Speaker 1: Welcome to the Auction Brief. There's a joy in these
Speaker 1: games or not, taking you on a journey through fantasy football,
Speaker 1: the law, and life. We saw your day. It depends
Speaker 1: on how much you want. And now you're legal analyst
Speaker 1: and auction draft expert here to help you dominate your
Speaker 1: fantasy drafts. Your host, Drew Dadamport there asked full hearts. Hey, everybody,
Speaker 1: welcome into the Auction Brief. As the lady said, I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Drew Davenport, and thank you so much for
Speaker 1: joining me for another episode of the Auction Brief or
Speaker 1: solo on the mic today. I hope you listened on
Speaker 1: Tuesday to the great Rich Rebar from Sharp Football Analysis.
Speaker 1: If you haven't, go back and check out this week's
Speaker 1: discussions with Drew. On Tuesday, Rich and I broke down
Speaker 1: some wide receiver situations. A couple situations I was wondering
Speaker 1: about the wide receiver two spot and who might emerge
Speaker 1: in a couple of situations that are just plain muddy
Speaker 1: that we don't know what to do with. Always appreciate
Speaker 1: Rich's take on that kind of stuff because he's just
Speaker 1: one of the best analysts out there, If not the best,
Speaker 1: he's certainly in the top couple in the entire industry.
Speaker 1: So I hope you enjoyed that. Today it's my solo
Speaker 1: trip on the mic, and I love this time a
Speaker 1: week because I always treat this mic a little bit
Speaker 1: like it's my therapist couch, and I love talking through
Speaker 1: stuff with all of you, and I hope you enjoy
Speaker 1: that process. And that's really where I wanted to start today,
Speaker 1: is about the process of figuring out what we're supposed
Speaker 1: to be doing with our teams in August, because we
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time looking backwards, and I think
Speaker 1: that officially today we're going to start looking forward. Of course,
Speaker 1: we're not going to ignore everything that happen. We're going
Speaker 1: to use that stuff as we go on. But enough
Speaker 1: of the lessons from last year. Let's start talking about
Speaker 1: what's going on this summer and the narratives that are
Speaker 1: starting to emerge. So that's what I want to do today.
Speaker 1: I've got seven different things that I think that I
Speaker 1: think right now, and this is one of my favorite
Speaker 1: things to do. I do it on the Patreon a
Speaker 1: lot during the season. I tend to write this column
Speaker 1: during Monday night football for the Patreons exclusively, because it's
Speaker 1: just stuff I'm thinking after I watched football that week,
Speaker 1: but I haven't had a chance to get into routes,
Speaker 1: run market, shared, target, shared, garbage time, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: It's just things that I think. I think, so right now,
Speaker 1: that's what we're going to do, because I was thinking
Speaker 1: about what I want to do. And I tell you
Speaker 1: that every week. It's an interesting process that I have
Speaker 1: to go through because it's a creative process that really
Speaker 1: can't be rushed, and I have a deadline, so it's
Speaker 1: got to be rushed sometimes, and so I just kind
Speaker 1: of let stuff percolate and I think and I think,
Speaker 1: and I think. You know, one of the things that
Speaker 1: occurred to me was that I feel like the show
Speaker 1: is a little bit I'm going a little bit in
Speaker 1: mainstream with the show this summer, and we can't have that.
Speaker 1: Can We know? What I mean by that is there
Speaker 1: is a very real tendency and I can feel it.
Speaker 1: It's very strong and I've never felt this before, but
Speaker 1: it's a very strong tendency for me to want to
Speaker 1: veer towards the center, to go and do a podcast
Speaker 1: that everyone's kind of expecting. Let's talk about this guy
Speaker 1: and let's talk about this guy. And I've always said
Speaker 1: that I'm going to do my show. I'm going to
Speaker 1: do my podcast. And one of the things that you
Speaker 1: do when you veer to the center is you want
Speaker 1: to make these bold claims. You want to proclaim this
Speaker 1: is this and this is this. And I've always said
Speaker 1: that proclamations like that, that absolutes like that are things
Speaker 1: that we need to really fight against. We need to
Speaker 1: fight against that urge to feel like we know everything.
Speaker 1: Just think of stuff in probabilities and think of how
Speaker 1: we win, and that general idea of all the things
Speaker 1: you've learned about how to win at fantasy football and
Speaker 1: how to step back and take a thirty thousand foot view.
Speaker 1: That stuff's really important. And I don't love making bold claims,
Speaker 1: even though sometimes I find myself doing it. I want
Speaker 1: to step back in this week, get back to our
Speaker 1: roots because another thing that I haven't been doing this
Speaker 1: summer is telling a lot of poker stories, or telling
Speaker 1: a lot of stories period. And I don't have a
Speaker 1: poker story for you today, but I do want to
Speaker 1: tell a little story and take some lessons from that
Speaker 1: story into today's topic, because sometimes I think when we
Speaker 1: listen to the results of a lot of time and
Speaker 1: effort put into preparation for the show. We hear the
Speaker 1: conclusions that someone reaches or that eye reach, and those
Speaker 1: conclusions aren't always self evident, and sometimes for the sake
Speaker 1: of time or whatever, just so people aren't bored, you
Speaker 1: don't see the entire process behind why I got to
Speaker 1: that conclusion or why the person you're listening to got
Speaker 1: to that conclusion. But I also think that's part of
Speaker 1: what makes this show a little bit different and valuable.
Speaker 1: So I want to get back to that as well.
Speaker 1: I want you to go through the process with me
Speaker 1: about some of the things that are going on at
Speaker 1: this point in the summer and the narratives that are
Speaker 1: developing from mini camps, injuries, ADP movers, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I know we're a little bit early. Most of the
Speaker 1: casual players are not in fact thinking about fantasy football yet,
Speaker 1: so some of the stuff's going to change. But I
Speaker 1: kind of like that. When I thought about today's show,
Speaker 1: I realized, Okay, let's start with a little bit of
Speaker 1: a story that leads into seven things I think I
Speaker 1: think right now, and you can tell there's a theme
Speaker 1: this summer about coming up with the dimmest popple lines right.
Speaker 1: Players that are scoring points are scoring points. I can't
Speaker 1: even say it with a straight face. But seven things
Speaker 1: I think I think right now, And I label it
Speaker 1: that on purpose, because I'm not proclaiming these things to
Speaker 1: be absolute truisms that we're going to believe when it
Speaker 1: comes mid of August or end of August when we're
Speaker 1: trying to do our drafts. I want you to ride
Speaker 1: along with me this summer as we go through the
Speaker 1: process because one of the things I really thought that
Speaker 1: was that I said earlier this summer that I wanted
Speaker 1: to latch onto was I wanted to start talking about
Speaker 1: some of these trends and some of these things like
Speaker 1: when teams are talking to us, we need to be
Speaker 1: listening even though they're not saying words about grabbing elite players,
Speaker 1: about kind of stepping back and get rid of some
Speaker 1: of the minw show when we're in a draft room.
Speaker 1: And so I think we need to follow these narratives,
Speaker 1: and I want you to follow the narratives with me.
