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Welcome to the Fantasy Football podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore and Mike, right. Welcome in. The fantasy footballers, Annie, Mike and Jason got another show for you, got a great show for you. It is a great show. I always look forward to the tips and tricks episode, bringing some new stuff your way this year. You're going to love it. Tuesday, August 18th. Today is the top 10 tips and tricks to help you win your league.

We do this show every year. We do not do the same types every year. So we are bringing you some new thoughts and I'm excited. There's a lot of nuance to building a fantasy football dynasty, which Jason unfortunately knows about team and calls himself Champ Champ. For almost Davonte, a day is so gross for our dynasty. Do you remember the draft jayce of the Dynasty draft when you finally selected Davante Adams? I do not remember. I believe it was in the double digit rounds.

What gramick. And when you did it was like. All right, I'll take Davonte Adams, call me at that point, it was he was in full bust mode before becoming a top five.

What about what about all my other great picks that won me back to back champ champ. But it's not even complete sentences anymore. I don't think you have to win. I know you begin sentences with the champ.

Champion, Ironman champ. Champ. Look, champ, champ. Going to jump. Jump. Yeah. Yes, I am.

You can find us on Twitter at the end of the year on our journey to two hundred thousand subscribers on YouTube. And we're not there yet, I'm ashamed to say, because I'm ashamed of it, because y'all all want to keep us a secret.

But you can go subscribe YouTube dotcom slash the fantasy footballers subscribe, click the bell. The shows every day from now until. The end of the year, yeah, eternity came to mind as well, but no, very excited to be with you today. Quick question of the day. Well, let me pause for a second. We do have something else special. Oh, man, it was it was slightly below the quick question.

We are doing a we're doing a live stream on Friday and we're giving some news we're doing. That's never been done before. Why? It's a lot like a podcast.

It'll be like a television program. Why?

We're doing a live stream on Friday afternoon at 6:00 p.m. Eastern, answering questions. We've done live streams before. There are spectacular. But during the live stream, we were giving something very special away for the first time ever. We're giving away a unique for life.

Whoa, you guys didn't pass this by me.

That's that's just news to you. Yeah.

And Jason's certain to live one hundred, two hundred more years and that is a lot of Utica's. So we're giving away a unique for live on Friday. And the way that you are eligible to enter is you have to have the twenty twenty unique. That's it. The ultimate draft. Yeah. If you've, if you've bought the ultimate draft kit this year, you're eligible to win. We're given that away. We're given away. Assigned Alvin Kamara Jersey on the live stream as well to the winner.

And you can win a udoka for life. Never pay for a UDCA again. Wow. So that, that's, that's a big deal.

OK, I get them for free and it's a great deal. Yeah. They'll be like Mike. Yes. You going to be like my ultimate draft gay.com order before Friday to be entered to win and we'll give it away on that live stream. Here's your quick question. Who's a player that you're avoiding at all costs in twenty twenty? So this is not necessarily somebody that you're saying is a bust, although that could be true, but someone you're willing to miss out on because there are players on all of our boards where we're just there's zero chance for having them on any of our rosters.

Yeah, my mind is pretty easy and obvious. We've debated this player a lot over the last several months. I'm out on AJ Green. I this would have been my answer prior to yesterday's hamstring issue, but for the same reason somehow, because when a player just gets over the hill and then is dealing with injuries at the same time, it's difficult to come back. And that's what Ed Green has to do. All the comments of when he's on the field.

He's great. He's barely been on the field. He is over that, you know. No, you want for a wide receiver. And now he is sidelined at camp with with a hamstring issue. I just I realize I could be wrong. I mean, there's no doubt if I let him go out of value and someone else takes him and he plays sixteen and he's healthy, he could be a steal. But I feel like the the odds that he is lighting a pic on fire are too great for me to dabble.

At what point in the ATP, Jason, are you would you be willing to draft him or is that just you are you don't care. They're only around nine. AJ Green is still there because he, like this injury, causes another dip in in his draft value.

Around nine are, you know, taking the chance that around nine I would probably, you know, under no legal limit. You know, we do everything tier based here. So it's not so much this round. No, it's what players would would you be willing you know, if I'm deciding between Anthony Miller and AJ Green, I'm going to take AJ Green. I'm not, you know, insane.

This sucks.

I mean, by the way, Tee Higgins being held out for for similar reasons as well. Not quite the history. You know, look, the My Guys show is Thursday.

I'm so displeased you were teed up, I was teed up, and the thing is, is this is like to me, this is like I'm going to buy a house. And on the outside it looks wonderful. It's like let's say it's a Hall of Fame house, OK? And the price, it's ridiculous. I see it in print. I'm like, I got to buy this house. The price is so low on this beautiful house. Right.

And you get their training camp and you open the door and it stinks. Inside your first whiff of the house, someone didn't flush the toilet.

And I'm like, I want to live in that house, but I'm not living there with that stink. And I'm sure you got to get the stink out of the house before I can live there.

Hope they weren't smokers. It's hard to get out of the way like the AC unit is on the house. You have mov colored toilets. Wait a minute. Was this was this built on a burial ground? What's going on with this house?

