Top 5 Ways the Fantasy Industry is FAILING Auction Drafters; Plus Guest Scott Pianowski from Yahoo

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome to the Auction Brief. There'sa joy in these games or not,
taking you on a journey through fantasyfootball, the law, and life.
The saw yours. It depends onhow much you want. And now you're

(00:22):
legal analyst and auction draft expert hereto help you dominate your fantasy drafts.
Your host, Drew Davenport. Thereare full hearts. Hey, everybody,
welcome into the Auction Brief. Asthe lady said, I am your host,
Drew Davenport, your fantasy football lawyer. Thank you so much for joining

(00:44):
me for episode five of season four. I'm back from the beach from the
shores of the Gulf of Mexico,where everybody in the Midwest goes to vacation.
Yes, we were one of those, and the traffic on the way
back proved it. But I amrefreshed. I had a great trip with

(01:07):
the family, my brother's family.My kids and his kids are all the
same age, so that was agreat time. We had an absolute blast.
And I tell you what, Iam pumped for this episode today because
I'm coming in hot, folks.I'm coming in hot, and I'm going
to tell you something that may soundlike hyperbole, but it's not this is
the second most important episode of theentire summer. I would say the first

(01:34):
most important episode is the last oneof the summer, where I tell you
everything that we've talked about all summerlong in one tidy little package. But
this episode is really important, andit's near and dear to my heart because
I've been pushing all summer long,and really I've been thinking about it since
last year, the fact that thefantasy industry is failing us as auction and

(02:00):
I really believe that there needs tobe a major paradigm shift in how we
look at auction drafting and how weadvise our fantasy content consumers how to get
better at fantasy football. And Ireally believe that the fantasy industry is failing
us in this regard. They're checkinga box and they're saying, hey,

(02:23):
we've got some content. Here itis, here's some average auction values.
Here's a mock draft. Now leaveus alone, because everyone else wants the
other stuff. From a business perspective, I get that. I totally understand
that. So this isn't here asan indictment of any one particular site or
an analyst or anything like that.This is not what this is for But

(02:45):
I'm here to tell you that Iwant to hear from you, my followers,
that you're out there preaching the gospelof what it means to prepare for
an auction draft, and that meansshifting the pair of times of what we
believe about auction drafting versus snake drafting. So we're going to do that today,
and I have for you my fivebiggest ways the fantasy industry is failing

(03:10):
us in our auction prep and theway we get better at auctions. So
each of the five points will havea specific call to action for you.
What it means is I want youto take the concept and then I want
to give you an example or somethingthat's going to help you understand that particular
point. But I have five reasonsthe fantasy football industry is failing us with

(03:34):
specific examples and calls to action ofhow we can push this agenda further down
the road. And I hope you, as Auction brief listeners, are motivated
enough to understand that what I'm doinghere is going to help us all in
the long run. It may initiallyirritate some people or piss some people off,
who knows, But I hope thatyou'll be advocates and you will carry

(03:55):
the gospel forward as we try toget the fantasy industry to wrap their minds
around the idea that we're just failingpeople that love auctions and we're not doing
what we should be doing. Beforewe get to all that, though,
I know that seems like a heavytopic, and maybe it is a little
bit, but you know, it'sgonna be a fantastic show and I think
you're really gonna enjoy it. Oh, yes, fantastic. The fantastic count

(04:17):
is one. We're four minutes inand the fantastic count is one, folks.
Actually, since I said it twomore times, it's at three.
So this is a fantastic episode forme to run my FWM. I think
it's gonna be a bit on alongsidethis week, I have Scott Pianowski from
Yahoo. You know, Scott isa Hall of Fame member of the Fantasy

(04:41):
Sports Writers Association, And there's areason for that. I talk about smart
people. One of the guys thatroutinely comes up is rich Reebar because he's
a really intelligent guy. Dwayne McFarland, but right at the top of that
list is Scott Pianowski, super smartguy. We're gonna talk to him for
over an hour in discussions with Ithink you're gonna love it. There's a
lot of auction talk there, butthere's also talk about Steelers passing game giants,

(05:05):
passing game chargers, backfield stuff likethat. That's gonna be interesting.
But don't forget. I do havea couple sponsors. I want to mention.
FJA Fantasy Draft Boards are the bestdraft boards in the industry, bar
none. Chalk it up. Youcan't find anything better than FJA Fantasy Draft

(05:26):
Boards. Use my promo code Auctionone zero or Auction Brief one zero,
and you will get ten percent offyour order. I know it seems like
you're paying a few extra bucks,but it's really a negligible cost. And
then you get my ten percent off, and I think you're gonna be happy
with FJA Fantasy Draft Boards. Theother thing I like to push this time
of the year is my Patreon network. I'm over there churning on a ton

(05:48):
of content, and last week Iput out two really critical things for my
Patreon subscribers. One was a RashyRice update and the other was an article
called the Anatomy of a par sheet, and we're gonna get into the par
sheet stuff. I believe next episodeor maybe the episode after that, well,
we're going to talk about what apar sheet is and why it's so

(06:09):
important. But I put out thisarticle called the Anatomy of a par sheet,
and I think you will really likeit. If it's not something that
you've used before, get on overto the Patreon network. It's only four
bucks a month. If you signup and you don't love it, cancel.
You know, it's no big deal, Like it's I'm not making thousands
of dollars on my Patreon network orwith FJA Fantasy. I'm just making a

(06:30):
few extra bucks to account for allthe time that I spend bringing you this
what I believe to be valuable fantasycontent. But let's get into the show
today, because I don't know thatthere's a meteor show that we've had so
far. Of course, JJ ZachReeson was awesome, Mike Clay was awesome,

(06:51):
all the folks that we've had sofar. It's been a great summer
already. But when it comes downto really digging in deep, been getting
in the weeds. This is oneof those episodes you don't want to miss.
I think it's going to be thesecond most important episode of the entire
summer. Before we get into theauction talk though, and the Scott Pianowski

(07:14):
discussions Withdrew, I want to doa quick FF legal update because we haven't
done one in a few weeks.In fact, we haven't done one since
week one of the show. We'regoing into week five, which means that
we're almost halfway through the summer andwe don't have a lot about Rashie Rice
yet. So let's talk briefly aboutwhat that may mean, and then we
can move on to some auction talkand my five reasons why the fantasy industry

(07:36):
is failing. Auction drafters, let'sget into it. Let's start out with
our FF legal update. Now it'stime for your legal update. Well,
I wish I was coming to youwith a more concrete update on Rashey Rice,
but I just don't have that yet. And I'm going to tell you
something that is probably going to makethings a little bit muddier for you.

(08:00):
But I've always said I operate underthe belief that you're going to know what
I know, And as auction brieflisteners, you are a smaller subset of
my following that I have on Twitter, but then you're talking the Patreon as
an even smaller subset. So Itry to I try to dribble out my

(08:20):
news with that in mind. Iwant my Twitter followers to get value from
my account, but I also wantthe auction brief to get more value,
and yet again, even more valueon the Patreon network because you're paying and
because I think it's really important thatyou feel as though you're getting your money's
worth for being a part of theFantasy Football Ower Patreon Network. And I

(08:43):
say all this to say that Ihave not put anything out on Twitter about
Rashie Rice recently, and that's onpurpose, on purpose. And I also
have not said anything on the Auctionbrief since week one of the show back
at the beginning of June. That'salso on purpose, because I have put
out my only two pieces of RashiRice news to the Patreon network recently.

(09:05):
But that stuff's been out long enoughthat I feel like I can now put
it out on the auction brief andthat's what we're doing today. So everybody
on the Patreon they got my initialopinion about two and a half weeks ago
on this stuff, and then anupdate recently this week as well. So
if you're in the Patreon, you'regetting a jump on everyone by two to
two and a half weeks. Inthis latest update three to five days,

(09:28):
you're finding out this information before anyoneelse. Now, today, that's not
going to be as impactful as I'dlike it to be, But I think
it's really important that you hear whatI'm thinking about in this situation, and
that is that we have a noticeablelack of news coming from either the city
of Dallas or the state of Texasor Rashie Rice's camp. We in fact,

(09:52):
have heard almost no news about thiscriminal case ever since the dribs and
drabs of of information was leaking outabout the possible facts in the case.
Now, initially this didn't strike meas that odd, but it's starting to
get to the point where I feellike we need to have our eyebrows raised

(10:13):
a little bit about the lack ofinformation here. My initial assessment of the
case, I'm going to say thisagain, was that I thought Rice in
his camp was motivated to want toget this case over with and to try
to settle the case before the seasonstarted. That's not always easy to do
in felony cases, and we talkedabout that, but you know, felony

(10:35):
cases take a little bit longer.But I'm still coming back to something really
important about this, and that isthat this case has been going on now
for over two months and approaching threemonths now, where we have almost no
information about the case. This tellsme that there's a couple things going on.
I'm not certain, but I'm prettysure that behind the scenes there are

(10:58):
some feverish negotiations happening based on thediscovery that Rice's camp is getting and their
desire to see this case go awaywithout any felony charges. So I'm sure
that there are pola negotiations happening behindthe scenes, and nobody's leaking anything,
which is great for them in thelegal process, not so great for us.
But I have been chasing this casesince the beginning and I can't get

(11:22):
any information, and that's unusual inand of itself. Now, I'm not
saying that we should read anything intothat lack of information, but what I
want to read into at this pointis how long this has gone with no
information leaking. The reasons for theno information aren't as important as the timetable
that we now have because as you'relistening to this, it's the fourth of

(11:45):
July, Happy Birthday, America.But as you're listening to this, we
are heading into the second week ofJuly with nary a peep from this criminal
case in several months. So Ithink think it's quite possible at this point
that Rashi Rice is not suspended atall this season. And I want to

(12:05):
take you through this thought process justbriefly because we need to move on.
I do enjoy the topic that Ihave picked out for you this week.
My eyebrows are raised as to thefact that we're in the second going into
the second week of July, don'thave any information, and this is a
felony case with a lot of differentlittle factors involved. I'm starting to get

(12:28):
a little bit nervous that my callabout whether or not this is going to
be settled before the season is goingto be incorrect. But the benefit is
for all of you and for me, is that I've been telling you all
along that you need to be draftingRice as though he was going to play
twelve or more games this year.That's still the case. I believe that

(12:50):
even if I'm wrong that Rice wantsto wrap this up before the season.
I'm missing on the correct side,and that's by design. I'm saying that
if the case goes too long,then he doesn't get suspended at all,
And if he wraps it up quicklyas he wants to in a satisfactory fashion,
that means that he's minimized or mitigatedthe damage and he's only going to

(13:11):
miss maybe three, four or fivegames. So I do believe I'm missing
on the correct side if I'm missingat all. And what I told my
Patriot subscribers was very simple. Ihave not raised the percentages yet to the
point where I believe that he's goingto miss no games versus missing a couple

(13:31):
games because the case gets settled.I haven't raised the percentages to flip those
two yet. I still believe thatthis case has a good chance to get
settled before the season, and hecan take his suspension this year on the
front end of the season, andyou'll have him when you need him the
most. But I am raising thepercentages and the chance that this case doesn't

(13:54):
get resolved at all before the season. I'm starting to get to the point
where that percentage is high enough thatit's becoming a coin flip, which one
of these will happen. I don'twant to sit here and say, hey,
it's fifty to fifty and if Iget you know, if I get
one side of it right or wrong, well, hey look it was a
coin flip. That's not what I'mhere to say. I'm here to say

(14:15):
that as of about a month ago, I had put out my official percentages
on the Patreon network about what Ithought we're going to be this possible suspension
or suspended games for Rice, andthat percentage has now shrunk relative to the
possibility that he may get zero gamesin twenty twenty four. So keep that

(14:37):
in mind that if you just hadit sort of like a okay, this
was sixty percent and him missing zerogames was twenty percent, that is just
inching up to twenty four to twentysix to twenty eight. I'm pulling numbers
out of thin air, so youhave to go to the Patreon to get
my final exact numbers. But youunderstand my point. The possibility of zero
games continues to rise in my eyesas this case drags on further towards training

(15:01):
camp and towards the season itself.So that's my update this week. If
you're a Patreon subscriber, you havethat information a couple of weeks ago and
you can act on it a coupleof weeks ago, but now you're getting
it as an auction brief subscriber,and then I'm going to drop that information
again to my Twitter followers next week. So if you want to operate on
the margins here and go aggressively tobuy rice, I think now is your

(15:26):
opportunity, as I think the possibilitythat this case is going to drag out
past the season gets higher the furtherthe summer goes on, because then when
it gets to the end of Augustin early September, his camp isn't going
to want to do anything and they'regoing to try their best to push it
off. So if something doesn't happen, I don't believe anything's going to happen
during the season, it'll just getpushed off into next year. We don't

(15:48):
know yet. You're here to knowwhat I know, and that's what I'm
thinking right now about that case.So that's enough for this week's FF legal
update. What do you say wemove on to the topic of the day.
Some auction Talk on five ways thefantasy industry is failing us as auction
drafters auction Talk. Like I saidearlier in the show and my initial rant

(16:14):
about the show, I want youto understand that I'm not here to trash
anybody. That is not what we'redoing here. I believe it's important to
the auction draft industry, to thefantasy industry in general, but the specific
subset of auction drafters or salary capdrafters. I believe it's really important that

(16:36):
we push these paradigm shifts as muchas possible because we're all going to benefit
from noticing that shift in the industrywhere we attack preparation and understanding of the
game in a much more enlightened way. I think we're all going to benefit
from that, and I hope you'llcome along as a vocal member of this
journey. So I have for youthe five ways I feel like the fantasy

(17:00):
industry is failing us as auction drafters. And number one, I'm going to
say that we are too stuck inlinear thought processes. We must break our
linear thought processes in order to succeedas auction drafters. What do I mean
by linear thought processes. Well,it's a fairly simple idea, but it's

(17:22):
something that I want to define foryou so that we don't have a misunderstanding
about what I'm saying. Linear thoughtis the definition of snake drafting, because
snake drafting relies on an A tobe to C kind of thought process,
and that's what it means to belinear. A begets B, begets C,

(17:42):
and that's how your brain works itsway down the path to decide what
to do. And in a snakedraft, that's pretty simple. Hey,
I need a running back. Allthese guys are gone, the top one
is this guy. I'm going totake him. That's linear thought. We
simply can't not do that in auctiondrafting. But unfortunately we've been told,

(18:04):
or not told specifically, but we'vebeen indoctrinated with the idea that linear thought
is how we should approach our auctions, and that is patently false. Okay,
because the general idea here is verysimple. Players will get drafted in
the same order that they always getdrafted, no matter what draft room it

(18:30):
is. If you're doing a snakedraft. Let me say that again,
players are generally going to get draftedin the same order in a snake draft,
no matter what room you're in.Why is that, Well, it's
really simple. We have been told, here is an ADP list, and
we're going to talk about that inpoint number two. But here's an ADP

(18:52):
list. Here's an average draft positionlist, and we have been trained that
once Jonathan Taylor's drafted as the RBfive, then Travis etn is gonna be
drafted as the RB six. Now, of course, we have situations in
which that's gonna change a little bit, and somebody is gonna like somebody they're
gonna reach a little or a playeris gonna fall a little But for the

(19:12):
most part, even in situations liketight end premium, that doesn't mean that
George Kittle is better than Dravis Kelce. It just means that those points meet
a little bit more. Maybe thetight ends get pushed up the board a
little bit, but within position groups, the order almost always stays the same.