Speaker 1: And so today I think it's going to be really
Speaker 1: fun because it's things that I see developing and things
Speaker 1: that i'm starting to think are going to be true,
Speaker 1: but I'm not actually sure it's going to hold up
Speaker 1: over the next eight weeks. So that's that's I think
Speaker 1: super fun because we can talk about it now, talk
Speaker 1: about it in a month, talk about it on the
Speaker 1: last show, and say is this still right? Is this
Speaker 1: still we are? And one of the reasons that I
Speaker 1: have some of these things developing is I did a
Speaker 1: mock auction this week with some folks, several people from
Speaker 1: the Patreons, some people from Twitter, and the mock auction
Speaker 1: was awesome because it gave me a nice little baseline
Speaker 1: about what's going on. And we'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about that in depth here as we go through
Speaker 1: the show. Don't forget everybody. You can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Drew Davenport FF, and you can find me
Speaker 1: on the Patreon network Fantasy Football Lawyer just four bucks
Speaker 1: a month. I don't have anything else to hawk right now.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have the salary cap summit coming up, but
Speaker 1: I haven't nailed down a date, so we're not even
Speaker 1: going to talk about it a whole lot. Just keep
Speaker 1: it in the back of your mind. End of July
Speaker 1: early August, the salary cap summit. But other than that,
Speaker 1: I think we got to get to some content. I've
Speaker 1: rambled long enough. Seven things I think I think right
Speaker 1: now auction talk. I bet you're sitting there looking at
Speaker 1: the phone or looking at your computer and thinking, Okay,
Speaker 1: we're eight minutes in. How is he going to make
Speaker 1: forty five minutes with seven points? But I don't care
Speaker 1: about your negativity today. I'm gonna do it. Okay, this
Speaker 1: is the forty five minutes summer if it kills me,
Speaker 1: So here we go. Buckle up, let's get ready. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna throw so much crap at your face holes. You
Speaker 1: guys are gonna be loving it by the end, and
Speaker 1: you're gonna look down and it's gonna be forty six
Speaker 1: and a half minutes and you're gonna go, oh my god,
Speaker 1: he did it in forty six and a half minutes,
Speaker 1: even though we talked about my face holes for ninety seconds.
Speaker 1: All right, here we go. So let's get serious for
Speaker 1: a minute. Because the thing that I want to start
Speaker 1: with today is a little proverb that I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot of you have heard before. But if you have,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, stick with me for a second. A lot
Speaker 1: of people have not heard of the Chinese farmer proverb.
Speaker 1: It's the story of a Chinese farmer and his son.
Speaker 1: They're out in the fields and they're working their crops
Speaker 1: in the fields and something spooks their horse. They only
Speaker 1: own one horse. They're poor farmers, and they're harvesting their crops,
Speaker 1: and something spooks their horse, and the horse runs away,
Speaker 1: and all the neighbors from the village gather around and say, oh,
Speaker 1: what terrible luck you have, What an awful tragedy this
Speaker 1: is for your family, And the Chinese farmer looks at
Speaker 1: them and says, maybe they don't really understand what he means.
Speaker 1: But a couple days later, the horse comes running back
Speaker 1: to the farm and he's got several wild horses with him,
Speaker 1: very valuable horses that the farmer can now take for
Speaker 1: himself and use around the farm. And all the villagers
Speaker 1: come to the Chinese farmer and they say, what incredible luck.
Speaker 1: Your horse ran away, and now you have three extra
Speaker 1: wild horses. You have four horses instead of one. Now,
Speaker 1: what incredible luck for you? And then Chinese farmer says,
Speaker 1: maybe a few days later, his son is trying to
Speaker 1: tame one of the wild horses and he's on the
Speaker 1: back of one of these wild horses when it bucks
Speaker 1: him off. Son falls to the ground and breaks his leg,
Speaker 1: and all the villagers gather around and they say to
Speaker 1: the Chinese farmer, what absolute terrible luck, what an awful
Speaker 1: tragedy that your son is going to be laid up
Speaker 1: and can't help you with the crops with a broken leg,
Speaker 1: And the Chinese farmer says maybe. A couple days later,
Speaker 1: the army rides into town and they're looking in the
Speaker 1: village for any able bodied male who can join the
Speaker 1: army and fight in the war. They look at the
Speaker 1: farmer's son and he's laying up with a broken leg,
Speaker 1: unable to move, unable to walk, and they leave without
Speaker 1: taking his son into the army. And the villagers all
Speaker 1: gather around and they say, what incredible luck your son
Speaker 1: doesn't have to go fight in a war, What incredible luck,
Speaker 1: What a great day for you and your son, And
Speaker 1: the Chinese farmer says maybe. And that's the end of
Speaker 1: the story. I hope that you understand the idea that's
Speaker 1: forming as I painstakingly told that story. I hope you
Speaker 1: followed the point of the story and the reason I
Speaker 1: wanted to start the story today was there's a lot
Speaker 1: of different things that we can take from this proverb
Speaker 1: and that we can apply to how we do things
Speaker 1: in everyday life and how we do things in fantasy football.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty six, it's never been harder for us
Speaker 1: to control ourselves and our emotions and what we see
Speaker 1: on a day to day basis because we have constant
Speaker 1: access to everything happening in the world at the push
Speaker 1: of a button. We're constantly holding a device in our
Speaker 1: hands that can outrage us at any moment of the day,
Speaker 1: that can tell us something we don't want to hear
Speaker 1: at any moment of the day. Is incredibly difficult to
Speaker 1: have balance, it's incredibly difficult to have patience, and this
Speaker 1: proverb tells you that you don't have to get out
Speaker 1: over your skis every single time something bad happens to
Speaker 1: you and get out of control life, fantasy football, all
Speaker 1: of this stuff is cyclical, and the proverb tells us
Speaker 1: that if we let things breathe, if we let things develop,
Speaker 1: if we practice self control and patience, it's not always
Speaker 1: as bad as it seems, and it's not always as
Speaker 1: good as it seems. Stay even and have balance, and
Speaker 1: I love that message for life. I love that message
Speaker 1: for auction draft rooms, for fantasy football. There are so
Speaker 1: many things that when we look back on them, we
Speaker 1: realize that thing was actually a blessing in disguise. I
Speaker 1: ended up going through a terrible divorce with my first wife.
Speaker 1: I'm on my second marriage. At the time that it happened,
Speaker 1: it seemed like one of the worst things in the
Speaker 1: world that could happen to me, and it was awful
Speaker 1: in the moment, But looking back on that, that was
Speaker 1: a true Chinese farmer proverb moment in my life. It
Speaker 1: was a sliding doors moment because that thing actually was
Speaker 1: extremely valuable in retrospect. I talk about The King's Classic
Speaker 1: last year, and I have to say this was a
Speaker 1: sliding doors moment in fantasy football. I talked about this
Speaker 1: last summer after the draft, but let me just refresh
Speaker 1: your memory quick I was early in the first round,
Speaker 1: and so my goal was to nominate a running back
Speaker 1: that I thought was far enough down the board that
Speaker 1: people wouldn't care as much that early in the draft
Speaker 1: and I might get a little bit of a sitting
Speaker 1: down bonus. So my goal was to nominate Chase Brown, early.
Speaker 1: I considered nominating Kyrien Williams, but I nominated Chase Brown.
Speaker 1: I ended up getting Chase Brown for thirty six, and
Speaker 1: then a little while later Kyrien Williams went for twenty seven,
Speaker 1: and I was frustrated because I really wanted Chase Brown
Speaker 1: in the upper twenties or early, you know, low thirties,
Speaker 1: but I thought that I should bit up to thirty six.
