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. These all your It depends on
Speaker 1: how much you want. And now you're legal analyst and
Speaker 1: auction draft expert here to help you dominate your fantasy drafts.
Speaker 1: Your host, Drew Davenport, there are full hearts. Hey, 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 solo on the mic of
Speaker 1: the Auction Brief podcast. I hope you listen to Tuesday's
Speaker 1: show with Matt Harmon. We're going to talk about that
Speaker 1: in just a second, just briefly to lead the show.
Speaker 1: But I am so pumped at you're back, because as
Speaker 1: you're listening to this, I am in root To can't
Speaker 1: in Ohio for the Fantasy Football Expo. I hope to
Speaker 1: see some of you out there, and I cannot wait
Speaker 1: for a fun weekend. The King's Classic will be held
Speaker 1: earlier than ever, so we're gonna get Scott Pianowski on
Speaker 1: the Monday after King's Classic to talk to him about
Speaker 1: what went down in the room. We are in the
Speaker 1: same room, but we've both been moved up to the
Speaker 1: brown division. It's going to be a bit of a
Speaker 1: crazy draft. You guys don't want to miss that episode
Speaker 1: of Discussions with Drew coming up after the auction the
Speaker 1: King's Classic Auction next week, So we'll do that next Tuesday.
Speaker 1: To start the show today, I wanted to just get
Speaker 1: some housekeeping out of the way. I have a couple
Speaker 1: things I need to apologize for. Number one is that
Speaker 1: we had some problems, some technical issues with the Matt
Speaker 1: Harmon Show on Tuesday. It is now up there. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: there's a double up there. There's a duplicate because I
Speaker 1: got a little concerned when it didn't work, and I
Speaker 1: uploaded a second version of the show. I hope that
Speaker 1: you've listened to one of the versions. They're both the same.
Speaker 1: But we got screwed up. I don't know how, because
Speaker 1: my show released find a Spotify but didn't go to Apple.
Speaker 1: We weren't getting any help, we were getting the run around. Finally,
Speaker 1: it posted mid to late afternoon on Tuesday, and I
Speaker 1: hope that you were able to still listen to it
Speaker 1: because it's an excellent episode. Of Matt always does a
Speaker 1: great job, so that was really beyond my control. But
Speaker 1: I want to apologize for the technical problems. I hope,
Speaker 1: I hope that those are over and that was just
Speaker 1: a glitch, so we will see come Thursday. But the
Speaker 1: other thing I want to apologize for is that it
Speaker 1: really screwed up the stats on RJ. Harvey last week.
Speaker 1: I just got a little bit ahead of myself on
Speaker 1: a rant, and I really messed it up. And I
Speaker 1: messed it up on two levels, which is actually kind
Speaker 1: of funny. But I thought that he had scored six
Speaker 1: receiving touchdowns last year, and he had actually scored five,
Speaker 1: but he actually had twelve touchdowns overall. And I just
Speaker 1: got so far ahead of myself, like going crazy about
Speaker 1: why nobody cares about RJ Harvey, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: I don't even know why I care, But I just
Speaker 1: keep thinking to myself, what if he's good? You know,
Speaker 1: what if he's good, nobody's given him any chance. Like
Speaker 1: Jonah Coleman. It's just wild to me, Like everybody loved
Speaker 1: r J Harvey last year. Remember you gotta draft r
Speaker 1: J Harvey. Now it's Jonah Coleman. He's good at catching
Speaker 1: the ball, okay, whatever, Just every year it's the same thing.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of a couple of years ago when
Speaker 1: James Cook came into the league and everybody just wanted
Speaker 1: to push aside the starter immediately because James Cook was there.
Speaker 1: We do this every year. Then the next year he's
Speaker 1: actually going to be the starter, and people were like, eyah,
Speaker 1: you heard about Ray Davis, But have you heard about
Speaker 1: Ray Davis? Oh? Okay, hey, we're a little bit off
Speaker 1: off the track. So I'm apologizing because I completely butchered
Speaker 1: the stats. Not only did he have twelve touchdowns, not six.
Speaker 1: I should have clarified I was talking about receiving touchdowns,
Speaker 1: but I even screwed that up because he had five.
Speaker 1: So anyway, sorry about that. A lot of times I'm
Speaker 1: recording the show two three o'clock in the morning. That's
Speaker 1: no excuse. But I just wanted to own it because
Speaker 1: it was definitely a mistake. My opinion still stands on RJ. Harvey,
Speaker 1: but that was a mistake. All right. That's the nasty
Speaker 1: stuff that we got to head to get out of
Speaker 1: the way. Let me just do my plugs real quick,
Speaker 1: and we're gonna get right into it because boil Boy
Speaker 1: training camps are opening up and we have a lot
Speaker 1: to cover, so real quick, don't forget. You can find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Drew Davenport FF. You can find
Speaker 1: me on the Patreon network as the Fantasy Football Lawyer.
Speaker 1: That's just four bucks a month. We've got custom par
Speaker 1: sheet orders open right now. If you want a custom
Speaker 1: bar sheet, get over there and place your order. It's
Speaker 1: just four bucks a month. Though, for the best auction
Speaker 1: content in the business. We've had lots of conversations recently
Speaker 1: with people like Jared smoll and Ian Hardtz, Stacy Perez.
Speaker 1: We've got more on tap coming up. Look, we got
Speaker 1: a lot going on over there. Get over there. Just
Speaker 1: four bucks a month, and don't forget that. I am
Speaker 1: partnered up with FJA Fantasy draft Boards again. They are
Speaker 1: the best draft boards in the business, bar none. They
Speaker 1: are the best because they are corrugated cardboard that stands up.
Speaker 1: You don't need to post it on a wall, put
Speaker 1: pins into a wall, or tape it, or it can
Speaker 1: sit anywhere with its standalone corrugated cardboard. So give them
Speaker 1: a try. Use my code auction brief for ten percent
Speaker 1: off your order. Again, it's going to be a few
Speaker 1: more bucks than your normal draft board, but get ten
Speaker 1: percent off by using the code auction brief and it
Speaker 1: really works out to about four or five bucks a
Speaker 1: person for your draft. All right, that's it. We are
Speaker 1: done with the preliminary stuff. I want to get into
Speaker 1: the show quickly today because I want to walk you
Speaker 1: through an auction step by step. This is something I've
Speaker 1: tried to do before, but I'm trying to organize it
Speaker 1: a little bit better, and I realize this is going
Speaker 1: to be a little bit theory heavy today, and that's
Speaker 1: okay because that's on purpose, that's by design. We've only
Speaker 1: got a few episodes left. We've got three episodes left,
Speaker 1: but that's going to be while training camp and preseason
Speaker 1: games are going on, So it's going to be very
Speaker 1: player eval heavy in the next three episodes. Even the
Speaker 1: solo episodes are going to be player evaluation heavy as
Speaker 1: we try to sort out what we should be doing
Speaker 1: and using some of the mock results from recent mock drafts.
Speaker 1: So I want to throw one more theory heavy episode
Speaker 1: at you, and I want to really walk through an
Speaker 1: auction here in chronological order, and I wanted to basically
Speaker 1: be like walking through five different stages of an auction.
Speaker 1: So that's why I dubbed the episode that way, five
Speaker 1: stages of an auction, And I want you to think
Speaker 1: about what you should be doing at those various stages
Speaker 1: in the auction and how you should be approaching different things.
