenty
twenty three. So not even justnine players like nine times in history.

(01:23:54):
So that's the type of special seasonthat Ayuk is coming off of. He
is a truly elite route runner fullstop. He's also a yak threat.
He is. I was super impressedwith his ability to win balls and tight
coverage last year as well. He'sad it all receiver and he plays the
X receiver position drew, which Ithink is important to talk about in relation

(01:24:15):
to this him being in San Francisco, but also, of course, like
any any NFL system can use ahigh quality X receiver that can separate at
this level. I mean, andyou could use him in different spots too.
He's not limited to playing the Xor anything like that. But what
makes this so interesting and he playsthis position in the offense. Like we
get caught up with the gadgety receivers, the Deebo Samuel types, and like

(01:24:35):
I think Deebo Samuel is one ofthe most unique receivers in the league,
but I think he's while he's moreunique, I think what Iyu brings to
the offense is more valuable because ifyou just look back at like this is
a great tweet from David Guatieri,who does really good work in the fantasy
space, the following wide receivers haveaveraged three plus yards per route run on
four hundred plus routes since twenty twelve. Victor Cruz, Andre Johnson, Julio

(01:24:59):
Jones did it three t I's whata ridiculous player, Cooper Cup, Tyreek
Kill, Brandon Ayuk, and NicoCollins. Last year. Three of those
four of those players Collins, Ayuk, Andre Johnson, and then obviously Julio
Jones two of those three seasons wereex receivers in a Shanahan Kubiak offense.
Like when you have that player playingthat role and you've got a guy that's

(01:25:21):
an Andre Johnson, Julio Jones,Brandon Ayuk, Like, that's what takes
this offense to a whole nother level, not as much the like created touches
type of players in the offense.Okay, that is exactly what I'm looking
to hear here and for the peoplethat are listening, we're talking about this
ninetieth percentile, ninety six ninety seventhpercentile. When you put him in that

(01:25:43):
range, what does that mean?Translate that for somebody. So if he's
ninety seventh you said against press orman press, Yes, press against man
press, ninety seventh against press.Okay, So does that mean as measured
against everyone else in twenty twenty threeor is this a database going back several
years? Uh? Contextualize that forus. Yeah, that's the full historic

(01:26:08):
reception perception database, so dating backto, like I said, twenty fourteen,
So right now, there are fourhundred and sixty three player seasons in
the reception perception database. So measuringagainst those four hundred and sixty three players,
he was in ninety seven percentile press. So he is in that like
top top tier in terms of presscoverage beating receivers. That's that's insane.

(01:26:30):
And so what you're doing is you'regoing back and watching, you watching every
snap from twenty twenty three. Yeah, I sample eight games out of a
season, So that's the back backwhen I looked at it through like in
that early twenty thirteen time, Ifound that if you could, if you
start, once you get to thateighth game, that's when the number stabilizes
to like kind of be representative ofa full season. That's not always one

(01:26:53):
hundred percent going to be the case, but that was the number to kind
of cut it off at where again, you know, I'm one man doing
all the charting work, Like,yeah, so there's gotta be some level
of like where can you cut thisoff? And that eighth game was where
I found was representative for a fullseason. Now I'm throwing all this out.
You haven't watched every snap, youdon't know ball. Yeah, I

(01:27:13):
mean, well, hey listen,if that's how people feel, I'll tell
you. I have told I've tolda lot of people like that have worked
with teams and have worked with teams, and you know, especially when you
like you know, work in thecollege scouting process and you know, they's
like, oh, how many gamesyou try to like eight? Eight games?
There are definitely you know, scoutsand stuff like that for teams at
file reports just watching a player forthree games. So I mean, like

(01:27:38):
let's just get that clear. Whichis by the way, like sometimes I
watched three I chart three games ofa player. I'm like, I get
it. I probably don't need todo the next five games. But that's
just like that's the standard of theprocess and having a consistent standard and process
in Rubric over ten years, Ithink has led to the results that we
see too. Dah. Yeah.Well, and to be clear, I

(01:27:58):
was just getting an I actually Iabsolutely love your work. I love hearing
the methodology behind it because I didn'tknow some of that, and so I'm
sure it's helpful for people listening aswell to know what's behind that. But
so this is I'm excited because Isaid this to Matt off the air,
but I'm pigeonholed him today. We'reonly going to talk about wide receivers today,

(01:28:19):
and you know, I think thoughit's fun because we're leaning into his
area of expertise, not that hedoesn't know fantasy football in general, but
we're going to get a lot ofthis good stuff on wide receivers. And
as I say that, I'm goingto ask you a question about a quarterback,
but it's related to the Brandon Iquestion. And I want to follow
up about because you were tweeting aboutBrock Purty and you had heard some information