Speaker 1: Long story doesn't really matter. The point is I was
Speaker 1: frustrated about that nine dollars that was extra from Kyron
Speaker 1: to Chase Brown. That was a sliding doors moment in
Speaker 1: that season because early on in the season, I was
Speaker 1: really not loving that decision and that result because of
Speaker 1: how bad Chase Brown was early in the season. But
Speaker 1: the lead in the year, Chase Brown was an unbelievable
Speaker 1: fantasy running back and he was part of the reason
Speaker 1: I want a title. That stuff in retrospect can change,
Speaker 1: it can be different. And that's how we're going to
Speaker 1: lead into the first topic today. The first topic is
Speaker 1: a simple one, and don't everyone gasp at once. The
Speaker 1: topic number one. I think that I might pay two
Speaker 1: dollars for a kicker this year. Whoa everybody I know,
Speaker 1: We're not going crazy on number one here, but I've
Speaker 1: been thinking a lot about how valuable Brandon Aubrey is
Speaker 1: as a fantasy kicker, and then I went to look
Speaker 1: this stuff up. And this is a true once again
Speaker 1: Chinese farmer moment, because in the moment when we're watching
Speaker 1: Brandon Aubrey last year, it's like this dude's just a
Speaker 1: cheat code. He can just throw up twenty points whenever
Speaker 1: kicking sixty yard field goals. And I don't disagree. I
Speaker 1: still think that I might pay two dollars for Brandon
Speaker 1: Aubrey in an auction, or I might nominate him for
Speaker 1: two and see somebody's willing to pay three. But you
Speaker 1: want to know something interesting, And I don't know how
Speaker 1: many of you have looked at final kicker standings, because
Speaker 1: not many people are sick in the third week of
Speaker 1: June looking up kicker rankings. But did you know that
Speaker 1: Brandon Aubrey did not finish as the kicker one. He
Speaker 1: wasn't the overall number one kicker, nor was he number
Speaker 1: two in points per game. Kyami Fairbairn actually missed a game,
Speaker 1: I believe maybe one or two games and finished third.
Speaker 1: Aubrey finished second Jason Myers finished first from Seattle. Myers
Speaker 1: was first in overall points and first in points per game.
Speaker 1: Aubrey was second overall but third in points per game,
Speaker 1: behind fairbarn So tell me why we should go into
Speaker 1: an auction and pay two dollars for the guy who
Speaker 1: was kicker three. Now I'm saying I think it's probably okay,
Speaker 1: But I expected to come to the conclusion that yes,
Speaker 1: I'm going to spend two or maybe even three dollars
Speaker 1: on Aubrey. He's just that much of a cheat code.
Speaker 1: And I think it's still okay. I'm still considering this,
Speaker 1: but this is part of the journey I want you
Speaker 1: to go on with me this summer. I was prepared
Speaker 1: to say, let's go do it for the first time ever,
Speaker 1: and then I looked at the kicker standings that he
Speaker 1: didn't even finish as the overall kicker one. I just
Speaker 1: think that that reinforces the point that a dollar per
Speaker 1: kicker you can get a pretty good one. And most
Speaker 1: of the time, if you nominate Fairbaron, nobody's going to
Speaker 1: bid two. So I'm not sure it's worth it. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure it's worth it. That's point number one. I
Speaker 1: think that I want to pay two dollars for Brandon Aubrey,
Speaker 1: but upon further reflection, I'm not sure I'm going to
Speaker 1: do that. Stay tuned for that as we go through
Speaker 1: the summer. A couple other takes I have are gonna
Speaker 1: be auction takes here coming up by points two, three, four, Well,
Speaker 1: really a lot of the rest of them are auction takes,
Speaker 1: but I want you to keep in mind that some
Speaker 1: of these takes are based off of this auction that
Speaker 1: I did the other night. Now, this was a really
Speaker 1: valuable auction because nobody left early. Everybody played it out
Speaker 1: like we were going to play out the season. However,
Speaker 1: there are some problems with mock auctions that are just
Speaker 1: really kind of subconscious things. So I want everyone to
Speaker 1: be careful and not draw too many conclusions from some
Speaker 1: of this stuff. But I do think the price is
Speaker 1: even if they're wonky by a little bit or ten
Speaker 1: percent or whatever, I still think it's important because it
Speaker 1: shows us the trend. It shows us what people are
Speaker 1: generally thinking. And these folks that was doing this auction
Speaker 1: with are these are good players. They know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: This was a good mock. Okay, So two things. I
Speaker 1: want to mention though mocs do tend to inflate prices
Speaker 1: at the top. You know, they like to ditch qbs
Speaker 1: a little bit too. And well, I guess this is
Speaker 1: three things. People don't care as much about depth, all right,
Speaker 1: So I understand that it's subconscious. People don't necessarily say
Speaker 1: I don't care, but they know they don't have to
Speaker 1: play it out, so it's more fun just look at
Speaker 1: this sparkling, beautiful starting lineup and not spend as much
Speaker 1: for backups. Keep that stuff in mind. However, I still
Speaker 1: think we can draw some conclusions from some of this stuff.
Speaker 1: I saw the other night. Somebody paid two bucks for Meyers.
Speaker 1: Somebody paid two bucks for Aubrey. I don't know if
Speaker 1: that's a trend that's going to continue. That's number one.
Speaker 1: But number two thing that I think I think is
Speaker 1: that getting a couple of top wide receivers is going
Speaker 1: to be harder than ever. And when I say top
Speaker 1: wide receivers, I'm talking about really this top six, seven,
Speaker 1: eight wide receivers. I was really surprised at the prices
Speaker 1: of the top guys because in prior seasons, forty to
Speaker 1: fifty two something in that range would be the price
Speaker 1: for a wide receiver one, and in this auction we
Speaker 1: had two guys that went it for over sixty and
Speaker 1: it was much top heavier than I expected. Now, again,
Speaker 1: I believe that's an effect partially of the mock, but
Speaker 1: I do believe that the true wide receiver ones what
Speaker 1: Rich Reeby and I were talking about on Tuesday, the
Speaker 1: guys that come in that thirty percent target share the
Speaker 1: true alphas. There just aren't that many of them. And
Speaker 1: everybody looks like they're recognizing it. Like I said, it's June.
Speaker 1: I get it. We're gonna go through the process as
Speaker 1: we go through the summer, but watch out because the
Speaker 1: very top of the wide receiver position is looking like
Speaker 1: it's going to be difficult to get a couple of
Speaker 1: those guys. So if you think you're coming in and
Speaker 1: grabbing those guys at the top, I just talked about this,
Speaker 1: it was either last week or the week before, about
Speaker 1: how wide receiver points are getting harder to come by
Speaker 1: and I want to slam more money into the top.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that I'm totally sold on that anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm backing off that a little bit, and that's why
Speaker 1: I want you to walk through this process with me.
Speaker 1: A couple prices for you. Jackson Smith and Jigbell was sixty,
Speaker 1: Chase was sixty four, aman Rosse Brown was fifty five.
Speaker 1: Justin Jefferson was fifty three. Pooka and Akua went for
Speaker 1: fifty one. That was a little bit weird. That's one
Speaker 1: of those things where I should have been on that.
Speaker 1: I should have been fifty two. I'm Pooka should have
Speaker 1: got him up in the mid fifties. J Brown went
Speaker 1: for forty four dollars. I thought that was interesting. I'm
Speaker 1: going to circle back to that for Drake London fifty,
Speaker 1: Ceedee Lamb forty six, George Pickens forty one, Nico Collins
Speaker 1: forty Chris o'lave thirty nine. Now I put all those
Speaker 1: out there to say there still are some guys that
Speaker 1: I think can finish as wide receiver ones that are
Speaker 1: in the upper thirties to low forties, and that's still
Speaker 1: something we can do. And it's kind of something I've
Speaker 1: been doing for a while now, is trying to draft
Speaker 1: those receivers in the seven to twelve range, not necessarily
Speaker 1: the one through five because I just don't like my
Speaker 1: bills when I spend that much money. But I've never
Speaker 1: seen two receivers go for more than sixty dollars in
Speaker 1: the rooms I'm in, and having one, two, three, four, five,
Speaker 1: six guys go for over fifty that's significant. And I
Speaker 1: was a little bit interested in the AJ Brown price,
Speaker 1: and forty four dollars seems about right. But I do
Speaker 1: think that we need to pay attention to two guys,
Speaker 1: Nico Collins at forty bucks. We all think that Nico
Speaker 1: Collins is awesome, and of course we're getting some information
Speaker 1: that CJ. Stroud is not what we thought he was.