Speaker 1: So I've sort of broken it down as to how
Speaker 1: your nomination should look, how your bidding should look, and
Speaker 1: what your goals should be for those five stages. So
Speaker 1: I want to try to keep this super crispy. As
Speaker 1: my friend would say, we don't want this episode to
Speaker 1: get all squishy. We want to be super crispy. And
Speaker 1: I want to do those three things for the five
Speaker 1: different stages of an auction. Now, I know some of
Speaker 1: you are going to say, well, how'd you make these stages?
Speaker 1: They roughly quote to when you're going to see an
Speaker 1: inflection point. Now we're not going to talk specifically about
Speaker 1: inflection points, but when a draft starts to change. And
Speaker 1: so I've named these five stages kind of to coincide
Speaker 1: with the rounds of nominations in the auction, but just
Speaker 1: basically for ease of use here. These are not hard
Speaker 1: and fast rules, and I want you to keep that
Speaker 1: in mind. One of the fun things but also one
Speaker 1: of the challenging things about doing this job is that
Speaker 1: we often can't speak in absolutes about what's going to
Speaker 1: happen at each stage in the draft. And these stages
Speaker 1: may last a lot longer or a lot shorter than
Speaker 1: I'm telling you they're going to last, because that's just
Speaker 1: how auctions go, and you can't nail that stuff down,
Speaker 1: and trying to nail it down would be doing a
Speaker 1: disservice to you. But I can make some general comments
Speaker 1: in each one of these stages that I think are
Speaker 1: going to be very helpful, and that's why I want
Speaker 1: to do this today. I go back to a quote
Speaker 1: that I used a couple of years ago, and I
Speaker 1: think that you guys who have been longtime listeners of
Speaker 1: the show will remember the Henry David Threau quote. And
Speaker 1: the quote is this, as a single footstep will not
Speaker 1: make a path on the earth, so a single thought
Speaker 1: will not make a pathway in the mind. To make
Speaker 1: a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To
Speaker 1: make a deep mental path, we must think over and
Speaker 1: over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives. Now, boy,
Speaker 1: oh boy, I love that last sentence, and I'm not
Speaker 1: going to spend a bunch of time here dwelling on
Speaker 1: that last sentence, because I think if it were mid June,
Speaker 1: I'd want to have a conversation about that, about what
Speaker 1: it means to make our lives better by thinking thoughts
Speaker 1: and participating in activities that wear pathways in your brain
Speaker 1: that are positive for the future of your life. But
Speaker 1: it's not mid June. It's late July, and we need
Speaker 1: to get down to business. So I want you to
Speaker 1: remember that quote. The reason I brought it back up
Speaker 1: today is that I believe the more you hear these techniques,
Speaker 1: and the more you hear me talk about how to
Speaker 1: walk through your auction, the easier it gets for you,
Speaker 1: and the less you have to go back and say, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I forgot I need to be doing this, the more
Speaker 1: it becomes second nature, because the more we wear these
Speaker 1: pathways in your brain, the easier it becomes when you
Speaker 1: get into the auction draft room. Folks, I know it's
Speaker 1: hard because you're listening to me over the summer, and
Speaker 1: if you watch the salary Cap Summit, Oh yeah, don't
Speaker 1: forget the salary Cap Summit. I completely forgotten the intro
Speaker 1: August second, third, and fourth drafts on the second and
Speaker 1: third panel on the fourth. Anyway, you know, if you
Speaker 1: listening to the Summit, you're listening to my show. You're
Speaker 1: listening to me on JJ Zach Reeson or on the
Speaker 1: Fantasy Point Show. You're reading my articles, you're reading my Patreon,
Speaker 1: you're watching my videos on Patreon. I am thrown a
Speaker 1: lot of content at you, and it can get very confusing.
Speaker 1: You can be like, wait a minute, now, I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to do what at what time? So that's what I
Speaker 1: want to do. I want to really crystallize this for you.
Speaker 1: Want to make it crispy today, okay, because I want
Speaker 1: you to walk through this and just say, yeah, that
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense. Early, I need to be
Speaker 1: doing this, Okay, Now what about after early? Now, what
Speaker 1: do I do? And that's what we're gonna do. Knoms,
Speaker 1: bidding and goals for each stage of the auction. There's
Speaker 1: five different stages we're going to walk through. Let's hit
Speaker 1: it right now, auction talk. We all know that the
Speaker 1: foundation of a good auction drafter is the preparation. This
Speaker 1: episode is not about the preparation. Okay, we're not going
Speaker 1: to talk about that today, but I want to just
Speaker 1: give my quick preamble that the concept I've been hammering
Speaker 1: this summer is that rigidity and preparation leads to flexibility
Speaker 1: in the draft room. Okay, rigidity breeds flexibility. I know
Speaker 1: that sounds a little bit weird, but I believe that
Speaker 1: the more rigid you are in your ideas and preparation,
Speaker 1: the easier it is to weave around and get what
Speaker 1: you need to get done while you're in the draft room.
Speaker 1: So preparation, preparation, preparation, And I can't say it enough.
Speaker 1: You just have to work hard leading up to the
Speaker 1: auction and it becomes so much easier. And don't forget
Speaker 1: that rigidity goes back to the quote I just gave you,
Speaker 1: which is that you have to do this stuff over
Speaker 1: and over in your prep or else you don't wear
Speaker 1: that pathway in the brain. And you walk into an auction,
Speaker 1: you go, now, what am I supposed to be doing here? Oh? Boy?
Speaker 1: I like that guy forty seven. That's not how we
Speaker 1: do things, right, That is not how we do things.
Speaker 1: So we have the preparation out of the way. Let's
Speaker 1: talk a little bit more about the stages of the auction.
Speaker 1: I've got five of them for you, all right. I'm
Speaker 1: putting the stages together like this, and you don't have
Speaker 1: to agree with them one hundred percent, and in fact,
Speaker 1: if you did, you'd probably be doing yourself a disservice.
Speaker 1: Like I said in the open, I would call the
Speaker 1: early stage rounds one and two. The second stage, I'll
Speaker 1: call early to mid stage that roughly rounds three to six.
Speaker 1: These are nominations. I'm not talking about a snake draft.
Speaker 1: These are nominations. So early to mid is rounds three
Speaker 1: to six. Middle of the draft, smackdab in the middle.
Speaker 1: We're talking rounds seven to ten, late middle, or we
Speaker 1: can just call it getting late rounds eleven to thirteen.
Speaker 1: And then we've got our end game, which is round
Speaker 1: fourteen and on endgame is usually rounds fourteen and beyond,
Speaker 1: where money is really slim. So those are the five
Speaker 1: stages we're going to talk about, and each stage changes
Speaker 1: as you go through the draft. Now again, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put this caveat out there because i know people tend
Speaker 1: to skip around on podcasts, and I'm gonna say it
Speaker 1: once again, these are not hard and fast rules. You
Speaker 1: cannot be in your auction and get to the end
Speaker 1: of round two and say that's the twenty fourth pick.
Speaker 1: Now things will change. No, that is not how it works.
Speaker 1: We are not robots when we are in the draft.
Speaker 1: We're paying attention to when these various stages and begin,
Speaker 1: and then you'll know what you need to do in
Speaker 1: each of those stages. So we're going to attack each
Speaker 1: of these stages by talking about our nominations, our bidding,
Speaker 1: and what goals, what things are we trying to do
Speaker 1: during that stage. All right, We're going to lead off
Speaker 1: by talking a little bit about nominations in the early stage.