(01:28:43):
from somebody that you trusted that saidI think that we need to give Brock
pretty more credit. Is sort ofI'm paraphrasing, obviously, but that he's
a good quarterback. How good isrock Party in your mind? And also
last season he had a seven percentTD rate That worries me a little bit.
League Wide average is right around fourand a half percent. We know

(01:29:04):
that in the Shanahan system, andwe saw Jimmy g be above five percent
TD rate, and we know whatkind of quarterback he is. I'm not
saying that he's horrible. He's justnot a top level quarterback. So Shanahan
could elevate his TD rate above fivepercent every year he's there. I know
that a good quarterback can have anelevated TD rate. So maybe Purdy's baseline

(01:29:24):
is going to be higher than theleague average. But what do we think
about that seven percent TD rate forfantasy purposes? And how good is brock
Purty. That's where I've thought about. You know, it's a great way
to say. It's like, there'salways going to be some level of elevation
in this offense. Right, Aleague average TV rate is whatever, but
like, what can the average TDrate be in this offense with this coach

(01:29:46):
and these weapons. Now, obviouslywe need Ayuk to be there. I
think that's a big part of this. And yeah, the reason I was
tweeting about Brock Party the other daybecause I don't think you can have a
Iuke value converse without including party,because it's been apparent, like the numbers
back this up. Since Purdy hasbeen the starter for the San Francisco forty

(01:30:08):
nine ers, Ayuk has been hisguy, and honestly, like the numbers
and the stats don't even do itjustice when you watch I think I was
saying the other day, and Isaid this in Ayu's profile. I'm not
going to go so far as tosay I was pretty pilled by what by
what doing the Iyuk charting, ButI came away from being like, I
get why Shanahan wants this guy runninghis offense because you mentioned Jimmy Garoppolo,

(01:30:31):
who's he's a I think he's likea backup caliber quarterback in the NFL.
There's there's a reason DeVante Adams allthese clips from that Receiver show on Netflix,
which I haven't watched, but theonly clips I've seen from from it
are like Davante Adams be like,I've never been hit so much in my
f and life and all this stuff, and that was kind of the Jimmy
G experience, thrown guys into coverage, like you know, yeah, you
you increase your EPA by doing that, but you also increase your receivers being

(01:30:54):
pissed off at you by doing that. But you know, Jimmy G is
what he is. But when youwatch that offense with Jimmy G just consistently
turning down the high degree of difficultythrows deep and outside the numbers, deep
dig routes and crossing routes over themiddle, and you know, in favor
of the layup, in favor ofthe Deebo Samuel checkdown, or when even
McCaffrey was there for a short periodof time, the McCaffrey checkdown, like

(01:31:16):
these layup throws in the offense.But like Perty, even if he's not
the most physically talented quarterback, willrip the hard throws in this offense.
And in order for these X receiverslike the Andre Johnson's and the you know,
the Julio Jones and obviously Nico Collinsin Houston who plays in a Shanahan
offense with you know CJ. FreakingStroud, who's a great quarterback in his

(01:31:38):
own right, in order for thatguy to be elevated, you also need
to have a quarterback to go alongwith it that's willing to rip those hard
throws. That's what I think isso impressive about Purdy is he will stand
in the face of pressure and ripthese high degree of difficulty digs and out
routes that Ayuk is so incredible atwinning separation wise, I ninety three point

(01:31:59):
six percent success on digs for Ayukis an incredible number while running them at
a very high volume, and Partyis able to actually sit there and make
those strows. So how good isPurdy I don't know, but I definitely
came away from twenty twenty three thinkinghe is. He is a guy that
has not just excelled in the system, but I think also taken the system
to another level. That gives usa little bit of hope for this year,

(01:32:23):
because even at seven percent last year, maybe the guy's going to settle
in around six percent ors something likethat in the Shanahan offense. So I
don't know that maybe maybe last yearwasn't an outlier, And that's the argument
I continue to hear against him,that the outlier is going to come back
to the pack this year. Althoughfor fantasy purposes. His ADP has kind

(01:32:43):
of hung around there right where itstarted in the beginning. Yeah, so
it's it's not I'm not going outof my way to go after him.
But at the same time, Ikeep thinking to myself, are we missing
out on a guy that maybe isgoing to have a higher baseline. All
right, let's switch over to anotherteam in the NFC West, and that's
the Seattle Seahawks. And the bigquestion here this year is, of course