Speaker 1: But in a quote unquote down year, Nico Collins had
Speaker 1: eleven hundred yards and six touchdowns. Now for PPR leads
Speaker 1: seventy one catches. You'd like to see more. Obviously, eleven
Speaker 1: hundred yards and six touchdowns in a down year, and
Speaker 1: he was forty bucks the other night. That's a guy
Speaker 1: I'm paying attention to. I'm also paying attention to Pickings
Speaker 1: at forty one, Alive at thirty nine. These guys, those
Speaker 1: are nice prices. AJ Brown at forty four dollars is
Speaker 1: super interesting because I originally was going to be out
Speaker 1: on Brown. I just thought that what I saw last
Speaker 1: year was a guy sort of falling off a cliff.
Speaker 1: Those kind of big bodied, huge receivers that have that
Speaker 1: high athleticism, the end tends to come a little bit quicker.
Speaker 1: The end just comes quicker for a guy like AJ Brown.
Speaker 1: So I was a little bit worried about him last
Speaker 1: year and I thought, I'm just totally out on him
Speaker 1: going forward. But then he gets the trade to New England,
Speaker 1: and I think it's one of the situations where I'm
Speaker 1: just gonna have to turn off my brain and go
Speaker 1: for a J Brown because at forty four dollars, he
Speaker 1: does have wide receiver want upside, and I don't mean
Speaker 1: top twelve, I mean overall wide receiver want upside, right,
Speaker 1: because Drake May's throwing to him, and May is a
Speaker 1: much better passer than Jalen Hurts already. They run an
Speaker 1: offense that's more conducive to throw in the football. It's
Speaker 1: just a much better environment. And it reminds me of
Speaker 1: when Sakuon Barkley moved from the Giants to the Eagles
Speaker 1: and we were like, oh, he's switching teams. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure what to do, And then Barkley just went berserk
Speaker 1: because he'd been playing on the New York Giants. What
Speaker 1: has AJ Brown done in his career except play for
Speaker 1: a low pass volume offense in Tennessee where he had
Speaker 1: like fifty catches for fifteen billion yards. And then he
Speaker 1: gets traded to Philadelphia, Who's got a low volume pass
Speaker 1: offense in a limited offense, a limited quarterback. Now he
Speaker 1: goes to a pretty good offense with surround founding piece
Speaker 1: is a good run game, a strong coach, and a
Speaker 1: really dynamic young quarterback. Why would I be like, you
Speaker 1: know any J Brown? No, that this is the profile,
Speaker 1: this is the guy. I don't care if I miss
Speaker 1: on AJ Brown. I think we need to be in
Speaker 1: on AJ Brown at forty four bucks, especially so before
Speaker 1: I leave number two in the rear view. I think
Speaker 1: that getting two top wide receivers is going to be
Speaker 1: harder than ever, but I do see some value there
Speaker 1: in the low forties. And I also think that it's
Speaker 1: reasonable to take a bet on a bunch of guys
Speaker 1: that are in the mid tier who can finish as
Speaker 1: wide receiver. Once and originally I said, maybe we need
Speaker 1: to lay off these fifteen eighteen dollars receivers, and I
Speaker 1: don't disagree with that, but I want to push that
Speaker 1: up a little bit, and I want to say that
Speaker 1: I think it's reasonable to take like five bets for
Speaker 1: maybe one hundred and ten one hundred and twenty bucks
Speaker 1: of your salary and put it on guys like this
Speaker 1: Terry McLaurin, Lad mcconki, Luther Bird, Jamison Williams, Davonte Smith,
Speaker 1: Christian Watson. Yeah, you heard me. I'm Mecca Buca and
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about some of these receivers in
Speaker 1: the next one. But I want to tell you the
Speaker 1: cost for some of these guys is completely reasonable for
Speaker 1: the upside they represent. Terry McLaurin had a really good
Speaker 1: year with Jaden Daniels when he stayed healthy. Now maybe
Speaker 1: Daniels won't stay healthy, I get it, but he was
Speaker 1: twenty five dollars. Lad McConkey was twenty four, Luther Burden
Speaker 1: was twenty four, Jamison Williams was I think sixteen, Davonte
Speaker 1: Smith was thirty three. If you add all those up,
Speaker 1: it was one hundred and twenty two bucks to get
Speaker 1: those five receivers. McLaurin, mconkie, Burden, Jamison Williams, Davonte Smith,
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty two bucks. I love that. I'm
Speaker 1: not worried at all about not having a receiver that
Speaker 1: goes for more than Davonte Smith at thirty three bucks.
Speaker 1: I think those are five dynamic wide receivers for one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty two dollars and bing bang boom, you're done.
Speaker 1: You get a couple one dollars two dollar guys for
Speaker 1: your wide receiver six and seven and you're done. I
Speaker 1: absolutely love that idea. So I'm considering that. I'm considering
Speaker 1: these guys in the low forties, upper thirties. I'm totally
Speaker 1: cool going out and getting a Pickens and an Olave
Speaker 1: for eighty bucks. I like that. Then you can throw
Speaker 1: in a Jamison Williams or Christian Watson for sixteen eighteen bucks.
Speaker 1: So I'm not so sure that throwing all our money
Speaker 1: at the top alpha receivers is the play. And if
Speaker 1: we're going to do it, we got to watch out
Speaker 1: for the inflated price at the time, all right. Number three.
Speaker 1: Number three thing I think I think is that I
Speaker 1: think I'm getting more radically into upside than I ever
Speaker 1: have in my drafts. And I'm not sure because I've
Speaker 1: really been examining my feelings on this, but I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if this is just living in the fantasy bubble
Speaker 1: for the last eight years. I can't believe I've been
Speaker 1: doing this eight years. But living in the fantasy bubble
Speaker 1: for this long has made me one of these analysts
Speaker 1: who just screams about upside all the time. That's not
Speaker 1: me because I still really believe in guys like Jacobi
Speaker 1: Myers and guys like Christian Kirk. I don't mean for
Speaker 1: this year, but guys like that who are unimpressive eighty
Speaker 1: catch guys who can help you along in PPR leagues.
Speaker 1: I still believe those guys very much have their place.
Speaker 1: So don't get me wrong here, but I don't want
Speaker 1: to be spending significant money on guys who like to
Speaker 1: churn up eleven points a game. I'm more radical than
Speaker 1: ever before. I just boom bust guys because that's totally fine.
Speaker 1: I remember I drafted Matthew Golm last year and I'm like,
Speaker 1: if he's gonna be on the field and they're gonna
Speaker 1: use him, let's go. And then after two games he
Speaker 1: was doing what I thought they were gonna do, and
Speaker 1: I dropped him. I know everybody thinks that's wild that
Speaker 1: I dropped him after two games, but turned out to
Speaker 1: be correct. What I'm saying about Upside is I'm fine
Speaker 1: with the bust. I'm totally fine, and I was never
Speaker 1: really very okay with that. I've always struggled with that
Speaker 1: because the knit in me. I've talked about it for
Speaker 1: five summers now. The natural inclination of my moves is
Speaker 1: just to play it safe, and I just the more
Speaker 1: I get into this, the more I realize that these
Speaker 1: arbitrage plays is what I want to make, and I
Speaker 1: talked about it last summer. We're going to continue that
Speaker 1: this summer. In fact, I'm getting more radical about Arbitrage
Speaker 1: plays are very simple. It's drafting a player who's extremely
Speaker 1: cheap or cheaper than they should be, and that cheaper
Speaker 1: price represents essentially what their fantasy floor is, and then
Speaker 1: everything from there is gravy, and if that person explodes,
Speaker 1: it's a completely home run type, weekly winner and season
Speaker 1: winner type player. So I think I'm getting more radically
Speaker 1: about Upside than ever before. And a couple of those
Speaker 1: guys that I saw in the draft this pastime, DeVante
Speaker 1: Smith went for thirty three bucks. I think that's a
Speaker 1: perfect arbitrage play. I mean, this guy's going to go nuclear.
