Speaker 1: Welcome to the Auction Brief.
Speaker 2: There's a joy in these games or.
Speaker 1: Not, taking you on a journey through fantasy football, the law,
Speaker 1: and life. We saw your It depends on how much
Speaker 1: you want. And now you're legal analyst and auction draft
Speaker 1: expert here to help you.
Speaker 2: Dominate your fantasy drafts. Your host, Drew Davenport.
Speaker 1: There are full hearts.
Speaker 2: Hey, everybody, welcome into the Auction Brief. As lady said,
Speaker 2: I'm your host, Drew Davenport and thank you for joining
Speaker 2: me for another solo effort on the MIC. As we
Speaker 2: head into the middle of August, Oh my god, where
Speaker 2: has the time gone? This summer? We have pumped out
Speaker 2: a lot of content here on the Auction Brief, But folks,
Speaker 2: you're here for the penultimate episode of the summer. That's right,
Speaker 2: No discussions with Drew next week. We only have the
Speaker 2: Auction Manifesto left. That is the final episode of the summer.
Speaker 2: Next week and today we have one more solo effort
Speaker 2: on the MIC. But Discussions with Drew is over for
Speaker 2: the summer. And before I get any further into the show,
Speaker 2: I just want to say thank you to all the
Speaker 2: guests once again for coming on and making it an
Speaker 2: incredible summer of discussions with Drew. We had some more
Speaker 2: great guests. They all brought it and gave us all
Speaker 2: the player evaluation information that we could handle this summer.
Speaker 2: I think it was another great summer for discussions with
Speaker 2: Drew and I hope you did as well. And I
Speaker 2: hope you enjoyed the new format this summer because I
Speaker 2: had fun breaking it up and I really like dropping
Speaker 2: two different episodes every week keeping people interested throughout the week.
Speaker 2: So no discussions Withdrew next week. But I want to
Speaker 2: thank everyone that came on this summer and made it
Speaker 2: such a roaring success. We had Jim Coventry, rich Rebar,
Speaker 2: Marcus Grant, Brian Drake, Joe Dolan, JJ Zacherieson, Matt Harmon,
Speaker 2: Scott Pianowski, Michael f Florio, and John Dagel. That is
Speaker 2: quite the murderer's row. Tons of great analysts, tons of
Speaker 2: great information. Thank you to all of them, And please
Speaker 2: go out there and support these folks work because they
Speaker 2: gave the auction brief time for free to come on
Speaker 2: and help educate you and help you win your fantasy leaks.
Speaker 2: So give them just a little bit of support, maybe
Speaker 2: a like on a tweet, a retweet, check out their article,
Speaker 2: give them a page view, anything that you can do
Speaker 2: to support other content creators that have helped out the
Speaker 2: Auction brief and that have helped you out of the
Speaker 2: goodness of their heart. I'm not making money, they're not
Speaker 2: making money. We're doing the show for free for you
Speaker 2: to help you win fantasy leaks, and that's what we
Speaker 2: want to do. So anyway, thank you all for tuning
Speaker 2: in for discussions with Drew. But we have some big
Speaker 2: business to take care of, and it's perhaps some of
Speaker 2: the most important business of the summer.
Speaker 1: Of course, the Auction.
Speaker 2: Manifesto is important next week, but today's episode is going
Speaker 2: to be important as well because we're going to discuss
Speaker 2: five elite auction skills that you need to have in
Speaker 2: your skill set because we can be good auction players,
Speaker 2: but until we learn some of these things, we are
Speaker 2: not going to be elite. So before we get to that,
Speaker 2: let's get the preliminary stuff out of the way, and
Speaker 2: an important piece of housekeeping known as the drum roll.
Speaker 1: Please the Listener League.
Speaker 2: Yep, we are back for another year of the Listener League.
Speaker 2: I will be scheduling the date here before too long,
Speaker 2: once I get a couple other drafts locked in. So
Speaker 2: if you want to get in the listener League, I'm
Speaker 2: going to give you the information today and in next
Speaker 2: week's episode of the Manifesto. That information will come in
Speaker 2: the form of just a small task that you have
Speaker 2: to do. Here in just a second, we'll talk about that.
Speaker 2: But I will have the date locked in by next week.
Speaker 2: I just need to get some stuff scheduled so that
Speaker 2: I don't have any conflicts and I can devote the
Speaker 2: night to drafting with all of you. So preliminary stuff
Speaker 2: out of the way. I'm Drew Davenport FF on Twitter.
Speaker 2: You can also find the Patreon network for just four
Speaker 2: bucks a month Fantasy Football Lawyer and hey, get some
Speaker 2: of the best draft boards in the business. Get them
Speaker 2: ordered now. It is that time. Give them time to
Speaker 2: get your order without having to do express shipping or
Speaker 2: any of that stuff. You can get out the door
Speaker 2: for around fifty bucks for some of the best draft
Speaker 2: boards in the business. Use my code auction brief for
Speaker 2: ten percent off. Auction Brief for ten percent off. I
Speaker 2: think they're the best draft boards in the business. I
Speaker 2: say it all summer, I say.
Speaker 1: It every year.
Speaker 2: I love FJA fantasy draft boards. All right, the moment
Speaker 2: you've all been waiting for. How do I get in
Speaker 2: the Listener League. First of all, let me just say
Speaker 2: number one that if you were in in the Listener
Speaker 2: League last year, you are not eligible to play this year.
Speaker 2: We just got to give other people a chance. So
Speaker 2: if you were in it last year, take a year off.
Speaker 2: You can come back and try to enter again next year.
Speaker 2: But the other thing that you have to do to
Speaker 2: be in the Listener League is, of course listen to
Speaker 2: the show. Right And let me just say this is
Speaker 2: a request. This is just something that I'm asking. This
Speaker 2: is not required to get in the Listener League. But
Speaker 2: if you're a big fan of the show, go leave
Speaker 2: me a five star rating or help leave me a one.
Speaker 2: If you hate the show, but leave me a rating.
Speaker 2: It helps to get rated.
Speaker 1: And I have a four.