I j I get it. I get it. Like if you were sitting here and you're like, man, I'm in on, carry on again. And then we get that carry on Johnson News yesterday or he's in the brace. I mean. I'm not a moron like I'm are you? Looks like looks like Jason learned his lesson. I well, he said he dragged AJ Green at a certain price and maybe this will drive it even lower.

But the fear has been put into me instantly. This is like AJ Green going out.

And just I want to see I want to see that the house has to smell good before I live in it.

That's all I'm saying.

And and our first impression at camp is to hype videos with Joe Burrow and then he's down again, the little stinky.

It's not good.

Oh, my God. JuJu's the the wide receiver for me that I will avoid at all costs. And it's because of the cost. So, I mean, if he was a fifth round pick. I'm happy to roll the dice. Dice there you have Chase Claypole, you have Donte Johnson, James Washington, Eric Ebron, Big Ben coming back from injury. Joujou disappointing last season. And the answer the question not being answered yet of, you know, whether or not he can put up prolific numbers without Antonio Brown.

I watched Greg Jennings talk about Juju and Greg Jennings.

I watched him talk about the value of a player like James Washington. They need somebody to take the top off the defense for Juju to function underneath. So if James Washington can do that, then the opportunities there for Juju, I think he'll probably have a very solid season. But you have to pay a very high price for him. And I'd rather take my shot somewhere else.

And for me it is. It's Todd Gurley. I just I could be wrong.

Maybe Gurley is back. I feel very confident that he is not going to be back in his situation.

It has been downgraded, moving teams over to the Falcons compared to him in that McVay system. So there's just there's no way I'm taking him where you go. Fourth round right now.

Third, I think. Third, third, round. Third, fourth.

Oh, no. Oh, yeah. Definitely not happening. So I'm out on Todd Gurley right now.

News& notes from around the league. All right, it is hamstring season, AJ Green is not alone. Believe it or not, Tee Higgins, like I said, sidelined with a hamstring injury. DeAndre Hopkins, he's missed the Cardinals last two practices with a hamstring injury, had people thinking maybe he was holding out.

You see that a lot of speculation. Also, he wanted a new contract when he was in Houston as part of why he was traded. But he is not after new contract.

He is not holding out because the Melvin Ingram news from the Chargers of how he's I will now coin it the hold in where because he's not holding out, he's there. He's just kind of avoiding practices.

Well, that's what you have to do with this new CBA. Look, the rule is that you have to be there. I don't know if there's like specific rules of you have to go in when the coach tells you to go in, stop dunking. It's just in practice, like and I'm a hit the bike coach. I'll be over here if you have a, like, a new deal for me. Well, that was the throwing out there barefoot.

This new CBA win win Dalvin flip flop swim trunks. You can float his you got your pads on backwards. I know. You know when Dalvin Cook was rumored to hold out and then he was there on time it was basically I remember the news being reported that this CBA kind of makes the holdout irrelevant. You're losing so much right. Every single day. Fifty thousand a day. Yeah. That was what it was for Cook. I don't know if that's universal.

I consider that a large sum of money. I think even Dalvin Cook considers that a large sum of money. So yeah, maybe this is the new the hold in. Yeah we'll see. That's just so much more. Confrontational and awkward for these players, yeah, it's easy to be like, all right, agent, you talk to them all, stay away, but now you to go in and just be a jerk. All right. Nick Chubb evaluated for a possible concussion.

Early reports indicate he's fine. I was asked this morning whether or not this affects my view of Nick Chubb or Kareem Hunt. My answer is that it does not in any way, shape or form affect my view of Nick Chubb. For me, it's probably not. But you do have to wait and see the concussion. Situations are all over the map, like we see guys where it was always reported it was a light concussion that players out for six weeks or they got looked like a devastating head injury and they're back in two weeks.

And we just we don't know. I'm not saying you're wrong and I'm not altering things right now, but you better be paying attention next week of how things are going for Nick. According to the Browns, like I said, taken off apparently fine after an injury scare. But you're right. Pay attention. This is the time of year where here's another stinky house, T.J. Hokanson.

The ankle is still not quite 100 percent after rehabbing through the off season.

So there's there's a little bit of question. There are some question marks around his injury. And I don't think we've talked about this enough. But it's possible that his injury was more serious than the the the timeline that was originally expected. And the fact that he's not 100 percent leads some speculation to say this. This could be serious. So, look, he's in a situation where you could break out. He was highly drafted. He's very talented. He's on a good offense.

He's going into year two is a tight end. But the injury takes him kind of off my board because I do think that there's a lot of people like that. No offense. You know, we talked about the Titans yesterday. So when there's so many guys that I like, he said, no offense off your board. No, no, no. I'm saying no offense is currently not injured. And he checks all those boxes that TJ Hawkinson does.

Jalen Hurt, unfortunately, suffered an actor at Monday's practice. He missed his entire rookie year after, if you remember him coming out in the preseason, scored two touchdowns in a preseason game, promising young rookie alongside Tebow last season. I loved his tape as a running back.

Yeah, I mean, he's a big boy. And so they were shifting him kind of like a tight end wide receiver situation, but he tore his ACL and not going to be available to the Forty Niners this year and really in breakings. Just startling news.