(01:33:04):
not about DK Metcalf, but aboutwhat's going to happen with Tyler Lockett and
Jackson Smith and Jigba. Because TylerLockett comes back and we all sort of
thought the writing was on the wallwhen they drafted Smith and Jigma that Lockett
would be leaving after last year,and then he's back. But his numbers

(01:33:26):
just did not look that great lastyear, and I don't know whether or
not that's translated to what you've seen. His yards per route run, according
to Pro Football Focus, has fallenoff a cliff the last two seasons.
He posted a two point three tofive number in twenty twenty one, that
fell to one point nine to fivein twenty twenty two, and then all
the way down to one point sixtyone in twenty twenty three. His ADP

(01:33:49):
is not anything interesting. He's goingin the in the fifties as wide receiver
fifty one, but Jackson Smith andjigba is actually going ahead of him at
wide receiver forty four. Neither priceis that outlandish. But what did you
see from Lockett last year? Andalso Smith and jigbud to say what is
predictive for what we're looking at fortwenty twenty four. Anyone that has followed

(01:34:11):
reception for perception for a long timeknows that I'm a huge Tyler Lockett fan.
He was one of my favorite breakoutcandidates early in his career. Took
a little time, but he eventuallygot up there to being I think like
a true like maybe just right offthat like superstar tier receivers, great receiver
for a long time. And Ialways say this Drew, and I'll probably
say it again. We talked aboutanother player later on the show. The

(01:34:32):
one thing I'm most hesitant forecasting isage cliffs with wide receivers, even using
reception perception data, because there aresometimes where a guy takes a couple of
small steps back and you get likea Keenan Allen season last year, where
he can still be an incredibly productiveplayer even if he is a declining receiver.

(01:34:54):
Other times you get a guy liketaking a couple of steps back in
a season, and you get AlanRobinson with the Rams, where it's just,
oh man, he he just can'tplay like he used to. So
it can be And in other timesyou'll see guys where the cliff happens like
this. I always come back toDez Bryant in twenty seventeen. I believe
it was with the Dallas Cowboys,his final season there. His reception perception

(01:35:15):
numbers felt just cataclysmically from just oneseason to the next. So sometimes you
get these guys that can hold steadyfrom a production angle at that like just
kind of slight decline. Other timeyou just get that huge cliff and there's
really no telltale sign, at leastfor me, I haven't seen that.
When you're watching these players, Iwould say that the Lockett does look like
he's a player that's on that maybeslight decline. I think his twenty twenty

(01:35:38):
two season was one of his bestyears. I thought he's awesome in twenty
twenty two, which led me tobe like, Okay, I think he
can still have a really good seasonin twenty three, but that's the danger
with receiver age cliffs. I thinkhe's still a very good wide receiver.
I think he can be a goodpart of a good passing game, but
I don't think that he's necessarily thesame high end player he was at his

(01:35:58):
peak, which brings us to Ithink think Jackson Smith and Jigba here,
who I think had a much betterrookie year than people give him credit for
seventieth percentile success rate versus press player, actually versus man player, very quality
separation numbers against zone. The thingsthat stand out with him that I think
where he's a little misunderstood as aplayer, really good separation on post routes,
dig routes, curl routes, outroutes like that intermediate area. And

(01:36:20):
when I think about Ryan Grubbs offenseat Washington, I posted this the other
day that like jsn's route chart looksa lot like Jalen Polk at Washington,
just solid Z receiver guy they movedinto the slot occasionally. I think he
just fits so well into that roleand is going to be very well utilized

(01:36:41):
in that intermediate area, which wasa big part missing from his game.
I think in his rookie season.Yeah, I mean, his A dot
was absolutely atrocious. All they didwas throwing bubble screens the whole season.
That was frustrating. And then ifyou think about the situation in Seattle,
we don't really know exactly what it'sgoing to look like. We can look
at what he did in college,but it does seem to be that the
inventiveness that offensive coordinators are now requiredto have in the NFL. Very few

(01:37:06):
teams are refusing to get on boardwith the pre snap shifts and the motion
that's creating more opportunities, and itseems like he's going to do that.
Although we don't know, but itsure seems like it's going to be an
improvement over what we've been watching inSeattle over the past few years. Yeah.
I think that Shane Waldron is justlike a fine NFL offensive coordinator.