Speaker 2: Point nine I believe on Spotify and Apple and that's
Speaker 2: that's a good rating. Hey, you know, my show was
Speaker 2: I believe, ranked thirty seventh in the podcast Fantasy Sports space.
Speaker 2: I know that doesn't seem like a really high ranking,
Speaker 2: but frankly, it kind of is. Because I looked at
Speaker 2: some shows that are ranked around me, and there's some
Speaker 2: pretty big names, and I'm proud of that. So the
Speaker 2: auction brief is doing numbers this summer and I'm really
Speaker 2: happy about that. So anything that you can do to help,
Speaker 2: in the form of leaving a positive review, leaving a
Speaker 2: five star review, a five star rating, that stuff helps.
Speaker 2: It helps the show. So that's not required. That's not
Speaker 2: part of the Listener League, but I thought i'd mentioned
Speaker 2: it here because this is a labor of love and
Speaker 2: it would really help me out if you could do that.
Speaker 2: But the actual entry into the Listener League is a
Speaker 2: little bit easier than that. If you're somebody who listens
Speaker 2: to the show, all you have to do is name
Speaker 2: for me two players that I talked about in the
Speaker 2: fourteen Guys to Unlock your auction episode. I want you
Speaker 2: to give me your two favorite players from that episode
Speaker 2: that I named of the fourteen players that can unlock
Speaker 2: your twenty twenty six auction. DM me that give me
Speaker 2: that information either on Patreon DMS or on Twitter DMS.
Speaker 2: Give me your two favorite players, and if you want,
Speaker 2: here is a fun little side game. You will get
Speaker 2: an extra entry so you can double your chances of
Speaker 2: getting in the listener league, if you can name for
Speaker 2: me the player that I just do not like, that
Speaker 2: I think kind of sucks at football, but who I
Speaker 2: might have to be reluctantly in on this year. If
Speaker 2: you listen to the show, if you're diehard listener, this
Speaker 2: one's going to be easy for you. And let me
Speaker 2: just give you a hint. It is not Christian Watson. Okay,
Speaker 2: it's not Christian Watson. So that's your hint. The clue
Speaker 2: is a player that I think sucks at football, but
Speaker 2: who I might have to be reluctantly back in on
Speaker 2: this year for fantasy football is blank.
Speaker 1: Who's that player?
Speaker 2: So if you can name me two players from the
Speaker 2: fourteen players episode, that's your entry. You get in an
Speaker 2: automatic entry for that. And if you can name me
Speaker 2: this other player, that's another entry, so you double your
Speaker 2: chances of getting in. When I have the drawing, have
Speaker 2: the drawing and announce it on Twitter here in about
Speaker 2: the next ten days something like that. You'll have two
Speaker 2: episodes to hear the entry information this weekend next week,
Speaker 2: and then I will do a drawing and we'll get
Speaker 2: to the business of having the draft.
Speaker 1: All right, that's your listener league. Information for this year.
Speaker 2: I know everybody has been thinking about it because I've
Speaker 2: been getting questions about whether or not I'm doing it
Speaker 2: again this year. So yes, we're running it back for
Speaker 2: another year of the Listener League. All right, so what
Speaker 2: are we doing today? Well, we're talking about elite auction skills.
Speaker 2: And why are we talking about specifically elite auction skills. Well,
Speaker 2: I think that is the crux of what we are doing,
Speaker 2: not just today but in general when we talk about
Speaker 2: how to become better at auctions. And the reason I'm
Speaker 2: not just talking about these auction skills that I like
Speaker 2: is because that's too broad of a brushstroke to be
Speaker 2: painting on August thirteenth.
Speaker 1: We need to be.
Speaker 2: Drilling down and figuring out what's going to make us
Speaker 2: better when we get in our auctions this summer. So
Speaker 2: next week is the manifesto that's going to have that
Speaker 2: thirty thousand foot view, but it's also going to walk
Speaker 2: you through an auction and what you should be doing
Speaker 2: at every step, how you should be attacking your auctions
Speaker 2: this year. And that's going to be sort of a
Speaker 2: self contained episode. But today I don't want to talk
Speaker 2: about that stuff. The nuts and bolts. What I want
Speaker 2: to talk about is the fact that all summer long,
Speaker 2: I've been telling you the people who win are the
Speaker 2: ones who can do simple, repeatable things, who can avoid mistakes,
Speaker 2: and who can be the most solid auction drafters around.
Speaker 2: And when you do that kind of stuff, it's pretty
Speaker 2: easy to go in and quote unquote win the room
Speaker 2: or win the draft, and that stuff's fairly straightforward stuff.
Speaker 2: But I've been telling you a little bit of a
Speaker 2: fib all summer long. Fib So anybody use the that
Speaker 2: term anymore? Everybody back in nineteen six my kids always
Speaker 2: told me FIBs. I've been just you know, this summer,
Speaker 2: I've been telling you that that's what you need to
Speaker 2: do and what you need to focus on. And I
Speaker 2: believe that that is true. People who don't make mistakes,
Speaker 2: who are solid, who do repeatable things, who do things
Speaker 2: that are straightforward and easy things to do. You can
Speaker 2: become a very good auction drafter by doing those things.
Speaker 2: But the reason I tell you that I've been saying
Speaker 2: all of this this summer, and it's a bit of
Speaker 2: a fib, is that I don't believe that you can
Speaker 2: become an elite auction drafter. I don't know if you
Speaker 2: can become the best of the best. I don't know
Speaker 2: if you can become really, really really good at this
Speaker 2: thing unless you can do some other things that require
Speaker 2: some nuance, that requires some work, and that requires some
Speaker 2: time to develop. And those elite auction skills are something
Speaker 2: that I need you to still be thinking about because
Speaker 2: we can't just talk about being solid and boring. We
Speaker 2: have to talk about our ceiling as well. And that's
Speaker 2: where I want to start today's show. Let's talk about
Speaker 2: reaching our ceiling in auction drafts by developing some elite skills.