You can see Jason on the video is now lowered his chair to a place where he cannot be visible. Oh, but we can see the top of your head, Jason Carroll back.

The Bengals game has been exposed. Eagles have waived. Obviously, Wavell running back. Rodney Anderson just you wait.

He's going to land somewhere. And this is affected, Jason, in a way that is shared by no one else. That's true. That's just nuts. I get it, man.

I've I watched the tape on Rodney like he was incredibly talented of his body.

Just doesn't want to play football. Yeah. You know, here's what's fun about loving some obscure random player that you recognize fully that like the OP, it's a everyone likes the underdog. The long shot, the path for him to succeed was pretty much impossible. I know that. I knew that. But it's fun when you plant a flag on that because any Rodney Anderson news, my timeline on Twitter is if you sent me a message yesterday, I didn't see it because there were too many Rodney Anderson jokes.

There were people that thought Rodney Anderson was actually Darnell Anderson.

There were people who thought that was the joke.

That's not a real person. So, yes, that is all that I have by way of news.

Brooks, how are you doing today? Pretty darn good. Any any other breaking news that we need to cover before we get into these tips and tricks? Nope. All right. Well, we'll end it with Rodney Anderson then.

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Oh and foot glan. Let me tell you, let me tell you it's always a good time for Omaha steaks. Would you like to burn your toes while making ribs like. I did help her injured, so I am making barefoot grilling. I was in flip flops and I have these delicious ribs that are cooking on the grill. Oh, so good. I'm going I'm five hours in there wrapped in foil. Their juice, they're just. Oh, the honey in the apple juice are so good and I'm taking them off the grill, put them on my tray.

And apparently I broke the the foil the wrap with my with Mirman hands. No, no. Here's the yellow claw. The claw.

I'm not letting you off the tongue with the Tontos. You take the grippy things. You know, I was there and I'm making these delicious ribs and I and all of a sudden we're standing there taking the germs off. And I, I'm like because hot oily butter is burning my foot.

Well, your feet probably taste delicious, but the ribs were so good and all the meat from Omaha steak is so good. It's look, we know the full those they've known forever. And whenever you want to stock up, you go to Omaha Steaks. Right now, the Grand Summer Grill out package lets you stay home and eat like a champ. You're getting burgers, you're getting mantrap fillet minions, pork chops, chicken, kielbasa, everything delivered to your door.

You're going to love it. Please don't burn your toes like me. Visit Omaha Steaks, dotcom and type footballers in the search bar to shop this summer. Grill packages today. And don't forget, when you go to Omaha Steaks Dotcom and enter the code, footballers in the search bar Omaha Steaks is adding four burgers and four gourmet jumbo franks free with your order. Don't miss it. Tips and tricks. All right, top 10 Tips and tricks episode for 20/20, kicking it off, ready to go.

Let's do it, number 10. All right, I'm going to start it off at number 10 with what I call contextual healing because I get to name the baby.

This is kind of a almost a predecessor to the rest of the tips as well, where I like to remind fantasy football players and this is something our show is trying to remind them over the last five seasons, fantasy football is a lot more than just statistical analysis. OK, you have look, the stats, the numbers, the analytics, the things that we obsess over, the things that we build out our rankings with, those are all fundamental. OK, that's a foundational, fundamental piece of being a great fantasy football player.

But they are not the only thing that matters when it comes to actually winning from one when it comes to being a champ. Champ, if you want to be a champ champ, there is an element, a contextual element to your skills, to knowing your league, your league mates, and that's fundamental to actually winning. And we try to talk more about our league sometimes, and we limit ourselves to a select few leagues so that we can be in that same boat with you focused on the contextual elements of winning at fantasy.

This means things like, you know, the laundry list of knowing your league rules when your waivers run, who's dropped by people on waiver day.

We talk about drop it like it's hot and we say it like that.

Look, can you stash players on your IRR spot for safekeeping off of the waiver wire? Which league mates that are in your league have a home team bias?

Every league has that one or two players that they want all the home team guys and get that extra some value, some dumb guy in your league or pay way too much for any packer because he's a huge factor.

You, Al Borland, maybe maybe there's a player that has a weakness for that flavor of the week. Player like the highest score of the preceding week. That player is the most valuable player in the league to that to that owner. So different players trade differently. And these are all very, very important parts of winning your fantasy football league. So you got to know those elements to win. You can't just be as simple as taking a cheat sheet, drafting that roster and moving forward.

So that's my tip.

It's contextual. It's about your league, your league format. And let's say you're getting into Ficklin leagues dotcom right now, you know, and joining a new league. And so you don't know these people when a guy has that big blow up week that just, you know, monstrous week one. It was it was unbelievable. It's probably more Sammy Watkins, you know, than it is prescriptive for future success, going for him to everybody and find out, find out who is the the person.

And then remember that kid. Keep a note. Yeah. So that's that's my my first tip. Jason, I've refused to go until I get a no. Oh you're right.

Number nine, middle me.

This as Jim Carrey would say. Woody Well he would say, riddle me this, but I say middle me this.