Speaker 1: Who they have behind him, Mikai Lemon? Is that what
Speaker 1: we're doing here? We think that mkayle Lemon's gonna big
Speaker 1: brother DeVante Smith. Smith is going to get a thirty
Speaker 1: percent target chair. He's gonna eat thirty three bucks. Is amazing.
Speaker 1: Get him as your wife receiver one. Christian Watson at
Speaker 1: eighteen Folks, you won't find many people that hate Christian
Speaker 1: Watson as much as me. There aren't many people, okay,
Speaker 1: but even I recognize he went for eighteen bucks the
Speaker 1: other night. That's perfect. You've got to make that bet.
Speaker 1: He has that slate breaking ability if he stays healthy.
Speaker 1: It looked like he was going to do that last year, right.
Speaker 1: If he stays healthy, he stays on the field. Christian
Speaker 1: Watson for eighteen bucks, beautiful arbitrage play. Jadarium Price for
Speaker 1: eight bucks the other night. I think that's great too.
Speaker 1: I know Seattle could turn into sort of a weird
Speaker 1: thing with Halani and Imanuel Wilson. Maybe Jadarium Price doesn't
Speaker 1: touch the ball very much, but for eight bucks doesn't matter. No,
Speaker 1: It's just a super simple play to make Jadarium. Price
Speaker 1: is a kind of guy who's explosive, he's young. The
Speaker 1: Seahawks have a great defense. They need a guy like that.
Speaker 1: That's a perfect arbitrage play. Eight bucks is That's exactly
Speaker 1: where I want to be in Onngenarian Price, and then
Speaker 1: I also want to talk about the Tampa receivers and
Speaker 1: Mecca Abuka went for twenty six bucks the other night
Speaker 1: and Godwin went for nine. I still believe we're going
Speaker 1: to see a jump from Godwin second year post broken
Speaker 1: leg I believe. And eg Buka is just the kind
Speaker 1: of player that we saw what he could do when
Speaker 1: he was healthy, when Mayfield was healthy. Now Mike Evans
Speaker 1: leaves a complete target, Hog leaves, and we're leaving Egbuka
Speaker 1: out there for twenty six bucks. Again, another arbitrage play.
Speaker 1: If you want to sub out McLaurin and the example
Speaker 1: that I used earlier, you could have Egbuca, McConkey, Burden, Jamison,
Speaker 1: and DeVante Smith for one hundred and twenty three dollars.
Speaker 1: We just got to go for that upside. Eg Buka
Speaker 1: has that upside. Price has that upside, Watson, DeVante Smith,
Speaker 1: they're all arbitrage plays, and we need to be leaning
Speaker 1: into the upside more than everything. Number four thing that
Speaker 1: I think. I think chasing the Chicago wide receivers and
Speaker 1: the Jacksonville wide receivers is going to be a profitable
Speaker 1: play this summer. That sounds weird because I believe that
Speaker 1: none of us really know what's about to happen. And
Speaker 1: I will say that the conversations I've had so far
Speaker 1: with these smart guys, and I'm going to keep asking them,
Speaker 1: rich Riebar, Jim Coventry, these guys, they really know what
Speaker 1: they're doing, and they're not one thousand percent sold on
Speaker 1: exactly what we're going to see from these offenses. And
Speaker 1: the market share splits between these guys. So if rich
Speaker 1: Reebar and Jim Coventry can't quite figure it out, I
Speaker 1: think that we can safely say that we're not exactly
Speaker 1: going to know, right, We're not exactly going to know,
Speaker 1: but we have an idea. And the great thing is
Speaker 1: nobody in the market really knows either, So they're kind
Speaker 1: of I'm sloughing off. They're kind of just saying I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. Therefore, none of them are very expensive. The
Speaker 1: other night, Burden only went for twenty four bucks. Odonsay
Speaker 1: went to me for twelve. I thought that was a
Speaker 1: fabulous deal. The Jacksonville wide receivers, Brian Thomas was eleven,
Speaker 1: Jacoby Myers was nine, and Parker Washington was four. Folks,
Speaker 1: you could have all five of those guys for sixty bucks.
Speaker 1: That's crazy to me. That's absolutely crazy to me. I
Speaker 1: don't understand why they're all so cheap. I understand that
Speaker 1: they maybe should be split up and all of their
Speaker 1: prices would be depressed a little bit. But twelve for Odoonsay,
Speaker 1: four for Washington, like somebody's gonna blow up here, so
Speaker 1: take chances. And I believe that chasing these wide receiver
Speaker 1: rooms is what I'm going to be doing. And on
Speaker 1: top of that, think about this. This is something again
Speaker 1: friend of the show, JJ zachar Reeson, who I just
Speaker 1: confirmed he'll be on I think middle of July. He's
Speaker 1: always said that chasing ambiguous backfields was the way to
Speaker 1: success in fantasy, and I think it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: It's the same concept. You don't chase ambiguous backfields like
Speaker 1: the Jets, well although we might, ah, but you chase
Speaker 1: we know, Chicago and Jacksonville those are good situations, right
Speaker 1: really good. So I believe that right now I'm going
Speaker 1: to be chasing both of those wide receiver course, they're
Speaker 1: excellent offensive environments, and the pieces are just too cheap.
Speaker 1: The number five thing that I think I think is
Speaker 1: that the top running backs are going to be expensive
Speaker 1: once again. But there is a bit of a cliff,
Speaker 1: and there's a massive cliff to some guys who are
Speaker 1: going to get a lot of touches, and I don't
Speaker 1: understand why there is such a cliff. So the thing
Speaker 1: I think I think is that I'm going to be
Speaker 1: overweight on a lot of these guys who may be
Speaker 1: in committees, but who I believe are going to be
Speaker 1: productive players for fantasy teams this fall. Let me give
Speaker 1: you some examples. I ended up doing a weird kind
Speaker 1: of thing. I'm not a Jeremiah Love guy, but I
Speaker 1: got him for thirty four bucks, and I was cool
Speaker 1: with that because then I paired him with Derek Henry
Speaker 1: for thirty six. I think those two guys were seventy bucks.
Speaker 1: Is a home round. I love it. And then I
Speaker 1: just went and decided I'm going to go get as
Speaker 1: much of these guys who are going to touch the
Speaker 1: ball as possible for my bench and not really worry
Speaker 1: about the price. I ended up getting RJ. Harvey for
Speaker 1: ten bucks as my RB three. I love that, and
Speaker 1: I think we're doing the thing again this summer with Harvey.
Speaker 1: I'm going to say it. I like JK. Dobbins and
Speaker 1: he's on my list here, but R J. Harvey for
Speaker 1: ten bucks. With the way he finished last season, it's
Speaker 1: really funny to me that the takeaway when a guy
Speaker 1: does stuff like that, like, oh, we scored a lot
Speaker 1: of receiving touchdowns. I get it. He was hyper efficient.
Speaker 1: You take away some touchdowns. He wasn't that great, but
Speaker 1: he was reasonably good. And he was a rookie learning
Speaker 1: Sean Payton's offense. Did you notice how much Lil Jordan
Speaker 1: Humphrey played last year. Sean Payton's not exactly a guy
Speaker 1: who trusts people very quickly. Humphrey's there because he trusts him,
Speaker 1: and Humphrey knows exactly what's going on in the offense. RJ.
Speaker 1: Harvey had to come in and learn that stuff, and
Speaker 1: Sean Payton's not an easy guy to learn that stuff with,
Speaker 1: and he did it anyway, and he had a pretty
Speaker 1: good season. It's kind of funny. It's like a buka.