(19:33):
And just like superflex, even insuperflex leagues where quarterbacks are pushed up
into the first and second round,we're missing the entire point here if we
don't understand the linear way that thosequarterbacks are drafted just because they're in the
first round doesn't mean they're not draftedin an ABC format because they are.
It's gonna be Josh Allen, thenJalen hurds uh. And you can tell

(19:59):
how excited I am to get intoa draft room like that, right.
That's boring as hell. And that'swhy we have a problem because just because
it's tied on Premium or Superflex doesn'tmean the order is going to change.
They're generally going to be drafted inthe same order. And that's why your
tier groups are so important. Andin fact, I hate listing the guys
in order in your tier groups andalmost rather you have a big circle and

(20:23):
just place the guys randomly in thecircle because it doesn't matter which guy you
get in that circle. Because theproblem is people will even nominate in a
linear fashion. And we've talked aboutthis over the last couple of summers.
How I want you to break outof the idea that you need to nominate
the next player on the page.Okay, so I'm going to just nominated
to be Jean Robinson. I'm goingto nominate Breeze Hall. That is just

(20:47):
atrocious. That is the way thatwe have been told to think about drafting
and fantasy football, and that doesnot apply to auctions. Price are not
linear in an auction. We understandthat, but our brains are wired to
think that they are that if MarkAndrews goes for seventeen dollars, then we

(21:08):
can't possibly pay eighteen for Evan Ingram, right right. We've been taught that
we have been indoctrinated with the ideathat one player has more value than the
other, and therefore the price mustbe higher or the draft pick must be
higher than the other. But inreality, there are multiple factors that can

(21:30):
make this completely moot in an auctiondraft room snake drafts. Aside multiple factors,
I wouldn't even say multiple. There'sa myriad of factors that can make
the situation nonlinear and make us haveto go through a critical thought process that
we're going to talk about a littlebit later. Let's give you a quick
example. Let's stick with the MarkAndrews thing. Let's say that Mark Andrews

(21:52):
goes for seventeen dollars and you werehoping to get a good tight end.
This is not an auction where youthought that you were going to slough off
on tight end. You wanted toget somebody good. Andrews gets done going
for seventeen bucks. That's a littlebit more than you wanted to spend.
Then the draft goes on for alittle while and you realize that the tight
end room is completely picked over.There's no other tight ends that you want.

(22:15):
In fact, you look in yourdraft sheet and you look down and
you realize, oh god, Colecomment is the next tight end and Evan
Ingram is literally the last guy thatI want to put in my lineup without
feeling sick week one. So yousay to yourself, I have to get
Evan Ingram right. That's one ofthose factors that happens all the time.

(22:37):
And so you're going to be ina situation where if you have the money,
now that's a big copy ofat butif you have the money, you're
going to spend more than seventeen dollarsfor Evan Ingram. And the fantasy industry
has told you that in your linearthought process, in your linear based analysis
on snake drafting, that you can'tpossibly take Evan Ingram ahead of Mark Andrew

(23:00):
But in this particular situation you canbecause there's nobody else on the board except
Cole Comet down there at tight endsixteen or eighteen or whatever. The only
person that you can possibly buy atthis point is Evan Ingram, and he's
going to be more than seventeen bucks. Or how about this, how about
you messed up at the beginning ofthe draft and you didn't get enough impact
players on your team, so youdidn't spend enough money early, and you

(23:23):
realize suddenly that you don't have enoughimpact players. So what do you got
to do? You have to turnoff your brain and become position agnostic and
say, I just need to landimpact players now. Sometimes this may mean
that you're going after Evan Ingram evenafter you have a tight end one already.
You already have a guy, Butmaybe that helps you down the road

(23:45):
because you lose your guy your topguy, or Ingram turns out to be
better than your top guy, whateverthe case may be, you realize that
you need to land an impact playerin Ingram is one of those few players
left on the board, and youhave all this money because you and spend
it correctly at the beginning of thedraft. Does that mean that you should
say, h, that's too muchfor Evan Ingram. I'm not going to

(24:07):
get him. No, you justget him anyway. And again, we
have been trained to believe that thereis a certain value that we have to
place on these players that follows anABC format, that Ingram can't be more
than Andrews and in djoku can't bemore than Ingram. That's not how it
works, and that is not howwe should be thinking about auctions. We

(24:30):
know all this, but you haveto break the linear thought process that a
to be to see that tells youthat this player will be drafted after this
player, will be drafted after thisplayer. We must break out of that
linear thought process, and the nominationprocess is one of the ways that we
can do that. We're going totalk a little bit about that in point

(24:52):
number two about our specific call toaction with other strategies that can help us
break out of that process. Sopoint number one one is, let's break
the linear thought process of snake drafting. And point number two is we have
been told as fantasy content consumers thataverage draft position is the same as average

(25:15):
auction value. We have been toldthat ADP is the same as AAV and
it is not. In fact,these things are couldn't be further from the
truth. You cannot put a midsecond round price tag on somebody and say
this is exactly this much dollars thatyou're going to spend on this player.
Now again. I have talked aboutthis till on blow in the face.

(25:37):
I'm not going to do it again. AAV has its value. There is
a value to get a baseline numberfor what you think you might be able
to spend, and after that it'suseless. It's useless. We've been told
that AAV is ADP, and itis not. They are different. ADP
is predictive. When you see anADP on a player, it's predicted.

(26:00):
You know they're going to go ina certain point in the draft. AAV
is not predictive. It is notexcept in very limited circumstances. We cannot
buy this trope that ADP equals AAV. ADP tells you when to act.
It's predictive. It tells you whento act. AAV will screw you up.

(26:22):
It will incorrectly tell you when toact. You're going to be in
a draft and you're gonna say thatguy's way too cheap, and then you're
gonna call out a number and you'regonna realize you shouldn't have called that out.
To that number out because you don'thave the money, you don't have
the roster spots, you don't havesomething lined up that you need to have
lined up. It's gonna screw youup, or you're not gonna go after
a player that you should have goneafter. AAV is going to tell you

(26:45):
that you shouldn't spend a lot ofmoney on a certain player. But what
if you get in that room andthose player prices are out of control and
you have to spend that to landa first or second round talent. AAV
is going to screw you up morethan it's ever gonna help you. ADP
tells you when to act. AAVscrews you up on when to act.

(27:06):
ADP is predictive. AAV is notpredictive. Here's a quick example in your
call to action here, we talkabout get your guy mode all the time,
and that is an inflection point inauctions that we're going to hit later
in the summer. But get yourguy mode is real simple. It's the
time in the draft when managers startto focus on filling out their roster with

(27:29):
players that they like or players thatthey had their eye on before the draft
but who aren't high level players.So we're talking about guys like I don't
know, Curtis Samuel or Darnell Mooneyor DeMarcus Robinson or whatever. When people
get into to get your guy modein a snake draft, it's really easy
to say, Okay, well,ADP has them as a tenth round player,
I'm going to reach for them inthe ninth. That stuff is super

(27:52):
simple, and again it's part ofthe linear thought process. Okay, I'm
in get your guy mode. Iwant this guy. He's a thirty round
player. I'm going to grab themin the eleventh because I know that I
can afford to get him here,and blah blah blah. Whatever the reason
may be, you reach a littlebit on ADP and you get them.
Again, that's predictive. But withAAV there is going to be none of

(28:14):
that because the player could have alreadybeen called out, or you may need
to wait longer to call a playerout, or it may just take one
person who's also interested in that playerto completely blow the AAV out of the
water. So again, AAV isgoing to screw you up. You have
to find other methods of success inorder to be successful in an auction draft.

(28:37):
Other methods of success are required thansimple linear thought. Those would be
par sheets, nomination strategies, biddingstrategies for bidding. For example, you're
online and Scott and I talk aboutthis in discussions Withdrew here in a little
while, talking about when you're onlineyou want a certain player and you think

(29:00):
to yourself, I'm gonna be ableto pay up to twenty one dollars.
That player comes up, the biddingis one dollar, two dollars, three
dollars, four dollars, and youjust jump it up to nineteen bucks because
you're willing to pay twenty one dollarsfor this player. You jump it up
to nineteen immediately, and then youput pressure on other players to have to
decide whether or not they want tocontinue to bid. That big clock is

(29:22):
dropping down and they haven't had allthat time to think about whether or not
they want that player. So that'sjust a quick example. But that's a
bid strategy that you can use inonline auctions. Well, you can use
that anywhere, but I love itin online auctions. Type in a number
and bet that number, as opposedto just going the plus one to allow
people to have time to understand what'shappening again. When we're in get your

(29:45):
guide mode, you can simply reachand grab a player, but and get
your guy mode. In an auctionit requires other methods of approach in order
to be successful. You must havedifferent, varied approaches in order to break
through the linear thought. Instead,you put an emphasis on understanding your situation.

(30:10):
And we're going to do that herewith the last three points. So
number one, break your lineitar thoughtprocess. Number two, understand that ADP
does not equal AAV as we've beentold. And the third way that I
believe the fantasy industry is failing usas auction drafters is that they fail to
understand that the magnification of league factorsand opinions is exponential. The magnification of

(30:37):
league factors and opinions is exponential.It does not go up in a linear
manner. It goes up quickly.Let me give you a couple examples of
this. Because I believe that leaguethat leagues themselves have personalities. The entire
league will have a personality, butalso individual personalities within that league. And

(31:00):
also we have to understand that thoseleagues have personalities because they listen to people.
People with ESPN or Yahoo or whateverthe case may be. There are
industry wide sort of ideas that becomeaccepted ideas, and those ideas are also
magnified, So there is a magnificationof overall industry wide opinions as well as

(31:23):
individual manager in league wide personalities,and all of those things are exponentially emphasized
in an auction draft. Once again, we're going back to point number one.
This is not a linear situation.These things are pushed sometimes to a

(31:44):
limit that is basically incorrect. Letme talk to you about a couple quick
examples, because I believe it's reallyimportant that we fight that exponential growth of
that opinion or the multipliers that makeit believe certain things and take us down
in correct paths. One example Ihave of this is something that happened in

(32:06):
a King's Classic Draft room last year. During the King's Classic Auction Draft in
the Blander room last year, wehad JJ Zacharieson and Hutch Brown in the
room, and I respect both ofthese guys as analysts and understanding what's going
on in the fantasy football world ingeneral. But it just so happened that
both of them were pretty enamored withthe same couple of rookies as we got

(32:30):
into the auction, and it waslike clockwork, you could see that two
of them start to battle when itcame to those rookies. There's a couple
things them play here. And mysecond example is going to touch on some
of the same stuff here, butthere's a couple things in play here.
Those guys had the personalities themselves ofbeing interested in those rookies, and what

(32:54):
happened was when they were forced againsteach other and pitted against each each other,
those players that they were bidding onwent for way too much money.
And it wasn't because these guys didn'tknow what they're doing. It's because they
really wanted to land these players,and it just took that one person.
Like I was talking about in pointnumber two, it only takes one person

(33:14):
in order to blow things out ofthe water. And that's what I mean
by the exponential rise in price.So if a rookie should go for nine
dollars and he goes for sixteen,you've doubled the price. That's an exponential
rise in price. That shouldn't happen. That person's overvalued. Oh they go
one round ahead, not seven roundsahead. And that's what ends up happening

(33:37):
in auctions. Is that exponential multiplierand these two guys, smart guys that
love rookies. That was all multipliedthere. And the second example is when
we talk about Mike Evans from lastyear. And this is somebody that I'm
still fired up about because I missedso badly. But last year in the

(33:58):
auction brief Listener League, he wentfor eleven dollars. Mike Evans for eleven
bucks. He was a wide receiverone. Last year he was a top
twelve wide receiver, had a fantasticyear. Oh yeah, fantastic number two.
He had a great year, andhe was eleven bucks. This year,
I do a mock draft for arotal world. I talked about this

(34:19):
earlier in the summer. I didthis mock draft where I got Evans for
nineteen bucks. We're not learning ourlesson apparently with Evans, and I understand
we're not going to dive into MikeEvans right now. That's not what I'm
here to talk about. What I'msaying is that in a snake draft,
Mike Evans is still going to goin a certain range because of that linear
thought. It's not like he's goingto fall that much because people are a

(34:42):
little nervous about Mike Evans. Now, of course some guys, you know,
there's outlier examples, but as ageneral rule of thumb, Mike Evans
is still going to go in thesame general range. That's how snake drafts
work. But in an auction,the magnification of that nervousness from people is