Speaker 1: And I think that nominations become one of those things
Speaker 1: that I hammer at so much that sometimes people kind
Speaker 1: of their brain kind of turns off when I start
Speaker 1: talking about nominations. And I get that, but I do
Speaker 1: it so much because I think it's one of those
Speaker 1: things that's extremely overlooked that people in the business do
Speaker 1: not talk about nominations and how important they are nearly enough,
Speaker 1: so early in a draft, I think we have to
Speaker 1: bisect the first round and say that there is a
Speaker 1: big difference between drawing a nomination spot that's in the
Speaker 1: top four to six nominations and drawing one that's at
Speaker 1: the back half of the league. You know by now
Speaker 1: about the sitting down bonus, and I want to reference
Speaker 1: that here and talk to you how about how it
Speaker 1: changes in the first part to the second part of
Speaker 1: the first round. The sitting down bonus is a phrase
Speaker 1: that I coined a couple of years ago. It's just
Speaker 1: a dumb phrase off an old episode of Friends. But
Speaker 1: what it means is that when you get into a
Speaker 1: draft room, or when you follow a prolonged break like
Speaker 1: a dinner break or whatever that you're doing, you're doing
Speaker 1: your combine at your draft or whatever the case may be,
Speaker 1: you have a long break. The sitting down bonus can
Speaker 1: come back after a long break in the middle of
Speaker 1: the auction, but generally it's at the beginning. Okay, the
Speaker 1: sitting down bonus. I just call it that because basically,
Speaker 1: it's like, Hey, I'm going to get a deal because
Speaker 1: everybody is cold, everybody's sitting down. They love having a
Speaker 1: full cap. Psychologically, people like having that two hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: They like having the whole player pool in front of them, Like,
Speaker 1: who am I going to get today? And that's fun
Speaker 1: and you don't want to just sit down and be
Speaker 1: like sixty five on Jamar Chase, like that's okay, now
Speaker 1: I've got one thirty five. I understand that. I understand
Speaker 1: the psychology of it. But you need to understand the
Speaker 1: psychology of it because you can use it all right,
Speaker 1: But there is a big difference between the beginning of
Speaker 1: the first round and the end of the first round.
Speaker 1: You're not probably going to get a sitting down bonus
Speaker 1: if you have the sixth or seventh nomination. It's probably
Speaker 1: not going to happen. Your nomination is going to look
Speaker 1: different if you're in the first third to half of
Speaker 1: that first round or if you're in the second half.
Speaker 1: Now I've seen the sitting down bonus come as late
Speaker 1: as the end of the first round. Okay, you could
Speaker 1: be in a really green room, a room with a
Speaker 1: bunch of inexperienced drafters. That sitting down bonus might last
Speaker 1: the entire first round, who knows, But in most rooms
Speaker 1: it's going to last two to four nominations. Okay, most rooms,
Speaker 1: it's only going to last two to four nominations. So
Speaker 1: you've got to be on alert right away for the
Speaker 1: sitting down bonus. If you're one of those nominations at
Speaker 1: the beginning of the first round, you need to think
Speaker 1: about how you can take advantage of the sitting down bonus.
Speaker 1: And what I want you to consider is two things.
Speaker 1: If you want a guy like Jumior Gibbs or b
Speaker 1: Jeon Robinson, just call him out there right away and
Speaker 1: try to get a little bit of a discount. You're
Speaker 1: not gonna get much of one, but you may end
Speaker 1: up getting Gibbs for sixty two instead of sixty eight.
Speaker 1: Later when people warm up and get hot, they don't
Speaker 1: want to spend seventy bucks right away, even if it
Speaker 1: is Gibbs, So consider that. But my favorite play, the
Speaker 1: one I want to do, is I want to magnify
Speaker 1: the sitting down bonus by nominating a second or third
Speaker 1: tier guy. And I'll refer you back to the conversation
Speaker 1: we've already had this summer. We don't need to do
Speaker 1: it again about my original nomination in The King's Classic,
Speaker 1: I nominated Chase Brown early because I thought that I
Speaker 1: could get him cheaper than he would go later in
Speaker 1: the draft. That did turn out to be the case.
Speaker 1: But I want to put forward here that you need
Speaker 1: to just pick a second or third tier guy and
Speaker 1: see if you can magnify the sitting down bonus, because
Speaker 1: people are gonna care even less about those guys when
Speaker 1: all the top guys are on the board, they're gonna
Speaker 1: care less about a James Cook or heck even a
Speaker 1: Breis Hall or somebody like that, a devon a chance,
Speaker 1: you're going to get people that are nervous early in
Speaker 1: the draft. That's when you want to try to magnify
Speaker 1: the sitting down bonus. Now you need to be on
Speaker 1: alert after you see the sitting down bonus start to
Speaker 1: wear off, that your nomination then needs to change. So
Speaker 1: let's say you're the fourth nomination in the first round.
Speaker 1: You have to think to yourself the SDB hashtag SDB
Speaker 1: the sitting down bonus might not get to you at
Speaker 1: the fourth nomination. Okay, So if you have an id
Speaker 1: in your head, I'm going to nominate this guy and
Speaker 1: try to get the bonus, you might not get it.
Speaker 1: It might only last two players and the third player
Speaker 1: goes for a bunch of money and you go, whoops,
Speaker 1: that's gone. It's over. And you really need to pay
Speaker 1: attention to this and really like picks four to seven
Speaker 1: to eight, like you're going to be on top of
Speaker 1: whether or not that bonus is still there, and if
Speaker 1: it's not, it should change your nomination strategy. Remember we
Speaker 1: talk about that, don't ever get anchored in who you're
Speaker 1: going to nominate, all right, in general in the first round.
Speaker 1: If if you're not nominating for that sitting down bonus,
Speaker 1: I still think you need to nominate players you want.
Speaker 1: We've talked about that at nauseum. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: go into that, but you're trying to look here early
Speaker 1: in the first round or in the first round in general,
Speaker 1: for an early deal. An early deal is all we're
Speaker 1: looking for. It doesn't have to be this sitting down bonus.
Speaker 1: It can just be a couple bucks because you're not
Speaker 1: going to get big deals on top players. Don't ever
Speaker 1: forget that you're not going to get big deals on
Speaker 1: top players. So if there's a couple buck discount on
Speaker 1: a guy, then just take it. Just take it all right.
Speaker 1: If A'man Ross Brown goes for forty nine, just take it.
Speaker 1: If Jamar Chase goes for fifty two, take it all right.
Speaker 1: Just take the early deal. The other thing you want
Speaker 1: to be doing with your nomination is you want to
Speaker 1: be shooting for your par sheet. Cornerstone players, those cornerstone
Speaker 1: players that are going to help you determine where your
Speaker 1: par sheet goes. So what you want to be doing
Speaker 1: in this early part of the draft, especially in the
Speaker 1: first round, you're going to see top players exclusively be nominated. Now,
Speaker 1: there might be a weird one here there somebody is
Speaker 1: going to get whacky and call out their kicker, or
Speaker 1: I saw the other night somebody called out Garrett Wilson
Speaker 1: in the second round, Like that's going to happen. But generally,
Speaker 1: you're going to get the top twenty four players nominated.
Speaker 1: And it's if it's not top twenty four, it's top
Speaker 1: twenty two or twenty all right. So it's going to
Speaker 1: be top players. And your goal here is to aggressively
Speaker 1: pursue which par sheet you're going to follow. So your
Speaker 1: nominations in the first two rounds need to be all
Speaker 1: about your cornerstones on your par sheet. You want brock
Speaker 1: Bowers this year, nominate them right away, folks. You ain't
Speaker 1: getting a deal on brock Bowers. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 1: it's earli or late or mid, all right, you ain't
Speaker 1: getting a deal. Just nominate them. Stop with the nonsense
Speaker 1: that waiting equals deals. That's not how auctions work, all right,
Speaker 1: So aggressively pursue which par sheet you're going to follow.