The middle rounds of fantasy. What do we do in those middle rounds and for this purpose? I wanted to name it middle media, so I called it middle rounds, but I'm specifically talking about rounds three through six. What do you do?

I'm going to make the argument here for you today that rounds three through six are made for wide receivers. OK, now don't hear what I'm not saying. We stay water and we let the draft come to us. If I'm at the 12 spot and Michael Thomas is following me, I'm drafted him there and I might need a running back here. But my point is, you know, and if if a great tight end follows the point that I'm making here and I've been talking about this for months, talking about how these middle rounds, it is so difficult for me to take one of these running backs over these great wide receivers that I'm seeing there.

It just feels foolhardy at this point to do it. And I wanted to go and do a little bit of research, see if I could back this up. And I found some great research out there. I've got to give a shout out to Jacques Miller of Rotaries. Hayden Winx wrote A World for all the research backing up what we've been saying for a long time and we've seen really for four years now, this last year, if you remember last season, there were a couple of great running backs in that range.

Derrick Henry, Aaron Jones, this last year was actually OK. If you go back and look and I'm about the middle rounds, those middle rounds ekler.

Absolutely. It was it was a bang up year. But the previous four seasons, OK, here's a statistic. And this is all coming from basketball because this best pals, what we need to look at, we're talking about draft season. This is you know, we we say you don't win your championship at the draft and you don't. But you do in basketball because that's the entirety of the league, is you you have a draft. It's a great point.

Yes. So in in basketball, over the previous Four Seasons, wide receivers that were drafted in rounds three through six, they outscored the wide receivers drafted around seven through ten by four point two fantasy points per game. You'd expect that, right? Sixty seven more points on average through the course of the year. But over those four seasons, running backs drafted in that range outscored their counterparts in the next three round by zero point nine fantasy points per game.

Basically not a lot. It was no different if you draft these running backs in that range versus waiting for running backs later, whereas wide receivers were bigger. But here's the thing. Even with that crazy hit rate last year of these running backs in that range. They still underperformed their win rates last year, people that drafted running backs in that range had a lower than expected, a below expectation win rate, whereas and that's five years in a row that it's been true.

And five years in a row, people that drafted wide receivers in that range posted an above expectation win. Right now, that's all the historical, analytical, factual data. But let's that's just in the past. That doesn't mean it's true for the future. But I came at this from this 20 20 outlook and saying, I don't like the running backs. I like the wide receivers. Here are the running backs in round three through six. Todd Gurley, out.

You're out. Chris Carson. I hope he's healthy. I'm all in. Leonard Fournette. Is he going to catch the ball. Melvin Gordon how's that air up in Denver treating you. Jonathan Taylor. James Connor. Can he stay healthy? Lev Bell. You know, he stunk last year. Maybe he'll get better. Mark Ingram These are all questionmark guys. Actually the guy might like the most there's at the end know near the sixth round. Mark Ingram but look at the wide receivers in that range.

Kenny Golladay, Mike Evans, Odell Beckham, Junior, Allen Robinson, Juju, Adam Thielen, Amari Cooper, Jane Moore, AJ Brown, Cooper Kupp, Calvin Ridley, Courtland, Sutton, Tyler Lockett. I want almost all of those guys. In fact, there are six of those players who are literally right now ranked as one of our top twelve wide receivers. You're drafting wide receiver ones throughout that range versus the only running back in that range.

Should we rank as a running back? One is Andy has left Bell at ten and neither Mike nor myself do. That's it. So I want you to be aware of that range heading into this draft where maybe those first two rounds you are going running back just amplifies the early running back kind of foundation to your team because you're not getting value at running back in those middle rounds at all.

Yeah, and the wide receiver, you so good. And projecting forward to twenty twenty. We don't know how it ends up, but due to saying those names, that's a shocking disparity between boys. Todd Gurley going to pan out for my team or is Kenny Golladay. We're going to be OK.

Do you want question marks that you're worried about or exciting wide receivers that you want on your team? Because that's who you're picking between in rounds three through six in the title of your tip is to me, this.

All right. Number eight, speaking of great titles. Yeah, Mike, you're no, look, this run this tip is all about a mentality of changing the way you think about the fantasy football season.

I call this tip don't blow chunks. Which is it?

Look, that's a that's a good tip for life in general. It's it's not often fun to blow blow chunks.

Right. And what I mean by this is look at the fantasy football season in chunks. It's it's 13 weeks before you get into the fantasy football playoffs. That can be daunting. That can be when you start with three or four, you go, oh, crap. You know, I've now I have to make up all this space, but break down the season into smaller chunks like you have the draft chunk. And I'm calling that like weeks one through four, you know.

Yeah. You're trying to win that. That's that. That's how you set the foundation for your team. Jason said it. You don't win it your draft. You win your your draft chunk.

You go on with dunks here instead of like sections is really gross to me.

Out of your draft chunk, draft chunk, have you ever grossed yourself out what you're talking about?

Because I'm borderline there at this very moment, like don't blow chunks. I don't I'm trying my best here.

All right. And it's just you can look at the season like two halves, break it down into quarters. It really helps you put your best foot forward, not get what overly confident you're for. No, great. You know who can go on for the next chunk? You blew it. You blew that. Right.