Speaker 2: So for today, it's my five elite skills you need
Speaker 2: in your auction draft rooms auction talk. So the reason
Speaker 2: these skills are considered to be elite skills is because
Speaker 2: there are skills that, by and large somewhat elude definition.
Speaker 2: They're somewhat amorphous or nebulous concepts. I talk about that
Speaker 2: all the time. They're hard to sort of keep into
Speaker 2: a box. It's like a puddle spreading across the counter.
Speaker 2: You can kind of block it and redirect it, but
Speaker 2: it's not easy to necessarily put those things in a
Speaker 2: box and say these are neat and tidy, and here's
Speaker 2: the bow. But I would submit to you that those
Speaker 2: are the margins in which we can make strides that
Speaker 2: people who don't work on their craft are not making.
Speaker 2: And that's what makes you better. And remember that when
Speaker 2: we stack little things and we get better at them incrementally,
Speaker 2: we can look back in a few years and say
Speaker 2: I increased my expected value because of working on my nominations,
Speaker 2: and therefore my auction game is four point four percent
Speaker 2: better this year than it was two years ago. So
Speaker 2: now instead of a roster that I think can be
Speaker 2: a ninety six out of one hundred, that roster is
Speaker 2: a ninety two a couple years ago, and this year
Speaker 2: you made it a ninety six.
Speaker 1: So the reason that these.
Speaker 2: Skills are so difficult is because they take time and
Speaker 2: because mastering them does involve a little bit of risk
Speaker 2: at times, and it involves an understanding of the draft
Speaker 2: room that not everybody has. And if you don't have it,
Speaker 2: that's okay, because the only way to get it is
Speaker 2: to recognize that you don't have it, or to recognize
Speaker 2: what it is that you need to be working towards
Speaker 2: in order for the skills to be something that you
Speaker 2: can say you own so these elite skills are important
Speaker 2: because I've picked out five of them that I believe
Speaker 2: you have to have, and if you don't possess them
Speaker 2: already or you don't know how to work on them today,
Speaker 2: that's what we get to talk about. And then what
Speaker 2: I want you to do is, let's say that you've
Speaker 2: only done three auctions in your life. I don't want
Speaker 2: you to go into your auction draft room and go,
Speaker 2: I have to do these five things this year. That
Speaker 2: is not how it works. You need to be comfortable
Speaker 2: with your ability to handle an auction draft room before
Speaker 2: you can start working on some of this stuff, because
Speaker 2: not all of this stuff is possible for you to do.
Speaker 2: You're just in your fourth auction of your life and
Speaker 2: you're just trying to keep up, and you're just trying
Speaker 2: to enter the numbers and keep people cap straight and
Speaker 2: keep your own par sheets straight, and figure out what
Speaker 2: the heck you're supposed to be doing on your next nomination.
Speaker 2: That's okay if you're still at that level, don't worry
Speaker 2: about it, but you still need to listen to this
Speaker 2: episode because until you try to incorporate some of this stuff,
Speaker 2: you'll never get past, Hey, I'm boringly good. And remember
Speaker 2: what we talked about last week when we talked about
Speaker 2: the fourteen guys that can unlock your auctions. We talked
Speaker 2: about unlocking your ceiling. And I made the poker analogy
Speaker 2: of opening your three bet range and starting to unlock
Speaker 2: the ceiling for your big hands. And you need to
Speaker 2: unlock your auction draft ceiling. And you do that with
Speaker 2: these skills because you can be good and get good results,
Speaker 2: or you can be great and get elite results.
Speaker 1: So if you.
Speaker 2: Can't incorporate these things yet, you can start to work
Speaker 2: on them. And that's how skills work. You can just
Speaker 2: kind of chip away at it. Well, I'm going to
Speaker 2: do a little bit better with this, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to do a little bit better with this. But if
Speaker 2: you don't think about it, and you don't hear it
Speaker 2: from me, and you don't say, okay, these are things
Speaker 2: I can think about, then you'll never get better. You'll
Speaker 2: never start to work on it. You'll always be Okay, Well,
Speaker 2: I can vary my nominations, Okay, cool, Well, everybody can
Speaker 2: do that. I can do that in four seconds. A
Speaker 2: billy goat can do that, Okay, by walking over to
Speaker 2: a random nomination and picking a player out of a hat.
Speaker 2: So refining those skills is what makes you elite, and
Speaker 2: working on them even when you think that, hey maybe
Speaker 2: I'm not quite ready, or hey maybe I can't work
Speaker 2: on those all Now, that's okay. You work on a
Speaker 2: little of it, You work on a little part of it,
Speaker 2: you work on three of the five, you work on
Speaker 2: one of the five. You work on little parts of
Speaker 2: each of the five. All right, So I hope I'm
Speaker 2: making that point well, even though I'm kind of rambling
Speaker 2: a little bit because I kind of want to hit
Speaker 2: it from different angles so that you understand. This is
Speaker 2: not hard and fast stuff like, hey, you're going to
Speaker 2: suck this year if you don't do these things. But
Speaker 2: I think you have to start working on them. Let's
Speaker 2: get to point number one. Of the five elite auction
Speaker 2: skills you need. The first one is one that I
Speaker 2: think you're going to probably say, hey, yeah, I know
Speaker 2: what he's talking about here, but I don't think that
Speaker 2: you necessarily do. And so I want you to think
Speaker 2: about that a little bit as we talk about all
Speaker 2: five of these, because not everyone is going to be
Speaker 2: exactly where you think. I'm going to go with it.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm going to talk about nominations. Oh here
Speaker 2: he goes about nominations again. But we're talking elite stuff here.
Speaker 2: We're talking about stuff that's the top of the auction game.
Speaker 1: So stick with me here.
Speaker 2: When I give you my tag, it may not go
Speaker 2: where you think it does, all right, So number one
Speaker 2: is picking your plan, building your par sheet, but picking
Speaker 2: your plan, and I give it that tag because all
Speaker 2: of your skills flow from your ability to figure out
Speaker 2: what's going on in that draft room. And so I
Speaker 2: need to remind you of something that the par sheets
Speaker 2: were building have a couple different goals, because yes, I
Speaker 2: think it's the most effective guide for an auction draft room,
Speaker 2: and I love the par sheet, but it's not just
Speaker 2: a guide, Okay, it is not. It serves another purpose.