(35:04):
what allows Mike Evans to be anineteen dollars player still heading into twenty twenty
four, coming off of wide receiverone season. The guy had a great
year last year, and yet hisprice has only gone up from eleven bucks
last year to nineteen bucks this year. That seems weird to me. But
what that is is the magnification.It's the exponential effect of people's opinions about

(35:25):
Evans, people's opinions about Baker Mayfield, people's opinions about the Bucks offense in
general. All that stuff is atwork here. And it's what I talk
about all the time about triple counting, things about saying all summer long,
we're like, Ah, this team'sgonna be terrible, this team's gonna be
awful, and all summer long,that's what we say. Well, in
a snake draft. If you're sittingthere and you look up and round eight

(35:49):
and Deontay Johnson's still on the board, you take him. That's pretty simple.
But when you're in an auction draft, it's very possible that you can
draft Deontay Johnson as a really lowlevel player on your roster because nobody cares
about the Carolina offense, and weend up double counting, triple counting.
That's what I'm talking about, themagnification and the exponential counting of the things

(36:14):
that happen have just a pronounced effectin an auction draft, and it's something
that we do not pay attention tonearly enough. And if you go back
to the King's classic example with JJand Hutch, one of the things that
you see in analyst leagues, andthis is a league personality thing, is
that they love rookies because they're moreinformed than the general public. So they

(36:37):
like to think, Hey, Iknow which rookies are going to be good
and which ones I should be goingafter. I'm not saying that they don't
know this, because a lot oftimes they do, but I'm saying they
have a higher opinion of their abilityto prognosticate rookies and what they're going to
do. So therefore, a leaguepersonality number one is that analyst leagues love

(36:58):
rookies, and then individual personalities Hutchand JJ both like rookies. So you've
got two magnifying factors there that leadto wonky prices on certain players and auctions.
Again, a non linear situation thatwe simply have to pay attention to
and that we have not as anindustry talked about whatsoever for the most part,

(37:22):
including myself, And that's something we'regoing to talk about as we go
on further this summer. So pointnumber three, don't forget about the magnification
of league factors, personalities, andindustry wide opinions. All right. My
fourth point in my five ways ofthe fantasy industry is failing us as auction

(37:44):
drafters is this the industry does notspend enough time emphasizing pre draft preparation through
situational gaming. Situational gaming, andwe touched on this briefly last week when
I'm made my poor impersonation of themovie War Games with Matthew Brodrick. Would

(38:06):
you like to play a game?That's what you're gonna have to do,
and that is your specific call toaction in number four here, because I
think that the poor emphasis on predraft planning comes down to one thing is
that people don't really know what totell you to do to prepare. And
we're gonna have a whole episode onpreparation, but that's not what this is

(38:27):
about. This is the time whenyou need to try to get greedy with
your roster. This is the timewhen you need to start testing yourself and
you need to start comparing and contrastingcertain players that are going to drastically affect
your situation. What do I meanby this? This is a lot of
word salad, but just remember thatyou must game your own inflection points before

(38:53):
you get into the draft. Andwhat does it mean to gain an inflection
point? That sounds pretty ridiculous.It sounds like corporate speak or something,
but it's really important. And here'swhy. If you believe that you have
an approach that you really like,then your situation should be dictating what players

(39:15):
you should be chasing. Okay,simple enough, right, But break it
down even further because this is wherepeople where it gets lost in translation and
where people don't do enough work,and this is where fantasy sites don't know
how to teach you how to think, And let me tell you right now,
this is what we're going to dothe rest of the summer. Is
this situational gaming? All right?When you go into a draft, is

(39:37):
it your idea that you want togo really cheap at tight end? Do
you want to go really cheap atquarterback? Do you want to spend a
lot of money and wide receiver?Do you want to go cheap at RB
two but get it good in RBone? Do you want to go zero
RB? What is your situation thatyou're after? So then you need to
game your particular inflection points, becauselet me just say, compare and contrast

(40:01):
comes down to something that really couldbe an endless process, and we can't
have an endless process. So whatI want you to do is something I
call getting greedy. All right,So let's go through a couple examples here
to further illustrate this point of howwe can work pre draft by gaming our

(40:22):
own inflection points. All right,here's the first one, and the first
one is this. I really hadthe idea in my head that I wasn't
going to spend too much on myRB two, but I do have fourteen
dollars down as what I want topay for my RB two. However,
I'm also a big believer in KyrineWilliams. Now, keep in mind these
are hypotheticals. I'm not sitting heretelling you to buy and go all in

(40:45):
on Kyrine Williams, although I dolike him. But here's the thing.
If you're talking about a fourteen dollarsplayer as your RB two, you're not
going to get Kyrine Williams for fourteenbucks, right. However, in your
situation, you are going to bereal eyeing heavily on finding value at the
running back position. So what youneed to be doing is trying to what

(41:07):
I call get greedy by saying,how could I possibly land Kyne Williams as
my RB two? Okay, andI know that sounds funny because he's going
to be an RB one in mostrooms, But refer back to point number
three and that the magnification of people'sopinions is really important here. There are

(41:27):
a lot of people who do notlike Kyron Williams, and as a result,
you're going to possibly get a pricethat you didn't expect to get on
Kyron Williams. And that all goesinto what we're talking about today. Gaming
your own inflection points means that ifyou believe that you can get Kyrien Williams
as your RB two, then youhave to try to figure out what it

(41:50):
takes to get him as your RBtwo. When is the perfect time to
nominate him? So if he stallsout in the upper teens or low twenties,
you you have to already have ananswer in your head about what you're
going to do. So I'm nottelling you that you have to do this
for every player. That that's impossible. You can't compare and contrast every player.
But move on to my second example, and we're going to tie both

(42:13):
of these examples together here. Let'ssay that you watched Josh Jacobs just go
for twenty three bucks. Now rightnow in ADP, he's about RB eleven,
RB ten is Travis Etn, andRB twelve is Isaiah Pacheco. Neither
one of those players have gone yet, and Jacobs went for twenty three bucks.
You would have to know what youthink about Pacheco and Etn relative to

(42:37):
Jacobs and that twenty three dollars price. You must compare and contrast those players,
But you don't just compare and contrastthem as standalone entities. You compare
and contrast them for your situation.So straight ADP tells you, yes,
Etn is better, so he's goingto go for more than twenty three dollars,

(43:00):
which is what Jacobs went for.But that's that's not what we're doing
here. What we're doing here istrying to figure out whether or not we
like Pachecko more than Jacobs or Etnmore than Jacobs or less than Jacob's.
What do we think and that comparison, that contrasting between the players and what
you think about them is what's goingto come into play when you have to

(43:21):
decide in the situation what you're goingto spend your money on. So go
back to the Kyron Williams example andsay, okay, if Williams stalls out
for eighteen nineteen twenty twenty two dollars, what are you willing to pay in
order to have him as your RBtwo and to take your roster over the
top and that type of a situation, what are you willing to pay?

(43:43):
Have you thought about it yet?And that's what I mean when I talk
about comparing and contrasting Josh Jacobs withPachecko, with ETN. That's all very
important, but it's only important insofaras you juxtapose it with your desires for
your roster in that specific auction.I know that sounds like a lot,
but it's not, because it onlycomes down to what works for you.

(44:06):
And that's what I find that theindustry fails us at so alarmingly. That
we must situationally game the most importantparts of our draft, and that requires
some work ahead of time that we'venever done before. And what I mean
by that is I don't want youto go it's impossible to compare and compress
contrast every player. I don't wantyou to go down to RB thirty four

(44:29):
and be like, what is thedifference between Gus Edwards and some other random
jag. That's not what we're doinghere. We have specific inflection points on
our roster. I want to geta cheap RB two. Okay, well,
then what are the questions that aregoing to surround my ability to land
that RB two? What are thequestions around that? And ask yourself those

(44:53):
questions, and when you have thoseanswers in your head, then you realize,
okay, all the decisions become thatmuch easier throughout the draft. It's
that much easier. And what doI mean by getting greedy? Okay,
let's end it here on this point. Getting greedy means how can I possibly

(45:13):
take my roster to a level thatI never could in a snake draft.
And that's one of the biggest thingsthat I love about auction drafting. You
can get a roster that you cannever get in a snake This is something
that Scott and I are going totalk a little bit about later, but
it's something that I harp on allthe time, and it's one of the
reasons why I talk about Christian Watsonnow. And you know, I've been

(45:35):
talking about Amari Cooper and George Pickens, and these are the kind of guys
who people have some reservations about,and they're a little concerned about these guys,
and for good reason, they havesome red flags. I get it,
but I want you to get greedyhere and say, Okay, well,
I'm going to blow off my runningbacks. But if I could get
Karen Williams for X amount, andthen I could turn around and land James
Cook for X amount, and thenwhat if I ended up with Amari as

(46:00):
my wide receiver three, and GeorgePickens as my wide receiver four and Christian
Watson as my wide receiver five.Can you see how I'm talking about getting
greedy here? Can you see howwe are gaming our own builds by talking
about these individual players. I wantedto go cheap at running back, so

(46:22):
I wanted to have a lot ofupside at wide receiver, and I wanted
to have a lot of different widereceivers. And nowhere else can you build
rosters like you can in an auctiondraft. So when I say to get
greedy, I'm talking about really tryto slot some players in some lower levels
and you really think it's possible.Okay. And I talked about this last

(46:43):
summer about saying, hey, thatcould be a bad thing. It could
end up being something that backfires.But in your pregame analysis, in your
war games ahead of time, Iwant you to get real greedy and say,
Okay, I can get Kyraen asmy one, I can get Cook
as my two, I can getmy quarterback is going to be Anthony Richardson
and my tight end is going tobe Competence, and go for all these

(47:04):
upside crazy guys that you think thatyou can get for the perfect price.
Now, when you get into theauction, it's probably not going to happen,
But the process of trying to puttogether that incredible roster is going to
be the way that you figure itout during the draft, and you're going
to know situationally how to react whenyou get in the draft, because you've

(47:27):
already done all that. And againI'm not here to tell you, Okay,
well my wide receiver two is goingto be this player. Now you
have to keep your mind open andsay, I've got this big group of
wide receiver twos, I'll take anyone of them because you're able to properly
go through those processes that allow youto get greedy and then allow you to

(47:47):
compare and contrast for your situation andto gain yourself into the ultimate roster.
All right, Well, the fifthpoint that I want to make today,
then, the fifth reason why Ibelieve the fantasy industry is badly in need
of a paradigm shift is quite simple. They are failing to teach complex problem

(48:09):
solving. I want to say,right out of the gate, this is
my favorite point. But also Irecognize this is one that is most fraught
with difficulties. I understand why websitesdon't go out of their way to say,
hey, we're going to teach youcomplex problem solving today. I get
that, man, I get it, Brah. I understand man, Like,

(48:31):
we can't all like just be totallylike me. We're just not all
going to think about stuff so hard. Brah. So I get it.
I get it. Point number five, I love it, but I understand
why it's got some problems. Butpoint number five is that we are not

(48:53):
being taught complex problem solving visa vauction drafting, and really what it requires
us to revel in the uncomfortableness.It requires us to just wallow in it.
Okay. The concept that I'm goingto introduce right now is something we're
going to talk about forever and everand ever. I'm in okay, and

(49:14):
that is called the cascading decision tree. This is not a new concept.
This is not something I'm making upon my own. I get that.
I get that this is an original, But it's super important, the cascading
decision tree. And that is somethingthat auctions are all about. When you
go through the process of trying tofigure out what you're supposed to be doing

(49:37):
in each particular situation. You willget better at it because all of these
decisions are, for the most part, difficult decisions. And I understand that,
but you don't get any better atit unless you do it. And
that cascading decision tree is what helpsyou get better because you can say,

(49:58):
Okay, the basic decision I haveto make his X, and the next
hardest decision I have to make iswhy, And I'm gonna go through that
a little bit here in just asecond. But that decision tree is what
allows you to make these decisions atthe heat of the moment. And believe
it or not, you're not gonnahave to go Okay, A, B,
C, D. You're not gonnahave to do that. Your brain
will just do it, but youhave to get there first, and the

(50:22):
more you do it, the betteryou get. So let me tell a
brief poker story, because I believethis is a good illustration of what I'm
talking about. I'm playing the othernight and we're down to three handed in
this tournament. There's only twenty fivepeople left, or excuse me, twenty
five people signed up for the tournament. We're down to the final three,
and we're in the money, andthe player at the table with the most
chips. The chip leader has playeda very specific game the entire night,

(50:45):
and I've sat next to him,so I've noticed what kind of game he's
played. So I'm in the bigblind with a jack and a five.
I don't have anything good, butthe other guy folds, and the chip
leader limps in my small blind.Well it's my big blind, but limps
in their small online and it's justa heads up pot and I have a
jack and a five, and theflop comes out jack jack three. All

(51:08):
right, So that is a greatflop, especially three handed. You're almost
always going to be crushing your opponentat that point with a set of jacks.
So again, I have jack five. The flop is jack jack three,
and he thinks about it for aminute and bets into me on the
flop. Now this is a dreamscenario because he's the chip leader. I'm

(51:30):
third in chips out of three andI'm not critical, but I'm in the
spot where I need to win apot, and certainly we need to start
chipping away at his lead. Sohe leads into me on the flop and
I think about it for a secondact like I'm thinking about it like,
all I'm thinking about is how I'mgonna raise him on the turn, and
I call, and then the turnis a six. Okay, so jack

(51:51):
jack three six, I've got myjack five. I don't have a boat
yet, but still got what Ithink to be a hammer lock on the
hen. And then he comes outwith a very curious bet. He bets
the same exact number on the turnthat he bet on the flop. Now
there's a lot of money in thepot at this point, because we're late
in the tournament. The amount ofmoney in the pot is such that we