I always say it and I sound stupid saying, but what happens can happen in reverse. That line during the season where I'll give you a start of the season on three. On four. Look, you've got another chunk. Yes. Where you can turn it around and you have to focus on that little window. Yeah. One one step at a time on one chunk at a time. And don't blow it. Don't blow, sorry, everybody. Number seven.

Number seven, I'm going to go with more than meets the eye. That was a transformation. That was me trying not to blow chunks.

Oh, OK. OK, it sounds very similar. More than meets the eye. We talk a lot about fantasy owners falling into the trap of, you know, you're in your draft and you're trying to fill your active roster because it's sitting there on the platform on the right side, and you don't draft the bench spot because you want to. We talked about on the tight end. So you want to put the tight end and the quarterback in. It's a mistake you can make, not drafting depth.

Another concept that I think fantasy owners fall into is just trying to fill your roster with prototypical players. And what I mean is you always have that mindset of the fact that you want the starter in the backfield instead of the passing down, running back, or maybe you always want the wide receiver, one that has been a weakness of mine. Historically, I don't see upside sometimes with the wide receiver two in an offense or a passing down back when you talk about maybe you ended up going really early in your draft wide receivers in Austin.

Ekeler was sitting there last year and I wasn't willing to pull the trigger trigger because he wasn't the starter or the the prototypical running back. And that can be a big mistake in today's NFL. I mean, you have top twenty four seasons last year from non prototypical running backs like Austin Ekeler Phillip Lindsey, James White, Raheem Mostert in a committee. Those were not situations that were clear as day or even as clear as something like Peyton Barbours, the starter.

I mean, that's how you had to say it. Do you have to slow down a little bit, Peyton Barber?

And and it can be a blind spot, and it is for me, especially with that wide wide receiver to spot, Jason brought some interesting research my way. It actually came from clutch fantasy on Twitter talking about this very fact with wide receiver 2s and offenses that can provide a lot of upside outside of the wide receiver. One, an average of four sets of team wide receivers will finish in the top twenty for every year. Obviously, you can get value out of a fantasy wide receiver even when they don't finish in the top twenty four.

But every single year you see offenses that have multiple wide receivers, not just the number one. And when you think about this year, who is it?

It's it's Calvin Ridley breakout. Right. Atlanta could be the Rams again with Cup and Woods. Dallas.

Dallas. Absolutely. Whoa. I love my thinking man.

That was very in-sync last year. It was Dallas. It was Tampa. It was the Rams. The year before, five different teams did it. Atlanta did it. Big Ben in Pittsburgh, Jared Goff again, Jameis Winston in Tampa, Kirk Cousins win the Thielen and Diggs were together. Some of those murky situations cause a lot of hesitation and. Fantasy owners like myself sometimes live in that idyllic world where I want my roster to look like every player can be the number one overall player at the position, and I think you have to adapt over time.

We see the importance of depth and you have to see beyond the prototypical wide receiver, one running back that gets twenty five carries a game.

So that's my tip number six.

I call this one healthy, wealthy and wise woman on my 20 to one.

He's been a blast everybody. Yeah but this is the world we are living in.

We are 20, 20 has blown chunks. Hopefully the future chunks are better but covid is part of twenty. Twenty is part of all sports. Every major sport is dealing with this. They're all going on and football is going to happen. It's going to start on time. It's going to end on time. I truly believe that. But you as a fantasy owner might need to change some strategies this year because of covert. I know me as a fantasy owner.

I am. And I've got a couple of tips and a trick. Whoa. Oh, yeah. So that way we can name the episode tips and tricks, tips and trick tips and tricks. Yes, we.

So tip number one on your late round guys, maybe take more known production over huge upside, which is the opposite of how I usually draft when I'm at the end of my draft. I'm looking at guys like Henry Rug's, JK Dobbins, Sammy Watkins or Nicole Harmon. I'm looking at these huge upside. If they hit, they could be awesome because after all, I've already got my starters. They're good. I need someone to break in to that lineup in order to succeed.

Well, if covid happens to have a few outbreaks and you're going to have to play a little bit more depth as you move guys to your ear spot instead of Henry Rug's, maybe take a Sterling Shepard, someone you know that will produce it's going right around him instead of Dobbins. Take Tevin Coleman, someone that if you need to put in, you know, he's got production or instead of Michael Harmon or Sammy Watkins, take Jamison Crowder. All of these guys are going in the same range.

And usually I don't want those safe, high floor, boring, low up side players. But this year I am pivoting. So that's one ten and that's the start of the guy, the guy that you can just put them right in your lineup.

You're not like he's not going to win you your league, but he could help you win a week and get in the playoffs, which will then then you win the league and you get all the glory. You don't give any of it to Jamison Crowder. You didn't do this. I did it. I did it without you. Crowder But all right, here's another thing. If you are more worried in this, you know, everybody's got to check their own temperature here.

But if an outbreak hits, it will probably be within the team, not from a team to a team. I mean, look at the Marlins, right? So maybe avoid overdrafting players from the same team. And I'm not saying you can't do a good quarterback wide receiver stack, but a lot of times you want, you know, three or four players from the same team. You've got the Cowboys or the Chiefs or whatever. And and I'm saying maybe diversify your assets a little bit more so you don't get hit and have a bunch of players all from the same team having to sit.