Speaker 1: It's like, so we watched these guys be pretty good,
Speaker 1: and then also we're along, we're like jon and Coleman.
Speaker 1: Did you know that? Jonah Coleman? You're crazy if you
Speaker 1: think Jonah Coleman is coming in and got a big
Speaker 1: brother RJ. Harvey. Maybe he does that to Dobbins. He's
Speaker 1: not going to do that to Harvey anyway. Ten bucks
Speaker 1: for Harvey. Let me read some other prices, because I
Speaker 1: think some of these are a little bit crazy. Ramandre
Speaker 1: Stevenson was nine bucks, Trevion Henderson was eight bucks, Jalen
Speaker 1: Warren six, Dobbins seven, Pollard five, Brooks three, Cuba Hubbard eleven. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to sit here and tell you that
Speaker 1: any of those guys are super exciting. And those prices
Speaker 1: may be depressed by a few bucks because it's a
Speaker 1: mock and because people spent their money early and they
Speaker 1: didn't really care too much about saving it. For Jalen Warren,
Speaker 1: it's not exciting to do a mock and be like
Speaker 1: I walked out with Jalen Warren. Did you guys see that?
Speaker 1: Did everybody see it? Did you see it? It was?
Speaker 1: It was six bucks, Jalen Warren. Did everybody see that anyway?
Speaker 1: I get it, I get it. But even if these
Speaker 1: guys are a few big bucks, more so, I had
Speaker 1: to pay eleven dollars for Ramandro Stevenson. He's not going anywhere,
Speaker 1: by the way, in this Patriots backfield, but Jalen Warren
Speaker 1: six bucks. I know Rico Daddle's there and he's gonna
Speaker 1: eat away at some early down carries and maybe the
Speaker 1: goal line, but Jalen Warren is going to be very
Speaker 1: involved in this offense. He's six bucks. It's so it's
Speaker 1: going to be so easy to get some of these
Speaker 1: guys Pollard, Jonathan Brooks, and even more so with the
Speaker 1: running backs that aren't falling off the cliff, like the
Speaker 1: Warrens and the Brooks and the Pollards. What about Kyron Williams.
Speaker 1: He went for twenty one dollars the other night, Bucky
Speaker 1: Irving went for nineteen, Javonte Williams went for twenty three,
Speaker 1: Brece Hall went for twenty two. I'm gonna submit to
Speaker 1: you that some of these guys are really good players
Speaker 1: that we know are going to play a lot, and
Speaker 1: we have to stop freaking out about what they may
Speaker 1: or may not lose or get I know Aaron Glenn
Speaker 1: said this week, I want a three headed committee. Okay,
Speaker 1: they're all gonna say that. Number one and number two.
Speaker 1: They just handed Brice Hall fourteen million a year. They're
Speaker 1: gonna use them. They're going to use him till his
Speaker 1: legs fall off. But I'm not even here to say
Speaker 1: that Breece Hall is getting a Bell Coyle row or
Speaker 1: a roll or three hundred and fifty carries. I'm not
Speaker 1: here to say that at all. What I'm here to
Speaker 1: say is there is no shot that Breesce Hall is
Speaker 1: getting less than two hundred and fifty touches if he
Speaker 1: stays healthy. Right, maybe it's a three headed monster, but
Speaker 1: he's getting two hundred and fifty touches, right, There's no
Speaker 1: way he's not. So for twenty two bucks, that's crazy.
Speaker 1: I mean, what about Kyrien Williams. Everybody freaked out about
Speaker 1: Blake Korham last year and they're like, ah, he's gonna
Speaker 1: start doing this and this. Sean McVay loves Kyrien Williams
Speaker 1: paid him too. They're gonna use him or they're gonna
Speaker 1: cut him next year. But they're in a Super Bowl
Speaker 1: window now Kyron Williams and Blake Korm are both gonna play.
Speaker 1: And if you look at Kyrien Williams numbers at the
Speaker 1: end of last year, they were pretty good. They were
Speaker 1: pretty good. If you listened to the fantasy community, you'd
Speaker 1: think that kyn Williams was scoring eight points a game
Speaker 1: at the end of the season. He was at fifteen
Speaker 1: points a game over the second half of the year.
Speaker 1: Even with Blake Korum coming in and getting a bunch
Speaker 1: of touches, Williams was still the goal line back a
Speaker 1: lot of the time. He was catching a few passes
Speaker 1: here and there. Kyen Williams twenty one bucks, Breese Haul
Speaker 1: twenty two. You could go into a draft and take
Speaker 1: Kyron and Breese for forty three bucks, get five of
Speaker 1: these receivers that I was talking about earlier at Bucha
Speaker 1: mcconky Burden, Jamis and DeVante Smith. Then you've spent one
Speaker 1: hundred and sixty dollars and you have your two starting
Speaker 1: running backs and five strong wide receivers. You can screw
Speaker 1: around and get a nice quarterback and a nice tight
Speaker 1: end and you're almost done. I think that there's a
Speaker 1: real nice path here, and I think we're going to
Speaker 1: try to follow that path this summer. So Number five
Speaker 1: is I think that I don't understand this running back cliff,
Speaker 1: and maybe that's going to change as the summer goes on,
Speaker 1: but we're going to pay attention to it. All right,
Speaker 1: We've only got two more to go and we're about
Speaker 1: out of here. Forty six and a half minutes is
Speaker 1: looking pretty strong, all right. Number six thing I think
Speaker 1: that I think is that QB malaise may be real
Speaker 1: this year. People may be a little bit out on quarterback.
Speaker 1: I said it earlier in the summer that late round
Speaker 1: quarterback is back. But I'm wondering if the pendulum is
Speaker 1: going to swing too far and that there's some quarterbacks
Speaker 1: that can be had cheaper than they should be. I'm
Speaker 1: going to reiterate we did this mock the other night.
Speaker 1: The quarterbacks were way too cheap. I don't think it
Speaker 1: would actually play out like this in a regular league.
Speaker 1: Number one, we've got a bunch of really smart guys
Speaker 1: who know they can get it cheap quarterback. And number two,
Speaker 1: when you get casuals in the room, they get more
Speaker 1: excited about quarterbacks. So we're going to follow this. But
Speaker 1: the early trend is that people realize how many good
Speaker 1: quarterbacks there are. They know that they can have a
Speaker 1: pretty good quarterback fairly cheap, and so they're not really
Speaker 1: willing to overspend. The only guys that got any money
Speaker 1: spent on him were Josh Allen and Drake May believe
Speaker 1: it or not, just about everybody else, even Lamar Jackson
Speaker 1: only went for ten bucks. I was going to bid eleven.
Speaker 1: I tried to bid. It wouldn't let me bid whatever.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter. He was only going to go for
Speaker 1: twelve or thirteen. I might have bid one more time.
Speaker 1: He might have gone for fourteen. But point is, I
Speaker 1: think people are realizing and the malaise that I saw
Speaker 1: on this mock draft, it may be real, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to continue to follow it. But listen to some
Speaker 1: of these weird prices. Jalen Hurts went for three bucks,
Speaker 1: Trevor Lawrence five, Kayleb Williams five bucks, Joe Burrow five bucks,
Speaker 1: to me Herbert three bucks, Mar Jackson ten bucks. I
Speaker 1: think the lesson for us, and what I think that
Speaker 1: I think right now is that I want I want
Speaker 1: to nominate quarterbacks early in my drafts, because if you
Speaker 1: nominate them early there may be some guys that slip
Speaker 1: through that you don't think you're gonna get, and if
Speaker 1: they go for too much money, then great, then that's
Speaker 1: leaving a Dak Prescott for you later, a rock party later.
Speaker 1: Maybe you're gonna get Trevor Lawrence for three bucks later.