Speaker 2: And that's how we start today's point about picking your plan,
Speaker 2: because par sheets themselves are a constant referendum on your
Speaker 2: ability to know what is happening in your particular draft room.
Speaker 2: And that changes from room to room. Right if you
Speaker 2: go into your ten team home league or your fourteen
Speaker 2: team expert league, or your half PPR league versus your
Speaker 2: full PPR league, your six point passing touchdown versus your
Speaker 2: four point passing touchdown.
Speaker 1: All of that stuff changes.
Speaker 2: Right, And so the referendum is on you to not
Speaker 2: know the settings and the skills or the settings and
Speaker 2: the scoring that you need to be successful, but also
Speaker 2: what is happening in your room, and that is what
Speaker 2: makes it an elite skill. So the par sheet is
Speaker 2: a referendum on your ability to predict what's going to
Speaker 2: happen in the room. That's tough, right, That's why it's elite.
Speaker 2: How can you predict what's going to happen? Because let
Speaker 2: me tell you how that looks in practical use here. Okay,
Speaker 2: let's make this crispy. Your par sheet is your attempt
Speaker 2: to predict what the players you want will go for
Speaker 2: in the auction room. And here's the example I'm going
Speaker 2: to use. If you believe that you don't want one
Speaker 2: of the top receivers, one of the top five or
Speaker 2: six guys, but that you want to drop down a
Speaker 2: little bit of a tier and you want to go
Speaker 2: for the AJ Brown, Drake London types, and so you say, hey,
Speaker 2: I think I want to go for Drake London, but
Speaker 2: I'm going to go, you know, for that range. Of course,
Speaker 2: we never want to dial in just one player that
Speaker 2: we want, but I want to go in that range.
Speaker 1: And then you.
Speaker 2: Put on your power sheet that your wide receiver one
Speaker 2: is going to be forty six dollars. Now, think about
Speaker 2: a typical draft room. I'm not talking about all the
Speaker 2: different variations that we have where that can change, but
Speaker 2: think about a typical draft room where Drake London is nominated.
Speaker 2: How often do you think he goes for forty six dollars?
Speaker 2: Almost never, write in typical rooms, he's not seen as
Speaker 2: that type of player. Now, again, different settings can affect this,
Speaker 2: and blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: I understand.
Speaker 2: So we have to give examples where we're kind of
Speaker 2: talking in a vacuum and that's not how auctions work.
Speaker 2: We get that, But suspend your disbelief for a second,
Speaker 2: and let's say you write down forty six dollars for
Speaker 2: your wide receiver one. Well, of course you're going to
Speaker 2: get Drake London for forty six dollars, right, because that's
Speaker 2: a poor price that you're aiming at, unless your league
Speaker 2: is somehow just all excited about wide receivers, which, now
Speaker 2: maybe that looks good, But in a typical room you
Speaker 2: really want him for, you should really write on your
Speaker 2: sheet thirty nine bucks, right, or you should write forty
Speaker 2: or forty one at the most.
Speaker 1: But forty six it's not a good target, right.
Speaker 2: You're not predicting what that player is going to be
Speaker 2: had for in the room. You're just over way overshooting it.
Speaker 2: What good does that do you to consistently be off
Speaker 2: in your predictions? And if you're going to know that
Speaker 2: you didn't do something right. If you walk into your
Speaker 2: draft room and you have written down I want to
Speaker 2: spend forty six dollars on my RB one, but I
Speaker 2: wanted to be Kyen Williams, Well that's that's kind of dumb, right.
Speaker 2: But also if you said I want to spend forty
Speaker 2: six and you have to spend fifty nine, or you
Speaker 2: spend thirty three, you're off thirteen bucks. You didn't do
Speaker 2: something right, okay. And that's what happened to me in
Speaker 2: The King's Classic, where I said I want to spend
Speaker 2: thirty two of my Wide Receiver one, I spent forty nine.
Speaker 2: Now that was just a decision I made to go
Speaker 2: for an elite player. Now that there's a difference between
Speaker 2: spending because you see an opportunity and consistently just misvaluing
Speaker 2: the players. I thought, I'm on Raj's price for forty
Speaker 2: nine dollars was okay, even though it screwed me on
Speaker 2: my par sheet. There's a difference between Hey, I spent
Speaker 2: up or I got a deal so I completely changed
Speaker 2: my par sheet. There's a difference between that and you
Speaker 2: being unable to figure out what the room's about to do.
Speaker 2: How well you know your league and then revising that
Speaker 2: opinion every year is the entire game, Okay, that's the
Speaker 2: game following the trends year to year. Even my home
Speaker 2: league that I've been doing for twenty five years, there
Speaker 2: are still trends that develop every year. People come into
Speaker 2: the draft with a different idea of what they're going
Speaker 2: to do every year, and so you have to follow
Speaker 2: those trends, and you have to look back three, four
Speaker 2: or five years. How's my league going to react? Each year?
Speaker 2: In your league is not a self contained bubble, right,
Speaker 2: It's not just a hey, I'm doing that this year
Speaker 2: and then forget about it.
Speaker 1: You have historical.
Speaker 2: Trends, and so your ability to pick a plan that's
Speaker 2: good for that league tells you how good you're getting
Speaker 2: in the room, and that's why it's an elite skill.
Speaker 2: And I really believe that I've gotten better at this
Speaker 2: in the last three to four years, and I think
Speaker 2: I've gotten significantly better at it because I used to
Speaker 2: just build my par sheet's like this is what I
Speaker 2: want to do, and that's not what we're doing. We're
Speaker 2: doing it based on what we think we can do,
Speaker 2: what can we achieve, and that's how we're unlocking our ceiling,
Speaker 2: right We're unlocking the ceiling by saying I think I
Speaker 2: can get X, Y and Z players if everything goes perfect.