Speaker 1: And so your ultimate goal here is you have to
Speaker 1: have one guy through the first two rounds. Now, again
Speaker 1: we're talking in absolutes here, but keep in mind this
Speaker 1: is you got to play your draft room. You gotta
Speaker 1: play your room. But you really you need to get
Speaker 1: a round one around or a couple Round two talents
Speaker 1: in that first two rounds. If you don't, the top
Speaker 1: twenty to twenty four guys are gonna come off the board.
Speaker 1: If you don't have any of them, that means you
Speaker 1: don't have a round one or two pick. Would you
Speaker 1: trade your round one or two pick for four third rounders? No,
Speaker 1: of course not. That's not how fantasy football works. You've
Speaker 1: got to get those X factor players. Your goal in
Speaker 1: the early rounds, the first two rounds is to have
Speaker 1: at least one guy or maybe two. But you don't
Speaker 1: want to go over that. Don't go over that, because
Speaker 1: if you nail three guys in the first two rounds,
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna be spending one hundred bucks or one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty bucks. You're taking yourself out way too quick.
Speaker 1: So your goal here is one or two guys that's
Speaker 1: going to set up your par sheet for the rest
Speaker 1: of the rounds. Now bidding. Bidding is very simple here.
Speaker 1: Bidding will be hot and heavy because all of these
Speaker 1: players that are nominated are top players. And for you,
Speaker 1: just dub it the fast and furious. Okay, fast and
Speaker 1: furious ten auction drafting style. I'm going to lean out
Speaker 1: of my car and control a missile with my hand.
Speaker 1: Bidding in the first two rounds should be fast and
Speaker 1: furious on your part. All right, I'm not talking about
Speaker 1: other people. For you, your strategy should be I'm bidding fast
Speaker 1: and furious. Why all right, let's take the fast part first.
Speaker 1: We know that my strategy is very simple. When it
Speaker 1: comes to early nominations. You need to be pushing those
Speaker 1: numbers up as quickly as you're comfortable pushing them. If
Speaker 1: somebody calls out Bjeon Robinson, do not allow people in
Speaker 1: the room to go eleven, twelve, thirteen, fifteen, sixty. We
Speaker 1: know it's not going for less than sixty bucks, right
Speaker 1: or less than fifty, So what should you do? You
Speaker 1: should call off forty five. Okay, just call off forty five.
Speaker 1: Do not let people get comfortable, because if you let
Speaker 1: them walk it up there, they get more and more
Speaker 1: comfortable about do I want him or not? What am
Speaker 1: I willing to pay? How does it fit my build?
Speaker 1: This isn't just about the top players. This is about
Speaker 1: all of them. And I'm going to tell you when
Speaker 1: you can scale back your bidding here as we go on.
Speaker 1: But at first you should be fast and furious. You
Speaker 1: should be always bidding, and you should always be pushing
Speaker 1: the pace as well. Because there's a ten or fifteen
Speaker 1: or thirty second nomination clock. Excuse me, bidding clock. Don't
Speaker 1: let that thing countdown. Don't let it countdown. That's giving
Speaker 1: somebody an extra eight or ten seconds every time. Bid immediately.
Speaker 1: If you know you're gonna bid, somebody calls out Robinson
Speaker 1: and it goes one two three forty five, one two, three,
Speaker 1: thirty nine forty nine. Get that money going quickly. It
Speaker 1: makes other people off balance and it makes them have
Speaker 1: to move quicker. Okay, So to recap the first two rounds,
Speaker 1: we're looking for that sitting down bonus. If we can't
Speaker 1: get it, that's all right, we're still looking for early deals,
Speaker 1: and we're nominating players that are cornerstone players for our
Speaker 1: par sheets. We're aggressively pursuing which par sheet we're going
Speaker 1: to follow, and we're locking down one or two people,
Speaker 1: and we're bidding like crazy and pushing the pace and
Speaker 1: pushing the pressure on everyone else in the room. That's
Speaker 1: my first two rounds. Let's talk about the early to
Speaker 1: mid stages, Rounds three to six. Okay, in the early
Speaker 1: to mid stages, I call it rounds three to six,
Speaker 1: we're going roughly through pick seventy two, that would be
Speaker 1: nomination seventy two. Keep in mind, in this area of
Speaker 1: the draft, we're still seeing all of the top players.
Speaker 1: So of the top seventy two nominations through six rounds,
Speaker 1: we're probably going to get at least the top fifty
Speaker 1: or sixty players off the board. That is pretty deep.
Speaker 1: We're starting to get really deep into the talent pool
Speaker 1: at this point. So that should tell you what you
Speaker 1: need to be doing. So what are we doing with
Speaker 1: nominations in these rounds? Well, the one thing I want
Speaker 1: to talk about specifically is it might be time for
Speaker 1: a quarterback in this range. What I've seen in these
Speaker 1: mock drafts is that when people have a lot of
Speaker 1: money and there's a lot of quarterbacks on the board,
Speaker 1: they don't really want to focus on the quarterback or
Speaker 1: spending that money right then, because they're really more interested
Speaker 1: in the top level wide receivers and running backs that
Speaker 1: are still on the board. People just subconsciously have a
Speaker 1: thing like, hey, if I spend that on quarterback, I
Speaker 1: can't spend it elsewhere. Well that's kind of true, but
Speaker 1: if you're working off a par sheet, you know what
Speaker 1: you can spend. And that's the advantage of a par sheet,
Speaker 1: and that's why we're using them right because other people
Speaker 1: kind of go, eh, I don't really want to spend
Speaker 1: twelve bucks on Lamar Jackson right now, Like I still
Speaker 1: need my RB two, I still need my wide receiver one,
Speaker 1: like they don't want to spend it. But you know
Speaker 1: in your party what you can spend. So I think
Speaker 1: it's time to look for a QB in rounds three
Speaker 1: to six. That should be your nomination if you can.
Speaker 1: At this point, we're mostly still nominating people that we
Speaker 1: want and I don't want you to become predictable. So
Speaker 1: if you're listening to this and you're with me in
Speaker 1: my home leagues. I'm not always going to be nominating
Speaker 1: people I want early in the draft, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to try to. For the most part, you're mostly nominating
Speaker 1: players you want. Still, it's okay to do either. You
Speaker 1: want to read your room, it's okay to do either.
Speaker 1: But our goals here become a little bit different. But
Speaker 1: there's still really important visa VI the elite players in
Speaker 1: the draft, because, like I said, when you get to
Speaker 1: the end of round six, you're talking about the top
Speaker 1: fifty or sixty or more players that have come off
Speaker 1: the board. These are really important pieces to your squad, right,
Speaker 1: These are really important pieces. So what you're paying attention
Speaker 1: to in round three to six, you're looking for tiers
Speaker 1: starting to dry up, and you want to get ahead
Speaker 1: of them, and that ties back to your nominations. You
Speaker 1: want to get ahead of the tiers drying up by
Speaker 1: using your nom to get somebody out there that you
Speaker 1: may need before the tier gets really dry and prices
Speaker 1: go up. The other thing I want to talk about
Speaker 1: is look for your tear sheet plans that are slipping away.