Speaker 1: Justin Herbert, I think that I'm gonna nominate some of
Speaker 1: these guys. I think I'm gonna nominate Joe Burrow, Caleb Williams,
Speaker 1: Drake May. I think I'm gonna nominate them early. And
Speaker 1: I think we might find that one of these guys
Speaker 1: slips through because Joe Burrow for five bucks or Kayleb
Speaker 1: Williams for five bucks, sign me up, all right. Number
Speaker 1: seven The number seven thing I think that I think
Speaker 1: is that there is no substitute for being in the
Speaker 1: room and getting reps in an auction room. There just
Speaker 1: is no substitute. And if you weren't in the mock
Speaker 1: the other night, you need to get in there. Want
Speaker 1: to put it out on Twitter. I put it out
Speaker 1: on Patreon. That is the benefit of by the way,
Speaker 1: being a Patreon member Fantasy Football lawyer just four bucks
Speaker 1: a month. That's the benefit of being in the Patreon
Speaker 1: because you get first DIBs on any mocks that I'm
Speaker 1: going to run before I come to Twitter. Now, look,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that you've got to do fifty mocks,
Speaker 1: but everyone you do makes you better able to handle situations.
Speaker 1: And there's two situations that I want to talk about
Speaker 1: before I let you go for the day. And these
Speaker 1: two situations occurred the other night in the draft, and
Speaker 1: I love these because illustrations are sometimes hard to come
Speaker 1: by on the show, because it's not easy to just
Speaker 1: pull these things out of thin air and make a
Speaker 1: realistic auction situation. That's what I love about mocks that
Speaker 1: I can get these situations and they are realistic, and
Speaker 1: I can pull a little something for you and have
Speaker 1: an illustration that sort of imprints that in your brain
Speaker 1: a little bit better. So we're not going to get
Speaker 1: out in forty five minutes today. I'm sorry about that.
Speaker 1: But I love these two situations that I came upon
Speaker 1: in the mock the other night, and I'll try to
Speaker 1: get to them as succinctly as possible, but I think
Speaker 1: they're too important to just sort of trunk kate or
Speaker 1: blow off because I'm trying to do this forty five
Speaker 1: minute thing. We're still going to get you out under
Speaker 1: an hour. But let me tell you about these two situations.
Speaker 1: Number one was I had gotten to tight end fairly
Speaker 1: early because I ended up with Tucker Kraft for seven bucks,
Speaker 1: and I love that price. I was cool with it.
Speaker 1: I wasn't gonna if somebody had said eight, I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to nine. But seven was perfect. So I took
Speaker 1: Tucker Craft fairly early. And I could see how things
Speaker 1: were shaping up in the room with people spending on
Speaker 1: the top guys so heavily that there was going to
Speaker 1: be a lot of value at the back half of
Speaker 1: some of these position groups. And one of the things
Speaker 1: I was worried about was the tight end group because
Speaker 1: things were going a little bit too cheap. I was
Speaker 1: happy that some guys went, you know, and got a
Speaker 1: little bit of momentum, and you know, Colstman Lovelin I
Speaker 1: think went for twenty one, so I was happy about
Speaker 1: some of that. But I kept seeing Tyler Warren on
Speaker 1: the board there at the tight end spot, and I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to myself, Man, Warren is too good of a
Speaker 1: tight end to still be sitting there. And as the
Speaker 1: draft went on, nobody nominated him. And this is one
Speaker 1: of those things that I think is really important that
Speaker 1: we get right in auctions. And when I talk all
Speaker 1: the time about leaking value or seeing a couple percentage
Speaker 1: points of difference with your roster, this is one of
Speaker 1: those things that you have to pay attention to and
Speaker 1: you have to start nailing this stuff. It doesn't mean
Speaker 1: when you miss it it's catastrophic. It just means that
Speaker 1: you're missing out on some positive ev you're missing out
Speaker 1: on some profitability because you're not seeing the situation correctly.
Speaker 1: So what I was thinking about when I saw Warren
Speaker 1: there was I don't want to nominate him yet because
Speaker 1: I think somebody's probably wanting to get Warren, and so
Speaker 1: that money is sort of mentally tied up in their head.
Speaker 1: And that's one of those things that I preach all
Speaker 1: the time. Most of the time, it's better to leave
Speaker 1: the player on the board and tie up that money
Speaker 1: in some person's head, Like I'm going to go get
Speaker 1: a top tight end and Warren is the only one left,
Speaker 1: so you kind of have this fifteen bucks tied up
Speaker 1: in their brain. But in this particular spot, this is
Speaker 1: why there's no substitute for being in the room for
Speaker 1: getting the reps because in this particular spot this turned
Speaker 1: out not to be true, and I caught on to
Speaker 1: it before it was too late, because what happened in
Speaker 1: the room was the money came out of the room
Speaker 1: astonishingly fast in the first couple of rounds, and then
Speaker 1: even from rounds three to five, it really was heavy spending.
Speaker 1: And I realized what was happening in the room that
Speaker 1: money was getting pretty tight. And then I saw past
Speaker 1: mocks flash through my brain and passed auction drafts flashing
Speaker 1: through my brain, telling me that it was likely going
Speaker 1: to be an incredible deal for Tyler Warren for somebody
Speaker 1: if I didn't get him out there quickly. Leaving him
Speaker 1: on the board was no longer the correct play, and
Speaker 1: why because the money was too tight in the room.
Speaker 1: I simply could not wait another minute to get Warren
Speaker 1: out there, because then he's gonna end up going for
Speaker 1: six bucks because nobody has any money. Literally, there was
Speaker 1: a bunch of people with twenty nine, twenty fifteen, eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty one. Nobody was going to break the bank for
Speaker 1: Tyler Warren. If you had been called out earlier in
Speaker 1: the draft, he might have gone for twelve or fifteen.
Speaker 1: Instead he ends up going for eleven. But I was
Speaker 1: actually happy that he even went for eleven with how
Speaker 1: tight the money was in the room. So I missed
Speaker 1: it by a little bit. I should have nominated Warren
Speaker 1: a round before or two rounds before. It's one of
Speaker 1: those things that if you miss it, you're costing yourself
Speaker 1: a little bit of ev because what if somebody pays
Speaker 1: sixteen instead of eleven for Warren? That five bucks ends
Speaker 1: up being a big deal. You compound that over too
Speaker 1: three five mistakes and nominations over the course of a draft,
Speaker 1: you could be talking about fifteen, eighteen, twenty five bucks
Speaker 1: that's still left in the room to compete with you
Speaker 1: at the end of the draft. So in that spot,
Speaker 1: leaving the player on the board was the wrong move.
Speaker 1: Getting him out there quicker before the money got any
Speaker 1: tighter to demand some more premium money for that tight
Speaker 1: end position which I already had filled. That turned out
Speaker 1: to be the correct play. The last one that I
Speaker 1: want to talk about is when it comes to a
Speaker 1: mecca ibuch. And the only reason I'm talking about Agbuka
Speaker 1: is because he happened to be one of those guys
Speaker 1: that's left on the board near the end of a
Speaker 1: draft and everyone's staring at that player. You all know
Speaker 1: that feeling and auctions, and if you haven't done one before,
Speaker 1: it's a very palpable feeling. There's three or four teams
Speaker 1: that have some money left, and there's one really outstanding
Speaker 1: player left on the board. The rest of them are
Speaker 1: guys like Khalioshakir. Instead, you're looking at eg Buka and
Speaker 1: you're thinking to yourself, boy, I really want to land him.
Speaker 1: That's really going to take my team over the top.