Speaker 2: It's not going to go perfect. But when you build
Speaker 2: a perfect plan, even when it doesn't go correctly, then
Speaker 2: you know you've got your lead dialed in and then
Speaker 2: you know how you can take advantage of the league.
Speaker 2: So this is a really important one and that's why
Speaker 2: I led with it. I think that the most elite
Speaker 2: thing you can do is to nail your par sheet
Speaker 2: numbers so well that when you walk in you get
Speaker 2: certain guys within a couple bucks of what you wanted
Speaker 2: to pay for them. That's how you know that you
Speaker 2: really are in tune with what's going on in that
Speaker 2: draft room. And you're going to be in new league
Speaker 2: sometimes where you're not to be able to figure that out.
Speaker 2: But your goal then is to figure out what you
Speaker 2: didn't know ahead of time and to adjust on the
Speaker 2: fly as the draft, starting off in the first one, two,
Speaker 2: three rounds, because that stuff's going to be how you
Speaker 2: make or break your auction, and you can't just be like, well,
Speaker 2: I do know the league, okay, so your party it's
Speaker 2: going to be off that year. But if you get
Speaker 2: back in that league, you need to dial it in closer,
Speaker 2: and then every year after that you dial in that
Speaker 2: sheet closer and closer. So your ability to predict what's
Speaker 2: going to happen in the room is influenced by not
Speaker 2: only the scoring and the lineup settings, but how well
Speaker 2: you know the league and the league tendencies through the
Speaker 2: history of the league. You must get into this stuff
Speaker 2: or you'll never be the league. The second auction draft
Speaker 2: skill that I believe is an elite skill to unlock
Speaker 2: your ceiling is that you have to play players. You
Speaker 2: have to play humans. This is a very human exercise.
Speaker 2: Snake drafts lack any reading of people that actually really matters.
Speaker 2: You just wait and see who they're gonna pick. You
Speaker 2: don't have to play off of them. Now, you do
Speaker 2: have to play off of them from the standpoint that, hey,
Speaker 2: is this run gonna happen?
Speaker 1: Is this?
Speaker 2: But you don't play off of other humans when you're
Speaker 2: actually making your pick or when you're actually watching them pick.
Speaker 2: It's just an exercise. And okay, now I'm rebounding off
Speaker 2: of them. But in an auction, there's all kinds of
Speaker 2: human dynamics at play. And until you know how to
Speaker 2: read humans and how to play them while you're in
Speaker 2: the middle of the auction, you'll never be elite. You
Speaker 2: have to work on this stuff. And I'll say it
Speaker 2: again when I have the conversation about gut all the time.
Speaker 2: It's something that sticks with people, and I want you
Speaker 2: to listen to me one more time this summer. Gut
Speaker 2: is not wild ass guessing. Gut is not Hey, he
Speaker 2: I thought he was gonna do it and then he
Speaker 2: did it. No, that's not a thing you have to say.
Speaker 2: I thought he was gonna do it for X, Y,
Speaker 2: and Z reasons and then he did it. Or I
Speaker 2: thought he was going to do it for these reasons
Speaker 2: and then he did not do it. And that involves
Speaker 2: thinking about it after the fact. Just like in point
Speaker 2: number one, you don't go into an auction, screw up
Speaker 2: your parshy and go back to the drawing board. See
Speaker 2: you in twenty twenty seven. No, you have to revise
Speaker 2: what you're doing. In same thing with humans, you have
Speaker 2: to figure out what they did after the fact to
Speaker 2: see if you were right or not. So many people
Speaker 2: skip that part of it and that drives me nuts.
Speaker 2: You can't skip the last part because you have to
Speaker 2: think about why was I wrong?
Speaker 1: Why was I right?
Speaker 2: Was my reason correct? You know the old Simpsons episode
Speaker 2: about when they saw a bear in town and then
Speaker 2: they you know, they pulled out the bear patrol and
Speaker 2: Lisa's like, uh, that's not the reason there's no bears.
Speaker 2: There's just not any bears in the springfield. And then
Speaker 2: she says, well, you know, that'd be like me saying
Speaker 2: that I have this rock and it keeps tigers away.
Speaker 2: And Homer's like, tell me more about this rock, and
Speaker 2: she's like, well, let me, do you see any tigers?
Speaker 1: And he's like, hmm, good point.
Speaker 2: I mean, you get it right that So sometimes you're
Speaker 2: gonna think he's about to do this, and then he
Speaker 2: does it, but your reason for thinking that he was
Speaker 2: about to do that is wrong. Like you weren't even
Speaker 2: right about it. You were just that's just like being like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm out on this player. Then he gets hurt and
Speaker 2: you're like, see, well that's not a thing. You have
Speaker 2: to be right for the right reason, and you have
Speaker 2: to be wrong. Sometimes you're going to be right and
Speaker 2: that results still wrong. Okay, I'm confusing you here, but
Speaker 2: just remember you have.
Speaker 1: To look for the result.
Speaker 2: What was my impression, what was my thought? Be intentional
Speaker 2: about naming a thing that you think is gonna happen
Speaker 2: and then seeing whether it happens. I think there's a
Speaker 2: lot of different things that this unlocks. So playing against
Speaker 2: humans is and I talk about all the time about
Speaker 2: the levels of price enforcing, and playing against humans takes
Speaker 2: you to another level. Because level number one is market
Speaker 2: price enforcing. We've talked about that when players are just
Speaker 2: too cheap and you're making sure that you bid to
Speaker 2: get the price up there, and then you're backing out
Speaker 2: or you're getting a really good deal because you decided
Speaker 2: to enforce and the league that you have them. But
Speaker 2: then the next level of that is making human plays
Speaker 2: is playing off of what people are doing. I really
Speaker 2: believe that playing humans is one of the last things
Speaker 2: that you add to your auction skill set. It's hard,
Speaker 2: It's really hard, and especially behind a computer. If you're
Speaker 2: in an online auction, you can get an impression of people, though,
Speaker 2: you really can if you pay attention to their bidding
Speaker 2: patterns and how they act. And is this person impatient?