(52:14):
are putting together a really large pot. So my idea all along on how
to play the pot was I wasgoing to call on the flop and then
raise him on the turn and hopefullymake some money out of somebody who had
a pair. But on a jackjack three six board, it's not like
he could really get that excited aboutanything in his hand. I really want

(52:36):
to see like a king or aqueen or an ace on the turn so
that he could hit top pair andfeel a lot better about his hand.
So when he bets the turn,a lot of things had changed for me
from my original plan to raise theturn, because What did I know about
this player? Well, I knewthat all along. I'd been sitting next
to him for the entire final table. He had only bet at times when

(53:00):
he had good cards. He wasa pretty tight player. He's the chip
leader of the entire tournament when hegets to the final table, and he
never really got out of line theentire final table. I never saw him
make a bluff or make a badplay, or make an ill advised move.
He was super rock solid, straightforward. I don't think he was a

(53:20):
great poker player, but he wasvery rock solid, and that's what I
knew about him. So I hadplanned to raise the urn card no matter
what it was, and then suddenlyI got a little bit concerned because of
what I knew about him and hisbet on the turn being a little bit
of a curious bet. So Istart thinking to myself, am I ahead

(53:43):
here? And what do I haveto gain by raising the pot? And
the whole reason I tell you thisthought process is to tell you that I
went through my own cascading decision treein this particular pot, and it turned
out to give me some out thatI didn't expect. Because as I'm feeling
my way through this pot and thinkingto myself, you know that I'm seeing

(54:07):
dollar signs and seeing that I'm gonnawin a big pot. I start to
think to myself, what is theupside here? Because I have the set,
but I have a pretty weak kicker. I don't have the boat.
What's going to pay me off here? Who is going to give me a
lot of money in this pot unlessI let him bluff at the pot because

(54:28):
if I raise him and he's gotnothing, he's going away. And if
I raise him he's got something,he's just gonna call and then he's gonna
set the hook by checking the river, and I'm gonna bet and he's gonna
crush me. All of a sudden, I realized that my decision tree on
the flop had changed vastly by hisactions and by the card on the turn.
And that's what's so important about auctiondrafting, the complex problem solving that

(54:52):
goes along with auction drafting is uncomfortable, and I was uncomfortable in this pot
and how I play this pot withthis player. But that decision tree has
a lot of different points on it. Right at the top, you have
to say, Okay, well,what money do I have, And then
flowing down from there like a flowchart, what money do they have,

(55:15):
how many spots in the roster dothey have filled? And then on the
other side of the decision tree,you have how many roster spots do you
have? What do you need foryour roster? What do you want for
your roster? And yet another branch, maybe a third branch, would be
what tells do you have on theplayers in the room? What knowledge do
you have of them? What lensare you looking at this league through?

(55:37):
What parameters of the league? Whatare the personalities of the league? What
are the opinions of the individual managers? All of this stuff is part of
your decision tree, and that ispart of the complex problem solving, and
all of that is difficult to doon the fly. It's uncomfortable, but
we must wallow in the uncomfortableness becausethat decision tree, which nobody discusses,

(56:01):
that decision tree, and it isso unbelievably important. It is rarely discussed,
but it is one of the mostimportant things that wants you to take
away from this entire show today thatthe industry fails to teach us this complex
problem solving because there's no one sizefits all article that anybody can write and
say, here's how you should dothis. It's a combination of factors that

(56:23):
we have to go through in likea complex flow chart on the run that
tells us what we should be doingin that particular moment. And the big
part here that we have trouble with, and the big part that nobody wants
to talk about, is that thosedecisions are constantly evolving. They are constantly

(56:46):
evolving, and that's why it's uncomfortable, and that's why it's difficult. But
hey, the fact that you're hereand you want to learn and get better
at it means that you're willing tobe uncomfortable to make yourself more comfortable on
draft day. So I believe thatthe last way that the industry is failing
us is failing to teach us complexproblem solving and the cascading decision tree that

(57:12):
allows us to be flexible throughout thedraft as we constantly reassess our current situation.
So just like the poker tournament handthat I told you about, I
constantly thought about what I was doingduring that hand, and it changed drastically
from moment to moment, and thosechanges in those moment to moment ideas and

(57:35):
differences of opinion that come from thatdecision tree are what makes us great auction
drafters. And when I talk aboutbecoming a great auction drafter, I want
to pull it all together by sayingthis. You must break through that linear
thought and you must understand that themagnification of opinions and personalities is going to
happen, and that all of thatstuff together is what brings us into this

(58:00):
decision tree that allows us to makecorrect decisions during an auction draft. So
I believe that the industry is failingus in five key ways, and there
are specific ways that we can combatthat problem in starting to push for a
paradigm shift in auction drafting. Numberone, we must break our linear thought

(58:22):
process. Number two, we mustunderstand that AAV and ADP are not the
same thing. Number three, wemust pay attention to the magnification of leak
factors and personalities. Number four,we must emphasize getting greedy in our pre
draft thought process by gaming our inflectionpoints. And number five, we must

(58:45):
engage in more complex problem solving andthe cascading decision tree which allows us to
excel in an auction draft room.Well, I know that was a lot,
and I knew I throw a lotat you there, but I realized

(59:06):
that I think this is going tobe part of my magnum opus. It's
part of one of the biggest thingsthat I want to continue to push.
As somebody in this industry who's tryingto push this format, I think I'm
doing everyone at a service by continuingto tow the line of what these big

(59:29):
sites tell us we should be thinkingabout auctions. I no longer believe that
most of the preparation or most ofthe articles out there are anything more than
fluff that really helps us feel betterbut doesn't actually do anything for our long
term success in auctions. So we'regoing to push this all summer long,
and we're going to push it foreverand ever, because I really believe this

(59:51):
paradigm shift needs to happen. Andonce we see it start to happen,
I can relax a little bit.But for now, we're going to push
and push at that general idea.All right, Well, thank you so
much for listening to me, thankyou for listening to my ranching about it,
because frankly, that's what it is, and I feel like It's an
important part of this process that everyone'smissing, and I hope that you realize

(01:00:15):
how big it actually is. Solet's move on. We've done our damage
here in the auction draft realm withthe introduction here the FF legal update and
the five ways that the fantasy industryis failing us auction drafters. But I
want to get on to discussions withDrew because we've got Scott Pianowski from Yahoo.

(01:00:36):
He is a Hall of Famer fromthe Fantasy Sports Writers Association, and
Scott is one of the smartest peopleI know. And I usually say one
of the smartest people in the industry, but that's not even a tag I
want to put on him. He'snot one of the smartest people in the
industry. He's one of the smartestpeople I know period. He's just a
very intelligent, well read guy.And you're going to enjoy every minute of

(01:00:59):
this hour line discussion I'm going tohave with Scott. So let's get to
it. This week's Discussions with Drewand Scott Pianowski. Time for discussions with
Drew, in depth conversations with thebrightest minds in the fantasy industry. Welcome
into this week's Discussions with Drew.Our guest this week is a fantasy writer

(01:01:20):
for Yahoo, both in fantasy footballand baseball, but also happens to be
a Fantasy Sports Writers Association Hall ofFame member none other than mister Scott Pianowski.
One of the people in the industrythat I have become friends with.
I guess we would say, butjust blessed to be, you know,
in your sphere because I really enjoythe work you do and have enjoyed getting

(01:01:43):
to know you. Welcome to theshow, Scott, Thanks for being here.
My pleasure, Drew, and lovelyintroduction, and yeah, it's great
the people you meet in the fantasyspace. And one reason why I'm such
a big fan of yours is you'redoing content. You know, all the
all the legal threads that you putout. You're giving this information that I
don't know anybody else's doing it.And I know that you love the auction

(01:02:04):
format. We call it salary capformat over it. Yeahhoo, you that's
a passion format for you. It'sa passion format for me. So football
obviously unites all of us in fantasyfootball, but I just love the fact
that you have a unique voice inthe industry and getting to know you has
been been a blast, and Ican't wait to see you in about a
month or so for the King's Classic, that great event, and can't Ohio.

(01:02:25):
It can't be going to the Hallof Fame. And then's when you
know that fantasy football season has reallykicked in and we all convene in Ohio.
Yeah, I can't wait either,because a couple of years ago,
you were just this I call youmy arch nemesis. You were the guy
in the room who every time Iwas about to get a deal, I
heard your voice pop up from thecorner of the room. You knew I

(01:02:45):
was about to get a deal,and you were. You were breaking me
apart. But that's that's the nameof the game. And that's why I
started to enjoy talking with you andwanted to have you on the show,
because you are one of those voicesthat makes me have to work extra hard
to get a great team. AndI don't think that's a coincidence that you

(01:03:07):
that I haven't had a lot ofsuccess in the last couple of years when
you've been around. But anyway,how long have you been doing auctions?
Is that something that you well,are you okay with being auctions versus salary
cap on this show, how doyou feel about whatever term you want to
use is fine. I just wantpeople to know that if you're trying to
set up an auction on Yeah Who, it will say salary cap draft.
But you know, as far asI'm concerned, their phrases are are synonymous.

(01:03:30):
But okay, man, how longhave you been doing them? I'm
trying to think the first one Idid, and it goes back to the
nineties, and I've done them forhockey, I've done them for baseball,
I've done for football. One ofmy favorite ones is a golf league that
I run with a lot of theroad a wire guys, which I'm I'm
in first place because I said ScottieScheffler no matter what, and he's having

(01:03:50):
an unbelievable season. So every dayI kind of think about, is there
any way that Scott Jense could passme? Is Xander Schoffle and a really
good tea a team that would wouldbe winning nine times out of ten?
But I just happened to land onthe right player this year. It looks
like. But yeah, so youplay in the auction format and what I
love for example, the fish Bowlis coming up. Scott Fish, you

(01:04:13):
know, want just a treasure forthe fantasy industry. And what I love
about the fish Bowl in addition tothe fact that just unite so many people
and you get to see all thesedifferent drafts happening at the same time,
which is exciting. But what ScottFish does with the fish Bowl set up
is he has very unorthodox settings andwhat it allows is diversity of strategy,
diversity of roster build. And that'swhat you get with the auction format.

(01:04:35):
If you want to go stars andscrubs, you want to get the three
of the top five or six playersin fantasy, you can do it.
You'll pay a price later in yourroster, but you can do that.
You want to have a team that'sall kind of mill class players, you
know, a bunch of bs andb pluses, but no superstars, you
can do that. You have noneof this, like, oh, you
know, I really want to draftCD Lamb this year. You come to
your draft, you get the twelfthpack. Well, you're not getting a

(01:04:56):
CD Lamb. You can have asay on everybody. Also, Drew,
you know, if you and Igo into a snake draft, if I'm
picking second, if you're picking eleventh, it's almost like we're not in the
same room. I'm not influencing you, you're not influencing me. But Jeff
Erickson, I think once said thedifference between snake drafts and auction draft it
was like limit hold them versus nolimit hold them. Where you're playing no

(01:05:16):
limit, you're going to be awareof everybody, everybody, stack size,
everybody, What is their objective,what is their emotional state right now?
At least when you're playing it ata high level. I mean, you
know, it's a lot going on, You're lending a lot of different planes,
and you've been very kind about howI've done with some of the auctions.
Maybe I've gotten in your way atthe King's Classic. I haven't won
any of those auction leagues either,so I maybe it's been to my own

(01:05:38):
detriment, But I always there's beentimes I've gone through a snake draft and
have said, oh, yeah,that draft went really well. It fell
well, I got players I wantedwhatever. After every auction draft, my
head's spinning and I'm like, ohman, there was a pocket, there
was an opportunity. I should havedone this. I should have done that
I'm always filled with regret and secondguessing, and that to me is featured

(01:05:59):
not because it's just such a dynamicformat. And again with the diversity of
strategy, all the different thinking youhave to do, all the different calculus
that goes into it, that's whyit's my favorite format by far. And
I'll also close with this, ifI've known, if I've encouraged fifty people,
one hundred people, seventy people,how many people ever to try this
format, I've never had anybody comeback and said, you know what,

(01:06:19):
that wasn't for me. I wishI hadn't done it. Everybody comes back
like, wow, that was somuch fun. It was just great being
in on every player, or greathaving all these different choices I normally don't
have. I think everybody tries theformat that the experience that I've had,
they come back with a positive experience. I've had the same thing, kind
of like there's a few books thatI've read in my life that when somebody

(01:06:41):
comes to me and says, hey, I want a recommendation, I'm always
going to go to these couple ofbooks. Then nobody's ever come back to
me and said, yeah, thatreally wasn't for me. The people that
read those books say that was awesome. That's exactly what you said it was
going to be. That's how Ifound auction drafting too. Just the way
you described it is that I alwaystell people, go to your lee.
You can say, let's do itone year, and then if people don't

(01:07:02):
like it, we'll switch back.And nobody has ever switched back, and
nobody has ever said that that strategydidn't work. Well, let's go with
this a little bit, because Ihang on you two me a little bit.
What are these books? I wanta couple of book recommendations. Hey,
I'm down. So the one ofthe first ones that I always recommend
to somebody is called Pillars of theEarth by Ken Follett, and it is

(01:07:23):
historical fiction. And the way I'mgoing to describe it's going to sound boring,
but I promise you it's not.It's a it's an epic which spans
over a couple generations of people.But it opens with a guy by the
name of Tom Builder, who isa builder back in the twelve hundreds trying
to find work. And back inthose days, all you did was if
you found one big building that youwere going to build. That's what you

(01:07:45):
did for your entire lifetime. Youjust settled in that town and you built
that building until you died. Andthen that's what he's doing. He's trying
to find a big building that hecan build that's going to set his family
up for life, and it,you know, spirals out from there about
building the giant cathedrals that they hadtwelve hundreds. It's an incredible piece of
fiction, but it's historically accurate,and that's that's what I've never recommended that