Speaker 1: And what do I mean by that. Well, let's say
Speaker 1: that you've already locked down your RB one and your
Speaker 1: wide receiver one, and you had planned to spend just
Speaker 1: a little bit more on tight end, not a lot,
Speaker 1: but a little bit more. And you have the money
Speaker 1: in your par sheet, but you notice that the inventory
Speaker 1: of tight ends is a little bit more scarce than
Speaker 1: you want it to be. What that means is that
Speaker 1: your plans to have a little bit better tight end
Speaker 1: is spend a little bit money there. They're slipping away.
Speaker 1: Your plans are slipping away, and that's going to happen
Speaker 1: in rounds three to six, and that early to mid
Speaker 1: part of the draft, you're going to notice that your
Speaker 1: par sheet is a little bit wonky, like your plans
Speaker 1: are slipping a little bit because things aren't developing the
Speaker 1: way you want them to. I want you to take
Speaker 1: comfort in the fact that that's okay, that that's okay
Speaker 1: that those plans are starting to slip away, because A
Speaker 1: you're noticing it and that's the first battle, and B
Speaker 1: you can do something about it, because if you notice
Speaker 1: that that tier is getting dry, that the tight ends
Speaker 1: are slipping away, get your guy out there next. That's
Speaker 1: your next nomination. Okay. So your goal is to be
Speaker 1: watching the tiers that are starting to dry up. For
Speaker 1: the elite players, watch your tiers, your par sheet for
Speaker 1: plans that are starting to slip away, and don't forget
Speaker 1: that in the early and then the early to mid
Speaker 1: tier rounds. So rounds one through six, don't forget that.
Speaker 1: A lot of times you're going to find yourself behind
Speaker 1: your par sheet at this moment. Okay, that's all right,
Speaker 1: and I want you to be aware that that is
Speaker 1: a common problem early in the draft. You might have
Speaker 1: to overspend on a couple guys because the room's so
Speaker 1: hot and you just can't wait. Because we've talked about
Speaker 1: that balancing act, and this goes back to the early
Speaker 1: rounds one and two. Sometimes things are so hot you
Speaker 1: just have to overpay. A lot of times you're going
Speaker 1: to be behind your par sheet. That's okay, because you're
Speaker 1: going to try to make it up a little bit later.
Speaker 1: Don't freak out about that, all right. So we've talked
Speaker 1: about our nums our goals a little bit here. The
Speaker 1: last thing is our bidding, and I'm going to maintain
Speaker 1: that we're going at about eighty percent pace from the
Speaker 1: first two rounds. We're still pushing. Okay, we're still pushing.
Speaker 1: I want you to be careful that you don't overbid
Speaker 1: here because you're still trying to say yourself up to
Speaker 1: succeed in the rest of the draft. But I still
Speaker 1: want you pushing. Okay. The idea here is still push push, push,
Speaker 1: and something that Scott Pianowski likes to talk about. It's
Speaker 1: called the price line bid. I love this idea, and
Speaker 1: this is a good time to use it. The price
Speaker 1: line bid is a player comes up. Let's say it's
Speaker 1: Terry McLaurin, and you know that you can spend up
Speaker 1: to twenty nine dollars for your wide receiver two and
Speaker 1: he's kind of like stalling out fourteen fifteen, sixteen. People
Speaker 1: don't see that interested. Just say twenty one, say twenty one,
Speaker 1: and see what happens. You'd be really happy to get
Speaker 1: Terry McLaurin for twenty one. And if people are not
Speaker 1: that interested and you jump up from fourteen to twenty one,
Speaker 1: you may get him. And if not, guess what, you
Speaker 1: can just sit back and let him go for whatever
Speaker 1: he's going to go for. But using that price line
Speaker 1: bid in the early mid stages, I kind of like
Speaker 1: that play the most. In that part of the draft,
Speaker 1: but just remember you're bidding in rounds three to six.
Speaker 1: Still needs to be push push, push, push, pressure, pressure, pressure. Again,
Speaker 1: don't overbid. If somebody calls out Terry McLaurin, don't yell
Speaker 1: out twenty eight. That's not the goal here. The goal
Speaker 1: is to go from one to fifteen quick, or the
Speaker 1: one to twelve quick. We're still trying to put the
Speaker 1: pressure on it. We're being just a little bit more cautious.
Speaker 1: We're pulling a back. We're pulling back by about twenty percent.
Speaker 1: So in the early mid stage that's rounds three to six.
Speaker 1: Remember we're looking maybe at a quarterback. We're still mostly
Speaker 1: dominating players we want. Our goals are to avoid the
Speaker 1: tears drying up, avoid our plans slipping away on our
Speaker 1: par sheet, and continue to push the bidding and continue
Speaker 1: to push the pace. All right, let's dive into the
Speaker 1: middle rounds rounds seven to ten. So round seven to
Speaker 1: ten really begin to change, because rounds one to six
Speaker 1: are about securing the cornerstones for your roster. And I
Speaker 1: want you to come out of those first six by
Speaker 1: having probably three to five players, and these are really
Speaker 1: going to be the most important pieces of your auction.
Speaker 1: But in the middle rounds, rounds seven to ten, you're
Speaker 1: still putting together important, important players because there are still
Speaker 1: really good players left. This is what I refer to
Speaker 1: sometimes as the get your guy zone. This is that
Speaker 1: area of the draft where people stop paying attentions so
Speaker 1: much to the rankings in front of them, and they
Speaker 1: start paying more attention to what money can I say
Speaker 1: for that favorite player that I want? And why am
Speaker 1: I telling you that? Because it's going to lead to
Speaker 1: weird pricing. It's going to lead to somebody trying to
Speaker 1: force it and getting sticky on somebody and paying too
Speaker 1: much money, and it's going to lead to the other
Speaker 1: end of that, which is that you might get a
Speaker 1: deal that you never expected to get on a player.
Speaker 1: So you need to be constantly monitoring what's happening right
Speaker 1: in front of you so that you don't miss either
Speaker 1: one of those. And sometimes you're going to have your
Speaker 1: heart set. I'm one of those guys that somebody else does,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about that a little bit in just
Speaker 1: a minute. But sometimes that's unavoidable. So my nomination strategy
Speaker 1: in these rounds changes a little bit. Okay, I want
Speaker 1: you to play this by year. Still, it's still something
Speaker 1: that's going to be room specific, don't get me wrong,
Speaker 1: But in general, most of the time in this range,
Speaker 1: this is where I'm starting to try to waste other
Speaker 1: people's money on players I don't want. We've heard the
Speaker 1: myth about that at the beginning of the draft. We
Speaker 1: don't need to beat that to death, but this is
Speaker 1: when I'm starting to try to get rid of some
Speaker 1: players and start trying to fill people's rosters a little bit.
Speaker 1: You can still call out people that you want, just
Speaker 1: be very careful about how you're setting it up. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of nuance to the nominations in the middle
Speaker 1: of the middle rounds because there's a lot more going
Speaker 1: on here that you can win the game a little
Speaker 1: bit more. Here in the first six rounds of the
Speaker 1: players are players that everyone wants, it's a lot harder
Speaker 1: to gain the system. But in the middle rounds and
Speaker 1: as we get later in the draft, there's a lot
Speaker 1: more nuance. One of the things I talk about a
Speaker 1: lot that I really like is start to learn how
Speaker 1: to aim your nominations at players that you want to
Speaker 1: spend money. Do they have similar vacancies on their roster
Speaker 1: that you can target. Hey, I really want this wide
Speaker 1: receiver too. I'm really waiting on this guy, but this
Speaker 1: other guy needs all of his wide receivers and he
Speaker 1: has more money than me. Aim a nomination at him.