Speaker 2: Do they type in forty five when beijeon comes up?
Speaker 2: Are they annoyed that it's taking too long?
Speaker 1: Hey? Whatever?
Speaker 2: Were gonna have a break or no, I don't want
Speaker 2: to break like I gotta get done. I gotta go
Speaker 2: to work tomorrow. They say things that tell you things.
Speaker 2: Are you paying attention to the things they're saying. People
Speaker 2: are gonna tell you what they are. They're gonna tell
Speaker 2: you how they're gonna act. They're gonna tell you. They're
Speaker 2: gonna say stuff. Hey, I've been drinking and went to
Speaker 2: dinner with the wife, had two bottles of wine. Let's
Speaker 2: get it going, boys. They just told you something. Most
Speaker 2: people are not sitting down in a room and trying
Speaker 2: to throw out false tales. I promise you, even the
Speaker 2: best of the best they're not doing that. So watch
Speaker 2: them and you can use that humanity against them to
Speaker 2: bid them up. And I tell you all the time,
Speaker 2: don't do it unless you're really comfortable with it. And
Speaker 2: I'm gonna give you the caveat again, don't do it
Speaker 2: unless you're really comfortable. You have to be comfortable that
Speaker 2: you know that person really well. Pay attention to certain
Speaker 2: types of guys, rhythm bidders, Guys that you can get
Speaker 2: into a rhythm with them and they'll just go with
Speaker 2: you twenty one, twenty two, twenty three. They get into
Speaker 2: a rhythm and they keep going. Look at managers who
Speaker 2: have a change in behavior. That's when we've talked about
Speaker 2: in previous summers. You can go back and listen to
Speaker 2: that stuff. But a change in behavior is a huge tell.
Speaker 2: Is there a guy joking around with somebody next to
Speaker 2: him and then a players called out and he's quiet,
Speaker 2: starts paying attention. Well, what do you think he thinks
Speaker 2: something about that player?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: That player is important to him for some reason. Change
Speaker 2: in behavior is huge. How about the table captain. You
Speaker 2: ever set at a poker table and somebody sits down
Speaker 2: and they just immediately start raising and going crazy and
Speaker 2: calling people and forcing the action. They consider themselves to
Speaker 2: be the table captain. They're a really aggressive personality. You're
Speaker 2: going to see aggressive personalities. Use that against him. Let
Speaker 2: their aggression be their undoing. Let them get into some
Speaker 2: heavy bidding early on, and then just stop. Stick him
Speaker 2: with people, take him out, Take him out. They got
Speaker 2: two hundred bucks like everyone else, They want to run
Speaker 2: around being a menace and thrown up forty three bucks
Speaker 2: and every player that goes because they think it's gonna
Speaker 2: go for more.
Speaker 1: Stop. Let them have a player for forty three bucks.
Speaker 1: Let them get a little bit of a deal.
Speaker 2: Okay, so what so they got aj Brown for forty
Speaker 2: two when he should be forty six, So what, let
Speaker 2: him have him. They're gonna do that twice and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden they're gonna be out. They're gonna have
Speaker 2: forty two bucks left and need fourteen players.
Speaker 1: Let them do it.
Speaker 2: Use their aggression against them. How about the guys that
Speaker 2: just nominate people they like They really like players, right,
Speaker 2: how about guys that like players from certain colleges.
Speaker 1: There's used to.
Speaker 2: Play in a league with a girl who liked Alabama players.
Speaker 2: You knew when an Alabama player came up it was
Speaker 2: gonna be an inflated price. Use it against them. That's
Speaker 2: their problem, right, that's not your problem. This is the game.
Speaker 2: Use those human tells. Take their money. That's how you
Speaker 2: become elite. Take their freaking money. Force them to be
Speaker 2: on all the time. You want them to be uncomfortable.
Speaker 2: If you know, for example, that a player is gonna
Speaker 2: go for thirty bucks and the bid is twenty, then
Speaker 2: you need to say twenty one immediately. Why let me
Speaker 2: ask you this. What's more comfortable When the bid is
Speaker 2: yours and you just get to sit there and you
Speaker 2: get the player for the price you want, or when
Speaker 2: the bid is on someone else and the clock's ticking
Speaker 2: down and you have to decide whether you're going to act.
Speaker 2: If you're the one who's always acting, you're the one
Speaker 2: who's always uncomfortable. If you're the one who always knows
Speaker 2: and is just sitting there waiting for the other person
Speaker 2: to act, you're the comfortable one. You're the one who
Speaker 2: gets to sit back and say, are they going to
Speaker 2: bid again? So let's say that you know this player
Speaker 2: is worth thirty bucks and it's twenty you should say
Speaker 2: twenty one immediately, because then that person is always on,
Speaker 2: and you know what that does to them? Not only
Speaker 2: does it make them uncomfortable, it pisses them off. They
Speaker 2: get frustrated. Right, So you say twenty one quickly and
Speaker 2: then they wait and wait and wait, going once, going twice,
Speaker 2: and they say twenty two. Then you go twenty three,
Speaker 2: twenty four, twenty five. It's gonna bug them first of
Speaker 2: all because you one up them immediately and irritate them.
Speaker 2: But on top of that, you know that you're gonna
Speaker 2: pay up to thirty bucks for this player, So why
Speaker 2: would you wait?
Speaker 1: Why would you wait?
Speaker 2: Making them always beyond makes them uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: When you're the one who.
Speaker 2: Gets to sit back, you're the comfortable one. This is
Speaker 2: human psychology. If you don't use human psychology in your
Speaker 2: auction game, you will never be elite. The third auction
Speaker 2: skill that I believe unlocks your ceiling is talking about options,
Speaker 2: having options, And what do I mean by having options? Well,
Speaker 2: I believe that the way that you unlock the best
Speaker 2: rosters is to never bid yourself or nominate yourself.
Speaker 1: Into a corner.