(01:37:28):
I don't think he was like atrue needle mover one way or the other.
I like some of the stuff thatthey did early on in his tenure
there, but last year things feltvery static. The Rouph combinations didn't totally
make a lot of sense together.I don't know. That can also just
be attributed to receiver coaching as well. That isn't always necessarily on the offensive
coordinator. But what excites me aboutRyan Grubb's offense just how far they pushed

(01:37:48):
it downfield. And I think GinoSmith is one of the most underrated like
deep ball passers in the league anda guy that will when he's protected.
That's a key thing here. Ithink we can spend all this time talking
about the receivers, like even therunning back rotation in Seattle. A lot
of this is going to come downto will they play better on the offensive
line than they were than they didlast year? When Gino's protected? He

(01:38:09):
can push that ball downfield and isa good fit in this system in my
opinion. All right, well,let's keep moving here because I've got a
couple more I want to ask youabout. I do want to be respectful.
You've got an appointment here in alittle while, so let's keep on
moving. I want to ask youabout Za Flowers. What was your opinion
on his rookie season in general?I don't know, have you gotten to
charting him yet? Yep, yep, I got a a flower profile on

(01:38:31):
the site. Baby all right,wonderful, So go over and check that
out, and you can find Matt'slink tree on his on his Twitter profile
too if you need to find thatstuff. But yeah, so what did
you think about Za Flowers rookie season? Do you believe that he can develop
into a high volume sort of targethog for Baltimore? Yeah? I was

(01:38:51):
actually just sweeting about this with afew people today that I think that there's
a there's a gap between is hea like design touches merchant, because if
you remember early in his uh,in his starting days in Baltimore, the
first few weeks of his career,he was getting fed a lot of those
like design touches, screens and stufflike that. I've got him at a

(01:39:15):
nine point four percent screen route ratein the games that I charted, so
that is rather high. For sure, it's above the NFL average. But
he's a player that I think coulddo a lot more than that. But
then there's a gap between saying likeis he a future number one receiver?
I exist somewhere in the gap therethat he's not a screen merchant or a
design touches merchant. But I'm notone hundred percent sure if he has the

(01:39:38):
skills to be a true number onereceiver, because the best part of his
profile as a rookie is easily hissuccess rate versus zone coverage. Eighty five
percent success rate verse zone coverage.That is going to be up there if
you look at the league wide datafrom twenty twenty three. That's up there
with some of the best receivers infootball. Last year, he was a
really good zone beater. I lovethe way he beats zone coverage on deep

(01:40:00):
and intermediate routes. Where he's notas good is against press thirty fifth percent
tile success rate versus press. Ido think that's got to come up now.
They can do things that where theycan get him away from press.
He primarily lines up as a flanker. They can throw him in the slot
twenty nine point six percent slot ratein the games that I sampled last year.
But I do think there's meat lefton the bone last year from Zay

(01:40:21):
Flowers from an intermediate route running standpointout route, really high dig route,
really high corner route, post route. But him and Lamar Jackson just weren't
always on the same page there.Whether it was he was a little bit
maybe not where he was supposed tobe or or Lamar expect him to go
a different way. So I thinkonce these guys get more timing and chemistry
with each other, there is somethere is some more upside there. But

(01:40:43):
again to see a future number one, I'm not all the way there,
but I think his rookie season wasmore impressive from a route running and separation
standpoint. Then people give it creditfor. Yeah, that thirty five percent
certainly gives you pause, but that'salso things you can work on. When
it comes to the press. Yourrelease isn't thing like that, And he's
not gonna see as much press asas other He's not gonna see as much
man coverage as other receivers because teamsdon't want to play man coverage against a

(01:41:09):
scrambler like Lamar Jackson. So Iwould say that that zone coverage number,
That's why I said that's the mostimportant number from his profile, because like,
if you're gonna be a Ravens receiverand you're gonna be a high volume,
a high targeted receiver, you're gonnahave to beat zone. Like Rashad
Bateman's always been a better press manbeater, but they don't get a lot
of press man coverage because and heplays primarily outside. It's a little bit

(01:41:30):
different from alignment perspective, but that'swhy I think Flowers has potential to really
be a volume sponge. But howmany targets are you going to get?
I think that's still an open question. Okay, well one of the we
were just talking about the Receiver Showon Netflix and I was watching I'm One
Ross Saint Brown, and I justcouldn't be more impressed with what kind of
young man he is, first ofall, Yeah, just how driven he

(01:41:51):
is and his upbringing and all thatstuff. But you referenced this recently as
well, and I think you weretalking about it on your show and also
remind people what's the name of yourshow and how they can find your pod.
Yeah, Reception Perception. The showis the is the Reception Perception show
about receivers. I also host theAHUU Fantasy Football show two bit did different