(01:08:05):
book to somebody that has not lovedthat book that want to try, I
will. It's doe to me,so I'll have to check that out.
But yeah, I could talk aboutbooks all day long. There's a couple
of Stephen King books that I thinkare just some of the most unbelievable fiction.
I've ever loved. The Dead Zone. That movie too, will take
you out because it's so relevant today. I will say, if you're in
the move for a sports book,I've never had anybody come back to me

(01:08:28):
and say they didn't enjoy Ball four, which was Jim Bounton's nineteen sixty nine
diary of former fastball pitcher for theYankees, couple of All Star teams,
played with Mickey Bandel Whitey Ford,his arm gohes Kabluey tries to make it
as a knuckleball pitcher, and alsojust somebody who was a different type of
personality, was college educated in thesport that largely had a lot of kids
who came right out of high school. So he always kind of felt like

(01:08:48):
an outsider. And so I alwaysthought you could teach Ball four in a
psychology class or a group's dynamics class. It's just a wonderful take on being
in a sport that was just aboutto change. Free agency hadn't happened yet.
The owners kind of had the playersby the you know, they had
they had the leverage. Let's justsay we'll keep the family show. So

(01:09:10):
BAL four is just a it's avery funny book, a very human book.
People a lot of times focus onthe humor, but I think it
maybe doesn't get enough credit for beingas perceptive as it is. And my
little brother still has one over onme. He wrote to Jim bout when
he was a kid. They hadto do some project or they had to
write to an author or something,and Jim Bouten wrote back a personalized letter,
gave him a little couple of swagitems, and I always wanted to

(01:09:31):
meet Jim Bowten, interview with JimBouten, just have a beer with him,
or be his friend or something.I just have some association with him.
I never did. He passed awaya couple of years ago, but
my little brother still has that lettersomewhere and the connection that he made with
him. So he's always been awhole of it over my head. But
one of my favorite reads and abook that I probably read every couple of
years. That's cool, and that'ssomething I do too. I reread my

(01:09:54):
favorite books over and over. Thisis why we get along with Scott because
you know, I talk about thesmart people in the end industry. You're
always one of the people that comesup in my brain when I think about
that. You and like you know, rich Reebar and Joyn McFarland, some
of these guys that just intelligent peoplethat I just enjoy having a conversation with
period, but also extends into thefantasy space too. And of course that's
why you're here. Because I liketo think that the auction brief listeners are

(01:10:17):
maybe a little cut above just becauseit's it's a little bit hard. I'm
an acquired taste to get through someof my shows. I'm a little bit
windy. But we have a purposefor that, and that's always why I've
enjoyed talking to you so well.Hey, you know, I was gonna
let's let's do this organically. Iwas going to do auction stuff at the
end, but we're into it nowand I like this conversation so much.

(01:10:40):
Let's just roll with it a littlebit. Because auctions are so different,
and they are so so much thereare so many barriers to it that I
always have a couple things loaded upthat I tell people like, oh,
well, why do you like itso much? Or why is it this
or that? Or the beginners whocome to me and say what should I
know? What are a couple ofthings that you have loaded up that's advice

(01:11:03):
that you give to people, orthat you think is really important for people
either not in the format or whoare just starting in the format. Some
advice you like to give out.Yeah, so many different places I can
go with that. You want tohave a really good idea of players you
think you can get for low priceswho are going to fill out the back
here, no matter what your strategyis, even if you go for a

(01:11:26):
more balanced roster. A lot oftimes I don't like to have single dollar
players on my team because I liketo have some say in how good my
players are in the end game.I like to keep a little bit of
that slush fund where some people arefine, Look, okay, I'm down
to eight dollars and eight players,and I'll just get single dollar players.
I don't want to be in thatposition where you have the burden of the
nomination. You have to throw outsomebody. If he stinks, you're stuck
with him. If he's good,somebody surely is going to go two,

(01:11:47):
three, four up the ladder andthen you don't talk for another fifteen minutes.
I can't stand that. That's justnot my personality. Some people are
perfectly fine with that, they playthat strategy really well. It's not my
preference. So I like to keepa little bit for the endgame. But
I like to And also, bythe way, a lot of times in
late bidding, are there any gamestrategy. Maybe not that many people in

(01:12:09):
the room will have a two orthree dollars bid left. Okay, if
I'm in a position. Say Ihave I don't know nine dollars left,
and I need four or five players. Whether it's an online auction or an
in person auction, I'm gonna win. Okay, Drew Davenport's up to nominate,
and I know you're maybe you haveto, maybe you're down to single
dollars. I know that nomination's probablycoming out at one. I'm going to

(01:12:30):
be very alert and ready. Youhave to react here. You can't think
there's none of this all. I'llgo on a website or I'll open a
magazine. You have to, youknow, really react here. I'm going
to be ready to spit out too. If you come to a name I've
been circling a lot of times.I have a piece of scratch paper and
I write down like five or sixor ten names, just to have them
fresh of mind. But you wanta lot of times it's the race to

(01:12:50):
the first person who says two,where maybe three or four people had that
overbid ready, and when you sayone and it's the name I wanted,
I'm gonna spit out that two reallyquickly. And it's not you know,
not thinking you're reacting here. Theidea is you've done your prep work ahead
of time, and then it's justreacting at the end game. So I
like to have some slush fund forthe end game. I'm ready to spit
out to jump in that bid iftime if it's a time factor thing.

(01:13:14):
A lot of times the first guyin also remember this is maybe you need
to auction a few times before youpick up this strategy. But talk about
a basketball player, right they seesomebody's breaking away for a layup and they
think, well, I could goand defend that layup and try to block
that shot, maybe follow them,But sometimes it's just better to save the
file can see the layup. Sometimesthat's what happens in fantasy, right auction,

(01:13:35):
a guy's going to buy a player, Maybe he doesn't need that player.
Maybe if he purchases that player,he's going to be in a really
negative financial situation for the rest ofthe auction. Sometimes you let it go
because they've made a mistake, oryou let it go because if you're going
to defend that bid, it's goingto screw up your financial plan. So
you have to know that's a moreof an required experience strategy. But sometimes

(01:13:58):
you have to know when to concede. Yeah, I know, this price
is pretty good, but now Tony'sgoing to be out of my hair for
the rest of the auction, orif I got involved, there's I'm going
to end up buying a third tightend. I don't want to do that.
Even though this price is good,you have to sometimes your opponents are
going to get good purchases. That'sjust part of the game and the structure,
the framework, the timing the auction. That's why when you look at

(01:14:18):
these things out of context, alot of it are like, oh wow,
these guys were so expensive. Theseguys were so inexpensive. A lot
of times it comes down to theflow of the auction and when the timing
and when things happen. But youhave to know when it's right to concede
that lamp. Those are premium spotsto start here. Man. I love
it because the first thing that yousaid about the scratch piece of paper is
something that you kind of started offas that wasn't your central point, but

(01:14:42):
it you work that in there asa little nugget that I want people to
not miss. Because there's something thatI do in the middle of my auctions
that I find to be extremely helpful, and that is things are developing as
it's going, and they're rarely developingthe way you think they're going to develop.
So I have a piece paper thereand I just make little notes like
this is going too expensive, thisis happening, or this is happening,

(01:15:04):
and I just little keywords, andthen that develops into a list of,
like you said, five to tenplayers that I really want to focus on
later that I'm going to have toknow what my strategy is to acquire those
players. Do I need to nominatethem now? Do I need to wait
a couple rounds? Do I needto just wait till the very end.

(01:15:25):
All those strategies can't come around unlessyou're active in the process during the auction.
So I love that one. Andthen the second thing you said about
when it can see the layup,Oh my gosh, you're preaching here,
and I love it because this iswhat I've been saying for a couple of
years now. The problem with auctiondrafters in general is they have trouble passing

(01:15:45):
deals and you just have to getused to it. Just tell yourself there
are going to be six or eightplayers during the draft where you go,
ah, that was too cheap,but you can't be the enforcer on everyone.
And there are certain guys that youknow, guys or girls that you're
in a draft with them, andyou know they're gonna try to be the
enforcer. And I cop to thatstuff early, and I'm gonna let them

(01:16:08):
try to enforce on me, andI'm that I'm gonna stick them. And
it's only gonna take once for themto realize that they shouldn't have done that.
But you, if you're the guydoing it, they're gonna cop to
you doing it, and they're gonnathey're gonna end up ruining your draft.
And that's what I've preached about foreveris just don't let that idea that you've
got to be the sheriff. You'renot the only one who has to be

(01:16:29):
the sheriff all the time. Otherpeople can do it. Let me piggyback
on that. So, yes,you don't want to be in charge of
being the price enforcer, being thesheriff on constantly on guys. And here's
another really key strategy. Okay,just just don't bid because you like the
sound of your voice. If ifa name comes up and this player does
not fit your strategy, does notfit your budget does not forget them,

(01:16:50):
because it's the dynamic thing. We'rein the middle of a draft. Dak
Prescott comes up, You've already kindof set your quarterback room. I know
you want to run the up.Maybe you want to keep things moving along,
or it's just nice just to throwa number out there. You know
somebody's to top it. So what'sthe harm of just being part of that
step ladder. Well, here's theharm. When you bid in the middle

(01:17:12):
part of that walk up, you'regiving your singing to the room. I'm
interested here, whether it's I wantto purchase the player, or I want
to enforce the price to make suresomebody else pays for it. I'm engaged
on this bid, and so somebodyelse might think, Okay, Scott's got
this, Drew's got this. Ican step off, I go to the
bathroom, I can read my email, I can focus on what's on my
list, do a little bit notetaking. You don't want to give the

(01:17:36):
wrong message to the room that you'reprepared to defend that bit if you really
don't want to. So Now,granted, if the price is ridiculous and
you think at the last minute youhave to call them audible. You can
always do that, but I don'twant to give the wrong message to my
room that yes, I'm engaged here, I'm defending, I'm going to be
part of this when you really haveno interest in seeing it through. And

(01:17:56):
again, it's just the walk uppart of the bit three, four or
five. If you know the priceis going to go a lot higher.
If you don't want to be thesheriff on that player, or you don't
think that player is going to makeinterest to you, just keep your mouth
shut, let other people, Letother people jump in and them defend it.
And what usually happens with the auctionsis that late in the bidding,
it comes down to two people.It's it's head to head. It's this

(01:18:16):
person that person. And if youdon't want to be in that position,
don't don't give a wrong message tothe room, because it's then you're gonna
you're gonna wonder why when you endup bowing out. You know what do
I nobody else want to defend andthey look at you like what happened?
I thought you were I thought youhad this one. You were on duty
for this bid. So if youdon't want to be the defender, don't
say anything at all. Work on, work on your list, work on

(01:18:40):
And also, just like when yousit down at a poker table, you
don't know anybody in this game.You sit down, you're trying to figure
out, you know, who's loose, who plays every hand, who raises
in position, who plays out aposition, like it doesn't matter whatever.
You're trying to profile the table.And obviously it's it's a dynamic game.
It's an emotional game. You know, somebody may be played different after they

(01:19:00):
lose a big pot, or afterthey make a bad decision, or if
they get a lot of chips infront of them. Whatever have they rebought?
Are they drinking? Do they seemagitated? Are they just watching the
game not even playing attention to thegame at all. You want to be
just kind of profiling people. Andyou know, I don't mean that in
a negative way, but just youknow what, everybody has a different personality.
How are they dressed, how dothey stack their chips? Are their
chips perfectly aligned or are their chipslike not even sacked to the point that

(01:19:25):
the dealer has to prompt them todo it. That's what you want to
be doing. Again, this isexperienced thing. When you first get involved
in this format, you may notbe comfortable doing all this stuff, and
you need to get kind of findyour cadence and your flow and everything.
You may want to do it witha partner. You need to be symbiotic
and player evaluation to do that,because you don't have a lot of time
to kind of compare notes in theactual game. But when I sit down

(01:19:45):
a new poker table, I alwayssay, the first couple of laps,
just sit on your hands, youknow. If there's a really good hand,
play it. But I'm mostly foldingand just trying to gather intel and
just try to figure out what iswhat's everybody? Where are they coming from?
Where are they up? Are theydown? Are they happy? They
sad? Are they here for action? Are they hear more of As a
shrewd player, I'm trying to figureout what if I got myself into.

(01:20:06):
You know, the great David Doddscame on my show a couple of years
ago and said something similar where hesaid, if I don't know the league
very well, I may go fiftysixty picks into an auction without doing a
whole lot. And he said,now, of course, if all the
top talent's flying off the board.You got to get somebody. But he
said, I spend that time justfiguring out what everyone's tendencies are. He

(01:20:28):
said, there's no point to forcingyourself to act in a situation where you're
completely uncomfortable. Again with a caveatthat you can't just let every first round
and second round player go before youact. But in general, that's when
you're taking the temperature of the room, and that's when you're figuring out things
that are going to pay dividends nearthe mid to end portion of the draft,
Like this person only clicks the buttonwhen they're ready to buy that player,

(01:20:51):
or this person only comes in latewhen you know they really want somebody.
Things like that are things you canpick up whether you're live or whether
you're online. And if you're notpaying attention to that stuff, then you're
wrapped up in Hey, I'm goingto click this button, I'm gonna bit
I'm going to be active. AndI will say that I have preached on
my show be active so that youdon't telegraph when you really want somebody when

(01:21:12):
you don't. But that doesn't meanyou have to be on every single player
and sometimes I have a problem withthat where I'm just clicking three and four
and five dollars because i want peopleto see my name pop up over and
over. Kind of get irritated.Likewise, Drew, you don't want people
to have tells on you. Andeven if again, if you're new to
the format and some of this stuff, some of this intel may sound a
little bit overwhelming. Here's a reallysimple trend to pick up on. Just

(01:21:36):
go through. Look at everybody whenthey nominate a player. Are they following
up that player with more bids?Are they trying to get the players they're
nominating, or are they just bidding? Okay, they just bought a tight
end, so they're picking the nextbest tight end because they're not going to
be in on that. What istheir nomination style? The best players will
be constantly varying. Their nomination stylewould be hard to read, but I'm
I have played in Indish Like,there's a guy I really like in Fantasy

(01:22:00):
Baseball who we've done some auctions together, and he very commonly nominates guys he
wants and will chase the players hewants and isn't really that price sensitive.
At the end, he just pickedthis player. He wants this player.
He nominated this player, and he'sgoing to see it through. And I've
had a lot of fun plus wantinghim to death. And at one point
he just looked at me in alive auction he said, I'm going to
leave you holding this bag one ofthese times. He's never done it because

(01:22:24):
I have a really good read onhim. Now that's from experience, that's
from a few different seasons of doingthis. But again, a lot of
people nominate guys. They want alot of people nominate guys. They don't
want a lot of people nominate playerswho don't fit their roster structure, which
is generally a good idea. Imean, if you just landed Patrick Mahomes,
you're probably out on a Olamar Jackson. That's just the way the works

(01:22:44):
supply and demand, unless you wantto go with the Atlanta Falcons build where
you trade to get a high pricedquarterback and then trade draft your next quarterback.
I don't really understand what the Falconsare doing. They drafted an old
quarterback and Michael PENNICKX too, butthey's still an interesting team this season.
But that's another kind of trend.Or you can follow up on because a
lot of people, the best players, you're not going to get a read

(01:23:04):
on them. But I think you'llbe fairly comfortable with a multiple managers in
the room like yeah, I havea sense of where they're coming from.
And at least because we all wantto know the intent, right we want
to know is this does Drew likethis guy? Just Scott like this guy
does David Dodds like this guy doesJoe Bryant like this guy. That's information
is the most important. Gordon Geckotold us this a million years ago.