Speaker 2: The best auction players always leave themselves out at various
Speaker 2: points during the auction. It's just like the best poker
Speaker 2: players don't ever paint themselves into a corner where the
Speaker 2: only move is a wild all in bet. And if
Speaker 2: you're consistently finding yourself unable to react, unable to bid
Speaker 2: on players that you should be bidding on, unable to
Speaker 2: execute your par sheet, then you're probably not leaving yourself
Speaker 2: very many options throughout the draft. So becoming an elite
Speaker 2: auction drafter is about knowing when to pass and knowing
Speaker 2: when to preserve your flexibility and the options that you
Speaker 2: have in front of you. Now, I don't want you
Speaker 2: to consider this a blanket rule, because you know as
Speaker 2: well as I do that there are certain times when
Speaker 2: you have to strike, when you have to act, and
Speaker 2: you have to spend some money, and that limits your
Speaker 2: options for a little while. But the more you limit
Speaker 2: the options that you have, the less you can work
Speaker 2: the room. Did you immediately pay for Jamior Gibbs and
Speaker 2: you paid sixty eight dollars? You limited your options there
Speaker 2: for a while?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Did you pay twenty four dollars for Colston Loveland when
Speaker 2: he was the first tight end up? You limit your options?
Speaker 2: And why does that matter? Well, twenty four may end
Speaker 2: up being a good price for Colston Loveland. But what
Speaker 2: if brock Bauers goes for twenty nine? What if he
Speaker 2: goes for thirty one. Now you may think, okay, I
Speaker 2: still like my twenty four, but my point being, Bowers
Speaker 2: is a thirty five to forty dollars player this year,
Speaker 2: and he just went way under that for whatever reason.
Speaker 2: But you didn't have the option to bid because you
Speaker 2: already had Loveland.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: What if you took a deal when you had three
Speaker 2: roster spots left and you had thirty one bucks left,
Speaker 2: but you took a deal on a six dollars player
Speaker 2: because you thought, oh what a great deal. You just
Speaker 2: limited your options. Now you've only got two roster spots left,
Speaker 2: you got thirty one bucks, or you know whatever, you
Speaker 2: paid six bucks, you got twenty five bucks.
Speaker 1: You don't have enough. There's not enough.
Speaker 2: Players left to spend, so you limited your options. If
Speaker 2: you're low on money, if you take yourself out of
Speaker 2: the draft and you can't price en force, you can't
Speaker 2: take deals. Okay, Well, look, sometimes you got to overpay
Speaker 2: for elite talent. I get that, but I think more
Speaker 2: often than not, what I'm talking about here with options
Speaker 2: is sometimes it's okay. Passing is the play. Many times
Speaker 2: it is and it feels weird in the moment, like, gosh,
Speaker 2: I should have been on that, but it would have
Speaker 2: limited my options too much.
Speaker 1: And that's okay.
Speaker 2: Let the deal go because it limits your flexibility. And
Speaker 2: most of the time, what I'm talking about here is
Speaker 2: taking deals on replacement level players or marginal deals. So
Speaker 2: why take a great deal on Quintin Johnston. I like
Speaker 2: the player, but why take a great deal on Quinton Johnston.
Speaker 2: He's a marginal player. He's a replacement level player for
Speaker 2: fantasy football purposes. How about think about like this, What
Speaker 2: if you paid twenty five dollars for Jalen Waddle. You
Speaker 2: had twenty three dollars allotted on your par sheet, and
Speaker 2: you take Wattle for twenty five because you think that's
Speaker 2: a reasonable deal. But you've done two things there. You
Speaker 2: went two dollars over, which is okay sometimes, but then
Speaker 2: also you did it to take a deal that's marginal.
Speaker 2: It's a one to three dollars deal. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: a lot more than a twenty six to twenty nine
Speaker 2: dollars player. Not really, So you got it for twenty five, Okay,
Speaker 2: Well that's not bad, And maybe it's what works for
Speaker 2: your par sheet, and maybe that's what you need it
Speaker 2: at that time. Maybe things are becoming scarce again auctions.
Speaker 2: You can't think about the infinite variables. But the point
Speaker 2: is this is kind of an example. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: did that help me? Is that exactly what my part
Speaker 2: she needed? Maybe it is, or maybe you limited your
Speaker 2: options there for a player that you didn't really get
Speaker 2: that great of a deal on. You have to jump
Speaker 2: in sometimes and sometimes by taking whatever deals or by
Speaker 2: landing the players that you want to land, you are
Speaker 2: going to shut off part.
Speaker 1: Of the draft.
Speaker 2: But part of being elite is recognizing when you do it,
Speaker 2: is recognizing that you are shutting off part of the
Speaker 2: draft and what does that do for your nomination strategy
Speaker 2: and how you attack the rest of the draft. We're
Speaker 2: going to hit that in just a minute in inflection points,
Speaker 2: because once you do that, once you land a player,
Speaker 2: you shut off a portion of your draft, You shut
Speaker 2: off a portion of the options. I'm not saying to
Speaker 2: not do it. I'm saying to recognize it and then
Speaker 2: recognize the effect it has on your ability to move forward.
Speaker 2: All right, let's talk about number four, and number four
Speaker 2: is one that I know that you're going to have
Speaker 2: the temptation to turn your brain off when you hear
Speaker 2: me say it. But folks, nominations.
Speaker 1: Are the key. And it's the key for two reasons.
Speaker 2: One because you're going to be better out than everybody,
Speaker 2: but two because people don't really care about it. So
Speaker 2: there's like a golf there that develops because of their
Speaker 2: and your enthusiasm. So let's say that you both start
Speaker 2: out as auction drafters. You're both a five okay on
Speaker 2: a scale of one to ten, and your nomination strategy
Speaker 2: is just right up the middle. You're a five, they're
Speaker 2: a five, and they don't really They get into the
Speaker 2: draft and every move they make moves that meter up
Speaker 2: and down. That's a good nomination. Okay, Now you're a
Speaker 2: six or seven, that's a bad nomination. Now you're a
Speaker 2: three or a two. Let's say that we get to
Speaker 2: the end of the draft. A lot of people are
Speaker 2: gonna be just a flat out one or they're gonna
Speaker 2: be like negative by the end of the draft because
Speaker 2: they didn't do anything with their nominations. And the reason
Speaker 2: I say that is because if you are gaining positive
Speaker 2: expected value with your nominations, your rating goes up from five,
Speaker 2: theirs goes down. The golf widens because they don't use
Speaker 2: it and you do. And it's not just hey, I
Speaker 2: got better, they're still a five and now I'm a seven.