Also, look, we've got the my guys coming this Thursday. I'll tell you, I, I thought long and hard about Jerry Junior, Jalen Reagor in my third my guy's spot. But because of this shortened off season, I am a little bit more worried about rookies. So, you know, you might want to avoid them more than usual in your drafts unless it's a clear home run forced issue like Clyde Edwards player. The last tip I would say is maybe what is this the trick now?

This is the tip. Which one was the trick? I haven't got there. You oh, I'm I'll give you the trick is just second the last tip, you know, as it relates to to covid would be look for teams with good continuity. Because if you've got a new head coach, a new quarterback, new offensive lineman, and you've got this weird shortened offseason, I imagine those teams will struggle to start. So the bills, they're returning ninety five point four percent of their offensive snaps.

The Chiefs, the Saints, even teams like the Jags, Steelers and Raiders, they have very high continuity, whereas you've got teams like the Panthers, the Jets, the Washington football team that have a lot of changing pieces there. And here's the trick. I gave you tips. Here's a trick that will help you more than you think. Feel like he's got ten tips and tricks inside of his head. You know, it's one at a time.

I look, I. I have been overflowing with joy, waiting to help the foot clan. And you will not take this from me. The last trick. And now I don't even want to say it, Mike, is to watch Mike on Sunday live because genuinely that's where the pivot's that's where the covid news. That's where everything that it is. Boy, I trick people.

Are you intimidated by. covid Sun lives, Mike. I haven't thought about it until this, I'm so sorry. Thanks for bringing that. We're here to help. We're here to help.

Number five. Number five, I call this one on the grid. And what I'm talking about here is a draft grid. We always recommend doing some mock drafts. Maybe the best ball is kind of the new mock draft. But also you want to get in some just regular plain old mock drafts because you want to see where players are going to test out draft strategies. Do you like this team? Do you like this player there? But part of the live draft is playing the game of knowing your opponents, knowing what positions they have.

And I want to highlight a feature that's on a lot of draft platforms that you may or may not have used. Maybe you didn't even know it exists, but you can you can open up a grid, a positional grid, and it just shows you which teams have drafted, what positions you're at pick for and you're coming back into the turn. Well, check out who's got a tight end, who's got a quarterback. Do you do you need to take your guy here or can you wait?

And this is going to help inform you at a quick glance and make those decisions. And the reason I'm bringing this up, one is to inform people that it exists. But you're going to need to practice with this. This is not you can't just jump into your first live draft. Use this when you're on when there's a two minute timer online, you're going to get flustered. You're going to freak out. You need to practice, build up the muscle memory using this tool.

And if your draft platform does not offer it, this is something you can easily track by hand because it's just a quick graph, just a little little team to took a running back. Done. Now I can look at this grid and I can go back and figure out what position can I take a gamble on with the ATP, because it's it's a it's a next level of helping you track what your other team and you're talking about quarterbacks and tight ends late in the draft.

I use this every single draft I'm ever in because sometimes it says, oh, these three teams need a quarterback, I'm about to go up. And so I'll take my quarterback. And sometimes I look and I say, oh, man, ten of the teams already have a quarterback, right? So they're not drafting. I don't need to worry about this anymore. I always look at the positions of other teams and how they've filled up before I make my pick.

Yeah, because taking the gambles, those are calculated risks when you pay attention to the roster of your opponents.

Number four. All right.

Number four, I'm calling it intestinal fortitude, which could have helped me get through Mike's first tip in and of itself. Well, we made it. We did. We got there.

You didn't blow chunks.

This is a good chunk, but I'm calling this intestinal fortitude. Oh, yeah. That was the good was one of the most difficult things for fantasy football owners to do is to take a deep breath.

All right. So this tip is about avoiding reaction or tilt trades, signings, drops, all of those things. This is every single year this happens, especially in week one where players either bomb or they dominate.

And we have this temptation to validate all of our offseason opinions or invalidate all of them in one week's time. And last year, that would burying Jameis Winston on week one when he came out and was awful, he provided great fantasy value later.

What would have meant celebrating and sliding Sammy Watkins into your starting lineup each and every week as what may have celebrated that week? One.

Yeah, that was tough. And I am not saying it's easy to see through and you're going to get some things wrong, but it's more about the reaction. Do you go out and trade for that player? Do you bury Aaron Jones yet on off a week one last year who had a great week, won Malcolm Brown and we had this off season of Always Todd Gurley going to get the work.

Is he not going to get the work? Let's make a final conclusion on one week. I want to know how many fantasy owners went out and acquired Malcolm Brown or better yet, went out and shopped him and got something great for him because he had a seventeen eighteen point week one. You can't let a singular week throw off your center as a fantasy player. That's the major point, I must say. Yes, intestinal fortitude, Mike. It means avoiding the very I think, you know, Al Borland, he does a little little stock work in the background.