(01:23:26):
The most important thing you can haveis information. I love it. I
love it, and it feeds intoa question I want to talk about here,
which is there is a difference betweenmarket price enforcing and just bald face
bidding somebody up. You know,the exact example you gave was, I
know this guy really well, I'mjust bidding him up and you're not super

(01:23:48):
interested necessarily, it's player agnostic.You're you're not looking at that player like,
oh I want this guy, heshould or he should be more money.
You're looking at the manager in theroom and saying he's going to pay
more money. So there is adifference there. Do you have a tendency,
because my problem is this, unlessyou're really you really know what you're

(01:24:09):
doing, and you're very comfortable withthat other person, either behind the computer
screen or in the draft room,you can really screw up your entire season
by taking that too far. AndI always tell people, hey, caution
is the name of the game.If you're absolutely just bald faced bidding somebody
up, just be cautious. Butwhen it's market price enforcing, it's a
little different because you're kind of saying, well, I want this player at

(01:24:30):
this price because I think it's toolow. Do you see the blurring I
mean, I know there's a blurringof the lines between those two things,
But do you spend a lot oftime trying to say, hey, I
can plus one this guy or areyou more of a Now this is just
a poor market price. I'm okayhaving this guy at this price. How
do you feel that out? It'sa great question, and I do want

(01:24:51):
to say, even though I pickedup I pulled up a cute example of
somebody who I have a good readon and it's been reliable and it hasn't
bitten me. But all you needto do is push somebody up on a
player you really don't want or doesn'tfit your structure and get caught with your
hand in the cookie dry. Thathappens once or twice, and you that
can really put you on till andI try not to be involved in late

(01:25:15):
bidding on players for the most part, unless I would be happy if the
music stopped and I was stuck withthat player. It's like, okay,
good at the price I can livewith. That's somebody who fits the structure
of the roster where I'm at rightnow in my build. I try not
to get involved in players unless Iyou know, how am I going to
feel if I get stuck with thisplayer. Also another and this is may
this may be a fault of mine, is that when I'm bidding on a

(01:25:39):
player and I'm getting resistance and peopleare shoving back, and people are plus
wanting me back, I want everyauction I'm in. I want anybody to
feel like if I'm involved in latebidding and you keep plus wanting me,
that I'm capable of walking away fromanybody, that I'm not gonna And the
worst thing I realized this isn't obviousnecessarily until you're in the middle of the

(01:25:59):
auction when this happens. But thelast thing you want to do is,
oh my god, this one moregood thing at this position, and a
lot of people need that one thing, and then there's just a crazy inflationary
bidding war that it just it's soulcrushing, and the people who aren't involved
will just be sitting there laughing andenjoying it like it's the greatest day of
their lives. Because here are threepeople who have all this money and they
have nobody to spend it on.It has to be this one person,

(01:26:20):
and somebody who should be like afifteen dollars player goes for like twenty nine
bucks. I've seen that happen inevery sport. It's no fun. You
have to try to get your playerswhen your opponents still have alternatives, because
once there's no alternatives left perceived alternativesin a tier, the pricing can go
haywire. But I try to giveevery room that I play in, and
I realized some of these themes mightbe a little bit nebulous. A lot

(01:26:43):
of it you're going to have toexperience is going to be your best teacher.
More than anything we could ever say. You have to go out and
just get your feet wet and playin different auctions and again, you know,
whatever auction, whatever it is,and go to the baseball game with
your friends with four you and auctionoff the players hitting that night. It's
just just practice, you know,practice bidding on things to just make you
a better player. You know youryour fab bidding strategies. That's another big

(01:27:03):
part of this with you know peoplei'd say I haven't played auctions, Well,
you make fab bids every week,right, I mean, that's basically
another version of this. It's adifferent style, but it helps you to
calibrate a market. I want tocome and low, don't want to come
and high stuff like that, butI want to give every room. I
play in the idea that I canwalk away at any time. I have
a friend who in one of myhome leagues who is really good at bidding

(01:27:26):
quickly because he knows exactly what he'sdoing. And then you think you get
comfortable bidding with him, and thenhe just stops. And everybody has kind
of learned now like, hey,this guy can stop at any time.
But what a great thing for peopleto fear when they're in the middle of
a bidding war with you that you'rebidding the exact same way. His cadence
is very you know, strict andrigorous, so that when he stops,

(01:27:49):
we never know when he's going tostop. That's a fantastic thing in their
mind. Let me give you onemore, maybe one more quick bidding strategy.
I like the price line bid,where you identify I don't even know
if the price line is still likea prominent player in the online space,
so price line. The idea withprice line is you set your own price.
You say, okay, I wanta rental car and I want to

(01:28:10):
pay forty seven bucks, and eitherthey say yes or no. They may
offer you something else whatever, orthey may offer it. So sometimes you
identify a player and say to yourself, okay, this player is worth eighteen
bucks to me, I'm going tothrow at eighteen. If somebody says nineteen,
that's fine. And the idea withmy price line bid is it's not
you don't walk up to eighteen.You just come out with it. Somebody

(01:28:31):
says, say, which is acal pits was an eighteen dollars price line
bid for you? I don't knowif that's the right number or not,
But whatever somebody says, call pitsone buck. You just go eighteen and
you immediately put everybody unnoticed, andyou may win the player right away,
and I get it. If youwin, you might think, oh,
well, maybe I could have justsaid sixteen or fourteen. But I like
putting the ball in their court.You're serious, and you've identified in number

(01:28:55):
you're happy with if you get it. If it goes over that you can
live with it, you walk awayfrom it. So it's you just it's
one decision. You put it outthere and then the market decides what happens.
That's a bid that I don't useit for every player, for sure,
but that's a strategy that I liketo throw out there and I love
to do. One of the greatthings about the auction is that people have
to think quickly. There's none ofthis Okay, I have time, you

(01:29:17):
know the clocks. They don't.The clock's running down. I get a
minute and a half. You know, my picks up in three or four
picks whatever like that. You're forcingpeople to think reactively and they can't.
It's just using a different part oftheir brain. It just the cadence is
sped up. And again, nomatter how experienced you are, you're gonna
walk out of it, and yourhead's gonna spin a little bit, and
you're gonna have regrets. You're gonnado a lot of second guessing no matter

(01:29:39):
how good you are, unless you'rejust illusional, I mean, to be
good at anything, you have tolook yourself in the mirror. What do
I do right? What did Ido wrong? What mistakes did I make?
What trends did I not pick upon? Or when did trends change?
And maybe I didn't. You know, I'm always trying to look at
that and be honest with myself.But yeah, try the priceline bit.
It's a fun one. Well,it is one that put it's a ton

(01:30:00):
of pressure on your opponents, andthat's something that we has been a theme
so far again this summer on theauction brief. You're hitting all the great
notes here, Scott, and Ipromise folks listening. We didn't set this
up, but I coined the phraseearlier in the summer. Pressure and precision,
meaning we don't want to go wildand we don't want to just be
super aggressive where we're over the top. We want to have precision with our

(01:30:24):
bids, but we want to alsoput maximum pressure on people at the same
time, and the Priceline bid seemsto be something that does both of those
in a really simple way. Becauseone of the things that I continue to
say over and over is if youknow where you're going to stop, and
you're prepared, then why give thatperson all that time walking it up five

(01:30:46):
six, seven all the way upto twenty eight bucks where you know it's
going to end up in the uppertwenties. All you did was give your
opponents time to think, do Iwant this player? Do they work for
me? And people who sometimes geton tilt and get hot under the caller,
they're going to bid and they're goingto overspend or they're going to screw
up their draft if you let them. But if you let them calm down

(01:31:08):
and have five minutes while the bidwalks up to twenty eight bucks, they're
going to figure it out and they'regonna say, now, I can't do
that. I got to settle down, I got to move on. So
putting the pressure on them with thatkind of bid is a great strategy.
And I'm going to add something elseoff of what you said earlier. You
said, you know, when youbid and you're stuck holding the bag on

(01:31:29):
somebody that you really didn't intend tohave. I think that there is an
analogy to poker here. Again we'regoing to we're crossing them back and forth
here. But I like it becauseone of the things that I have a
problem with in my poker game isthat I probably don't make enough calls.
I don't look. I hate thefeeling of making a call and then somebody
rolling over the winter and I say, yeah, I shouldn't have called.

(01:31:49):
But if you're not making enough callswhere you're incorrect, then you're not making
enough calls. So you're losing valuethere down the line because people are bluffing
you because you're not making enough calls. There's an analogy here with the converse
of that is totally true too.If you're not caught bluffing, sometimes you're
playing far too conservatively right right exactly, And so that's the same thing in

(01:32:12):
auction drafting. I tell people youdon't want to necessarily be going in there
just bidding people up for the sakeof bidding them up all the time.
However, if you're not market priceenforcing and ending up with the player every
once in a while that you didn'treally want, then you're probably not playing
the game right because there are bargainsthere to be had and we're not talking
like We'll harken back to what wesaid at the beginning of the conversation,
which is that we don't want tobe doing this all the time. We

(01:32:35):
have to pass up some of thebargains, but every once in a while
those bargains are going to fit nicely, and if you're not on top of
it to be market price enforcing andending up with one of those guys like,
oh gosh, I didn't realize Iwas going to have this guy for
nine bucks, but hey, he'sa sixteen dollars player. I'm fine with
him for nine dollars. Then you'renot doing it enough, and therefore you're
leaving money on the table by allowingothers to have such good deals or by

(01:33:00):
denying your roster that player that youneeded that might put you over the top.
So, oh gosh, well,we could do this all day.
Let me go into one more topichere before I want to get into some
specific fantasy situations with you. We'regoing to talk a little bit about,
you know, maybe the giants passinggame. A couple of backfields that are
a little bit cloudy. But soI want people to listening to know we

(01:33:20):
are going to hit some fantasy playershere in just a second. But I
want to talk about the trend recentlyin the last couple of years about wide
receivers, and I'm seeing this inmy auctions, and it's been more pronounced
even in the last two years,the amount of money that's being spent on
wide receivers. Because I've been sayingas long as four or five years ago
that I really thought it was weirdthat people weren't understanding the impact of the

(01:33:42):
dollars on the wide receiver position becausethey were still spending on running back.
Now i've noticed in the last twothree four years that's shifted almost to the
other side, where people are reallywide receiver crazy and it's difficult to go
in there and get a couple oftop wide receivers. So the age old
question is, I'm not sure there'sa perfect answer, because every room's different,
but the age old question is shouldwe be going into these auctions and

(01:34:04):
playing into that and saying, well, everyone's wide receiver crazy. We kind
of got to go with this becausewe need pass catchers that's the NFL now,
Or should we be zigging when everyoneelse is zagging and saying, let's
fade these wide receivers a little bitand let's just stack up our teams at
every other position, and that's howwe build a winner. What's your opinion
about the wide receiver crazing auctions.Yeah, I've been You always feel a

(01:34:28):
little sheepish when you're following a trend. But my teams have been more wide
receiver driven, and like maybe thepast, I don't know, five or
six years with the idea that Iwant a roster where my wide receivers start
themselves. I feel like of thefour major positions, it's hardest to find
an impact wide receiver on waivers andis we don't running back? So much
of running back value is just uncoveringwho's the starter, who's got touches,

(01:34:53):
who's got their down, worker's gotgoal line work? A lot of times
just a player. When a reallygood running back gets hurt, somebody just
inherited a plausible touch projection of tento fourteen touches. Where if Tyreek Hill
gets hurt in Miami, it's possible. There's no bench player, there's no
ascending talent who steps in if TravisKelsey gets hurt in Kansas City, it's

(01:35:15):
not like, oh, okay,good, now we have like a tight
end five. He's going to draftthe practice squad or you know, off
the bench. It doesn't work thatway. But running back, where so
much is chasing the volume, it'snot unusual for a running back who was
undrafted or running back who was draftedlate in the NFL draft. And then
I realized, look, Pooka theCoup was a late round draft pick.
I mean, he's an extremely unlikely, uncertain, unicorn type of player that

(01:35:40):
came up and was great. Andif you got Pookinako in last year,
you feel great about that. Butthat's the last type of player I'd be
trying to identify a year in yearout. They just don't happen very often.
Where other positions, there's tons ofrunning backs who went in round six
or undrafted. Arian Foster was undrafted, Darl Davis was Round six. There's
guys I don't even know that muchabout who will be fantasy to me in