Speaker 1: Pick a popular receiver. My favorite play in this area
Speaker 1: of the draft is to pick the most hyped up
Speaker 1: guys that everyone loves that I don't care about and
Speaker 1: get him out there. Now. I like Luther Burden, but
Speaker 1: he's the perfect guy that you call him out and
Speaker 1: you let other people fight over him in the middle
Speaker 1: rounds if he's still there. I'm trying to pick players
Speaker 1: that people really want, and even if they don't end
Speaker 1: up spending a lot of money, at this point, I'm
Speaker 1: also trying to lock up their roster spots. I'm starting
Speaker 1: to think about their roster spots and really what my
Speaker 1: nominations are aimed at doing. They're aimed at ruining people's plans.
Speaker 1: You know, my brother's not in my home league anymore,
Speaker 1: but he was a guy that I could count on
Speaker 1: every year, knowing a couple players that he was really
Speaker 1: interested in, and he would sit back and wait and
Speaker 1: hoard his money until those players were called out. And
Speaker 1: it was my job to figure out which guys those
Speaker 1: were that he was interested in and ruin his plans,
Speaker 1: completely ruin what he's trying to do. Now. I love
Speaker 1: my brother, and outside of the auction draft room, I
Speaker 1: would never do anything like that to him. But that's
Speaker 1: what we're trying to do here, right, So our goal
Speaker 1: in this area of the draft try to punt our nominations,
Speaker 1: let the draft come back to you. But what you're
Speaker 1: doing is you're trolling for deals at this point, all right,
Speaker 1: because you want to be set up in rounds one
Speaker 1: to six. You want to set yourself up for this
Speaker 1: middle part that rounds seven to ten to start smashing deals.
Speaker 1: And if you aren't set up for it, you'll have
Speaker 1: to force it him. What do I mean by being
Speaker 1: set up for Well, you can't have come out of
Speaker 1: the first six rounds with two guys or one guy. Really,
Speaker 1: three guys isn't enough, Like you need to have minimum three,
Speaker 1: maybe four or five. That sets you up to be
Speaker 1: able to hang back and do nothing unless you see
Speaker 1: the deal that you want. You can either nominate somebody
Speaker 1: you want and jump on them, or you can waste
Speaker 1: your nominations, let people spend money, let them start filling
Speaker 1: up their rosters and feeling good about it, and just
Speaker 1: take any deal that you see that strikes you as
Speaker 1: the right deal for your roster. At this point in
Speaker 1: the draft, it is the most I think it's the
Speaker 1: easiest part of the draft, the middle rounds, because you
Speaker 1: can call out players you don't want. You can just
Speaker 1: sit back and hang out, and if you've done your
Speaker 1: job in the first six rounds, you're set up to
Speaker 1: start smashing deals. Now, how do we want to be
Speaker 1: bidding in this round, in these rounds, in this area
Speaker 1: of the draft, Well, I want to start to be
Speaker 1: more cautious. Think of it like a sliding scale. In
Speaker 1: rounds one and two, three to six, you're kind of
Speaker 1: sliding down the scale. You're backing off a little by
Speaker 1: a little. Price enforcing at this point gets more dangerous.
Speaker 1: I still think you need to be doing it, and
Speaker 1: sometimes that's how you find your deals. But you want
Speaker 1: to be more cautious. Here. You're still bidding and you
Speaker 1: still want to be active, but the raw dollars that
Speaker 1: people are spending on players gets lower and lower, and
Speaker 1: as the raw dollars slip, the less active you want
Speaker 1: to be in your bidding Okay, let me say that again.
Speaker 1: As the raw dollars go down, the less active you
Speaker 1: want to be bidding. All right, So in the middle
Speaker 1: rounds is when you have to start to be more
Speaker 1: cautious because it paid. It was a bigger benefit in
Speaker 1: the first six rounds to start pushing that stuff a
Speaker 1: lot harder because you didn't have the downside risk. The
Speaker 1: downside risk starts to amp up significantly as we go
Speaker 1: further into the draft, so the bidding is going to
Speaker 1: be just a little bit more cautious, all right. So
Speaker 1: in the middle rounds, we want to be set up
Speaker 1: at this point to start smashing deals so that we
Speaker 1: can just sit back and just pick off the deals.
Speaker 1: We want to try to ruin other people's plans and
Speaker 1: get hyped players out there, and we want to start
Speaker 1: to back off on the bidding even a little bit
Speaker 1: more from that eighty percent we talked about. Don't forget
Speaker 1: about get your guy area. What we're going to see
Speaker 1: wonky pricing. Pay attention to that stuff. The inflection points
Speaker 1: are there if you're looking for them. All right. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the mid to late stage of the draft,
Speaker 1: rounds eleven to thirteen. In rounds eleven to thirteen. It
Speaker 1: is getting late in the auction when I'm talking about nominations.
Speaker 1: At this stage in the draft, I'm wasting almost all
Speaker 1: of my nominations here. In the middle rounds, it could
Speaker 1: go either way, but right now, in rounds eleven to thirteen,
Speaker 1: I'm really trying to not call out a player that
Speaker 1: I want. There are too many players left at this
Speaker 1: point that I want. I do not want to be
Speaker 1: nominating them. This is not a hard and fast rule,
Speaker 1: but what I like to do is I like to
Speaker 1: have my kicker and d nominations saved up for this spot.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to wait till the end game
Speaker 1: because the good kickers and d's will probably be gone.
Speaker 1: You want to do it ahead of everyone else, but
Speaker 1: late enough that it's still helpful. So your nominations here
Speaker 1: should be mostly wasteful nominations. And when I say wasteful,
Speaker 1: I want you to aim nominations at people that need
Speaker 1: to have roster spots filled and that have money. So
Speaker 1: your kicker de nomination really comes in a handy here.
Speaker 1: Call out the top kicker or the top defense. It
Speaker 1: buys you around and if you get that player, great,
Speaker 1: and if you don't that means somebody else spent two
Speaker 1: or three bucks. Your goals in this area of the
Speaker 1: draft are really to have an eye towards your end game.
Speaker 1: I know you don't want to hear this, but in
Speaker 1: this stage of the draft you're doing a lot more
Speaker 1: reacting to people than you are setting the pace. That's okay,
Speaker 1: because we did our hard work already, right. We pushed
Speaker 1: everyone relentlessly for the first six rounds, and then for
Speaker 1: the last stage here round seven to ten, we backed
Speaker 1: off a little bit, but we set ourselves up well,
Speaker 1: and now all we have to do is react. And
Speaker 1: that's okay because a lot of times I say to people,
Speaker 1: if you're not pushing the pace and you're just reacting,
Speaker 1: you're losing. I don't think that's the case near the
Speaker 1: end of these auctions. I think reacting is totally fine,
Speaker 1: and that's what we want to be doing for the
Speaker 1: most part here. Now, at the end game, I want
Speaker 1: us to ramp back up into pushing our own agenda.
Speaker 1: But in this spot, it's a little bit like the
Speaker 1: middle stage, the seven to ten stage. The eleven to
Speaker 1: thirteen is a little bit similar because you're doing a
Speaker 1: lot more reacting you're wasting a lot of nominations. You're
Speaker 1: pushing off the decisions because you want to hold the hammer.
Speaker 1: You want to hold the money, and you want to
Speaker 1: be able to be the one who picks off the
Speaker 1: deals rather than having to force landing players that aren't
Speaker 1: worth it at that point in the draft. And believe
Speaker 1: it or not, I want you to have an eye
Speaker 1: on your end game. I want you to have an
Speaker 1: eye on how is this going to end for me?