(01:42:13):
shows there, but yeah, theone I think referencing Saint Brown was from
the RP show. Okay, sotwo different shows there that you can catch
Matt on and last year what youwere on with echelerl season, weren't you
yes, correct? Yeah, lasttwo years. Eckler's Edge, Austin's the
man. I hope he has agood, hope he has a good run
here in Washington. We'll see,Okay, all right. So yeah,
so you're on your show. You'retalking about I'm Monross Saint Brown and you

(01:42:33):
said that you were impressed with hiscontinued growth as a receiver. And what
was it that prompted you to saythat, And what have you seen specifically
in his growth and his improvement inhis game. Yeah, to be clear,
I really loved domn Ross Saint Brownas a prospect. I thought he
was an underrated guy usc I hadhim ranked much higher from a draft perspective

(01:43:00):
than where he went in the draft. And the biggest reason for that is
because I think he so cleanly fitinto this arc type of receiver that primarily
played as an outside guy in college, but looked like a great candidate to
move into this big slot receiver rolethat we see around the league right now.
If they go back, if peoplego back and read the prospect profile
and reception perception about I'm Saint browner, they followed my work at the time.

(01:43:23):
I called him a lot like Bud, like Cooper Cup and now I
think he's just basically kind of likea Cooper Cup type of player in the
league, which has been pretty coolto see. But the reason I really
like this rookie season data eighty pointfour percent success rate vers zone, Like,
if you're going to be a slotreceiver and you beat zone at an
over eighty percent rate, that's kindof where we want to see you if
you're going to get a lot oftargets, right, And that's been consistent

(01:43:44):
throughout the course of his career eightypoint four percent, eighty one point eight
percent in twenty twenty two, eightythree point four percent and twenty twenty three.
But the growth Drew has come asin his ability to beat press coverage,
which coincides with him playing more outsidereceiver because he's their best player,
one of their best players certainly onoffense, and he's definitely their best wide
receiver, so you're gonna have thatguy at least play some flanker outside.

(01:44:08):
He's probably never gonna be like theirX receiver or anything, but so he's
he faced more press than he everhad last year in reception perception and he
had a seventy five point six percentsuccess rate versus press, which is up
from sixty eight point eight in hissecond season and fifty two point two percent
in his first season. Now,for the most part, reception perception results
are pretty stable. Like once aguy stabilizes who they are in the league,

(01:44:30):
they kind of stick around that range. So for him to take that
steadily steady increment growth against press,I find that to be very impressive and,
like you said, indicative of thetype of worker and grinder that this
guy is from what I see ofhim. And you know, my buddy,
this is really funny. Before Ithink it was two years ago,

(01:44:51):
before our fantasy drafts, he said, all I had to see was that
that guy knows every player who wasdrafted ahead of him, that chip on
the shoulder matters the NFL. Yourbuddy must like Javon Baker. Then this
year because he's he's like that too. I think he had something like there's
not ten receivers better than me orsomething like that some workout video after he
was drafted in the fourth round,which I also thought was kind of low.

(01:45:14):
Yeah, I'm sure he does.I'm sure he does. We haven't
discussed that yet. We tend notto talk about these things. Before our
drafts were in three drafts. Yeah, fairpoint. All right, let me
move on here because we're running lowon time. But I want to ask
you about Stefan Dicks. I don'tknow what to think about Diggs. I've
vacillated back and forth on this alloff season because the end of last year

(01:45:36):
was just awful and it could beattributed to a lot of different things.
We don't really know which moving partsto attribute it to at this point,
whether it was the lower pass rateunder Brady when they switched offensive coordinators,
whether he's actually hitting a cliff,but it sure didn't seem like in the
first half of the year that hewas. Right now, he's going as

(01:45:57):
wide receiver twenty ish, that's hisapproximate ADP at this point. What do
you see was Stefon Diggs from lastyear in his play and how do you
feel about that price tag? Yeah? So, of course, like I
said earlier that I'm always hesitant toforecast age cliffs. So that applies to
the Stefon Diggs discussion. And he'sanother guy just like Tyler Lockett that if

(01:46:19):
you're a longtime follower, reader,subscriber of Reception Perception, you know that
Diggs is like one of my longtimefavorite receivers. He still owns the highest
success rate verse man coverage score evercharted in reception perception from his first season
with the Bills, and he wasa guy that like he was like the
Brandon Ayuk before we were talking aboutearlier, Like, yeah, the numbers

(01:46:40):
aren't there in Minnesota, but thesuccess rates and like the ability to get
open. He's an elite receiver.We just haven't seen the production yet.
He goes to Buffalo, that productionbecomes realized because it's pairing with Allen and
everything like that. But so Isay, I like to say his first
three seasons in Buffalo, I meanover ninetieth percent tallegance, man's own press,
the whole thing. Last season hechecks in at the seventy six percentile