(01:36:00):
the middle of the season at therunning back position. So I my ethos
is I want to have one ofthe stronger wide receiver rooms in the league,
especially with most of my formats,there are three wide receivers. I'd
like to have three wide receivers thatkind of start themselves. Because a big
problem when you look at like theplayers who will be ranked anywhere from like
wide receiver forty to wide receiver sixtyor wide receiver seventy, they still have

(01:36:21):
good games. It's just really difficultto call that shot ahead of time.
And a lot of times we lookat those players as best ball players are
going to get there four or fivegood games. You don't have to predict
when they come. But if you'rein a managed league and you need to
look at somebody, you know,somebody who gets like ninety five targets a
year, somebody who's maybe limited routetree deep threat, you think of like

(01:36:41):
who Marquez valdezt gambling has been mostof his career. We knew every year
we have three to five big games. We have no idea when they're coming.
There's no likely trend. The factthat he just went three for one
eighteen and two doesn't mean he can'thave a goose egg the next week.
There's no consistency there. A lotof times there isn't a pattern there.
So I have followed my most commonbuild for a few years and I'm not

(01:37:02):
locked into this. Flexibility is likemy most important draft strategy of all.
You have to take to some degreewhat the room gives you and be willing
to adjust the things you didn't expect. But my most common build is usually
one running back, that anchor runningback or hero running back. One running
back I feel really good about nowthis year. The position allows that that
player could come in the first,second or third round to me in a

(01:37:24):
snake draft, or I could bepaying what would be a similar price,
and if you adjust it to anauction situation. But I want one running
back I feel really good about.I want a wide receiver room I feel
really good about. And then RBtwo, RB three, RB four.
There's just so many different options thisguys. Now, as we've seen the
NFL go to more platoons more,it's not uncommon for a team to have

(01:37:45):
a couple different running backs to afantasy value. We used to run away
from that quote unquote RBBC. Nowat running back by committees more like with
missed three backs, we have toworry about it gets complicated anyway, long,
long answer short, most of myI am going to steer wide receivers.
I want one of the better widereceiver rooms in the league, but
I still want one really good runningback. I can hang my hat on

(01:38:06):
a comfortable drafting almost at any quarterbackpocket, and I probably won't draft the
top three or four quarterbacks unless it'sa really specialized league. I do enjoy
the super flex format, which totallychanges that calculus, but for this sake
of argument, just to assume you'rein a one quarterback league, I'm not
going to make that a priority.There's a couple of different tight ends I
like, but they're not the highend range tight ends. After four rounds

(01:38:28):
or the most four expensive players Itake in an auction, I would probably
this is not a hard fast rule, but it's probably have three receivers in
one running back. Well. I'mnot going to spend a lot of time
on that answer because you pretty muchjust said what I say. I love
it. I just this is we'rea mind meld here, and I think
this is why we battle. Whenwherever we're in an auction together, we

(01:38:49):
can to share it. We getto share a team one of these years
because we have so many similar talkabout cheat codes, right, if you
can find somebody you share a similarglobal view of the league. They partnerships
don't work if you have really differingopinions just in general on how to build
a team or how to run ateam. But if you have that share

(01:39:11):
global view partnering, you have somebodyelse who cares about the team. You
have somebody else to do those bids. Maybe if you're busy with life,
you can hand it off to yourpartner, somebody who first come, first
service available in your league. You'retied up some news breaks, maybe they
can jump in and grab a guywhen you need to. It's if you
find the right partner. We've seena lot of this in the fantasy industry.

(01:39:31):
Some of the best management teams areyou're dominating because you have to have
the same similar view. But it'sa cheat code if you find the right
person. Well, I'm totally inAnd your entire explanation is just stuff that
I've been rolling out and telling peoplefor a while that I understand. Oftentimes
there is profit to be had tobe swimming against the current ideas out there,

(01:39:57):
but I just don't believe that's true, and wide receiver in the wide
receiver Craze, I still think that'shappening for a reason, and it's the
prevailing opinion for a reason, andyou laid it out nicely there. So
let's as much as I could doauction talk the entire time. There are
people listening who aren't as into theauction stuff. So I do want to
talk about a few fantasy situations.And there are situations that may not get

(01:40:19):
everybody's blood up as much as talkingabout whether or not you should take b
John Robinson or Breise Hall, butI think they're where we define our drafts
most of the time. On someof these sticky situations. And the first
one that I keep thinking about isthe Dallas Cowboys backfield. And it was
actually quite interesting to see a tweetfrom Hayden Winks right before I came on

(01:40:43):
the air with you for this particularpurpose, and he said, I think
it's all it's going to take.I'm paraphrasing here. I think all it's
going to take is a couple oftweets or comments from some Dallas Beat writers
during training camp to see Ricodoudle's ADPsore compared to what it is right now.
And I think that that's probably truebecause as we sit here a couple

(01:41:06):
weeks away from training camps opening,we see two guys in the Dallas backfield
that's going to be a strong offenseyet again. And yet Zeke is going
right around RB thirty nine, Dawdall'sgoing right around RB forty seven. So
you don't have to spend any draftcapital in either one of these guys.
But is that correct? Like weshouldn't care or are we mispricing one of

(01:41:29):
these guys and we should care moreabout one of them? That's all.
Big Hayden Winks fan glad to hearyou drop his name in this podcast is
somebody who everybody should follow and getthe benefit of his expertise. Also,
whenever you're talking about the Cowboys.Michael Gelkin, a former colleague of my
Yahoo, has been a Dallas Cowboysbeat writer for I don't know ten years
maybe now. He's been in theNFL for a while and he's just a

(01:41:51):
great guy and give you fantastic Dallasstuff and everyone. So I try not
to abuse this. Every once ina while I send him a DM or
a text message if I have aquestion about the Cowboys, and you can
not do better than Michael Galkin.I'm shocked that I'm actually interested in Zeke.
I've tried to go younger and youngerat the running back position, even

(01:42:12):
just in fantasy players in general,with the quarterbacks being the Obvioice exception because
they age a lot better. ButZeke's into his age twenty eight season,
Donndell older than you think. He'sinto his age twenty six season. Zeke
is still maintained decent efficiency when he'sasked to run in short yardage and Cowboys,
I think you should have a plusoffense. I think Dak's always been
a little bit misunderstood. Obviously,Ceedee Lamb has blossomed into a superstar.

(01:42:36):
I guess the idea Zeke might fallh in the end zone eight to ten
times, and you need more thanthat to be fantasy credible. But definitely
think he's got the leg up onI think they don't think. I don't
think they see Dadell as somebody whocan handle a heavy worker. Last year,
it was so frustrating that Tony Pollard, for whatever reason, he wasn't
healthy, he wasn't effective, Donaldwas out playing him on an efficiency basis,

(01:42:58):
and it's always like, well whenis dad to play more? And
they never went that path, andI'm I'm not sure they're ever going to
see Daboll with somebody who can handlea heavy workload. So Zeke, you
can draft him as a non starter. You can draft him as somebody who
would be a bench player, adepth player for you. I think he's
got a path to cobble together areally ugly, like you're running back twenty
three, running back twenty five typeof season and not going to be a

(01:43:20):
league winner by any means. ButI think there's more left in Ezekiel Elliott
than is commonly believed. I don'tdisagree in auctions. That's certainly how we
make our hay too, because thefeelings about Zeke are just terrible around the
community, So that just kind ofpushes him down where we know that he's
going to touch them all more thanour feelings tell us. In August week,

(01:43:41):
we're like, ah, he's washedup, he left, he's back
whatever. We don't care about him, but he's going to touch the ball
a lot. And I absolutely agreewith your idea that he could fall into
the end zone quite a few timesand in your deeper formats that is invaluable
to have later in a draft.Let's talk about another backfield that is also
kind of weird because nobody cares aboutanybody in the backfield too much, and

(01:44:02):
that's the Chargers backfield. And there'sa lot of folks talking out of both
sides of their mouth with this offense, saying, well, we can't draft
Herbert anymore because they're never going tothrow the ball, but we don't care
about any of their running backs either. I mean, it's got to be
one or the other. You knowthey're going to do something well. Gus
Edwards is hanging out right around thebottom of RB three territory. And then

(01:44:25):
of course the rookie and JK.Dobbins, they're in the fifties. You
don't have to spend much of anythingon them. So how do you see
this backfield shaken out? First ofall, and are we a little bit
low on Edwards at this point forwhat he could possibly be for that offense?
First of all, I definitely wantto invest something in this offense,
and it may be a case ofwhere I get the shares or I just
hedget where I have Edwards. Afew places I have viodoal a few places,

(01:44:49):
not as confident in Dobbins. He'sjust been hurt so many times that
he's the wild card in this bunch. But Jim Harbaugh I always talk about
the best coaches to me, andJim Harbor is a good coach. I
mean he's kind of a quirky guy, mercurial guy. I don't think he's
really made to be in one placefor way too long. I mean,

(01:45:09):
the Michigan timing just worked out perfectly. They eventually won a championship. Maybe
there's some impropriety. Gets out ofthere, gets back into pro coaching.
We know he had a shelf lifein San Francisco. Did the Stanford job
was kind of a stepping stone.What does Jim Harbad do? He runs
the ball, and he ran theball Stanford, and he ran the ball
with the forty nine ers. Hecertainly ran the ball at Michigan. And

(01:45:30):
is it just so weird to seeJJ McCarthy on a pass for a run
first offense, you know, neverthrowing like two hundred yards a game,
it felt like, and yet hegoes in the first round. It's really
hard to say what JJ McCarthy isn'tisn't, but Harbad wants to. They
draft obviously Aligneman high up in thefirst round. They have this interesting kind
of ragtag collection of running backs.Edwards is a journeyman, Dobbins a player

(01:45:53):
off major injury. Vidall was notan early draft pick. We know,
even as the NFL has gone awayfrom drafting running backs. Even with that,
it all went pretty late. There'ssomebody in this group. Is running
back nineteen or running back eighteen atthe end of the season. I guess
Edwards would be the first place tostart. But this may not be the
most satisfying answer, because I knowpeople would love first to pound the table

(01:46:13):
and say, no, it's thisguy. But I'm probably going to diversify.
Have some Edwards, have some forDoll. I'm a little bit less
interested in Dobbins. But man,they're basically starting over at receiver, right,
I mean, they let Alan go, they let Williams go. At
their age curves. It probably madesense. Quentin Johnson showed nothing as a
rookie. Like a lot of peoplethink Lad McCaughey could lead this team in

(01:46:33):
receptions. Justin Herbert just probably isn'tgoing to get the volume. I said
earlier this week, adp on Yahoois quarterback eighteen. I'm not sure if
that goes far enough, because Idon't I think there's gonna be a lot
of games where it's like, oh, Justin Herbert played pretty well and he
threw for two hundred and fifty yardstwo touchdowns, he ran for eight yards.
That's going to leave you as likequarterback seventeen for the week. That's
not good enough, especially in theleague where you start one of all the

(01:46:56):
backfields that are nebulous right now thatI want you to grind that. I
want you to be engaged with beatwriters that you trust that can weed out
the noise and talk about stuff thatreally matters. I always say in the
summer, you know, believe veryjudiciously the good things you hear, but
believe one hundred percent all the negativestuff you hear. That's kind of like
my rule of thumb with trying toweed out what matters in these press conferences

(01:47:18):
and whatnot. But I think weneed to grind the Chargers backfield really closely
because there's going to be value here. And I lean towards Edwards as the
quote unquote right answer. But I'mgoing to have some Vidal shares as well.
Well. I don't think most auctionbrief listeners want you to pound the
table. They want to hear thenuance that you just gave us. And
I think that you know again,that's why I have you on here,

(01:47:39):
and I think I agree with you. Yeah, go ahead. Also,
I don't think I mentioned Greg Romanin there. Greg Roman and Jim Harbor
have a history at Stanford at SanFrancisco, and Greg Roman's offenses always are
top ten rushing attempts always top tenin yardage, and that's part of that
is the game flow. You needto have a certain winning profile to get
those numbers. But right now,Greg Greg Roman, when I can't sleep,

(01:48:02):
I watch like golf videos, youknow where I watch like old old
games, or I go try tofigure out the nineteen seventy three AL MVP
ballot, you know, Or howdid Mark Mosley when the NFL MVP in
nineteen eighty two. That's what Ido when I can't sleep. What does
Jim Harbaugh do or what did GregRoman do? They designed new running plays.
They probably text each other, Ohyeah, what do we do this?
What if we pulled the guard here? What if we tried this trap

(01:48:25):
play, or you know, Ithink Edwards would be great at this,
or you know, Foodal is goingto get to be great at that.
This is what they do. Andagain, I do think I do feel
a little bit more comfortable sometimes withcoaches who work talent to scheme, not
scheme to talent. But Jim Harbaughcame to Los Angeles to run the ball,
and so did Greg Roman. Yeah, and there's some there's some run

(01:48:45):
concepts in the NFL right now thatyou can see that came from Harbaugh's first
stint in the NFL, and Iremember seeing some of those things and now
they're just a normal part of rungames around the NFL. So I would
expect to see a little bit moreof that as well. So all right,
well, excellent breakdown there. Ineed to get you out of here,
but let's have there's a couple moretopics I want to hit real quick,

(01:49:06):
and then I'm going to get youon your way because you've been generous
with your time. But there's twopassing games I'm just not sold on yet.
And you can either agree with methat I think they're going to be
disappointing to expectation or of course say, hey, no, here's why you
should be in. But the firstone is the Giants passing game, and

(01:49:29):
it has nothing to do with theweapons, because they have certainly gone out
of their way to now compile someweapons around Daniel Jones, Malik Neighbors.
They drafted Jalen Hyatt last year aswell. Now they've got one Dale Robinson,
who appears to be healthy and twoyears removed from a pretty serious knee
injury. They've still got Darius Slatonthere. They've got playmakers, but can
Daniel Jones get them the ball?I mean, right now, Malik Neighbors

(01:49:51):
has a wide receiver thirty three ADPin Redraft and Bestball, He's way up
there, even higher. But I'mskeptical that even with all of the pieces
in place, that Daniel Jones cando it. It's been so long since
we've seen him throw for a prodigiousamount of touchdowns. What do we expect

(01:50:11):
here this year? I mean,they drafted the type of player they needed,
but I got to give some acclamationtime. We've been spoiled. I
played long enough, with the exceptionof like like Randy Moss and a couple
a couple by the Raddy Moss mostimportant player, like the last thirty years.
Right, he changed defense to like, oh my god, we have
to sit back in a shell andnot allow an eightyr touchdown on every play
because that's what Randy Mosk gonna doto us. We've been spoiled twenty fourteen.