Sometimes he shows up and does a little day trading. Do you do that by high sell low strategy? That I really try not to try not to do that.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about. You don't want to go buy high, sell low traditionally with the intestinal fortitude. One thing I will add to that, not just the overreaction from week one, but when you start losing, if you start. Oh, man, do not don't banks don't bail. I mean. Yeah, don't. That's what I was talking. It's every single year we have so many listeners who are like I started on. Fourth, on your show, I stuck with it, I won the championship, you can do that, do not quit because here's the thing, a third of your league probably will quit easy wins.

Yeah, that's exactly.

And then when you break the season up, like Mike said, I've seen people do the reaction in the trading over and over again.

And it becomes something where obviously you want to pivot, you want to make adjustments, you want to trade, you want to try to see through, you know, a one week performance and make smart moves. But when you're unloading your whole roster because you think you have no hope in this life, the one week it's it's these players that you have no control over what they're doing on the field. And then you're like, man, I got to I got to shake things up.

That's I don't really get them going. And we need a different locker room over here. We need a different attitude. The locker room.

Yeah. So that is it for my tip number three.

I call this the skeleton key. This is something I do every single year. And it gives me an enormous edge in what is a skeleton crew.

That's the key. Is that like a real like one of those big giant Tanque is like a is it a secret key? It's a universal.

However, much like every door. I didn't know that. I don't know what I do now. Well, there you never played a video game.

I want this one. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Skilton he sounds cool. Anyways, it's going to unlock a lot of busy playing Tony Hawk instead of whatever games you're playing with.

Skeleton keys. It sounds like a challenge.

So here's what the skeleton key is. We always talk about mock drafts, Mike. You've been talking about it this episode.

They're very, very helpful. But ADP suck. I mean, they just do I we have been pulling our hair out because every episode we're like this. ADP says this this platform says that we're here. How do you know what a good ADP is? We do our best to try to have accurate information here, but it's difficult. This is basically an off line mock draft, it's a one time only you're not going to try different strategies. And while you're building your skeleton key, you are.

And if you are in a keeper league, this is a must. You will have such a leg up on your league mates, your opponents, the villains across from you. They will do a mock draft. That's how you might view the hero.

Of course I'm the hero and you're the hero of your story and you're the hero of your story of an anti-hero guy.

OK, well, then I'm that you're on your story.

But what this is, is doing a single mock draft, not using a platform, but where you pick every single pick, you know, the you know, you were talking about knowing your your your league mates do a draft and put who you think Jeremy is going to take in his spot with his team, with his history and draft everybody. And then as you're drafting, use the positional grid and say, OK, this team already has three running backs.

He's going to go wide receiver here and draft. And at the end of this mock draft, you will have a skeleton key that will tell you to humungous things. One, it will give you the value of picks if you have pick trading in your league and you don't know what a fourth round pick is worth or what a sixth round pick is, where you look at your legitimate mock draft and you say, I would trade this player in this player for that player.

The other one, I know it's an advantage because you did one of these about a week or two ago. I haven't I hadn't done one in this league. And I'm asking you, like, who went where? I'm like, OK, where did this guy end up going?

Who did I end up with in your draft? Al Borland, may I kick it to you? Did you recently ask if you could take a peek at this because you wanted to know the value of our keeper league? Yes.

Yeah, we're working on a trade. And I wanted to know what those I wanted to put some names with those picks. And and did I grant your request now? You're darn right I did. That's my skeleton, kid. You're the villain. He's the bad guy. And here's the thing for Klann. I am going to make the tool that I use. I have a spreadsheet that I use that populates teams and I'm building that today for you.

Go to our social media. What a gentleman. Look at the we'll put an article out with this episode. You can grab that tool and do one of these yourself. I'll have the instructions on. There is a huge leg up. And if you're going to keep your leg and you could put people's keepers already in place, it's monumentally important.

Can I ask a more important question? Does the skeleton key can you get into the aviary with that? Oh, yeah. I mean, that's is it locked?

Well, I like my very well then we can get in because we have the skeleton can get you in anywhere.

Just making sure no to that means you can use the peloton is what I'm saying.

If you have the yes. You can use the peloton, I can use anyone's peloton with my skeleton key which is so long as it's behind a locked door.

Yeah. This door is open. My key is useless. All right. No to know your type. And this is a huge shout out to rich rebar here because he brought this idea to my attention a couple of years ago where looked to tier based ranks.

That's how we do things here on the fantasy football as we have found it to be the absolute best way to go into your draft. It's not just the top two hundred. It helps you make better, more informed decisions. Part of the absolutely national to the rank. Yes. If you want, though, if you want your rankings, they are available in the ultimate draft kit.

And this idea is builds upon that, where you classify the type of player and you break them down and then you can kind of move these guys, ranked them in that type. And now because when you're when you're building your team, you know, it's like making a nice meal and a soup. You need different ingredients in the soup to actually make it taste good. Have your list of these are my high ceiling players. So here's my high floor players.

Here's my my breakout rookies, my my super studs. These are like my locked these are my must have guys. My I'm going to reach around. Yes. An absolute must have guys. And when you tear them and your and you can look at the players in this, in this format, it really just brings a new mentality to the draft, a different way to look at the draft, potentially giving you an edge of players who are that's reach space, a space around.