(01:47:02):
against man, sixty seventh against zone, and seventy fifth against press, which
are all good numbers drew for anormal NFL receiver. Stefan Diggs is not
a normal NFL receiver. This isa guy that should be an elite tier
player. I don't think he wasthat guy individually last year. And by
the way I mentioned this in theprofile, I can split these numbers up

(01:47:24):
for you the first four games,the last four, like any of the
halves of the season, it's allthe same, like they paint the same
picture. I think he was adiminished guy from Week one to the end
of the year. I think thatthe production makes it look more like striking
than it was. To me.He can still have these big games,
he can still be a quality NFLreceiver, but where the drop off has

(01:47:45):
come is his ability to separate onnine routes, on corner routes, on
post routes, dig routes like thesedeep and intermediate routes. Where I think
will be very valuable for Houston though, is on short routes where if you
just think about him running slant routesand flat routes and curl routes, he
still has extremely extremely high separation skillson those quick hitting routes. Does that

(01:48:08):
mean he's going to be lining upin the slot more for them potentially,
because they have two guys who canwin on the outside in Tank Dell and
especially Nico Collins. I'm very curiousto see where Diggs fits into this receiver
room because I don't think he's youknow, and again with all caveats said.
I struggle with forecasting the age cliffs. I don't think he's totally toast,
but he's definitely not the same playerthat he was at his peak in

(01:48:30):
Buffalo and Minnesota. And that wouldtrack with what we saw because the big
hallmark of the Buffalo offense for thelast couple of years has been a really
high pass rate, you know,pass rate over expected, and then that
just fell off a cliff at theend of last year where they started running
the ball at one of the highestrates in the league. So maybe the
volume there, what you're saying tracksbecause the volume was the difference in the

(01:48:54):
second half, not the player.So yeah, okay, good take there.
Let me see, we don't havea lot of time, but we've
got we can squeeze a little bitmore in here. I want to ask
you about Jordan Addison. We havewe have some you know, of course
Addison news lately. Let's let's notworry about that part of it. But
yeah, you're we're in your realmfor that one, buddy. Yeah right,

(01:49:16):
I'm gonna talk about that, don'tworry. So but what did you
see about Addison's rookie campaign and howwell he did, how well he charted
out? Is he ready to takethe next step? And you know the
other moving part here is we've gota significantly different QB room. What do
we think about his ability to takethat step combined with the QB room they
have. Now, Yeah, he'snot been a guy before, even before

(01:49:41):
all the legal stuff. He's notbeen a guy who's gravitating too much in
drafts this year because I think helooks like a good, solid number two
receiver. That's what his reception perceptionresults show you. Not like and I
struggle with this archetype of receiver Drew, like the the one be you know,
the Devanta Smith, the Jalen Wattle, the t Higgins, Like just
imagine this guy on another team.He could easily be a number one receivers

(01:50:03):
Like, okay, well, yeahhe's really good. Is at number two?
Could he be a one? Ithink reception perception results for those three
guys say, like, yeah,it's definitely possible. For Addison, I
see him much more as just likea locked in stone classic number two,
because he is not a guy whois an elite separator at any like against
man's own press. He actually reallystruggles against press that has been the issue

(01:50:25):
for him in college and in hisfirst season in the NFL twelve percentile success
rate first press. But there arecertain routes where he's really good, like
slant routes, dig routes, postroutes. He's kind of like a this
sounds disrespectful, but he's almost likea middle of the field merchant, like
a crossing route merchant, which youcan be if you're the number two receiver
lining up as a flanker across fromfrom Justin Jefferson. Like he's good in

(01:50:45):
that role. But yeah, fromthe fantasy perspective, is just how many
targets is he gonna get? Howgood is the quarterback play gonna be?
How many touchdowns is the offense gonnascore? Overall? If they're you know,
Sam Darnold for the first three fourweeks until he gets himself benched and
the rookie quarterback, you know.So, I think Addison was already a
guy that was already a guy thatwas a little questionable, and then this

(01:51:05):
situation, on top of the factthat this is not the first vehicular issue
he's had in his two years inthe league, that makes me a little
nervous. From just a player perspective, certainly, certainly, and it should
it should. But all right,well, I want to get on to
I want to ask you about acouple of players that maybe just personally that

(01:51:26):
you're interested in or fading. ButI have just a quick hitter for you.
Is there any hope left for JerryJudy. I'm so so glad you
put this one on the outline becauseJerry Judy has been a guy that you
know, when I'm when I'm chartingreceivers and I'm looking at route running,
I think he has been one ofthe most overrated route runners in the league