Speaker 1: When I looked at the situation, I suddenly realized I
Speaker 1: was not getting Agbuka. I think I had like thirty
Speaker 1: eight thirty five bucks. I can't remember exactly what I
Speaker 1: had left, but there was two or three other teams
Speaker 1: with forty to sixty dollars left. I'm right where I
Speaker 1: want to be because I don't want to have the
Speaker 1: most money, like seventy five percent of the way through
Speaker 1: the draft. I've talked about that before. I want to
Speaker 1: have landed most of my guys. But I could see
Speaker 1: that Agbuka was going to be the prize for somebody,
Speaker 1: and at this point in the draft, I didn't know
Speaker 1: that I could afford to pay that much money for
Speaker 1: what it was going to take to land him. And
Speaker 1: if I had done that, I would have emptied the
Speaker 1: clip pretty much and then had to get a bunch
Speaker 1: of one to two dollars players for like my last
Speaker 1: six spots. Now, sometimes that's okay, and I'm okay with
Speaker 1: that every once in a while, but in this particular draft,
Speaker 1: there's so much depth left. I decided I'm not doing that,
Speaker 1: and I looked at the different manager sums left and
Speaker 1: I realized, there's no way I'm getting a Buka. It's
Speaker 1: just not happening. He ends up going for twenty six
Speaker 1: bucks fairly late in the draft. And when it's late
Speaker 1: in the draft and there's team sitting there with twenty
Speaker 1: eight bucks or eighteen bucks and a guy goes for
Speaker 1: twenty six, that's a huge number. Later in the draft.
Speaker 1: That was a big number. And I was correct in
Speaker 1: seeing that I'm not getting this guy. And that's one
Speaker 1: of those things that you really have to tell yourself
Speaker 1: when you're in the room. If I don't have enough
Speaker 1: money to just dominate everyone else, the thing you've got
Speaker 1: to do is pull yourself back and say I'm not
Speaker 1: getting that guy. Forget about that guy, because there are
Speaker 1: going to be deals that you need to be taking
Speaker 1: when other people are waiting on that guy. So people
Speaker 1: in the room are sitting there going, I'm going to
Speaker 1: get Agbuka. No, you're not only one person's going to
Speaker 1: get him. There's four teams with money, only one of
Speaker 1: them is going to get them. So instead of over
Speaker 1: paying for Agbuka, what you should be doing is snapping
Speaker 1: up the deals while those other teams are waiting for
Speaker 1: Igbuka and hoarding their money. Near the end of the draft,
Speaker 1: my thought was, let's just go ahead and just try
Speaker 1: to get some guys and let's see if some deals
Speaker 1: come up. That's when Harvey popped up and then Odoonze
Speaker 1: popped up a little bit later for twelve bucks. I
Speaker 1: end up spending twenty two bucks on those two guys.
Speaker 1: I'm not a huge fan of those guys for Fantasy
Speaker 1: football this year, but for twenty two bucks, I absolutely
Speaker 1: love it. And the lesson here is fairly simple. While
Speaker 1: you're waiting for that guy that everybody wants still left
Speaker 1: in the room, you're passing up those deals. You're passing
Speaker 1: up the eight ten twelve dollars players that could make
Speaker 1: the back of your roster much stronger than going and
Speaker 1: throwing it all in Agbuka. I'm not saying not to
Speaker 1: do that, because we've had the conversation before about when
Speaker 1: you should just empty the clip and just go and
Speaker 1: get that final guy and not worry about the rest.
Speaker 1: And that's a play there, That's totally a play you
Speaker 1: can make. But when I was looking at the room
Speaker 1: the other night, I thought, there's just so many guys
Speaker 1: I can still get, and then I ended up I
Speaker 1: think getting Jonathan Brooks for like three bucks, Josh Downs
Speaker 1: for three bucks, Jacoby Myers for nine bucks, some players
Speaker 1: like that that. I was really happy to get all
Speaker 1: those players. Now, maybe you would trade that. Maybe you would,
Speaker 1: But if I'm thinking about I'm going to play it
Speaker 1: out and much rather have five bullets to try to
Speaker 1: nail a couple guys who are going to be top
Speaker 1: twenty four guys than one bullet to go for eg
Speaker 1: Bukin at that point in the draft. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: it's never the play, but this is why you have
Speaker 1: to be in the room. These are the situations that
Speaker 1: you have to play through in your brain. And when
Speaker 1: you leave the draft, you have to play through these
Speaker 1: situations again and say, did I make the right call?
Speaker 1: Was that actually the correct play? Looking back at how
Speaker 1: my roster turned out. This all sounds super complicated with
Speaker 1: just these two situations, But this is why I say
Speaker 1: that auction drafting has a different level of preparation and
Speaker 1: has a different way that we need to be attacking
Speaker 1: how we talk about them, because it's not just about
Speaker 1: that's a good price, that's not a good price. That
Speaker 1: is not what auction drafting is about. In the moment,
Speaker 1: twenty six bucks for Igbuka was a massive number, and
Speaker 1: eleven dollars for Warren was a pretty big number when
Speaker 1: he came up. But if we get those nominations right,
Speaker 1: and if we get those players out at the right time,
Speaker 1: it may not have created a value opportunity for somebody.
Speaker 1: And maybe we played it wrong. Maybe I played it wrong.
Speaker 1: Maybe the guys in the room played it correctly and
Speaker 1: I played it wrong. I don't know exactly how that's
Speaker 1: going to turn out, because we're not going to play
Speaker 1: it out, but these are the situations we have to
Speaker 1: think about, and I like giving you those situations so
Speaker 1: you can play them through in your head and say
Speaker 1: now I think you made a mistake here, or this
Speaker 1: is how I'd play it. But that act right there,
Speaker 1: of thinking about it and figuring out what I have
Speaker 1: done in that spot, that's how you get better at
Speaker 1: auction drafting and being in the room when you have
Speaker 1: to make those decisions and take those reps over and
Speaker 1: over and over. There's just no substitute for it. So
Speaker 1: number seven, the thing I think I think is that
Speaker 1: there's just no substitute for being in the room and
Speaker 1: getting your auction draft reps. Okay, well that's going to
Speaker 1: do it for this week's episode of The Auction Brief.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining me. We did go
Speaker 1: a little bit over forty five minutes today, but I
Speaker 1: don't care because the goal of this summer was to
Speaker 1: be out under an hour. I'm aiming for forty five minutes,
Speaker 1: and hey, we went a little bit long today, But
Speaker 1: I enjoyed today's episode a little bit more player evaluation stuff,
Speaker 1: which is what I steered into last summer. So we're
Speaker 1: done looking back. We're talking a little bit about what
Speaker 1: we're going to be doing this summer and what storylines
Speaker 1: we can follow and what narratives are developing in phantas
Speaker 1: to see football land. All right, Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining me. Don't forget. You can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Drew Davenport FF on Patreon at Fantasy Football
Speaker 1: Lawyer just four bucks a month. Get over there. The
Speaker 1: best auction content you can find in the fantasy football
Speaker 1: business is on the Fantasy Football Lawyer Patreon network. Remember,
Speaker 1: I've got a Josh Jacob's take over there that I
Speaker 1: think you're going to want to see, the Rushie Rice
Speaker 1: take In the last seven days, I've put out both
Speaker 1: new opinions on that stuff over at the Patreon. That
Speaker 1: is what it's there for, and I hope I'm delivering
Speaker 1: value to all of you who have been loyal subscribers.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here. Look out for
Speaker 1: the salary Cap Summit stuff coming up, and we'll see
Speaker 1: on Tuesday with Marcus Grant from the NFL Network on
Speaker 1: another episode of Discussions with Drew. Have a great weekend,
Speaker 1: stay balanced, embrace the ups and downs of life. I
Speaker 1: can't wait to talk to you on Tuesday. Thanks for
Speaker 1: being here for another episode of the Auction Brief. We're
Speaker 1: now adjourned and I am out the Auction Brief HM
Speaker 1: is a journey that'll do it for this week's episode.
Speaker 1: See you next time on the Auction Brief