Speaker 1: And if at this point you want to try to
Speaker 1: spend all your money, that's okay, because I want you
Speaker 1: to have an eye on how you're going to finish
Speaker 1: the draft. That's when you need to be thinking about
Speaker 1: how is this going to look when I'm done and
Speaker 1: what players will I be looking at to make sure
Speaker 1: it happens the way I want it to. And this
Speaker 1: is also one of the stages that I think this
Speaker 1: happens in the middle rounds as well. We get into
Speaker 1: situations where somebody else is going to like a player
Speaker 1: that you like. It's the It just takes one theory,
Speaker 1: because it only takes one person to be interested in
Speaker 1: the player you're in for you to have to be
Speaker 1: in a bidding war and to lose that player. So again,
Speaker 1: be player agnostic. We've talked about that before. That's not
Speaker 1: the point of today's topic. But understand that if you
Speaker 1: have a pet player that you're really after in these rounds,
Speaker 1: you it's it can only take one other person in
Speaker 1: the room to push that price past what you want.
Speaker 1: So have an alternative and be thinking about what your
Speaker 1: team should look like over the next three to four
Speaker 1: rounds before you hit that end game. You're bidding at
Speaker 1: this point, well, the bidding is fairly simple. I don't
Speaker 1: want to see you doing much price enforcing at all
Speaker 1: at this point in the draft. Now, if you really
Speaker 1: want a player and you think, hey, that players too cheap,
Speaker 1: that's okay, But I don't really consider that much price enforcing.
Speaker 1: That's more just hey, I need this player. Four saying
Speaker 1: is extremely dangerous at this point in the game because
Speaker 1: there's a lot of players that are going between four
Speaker 1: and eight dollars, and you're going to look up and
Speaker 1: at some point and you're gonna be like, that's too cheap,
Speaker 1: and then you bid. Refer back to my DK Metcalf
Speaker 1: comment from last week's show that yeah, DK Metcalf may
Speaker 1: be worth more than a dollar. But do we care
Speaker 1: and don't get caught price enforcing because oh that's too cheap.
Speaker 1: Oh well, we just called out Tyler Augier and he
Speaker 1: shouldn't be a one dollar player. Well okay, but who cares.
Speaker 1: You want to go for your guys, and you should
Speaker 1: not be price enforcing at this point. I want you
Speaker 1: to be doing almost no bidding. Okay, now you're down
Speaker 1: to almost no bidding. Do not get involved because there's
Speaker 1: too high of a likelihood that you'll get stuck, and
Speaker 1: we don't want to make decisions that screw up the
Speaker 1: end of our draft. The nominations are mostly going to
Speaker 1: be pushing off and kicking the can down the road,
Speaker 1: keeping your eye on the end game and reacting to
Speaker 1: whatever deals present themselves. And your bidding should be almost
Speaker 1: non existent. You should be pret silent with that bid
Speaker 1: button at this point. Let's move on to the endgame
Speaker 1: rounds fourteen and on to the finish of the auction.
Speaker 1: All right, what does the endgame look like? Well, boy,
Speaker 1: that's hard, because, like I said, this is an exercise
Speaker 1: that seems sometimes feudile. It seems kind of like, how
Speaker 1: can I possibly capture what happens in an auction by
Speaker 1: talking for forty five minutes. I still feel that way.
Speaker 1: It's hard, man, It's really hard. And I tell you what,
Speaker 1: this show took me like two days to write. And
Speaker 1: I don't mean like I worked for forty eight hours.
Speaker 1: I just mean that I was mulling this thing over
Speaker 1: in my head to come up with the right format.
Speaker 1: And I hope that I did. I hope this is
Speaker 1: nice and crispy today. But I know you don't love
Speaker 1: the answer that the endgame can look a lot of
Speaker 1: different ways. But here are some things that I want
Speaker 1: you to remember for your nominations. Generally, just again, you're
Speaker 1: gonna want to wait. You just want to push this
Speaker 1: off as much as possible. But when you get to
Speaker 1: the end game, a lot of times you can't avoid
Speaker 1: nominating somebody that you want. And why is that because
Speaker 1: you don't want to get stuck with somebody you don't.
Speaker 1: So if there's a player you really want, unfortunately you
Speaker 1: just have to nominate him and hope that you get him.
Speaker 1: And that's you know, that's really tough, and that's the
Speaker 1: tough part of auctions. It's why we can probably never
Speaker 1: tell ourselves we're going to have a perfect auction because
Speaker 1: stuff happens and somebody else is interested. You know, I
Speaker 1: was in one the other night and I really wanted
Speaker 1: Jonathan Brooks and I thought I was gonna get him,
Speaker 1: and the other guy in the room who had some money,
Speaker 1: he ends up taking him from me, and I just
Speaker 1: thought to myself, well, I didn't have a choice. We
Speaker 1: were getting so late. I had to call him out
Speaker 1: and I didn't have the money. That's just how it goes.
Speaker 1: I wasn't about to call out some yahoo that I
Speaker 1: didn't want. I had to call him out and I
Speaker 1: lost him. That's okay. Get used to that idea. You're
Speaker 1: gonna call out players you don't you know that you want,
Speaker 1: and you're not gonna win them. This is also the
Speaker 1: time when you can nominate your kicker or defense if
Speaker 1: you don't have them landed yet. You need to get
Speaker 1: those out there quickly to try to get a good
Speaker 1: one so that you're not taking the last one. Now,
Speaker 1: in this stage, we don't really need to talk about
Speaker 1: goals because we're finishing here, so we're already there. But
Speaker 1: here's a couple comments I want to make. Number one,
Speaker 1: if you believe a player is worth a couple bucks.
Speaker 1: Never nominate them for one dollar. Just nominate them for
Speaker 1: two bucks, because most of the time, when you get
Speaker 1: near the end of an auction, people do not want
Speaker 1: to pay three bucks. And if you don't want to
Speaker 1: pay three bucks, then don't say one because somebody's going
Speaker 1: to say two. Oh my gosh, I can't let them
Speaker 1: get them for one. Two, okay, just say two. Just
Speaker 1: start with two. And if you win it for two, great.
Speaker 1: If somebody says three, then don't worry about it. Who cares?
Speaker 1: And if you really want the player, then say four.
Speaker 1: That's great, but don't worry about them saying three. Just
Speaker 1: start it two. I like the two dollars bid to
Speaker 1: open in the endgame. Thing is to pay attention to
Speaker 1: people's max bids. And I know that we've talked about
Speaker 1: this so many times, but I have to say it again.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to wear that pathway in your brain. If
Speaker 1: you're in a bidding war with somebody and you don't
Speaker 1: know what their max is, you are losing expected value.
Speaker 1: That's a negative ev play because a lot of times
Speaker 1: you're gonna get down to a player, let's say it's
Speaker 1: a Jonathan Brooks, and you have a max bid of
Speaker 1: seven and the other player has a max bid of six,
Speaker 1: and the bidding goes up. You don't ever say five
Speaker 1: and let them say six, because then you have to
Speaker 1: pay seven and that's your max. Instead, you say six
Speaker 1: and they can't bid seven because that was their max,
Speaker 1: all right. So if their max is six and yours
Speaker 1: a seven, don't ever say five. Don't ever say five.
Speaker 1: You screwed yourself out of a dollar there, and that
Speaker 1: dollar could be critical to landing a player that you
Speaker 1: need at the end of the draft. Always pay attention
Speaker 1: to max bids. This is also the time where if
Speaker 1: there's a clear cut, standout player that's still on the board,
Speaker 1: and I don't mean that you're gonna be sitting there
Speaker 1: and Jamar Chase is going to be there. I'm seventeen.