(01:51:47):
because he came into the NFL withthe reputation as a high quality route runner,
but a lot of what he doestranslates. This sounds against super disrespectful,
but translates really well to Instagram reels, right, but not necessarily on
the field. These like multiple jerkymotion routes. He's been a better man
coverage beater than a zone coverage beater. But that's problematic when you're primarily a

(01:52:10):
slot receiver. We want you tobeat zone coverage. It's more important for
you to beat zone coverage as aslot receiver. It sounds like he's going
to be a vertical slot receiver inCleveland, which I guess I get that,
but I don't know. I goback and forth on Judy. I
think he's a very inconsistent player.The highs are definitely there, but the
lows are like maybe seventy five percentof the game with him. So I've

(01:52:32):
always just been a little bit lowerthan consensus on Jerry Judy. That's just
kind of where I am. Ithink that at Cleveland's passing offense is sneaky,
crowded man. Right. They haveMarii Cooper, who I think he's
played his best football in a ClevelandBrown uniform period. And I've always was
a little mixed on Cooper and Dallaspeople were hiring him than I was,
but I think he's just been youcan't put any caveats on He's been an

(01:52:54):
awesome X receiver for the Cleveland Brownsare on a big boy downfield routes.
I like Elijah Moore. I stillhave my candle it for Elijah Moore,
and I think think he's a goodplayer, maybe not a superstar player,
but it's a good quality NFL player. They're kind of buzzing about Cedric Tillman,
who I think was an interesting Xreceiver prospect. They have David inn
Joku is a tight end. Theyalso have Jerry Judy. Like it's quietly

(01:53:15):
a crowded receiver room. And oh, by the way, we don't know
if the quarterback is an above averagestarter in the league. So that makes
me like a little nervous from afantasy perspective for sure. Well, all
I heard was that I can feelgood about not liking Jerry Judy because yeah,
well you're on that. You arein good company there, man,
and people people did not like thattake last year. It's a little more

(01:53:38):
accepted this season after the year.I've just never been a Judy guy,
so hearing your take on it helpsme with some nice confirmation bias what I'm
here for. Man, Yeah,you know, this conversation is so much
fun. I could do this allday long, but we're pushing forty minutes
here, and I know you gotan appointment to get to. I want
to leave everyone with let's just callthis. I always say, just your

(01:54:00):
personal opinions. You're doing a draft, and your que pops up. Name
a couple guys that you just can'tseem to click the button on, no
matter whether they're at the top ofyour list or not. And a couple
guys that you are drafting and maybeoverdrafting a little bit because you're really excited
for the prospects this year. Yeah, so I'll go I'm usually a positive

(01:54:24):
guy, but I'll go to negativefirst. One guy just had a tough
time clicking on this year is GeorgePickens in Pittsburgh for a couple of different
reasons. One, I think he'sstill an inconsistent player. He's a guy
very similar to Jerry Judy, wherepretty good man coverage success rate, but
the zone coverage success rate has gotto tick up if he's going to be
a true high volume receiver. Ithink he and he's just a guy that

(01:54:47):
the effort is not there from likea game to game, down to down
series to series perspective. If hedials that in, maybe his twenty twenty
four reception perception profile looks a lotbetter. I don't think he's a bad
receiver at all. I think he'slike a quality starting X receiver in the
league. But I don't know thathe's a guy that you are going to
funnel like twenty five twenty seven percentof your passing offense through and have an

(01:55:12):
efficient passing attack. That He's justa guy that I've struggled with clicking there
from that range. On the positiveside, a couple of guys that I
really do like. I have aweird fascination with the Saints offense this year.
I know, like I get it, Drew and everybody listening out there.
Derek Carr's the quarterback, Dennis Allen'sa coach. That's not exciting,
but this is the first time intwenty years that the Saints are going to

(01:55:38):
have new ideas on offense, literallyalmost twenty years, because Pete Carmichael,
the former offensive coordinator, and alot of the dudes that were on that
staff were all part of the likeoriginal Sean Payton's staff. And you saw
it last year, lowest play actionrate, lowest motion rate in the league.
And now you see Gary Kuback comingover from San Francisco. I'm not
Gary Kubiak, his son, ClintKubiak coming over from the forty nine ers,

(01:55:59):
and his obviously his name is literallyKubiak. He's been in this tree
forever. I don't know if Kubiakis one of the best offensive coordinators in
the league. But I know there'sgonna be more motion. I know there's
gonna be more play action. Andwhen I think about play action routes and
you know, the pre snap motionstuff, that makes me very excited about
guys like Rashid Shaheed and Chris Olavetoo. I think there could be an
o. Lave's expensive, so it'skind of hard to get him in drafts,