Absolutely. And like it reach one round. Thank you. Thank you.

OK, it helps you that you're not going to overload on the salt. You like those weekly volatile players. You didn't accidentally take too many of them because like maybe they were the best available and just in tiered. And then you go, oh, crap, I didn't really want three of those players. They were just the best guys on the tier. So it's it's it's another method of looking at players when you're going into the draft. Yeah. And kind of categorizing them, having it's about preparation.

I think a lot of what these tips today have brought out is if you're a little bit more prepared for what your contextual league is like, if you're a little bit. Are prepared about what Jeremy is going to do with his picks in the third round. We didn't want to have a show called One Tip. Right. Be prepared. We had to we had to break it down a little bit more. Now, if we had one tip and it was just don't blow chunks, this shell would not deliver.

Yeah.

Imagine the downloads, though, now would be weird. No. One. All right. The U.D., Kate.

Oh, is that what it is? Is that the tip by the UK? Well, I mean, look, if you want to dominate your draft, you need the ultimate draft kit. That's what I use personally.

That is that's not the real. I'm the champ, champ. That's not the real number. It is a good tip, though. Can you can you flip to the real number one there with it says he put by the UK up on the way there.

The real number one tip, I'm going to call it, you get what you give. All right. We've had different ways to talk about this in the past. Sometimes we say it's it's get your house in order. But really. This is the time of year right here, right now before your draft, make sure that the new radicals I was trying to figure out who, oh, is that the song? You won't get what you give. They wake up because they'll remember that, too.

Yeah. Yeah, I know the music in me. All right. Yeah. And I do not apologize to everyone that's now stuck in your head for the rest of the day.

Make sure you know what you put into your league is what you get out. That's why we facilitate leagues with the foot clan, get the right owners, the right settings, the right platform, the right tools. This is the time to set the table for a good year. And you don't want to be in one of those leagues where you still have the two guys that have always been there that play for there at the draft sometimes. And they play the first week and then you're changing their lineup around for them and it brings the level of competition in your league down significantly.

This is the time of year to get things right so that you get the best possible season out.

Yeah, if if you're looking for someone to fill those spots, you can go to Ficklin leagues that I can't find a good foot clan listener to to join your league.

And maybe you're making the tweak about your waiver system. You put in Fabin there. Maybe this is the year you get the better communication system set up for your league, whether it's a back channel or a Facebook group or, you know, some way that you guys are talking trades guys and gals are talking trades, talking trash, talking trash, which is just as fun as trades.

It's crucial, if not more fun. And maybe this is the year you set the the Twitter feed up and you follow your favorite beat writers or your favorite shows or whatever the case may be just to amplify and make the fantasy football season better, because all those things play into actually enjoying yourself from week one through week, week 17.

So you get what you give Mike, no them up and you know that goes well.

Yeah.

I don't know why I gave him that voice, but I did know that spectacular pumpkin patch.

Oh, mercy.

And the list is over with. The list is done. And I would I was going to say is, if you're a commissioner, this is the year to take it to the next level as a commish, which set up a few traditions for your league.

I mean, we've got we've got some great stuff for one of our main leagues with punishments for the last place team. Traditionally, we've done power rankings. You know, the commissioner comes out with power rankings every week. That's a fun time of year. Step up.

Be the one. Your league has a draft. Do some write ups, write ups on every team. We have a guy in our league.

We a shout out to Goldie that he does the write ups after we do the draft every year. And there we look forward to that. Oh yeah. And they're like they're very fun to be the person who steps up and takes the extra step because it exists, because we started of course, for our league or Mike and I just basically brought up the biggest trades of the week, insulted everyone but ourselves, of course, looked into upcoming matchups.

It was so fun. Why did you guys get rid of that? We've got another podcast.

Yeah, we subscribe to our podcast. Leave a review. I'll turn on the notifications. All right. That'll do it for us. We want to thank pristine auction. A reminder, it's fantasy week at pristine auction. Dotcom used to code ballers. When you sign up, you'll get a ten dollars credit towards these very special auctions that they're doing through Thursday. These are auctions focused on fantasy football stars. So they've got a special auction setup. You can bid on all types of items.

We we won a Josh Jacobs signed jersey last night for eighty one dollars. I like it. So and I think I'm going to say right now that thing's going up in price very, very soon. Sure. It's going to have a big year. Go to pristine auction dotcom, use the code ballers, get that ten dollar credit that'll do it.

Hope you enjoyed the tips, the tricks, the chunks don't blow chunks. We'll see you next time. Don't don't burn your toes. Goodbye. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Football podcast. Join our fantasy football community on Join the Full Dotcom and follow us on Twitter at the F F Balers. And foot clan, don't forget, Omaha Steaks is offering the Grand Summer Grill out package with an exclusive offer just for the foot clan. We're talking Omaha steak, bacon wrapped, filet mignon, pork chops, chicken, more delivered right to your door.

And when you order the Grand Summer Grill out package with your special code, you'll also get four jumbo franks. And for Omaha Steak Burgers for free visit Omaha Steaks outcome type footballers in the search bar to shop Summer Grill packs today.