(01:50:34):
All these rookie receivers were great,and we've had a couple of different
classes. You know, Jamar Chasewas really good right away, and Justin
Jefferson was really good right away.And how did the Eagles miss that?
You know, how did they takeJalen Rager instead Justin Jefferson? I mean,
the Vikings are probably still laughing aboutthat. But football's hard. Jones
is a lesser than average passer,still a good Athlete's still a pretty smart

(01:50:58):
player. He'll probably run in ahealthy season for six or seven hundred yards
and maybe a handful of touchdowns.But every team can defend neighbors is going
to be the priority in targets.But it's one of those chicken egg things,
right, do you want to bethe only show in town or do
you want to get all the defensiveattention? Is that a problem? I
do like all the players you mentionedfor what they are, but there really
isn't a number two here. Slaytonshould probably be a three. Robinson is

(01:51:21):
limited in his route tree. Whoknows if Allan Robinson has anything left.
I mean it's kind of still tome, it's kind of a hodgepodge of
a depth chart, even though thatyou get Neighbors up front. I think
Neighbors has an exciting future. It'snot going to happen this year. At
his price, you mentioned in someformats, he's outrageously priced. Right now,
I am not considered I like theplayer, I like the future.

(01:51:42):
I'm not investing in Neighbors at hiscurrent ADP. I haven't even considered them
once in the draft. Yeah,that's where I'm at. That's where I'm
at. I just it's all gotto line up, and all of the
things that have to line up justseem very improbable. An offense that I'm
a little bit more open to,though, is this Dealers offense. Their
passing game is going to see acomplete remake here. They've got Arthur Smith

(01:52:04):
in town. We all know thathe loves running play action, and they've
also remade the quarterback room. Obviously, do we care about which quarterback wins
this job. First of all,do we want for fantasy success? And
I'm not talking about the quarterback success. I'm talking about the success of the
offense. Would we rather have RussWilson or Justin Fields? And then also

(01:52:28):
piggybacking on who we want to seethrowing the ball? What does that do
for George Pickens? And is oneguy better than the other? For George
Pickens and the Arthur Smith effect.There's a lot of moving parts here.
What's your take? Yeah, Idid a lot of moving parts. And
George Pickens finally gets to be whathe wanted to be, which is not
that he and Deante Johnson had agreat rivalry, But George Pickens wants to

(01:52:48):
be the man. He wants tobe the feature target, and you'll get
the death chart behind him. MaybeRoman Wilson will be a good player in
time, Ben Jefferson, Calvin Austin, quiz Walkin, Scottie Miller. It's
just all down the Lion. It'sa very ordinary group. So Pickens is
going to be featured. I thinkWilson's better. I mean, Wilson and
Fields are both obviously flawed players.Last year Wilson did not play well efficiency

(01:53:10):
wise, but the Broncos touchdowns werealmost always through the air. Wilson is
not the same player as a runner. He's obviously an undersized quarterback, so
I don't know what version of Wilsonthey're getting, but Justin Fields that gigantic
sack rate. He's a great athlete. He's a classic example of a player
who's better for fantasy than he isfor real life. I do think Justin
Field will play at some point,and if you're in a deep enough league

(01:53:31):
where backup quarterbacks are taken in theFantasy Index draft, I couldn't get a
third starting quarterback in round twenty two. I took justin Fields thinking it's the
best ball format. There's no transactions. I would like to if he started
even a third of the season,I think that pick will be justified.
But Wilson did do something good withCourtland Sutton last year. No Cortland Sutton
and George Pickens are very different players, and Sutton has unbelievable boundary skills.

(01:53:55):
He made some excellent touchdown catches intraffic in space. I think he made
Wilson look a lot better at timesbecause it was Sutton winning Pickens isn't necessarily
that type of player. Pickens ismore of a speed and separation guy.
I don't think him winning in thetight spaces, but at least we do
have a recent example of Wilson quoteunquote elevating a receiver and even the receivers

(01:54:15):
maybe doing it more on his own. Every player, every play in football
is a concert of a bunch ofdifferent people. Of course, the play
caller, the blocking, the timingof the play and all that stuff.
But I'm interested in Pickens. Alsoremember third season, right, I mean
used to be that was the yearthese guys popped and we've been spoiled now
that guys can be good right away. Quarterback play last year was dreadful.
I mean, Pickett was not goodat all. I mean the thing with

(01:54:39):
Wilson and fields, The best thingI can say to those guys is that
they're asked to clear a very smallhurdle. Like they're not even clearing it,
they're stepping over it. The hurdleslying on the ground. So if
I can get George Pickens as awide receiver three, I would love to
have him behind. If George Pickensis on my roster, I would love
to be for him to be behindreally consistent receivers. Receivers the boom or

(01:55:00):
bus position anyway, and even thebest receivers are going to have some two
for eighteens in there. It's justthe way it works. But there'll be
enough boom or busts, especially inPickens's game, that I would love for
him to be behind two really heavytarget guys who more often than not score,
and then I can live with thevolatility that Pickens is likely to bring.
I'm open to Pickens. He's not, by any means a guy I'm
targeting, but in a certain rosterbuild where I felt really good about the

(01:55:24):
people in front of him, Ithink he'd make a lot of sense as
a volatile wide receiver. Three Andyet another great argument for auctions, because
you can budget to have Pickens asyour three and sometimes even your four or
four. Yeah, based on howyou play it. And ah, that's
that's the sweet spot, baby,that is the sweet spot. That would
love again if we were, ifwe were doing a team together, I'd

(01:55:45):
be like, you know, howcan we get picked We could we realistically
have three people better than Pickens,and then it Pickens pops. It's great.
It Pickings doesn't pop. It's notthe end of the world. We
can pick and choose our spots.Also, I think I have this right.
I never know what to do withthis, Drew, and you tell
me what you think of it.Pickents is really jagged home road splits.
He's produced at home hasn't produced onthe road. Sometimes that stuff is noise.

(01:56:10):
Sometimes that stuff is okay. Youknow, maybe sleep in your own
bed. It's eating your home cooking. Sometimes guys are having too much fun
on the road. I Roethlisberger wasa home road split guy for a while.
Jared Goff is probably the most prominentexample of the NFL right now,
where he's basically like an MVP candidateat home and he's just a kind of
an average player on the road.Did the George Pickens home road splits mean

(01:56:31):
anything to you? Not yet,But I, like you said during your
comments, I'm open to this playerin general, because I don't know.
I was very anti Pickens early inhis career. When I see a guy
that has certain tendencies with the attitudeand the things that he says or the
things that come out, you knowthat that's only the tip of the iceberg.

(01:56:54):
To what's going on behind the scenes. So I've been pretty anti,
but it seems like the Steelers havefaith in him based on the who this
offseason, and I think Arthur Smithfits with him. Well, I'm open
to the idea that that was amaturity thing perhaps, and it's going to
get better this year. But youmake a valid point, and it's something
we have to pay attention to.And I think that there's enough people that

(01:57:15):
are nervous about him that that's what'spushing his ADP. What is he wide?
Was he for twenty eight or somethingright now? I think very reasonable.
Yeah, so that seems low fora guy that went for eleven hundred
with Kenny Pickett last year. Forsure, for sure. And you know,
the only reason he was drafted aslate as he was is because the
idea that he wasn't that mature atGeorgia. And one other thing with the
Steelers. Whenever I have a scenecalled miss Steelers, and I'm not sure.

(01:57:39):
There's just so many smart people whoare Steelers. Is Sigmund Bloom is
a smart Steelers fan. Kate Majuke, my colleague at Yahoo, smart Steeler
fan Dave danishek one of my favoritepeople in sports media is a big Steelers
fan. So if I ever geta little cold feet on a Steeler,
I need some truth, you know, I need somebody to tell it to
me straight. You know you goto Sig, go to Kate, go
to go to go to Scheck.You know that the Dealers are always a

(01:58:02):
very well observed and very thoughtful mediateam. Mm hmm, Well, Scott,
I want to keep talking. Thisis awesome, but I gotta let
you go. And I also,the show is gonna be three hours this
week if I don't so. Thisis always so much fun. We got
to do it again. We gotto make it a point to get together
in Canton. But before I letyou go, give me two guys that

(01:58:26):
you are, one guy that you'refading, that you just can't seem to
click the button, I don't carewhether it's mid early whatever, and a
guy that you're on that you seemto be drafting a lot of at this
point. Right now, I'll justgive you the answers, and anybody wants
anything detailed, we can get themon Twitter. I'll give you three three
targets, three fades. Jonathan Taylor, Kyler Pitts, Jake Ferguson, and
those are targets. Stefan Diggs,Calvin Ridley and Alvin Kamara are fates are

(01:58:49):
mine? I have been screaming aboutStefan Dicks. I don't understand what he's
still doing up there, especially withthe young competition he's he's got. But
okay, well, fantastic. Thishas been a ton of fun. When
are you getting there in Canton?Are you coming Friday? Are you coming
Thursday? Yeah? At some pointI think it's Friday, although Pat Fitzmorris
and I we always talk about comingin a day early and playing golf in

(01:59:12):
one of these days that's going tohappen. But I think it's going to
be Friday, and can't wait.You know, thanks to Bob Long for
putting on this great event, andit's just it's just one of the one
of the must weekends of the year, and get really signifies that Draft season
is here. And how can younot be excited about the Hall of Fame
and just all the just hearing thesables and and seeing the players you grew
up with, and you know,all all the Sports Illustrated covers and the

(01:59:35):
bus and the stats and it's just, you know, How can you not
love this game? Absolutely absolutely loveit. When you walk into the Hall
of Fame to do a fantasy draft, there's no better feeling. And then
also that feeling of walking in tosee the Lombardi Trophy in that room with
all the mirrors unengraved, the chillsin that Super Bowl room. I'll never

(01:59:56):
be able to equal that, anddefinitely we have Bob to thank for that.
But I am going to get youthere to the Football Guys Poker tournament
one year to see how you do. Oh for sure, huge. I
know it's I know it's early onFriday, and that's a stumbling block for
a lot of people that it startsat noon on Friday. But one of
these years, planning to get intown, maybe play some poker with right,
and then we'll be playing poker.We'll say, you know, this
is just like a fantasy auction.Yeah, because we're always when we're talking

(02:00:18):
fantasy auctions, we keep talking poker, poker, poker, poker, poker.
So we'll be at the poker table, but like, yeah, this
is like the fourth round yesterday.Yeah, this is yeah, Well that
is the tendency, and I havea problem with that. I go when
I play poker, those shows leakthose those those hands leak into my shows.
But I think there's such a greatanalogy between the two. We've we

(02:00:38):
beat that to death. But anyway, Scott, make sure that everyone knows
where they can find you socials,your work and all that stuff. And
thanks you for sure time. Yep, thanks for having me. Drew.
Scott underscore Penowski on Twitter again.My work is at Yeahoo's Sports and you
know what, I'm gonna give youone more bonus step poker. This is
my this is my poker acronym.It's PAP Patience Alertness position. So the

(02:01:00):
next time you're at the poker tableonce you remember PAP and Scott Underscoreki on
Twitter. Beautiful. Well, Scott, you couldn't have hit it out of
the park any better than you didtoday. Thank you so much for being
here. Folks. Scott ping askinggo check out his work and support him
for supporting the auction brief and that'sgoing to do it for another edition of
discussions with Drew. Great job,Scott, Man, oh man, I

(02:01:32):
could have talked to Scott forever andI told him that off the air.
We exchanged cell numbers and I said, look, we just got to sit
down when we get to Canton andjust have lunch, have dinner, make
some time to just trade ideas andjust become smarter. I just like being
around Scott because I just get smarter. And I hope you felt that way

(02:01:54):
in this week's discussions with Drew,because I think it was awesome. So
thanks again to Scott Pianowski from Yahoo. Don't forget that you can get ten
percent off of draft boards at FJAFantasy Draft Boards. They are the best
fantasy draft boards in the entire business. They have them for all kinds of
sports. You don't just have touse them for fantasy football. You can
use them for baseball or whatever.But they have the best draft boards in

(02:02:15):
the business. Use my code Auctionone zero or Auction Brief one zero.
Don't forget my Patreon network. That'sthe fantasy football lawyer Patreon network. I'm
constantly posting little tidbits about how toget better at auctions, what players I'm
looking at as values, and ofcourse, most importantly, my updates on
what's happening in the legal community.So check out the Patreon network for just

(02:02:39):
four bucks, and folks, thankyou so much. For supporting the Auction
Brief, and I think that we'regoing to learn a lot more in the
last seven episodes of the summer,So sit back, buckle up. We're
about to hit training camps and thingsare going to start flying. I am
excited about the rest of the summer. We have crested that hill and we're
starting to pick up momentum on theother side. Thank you again to Scott

(02:03:02):
Pianowski from Yahoo. Thank you somuch for being a supporter. I appreciate
each and every one of you.This is my dream job. It's been
so much fun already and I can'twait to do it again seven more times.
Happy fourth of July. I hopeyou're having a great holiday. The
Auction Brief is adjourned, and Iam out. The Auction Brief is adjourned.

(02:03:27):
That'll do it for this week's episode. See you next time on the
Auction Brief.

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