Speaker 1: But if there's a clear cut player that's still on
Speaker 1: the board, like a lot of times, a weird player
Speaker 1: like Ramandre Stevenson or Jordan Addison or somebody slips through
Speaker 1: the cracks, stop worrying about everything else and empty the clip.
Speaker 1: Stop worrying about everything else, and just land that player.
Speaker 1: Because the talent disparity is so big at that point
Speaker 1: that the positive ev blows any other play out of
Speaker 1: the water. So empty the clip on the clear best
Speaker 1: player left on the board. If it's obvious. Now, if
Speaker 1: there's just a bunch of guys and you're like, I
Speaker 1: like this guy better than the others, that's not what
Speaker 1: I'm talking about. I'm talking about a guy that sticks
Speaker 1: out like a sore thumb, a guy that you look
Speaker 1: at and you say, how is this guy still not nominated?
Speaker 1: You should empty the clip on that player. And when
Speaker 1: the player gets nominated and you have, like, say eleven
Speaker 1: bucks left as your max bid, and somebody nominates that player,
Speaker 1: just say eleven, Just say eleven. That happened to me
Speaker 1: last year, and I thought it was gonna cost me.
Speaker 1: In fact, it really did cost me, because Pianowski pulled
Speaker 1: that against me. The son of a gun. I thought
Speaker 1: I was getting Wandale Robinson near the end of that auction,
Speaker 1: and that would have been a huge benefit to my team.
Speaker 1: Last year. I had enough money left thinking I was
Speaker 1: going to get him for six, seven, eight bucks, and
Speaker 1: when somebody called him out, Pianowski just yelled out his
Speaker 1: max bit I think it was ten or eleven bucks,
Speaker 1: and he nailed. He got him because my max bid
Speaker 1: was just below that, and I was just kind of stunned.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, yeah, that's Pianowski. He's good. He knows
Speaker 1: what he's doing. You need to be that guy in
Speaker 1: the room. You need to be Pianowski in the room.
Speaker 1: You need to know exactly what people are doing and
Speaker 1: exactly what you're doing. And so when they call that
Speaker 1: player out, you go, oh, this is the guy. This
Speaker 1: is clearly the best guy left on the board. And
Speaker 1: Wandelle Robinson was clearly the best guy left on the board.
Speaker 1: Why was he there that late in the auction last year?
Speaker 1: He shouldn't have been. But that's an important lesson, okay,
Speaker 1: because he shouldn't have been there. And that's the kind
Speaker 1: of guy I'm talking about, the guy that sticks out
Speaker 1: like a sore thumb. Wandale Robinson was a monster value
Speaker 1: in the endgame of the auction last year, and you
Speaker 1: just have to empty your clip and just take that
Speaker 1: guy and just don't worry about it. Then everyone else
Speaker 1: is a dollar who cares because you got the best
Speaker 1: player on the board, and that positive ev blows any
Speaker 1: other play out of the water you're bidding. At this point,
Speaker 1: I would describe it as almost never. You're almost never
Speaker 1: going to be bidding at this point unless you intend
Speaker 1: to win the player or you're nominating a player. Just
Speaker 1: don't pid, don't bid in the end game. You cannot
Speaker 1: get cute here. Do not get cute in the end game.
Speaker 1: Don't bid. Don't bid unless you intend a roster. The
Speaker 1: other thing I want to make sure that you remember
Speaker 1: is Joe Dolan talks about this a lot, and I
Speaker 1: don't hammer it enough, but I've tried to this summer.
Speaker 1: Roster spots are currency late in an auction, so you
Speaker 1: need to start not only guarding your dollars, but guarding
Speaker 1: your spots more than anything, because you have certain players
Speaker 1: that you want, and if you put in an ill
Speaker 1: time bid, then you're gonna win a player that you
Speaker 1: didn't necessarily want, and that is not what we're after here.
Speaker 1: So save your roster spots. I'd argue that you need
Speaker 1: to guard your roster spots more than your dollars at
Speaker 1: the end of the auction, because nobody's expensive at the
Speaker 1: end of an auction, and if you have seven bucks,
Speaker 1: you probably have some of the most money left in
Speaker 1: the room when you get to the endgame. So money
Speaker 1: is not as important as roster spots. Guard those roster
Speaker 1: spots in the endgame. All right, So quick recap is
Speaker 1: your nominations are gonna be finishing up your kicker or
Speaker 1: d mostly punting your nominations, but making sure that if
Speaker 1: you nominate somebody and nobody has any money left, that
Speaker 1: you're fine keeping them. Don't nominate for one buck if
Speaker 1: two bucks will do it. Make sure you're paying attention
Speaker 1: to max bids, emptying the clip on the best player
Speaker 1: on the board, and keeping your trap shut when it
Speaker 1: comes to bidding, because you're guarding your roster spots and
Speaker 1: you're guarding that flexibility as you play out the end game.
Speaker 1: All right, folks, I hope you enjoyed today's episode. I
Speaker 1: know that this sometimes gets repetitive to my longtime listeners,
Speaker 1: and I understand that. But I'm adding new listeners all
Speaker 1: the time. I'm getting dms like, hey, I'm into your
Speaker 1: show and I'm just new and I'm listening to all
Speaker 1: the episodes. They haven't heard all this stuff before, and hey,
Speaker 1: once again, we're trying to wear the pathways in your brain.
Speaker 1: It never hurts to hear all this stuff. So go
Speaker 1: back and if you really want to be serious about
Speaker 1: crushing your auctions. I'd go back and start to write
Speaker 1: down a couple key points from each of these stages
Speaker 1: when we're talking about the nomination, bidding, and goals in
Speaker 1: each of these stages of an auction. All right, that's
Speaker 1: going to do it for today's episode of the Auction Brief.
Speaker 1: Don't forget. You can find me on Twitter at Drew
Speaker 1: Davenport FF on the Patreon network Fantasy Football Lawyer. Just
Speaker 1: four bucks a month, use my code Auction Brief at
Speaker 1: FJA Fantasy Sports to get ten percent off your draft
Speaker 1: board order. And don't forget the Salary Cap Summit coming
Speaker 1: up August second, third, and fourth. We're doing two live
Speaker 1: auctions at seven Eastern on the second and third, and
Speaker 1: then on the fourth we'll do a live auction panel
Speaker 1: at seven pm with Scott Pianowski, Dave Richard, Jim Coventry
Speaker 1: and a couple other surprise guests. I hope will pull through.
Speaker 1: But no matter what, the hour Cap Summit is going
Speaker 1: to be an awesome second iteration, and I hope that
Speaker 1: you are there. All right, folks, that's going to do it.
Speaker 1: The next time you talk to me. Training camps are
Speaker 1: in full swing, and we'll be talking to Scott Pianoski
Speaker 1: from The King's Classic and talking about real player news
Speaker 1: and what we should be doing in our auction draft
Speaker 1: rooms with actual information from players running around in shorts.
Speaker 1: That's going to be awesome. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being here as part of the Auction Brief. This is
Speaker 1: my favorite time every week when I get to get
Speaker 1: on the mic and talk to all of you, So
Speaker 1: thank you for being here, Thank you for supporting me.
Speaker 1: The Auction Brief is adjourned, and I am out. The
Speaker 1: Auction Brief is adjourn that'll do it for this week's episode.
Speaker 1: See you next time on the Auction Brief.