(01:56:21):
but man, a guy like Shaheedgoes pretty late and I think can
have a pretty significant role this yearas the number two receiver. Well you're
singing my song because actually, ourbuddy that introduced us, John Dagel,
just was tweeting about the archaic PeteCarmichael stuff that you can kind of leave
behind now. And I've been thinkingabout the fact, and I made this

(01:56:45):
point on last week's show. Whenyou look at what Derek Carr did last
year, if you watched him,you felt like it was like a train
wreck waiting to happen. But thenwhen you go back and look at his
numbers, he only threw eight interceptions, He had a three to one TDed
it to I in t ratio,and then Pro Football Reference has him as
the tenth best in the Justin netyards per attempt. So that's a pretty

(01:57:08):
strong number. And I think tomyself, is are were we watching the
same Derek Carr? But you knowif he gets a different offense and there
who knows what happens with the Saintsthis year. So that's an interesting point
to have. Well, hey,look I got to get you out of
here. Thank you so much foryour time. Remind everyone where they can
find you on socials and where theycan find your work this year. Yeah,

(01:57:30):
Matt Harmon underscore byb on any socialmedia player, social media app.
You got out there, reception,perception dot com. Still, like I
said, cranking out profiles. Nextdrop is actually coming up very shortly here,
Drew, So more work to bedone, baby. On the twenty
second of July, So next Monday, Cooper Cup, AJ Brown, Ceedee,
lamb Tyreekill, Devonte Adams like thebest receivers. I mean, you

(01:57:54):
guys know these receivers are good,but how good are they? Find out
on Monday? Exciting stuff. Ilove this time of year though, and
we get to hang out in aboutthree weeks. Are you coming in on
Thursday? You coming in on Friday? I believe I'm coming in on Friday,
so I'll be there kind of Fridayafternoon ish. Well I say that,
I hopefully Friday afternoon. I don'tthink I told you this last year,
Drew, but I had like anabsurd travel situation, like guy got

(01:58:17):
delayed so many times. I've spentlike five hours in the Charlotte airport just
being like, which one of theseairport bars is the best one. Let's
find out because I've got five hoursto kill here, so knock on wood.
I will be there Thursday after orexcuse me, Friday afternoon, which
is when I was supposed to belast year. It didn't work out that
way. This year, we're gonnahave some better luck. Okay, yes,
I'm pulling for you to have somebetter luck. Thank you so much

(01:58:40):
again for coming on. This isa fun discussion. I could do this
all day long, but you've beengenerous with your time, so I'm gonna
get you out of here. MattHarmon with Yahoo and reception perception. That'll
do it for another week of discussionswith Drew. Great job, Matt Harmon.

(01:59:01):
I'll tell you what you know whensomebody is successful just by hearing them
when they come on the show andyou can tell why Matt's successful is work
at reception perception with Yahoo with thepodcast with Austin Eckler. The guy's done
it all and he is a joyto listen to. So I hope you
enjoyed this week's discussions with Drew.Don't forget there'll be some interesting stuff coming

(01:59:26):
up on the Listener League and howyou can get into that. On top
of that, use FJA Fantasy draftboards. Use my promo code Auction Brief
one zero or Auction one zero toget ten percent off your order. The
best draft boards in the business areover f JAY Fantasy Draft Boards, and
don't forget the Patreon network. FantasyFootball Lawyer Patreon Network. I'll have more

(01:59:47):
information on Rashly Rice and Jordan Addisonas it becomes available. But also,
I just dropped my auction values forthe first time this summer in the middle
of July. I know that's alittle bit later than I wanted to have
a I'm out there, but myauction values are only available on the Patreon
network. Those are available now andI'm taking custom par sheet orders. You've

(02:00:08):
got to be a member of thePatreon to get a custom par sheet.
But it's my pinned article there onthe Patreon network on how to get your
custom par sheets. Fill out theform. It's a few extra bucks to
get that, but I will spenda lot of time crafting your par sheets
to your desire and helping you crushyour auctions. I think you're going to

(02:00:29):
love that this summer. Let's gowin some titles. Baby, let's go
win some titles. I'm fired up. The next time I talk to you,
training camps are going to be open. I cannot freaking wait. Let's
go. The auction brief is adjourned, and I am out. The auction
brief is adjourn that'll do it forthis week's episode. See you next time

(02:00:51):
on the auction Brief.

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