Speaker 2: Now they're like a two now and you're a nine.
Speaker 2: So the golf widens by how much you use your
Speaker 2: nomination strategy. And I don't want to talk about being
Speaker 2: variable here because that's so simple. Like a monkey could
Speaker 2: do that, all right, a monkey could not, you know,
Speaker 2: vary their nominations. And we know that you have to
Speaker 2: do that. You have to nominate people you like and
Speaker 2: you have to nominate people you don't. And we talked
Speaker 2: about like, hey, early on we nominate the targets in
Speaker 2: the middle rounds, we might be nominating players that you know,
Speaker 2: we want other people to spend money on because we're
Speaker 2: waiting on certain players. You know, later we want to
Speaker 2: fill people's rosters. Right, we've done all that, But how
Speaker 2: is how do you become elite? Okay, three ways that
Speaker 2: I want you to become elite and think about becoming
Speaker 2: elite with your nominations. Number one is stopping runs, all right,
Speaker 2: stopping positional runs and stopping value related runs. Positional runs
Speaker 2: are you know people all of a sudden woke up
Speaker 2: and realized that tight ends exist in this auction. You
Speaker 2: had nominated any of them through two and a half rounds,
Speaker 2: and all of a sudden, brock Bowers goes and a
Speaker 2: couple of you know players later tradement, Brian gets nominated.
Speaker 2: If you're sitting there wanting Colston leveland or you want
Speaker 2: Tucker Kraft, or you want Tyler Warren and all these
Speaker 2: elite guys are going off the board, you got to
Speaker 2: stop that tight end run, right, And I think the
Speaker 2: best way to do that is to cool the room
Speaker 2: down again. And I want to go then choose an
Speaker 2: elite player at a different position. So there's a bit
Speaker 2: of a time between that last nomination and the next one. So, okay,
Speaker 2: you really want Tyler Warren. A couple tight ends just went.
Speaker 2: How do I change it up?
Speaker 1: All right?
Speaker 2: Well, let's see AJ Brown is still available. So I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go over and I'm going to nominate AJ Brown
Speaker 2: and I'm going to let that bidding go. I'm gonna
Speaker 2: let it go a little bit slower than I normally won.
Speaker 2: So everybody can calm down about tight ends. Tight ends
Speaker 2: can fall out of their head. They're going to think
Speaker 2: about aj Brown for a while, and then when the
Speaker 2: next person nominates, they're less likely to go back to
Speaker 2: that positional group that you were worried about. So nominations
Speaker 2: can serve to stop positional runs. You can attempt to
Speaker 2: turn everybody's heads in a different direction with your nomination.
Speaker 2: It's also a value related nomination. Sometimes people are just
Speaker 2: running away with the spending or they're not. You need
Speaker 2: to heat the spending up, or you need to calm
Speaker 2: it down. Sometimes this is just hey, we're nominating all
Speaker 2: elite players, Like everybody chill. Here's Jordan Addison for.
Speaker 1: You to chew on.
Speaker 2: There are ways that you can influence the runs that
Speaker 2: are happening, either value wise or positional. All right, So
Speaker 2: stopping runs is an elite way for you to think
Speaker 2: about your nominations. The second elite way to think about
Speaker 2: nominations is beating scarcity. And this doesn't seem elap but
Speaker 2: I promise you it is. And you know a quick
Speaker 2: word here about tears. We work on our tiers all
Speaker 2: summer long, and they're really important. And let me just say,
Speaker 2: by the way, my tears and auction values will be
Speaker 2: out here in the next couple of days.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry for the delay.
Speaker 2: I'm just too busy and that's something really important and
Speaker 2: I'm sorry it's not out there yet, but it will
Speaker 2: be out there soon. And beating scarcity is interesting because
Speaker 2: a lot of times you can have tiers and you
Speaker 2: can think, hey, this is the end of a tier.
Speaker 2: But other people have different ideas and they think, now
Speaker 2: I can wait on different players, and sometimes you'll see
Speaker 2: prices you don't expect because your tears are just flat
Speaker 2: out different for the people. So remember that. But in general,
Speaker 2: beating scarcity is something that you can predict. You can
Speaker 2: see that stuff coming and you have to beat this scarcity.
Speaker 2: And a lot of times people are going to be like, oh, well,
Speaker 2: there's four wide receiver twos left, I'm not nominated one
Speaker 2: of them. Well, no, you can't wait, because you're going
Speaker 2: to get caught up there and you're going to have
Speaker 2: to pay too much. You need to get one of
Speaker 2: those guys out there quickly and then land them. That's
Speaker 2: an instant, that's an emergency in that situation because you
Speaker 2: have to beat that scarcity. So that's a second way
Speaker 2: we can be elite in our nominations is realizing that
Speaker 2: waiting is not how we play the game. The final
Speaker 2: way that I would say that we haven't talked about
Speaker 2: a lot is there's oftentimes going to be the hammer
Speaker 2: in the room and it's not you, and you need
Speaker 2: to get used to the idea of trying to hammer
Speaker 2: the hammer because that person's holding all the money and
Speaker 2: you need to go and say, what do they need?
Speaker 2: What is their roster lacking right now? Who may they
Speaker 2: be sitting on. There's certain people that you can say, hey, look,
Speaker 2: this person is waiting on this last player, or this
Speaker 2: guy's an Eagles fan and he's waiting on Davante Smith,
Speaker 2: whatever the case may be. You got to get him
Speaker 2: out there. And one of the things I want you
Speaker 2: to get in the habit of remembering is don't sit
Speaker 2: there and dream about that last player on the board
Speaker 2: when you don't have the hammer. All right, Let's say
Speaker 2: we get late into the draft and Terry mclaurin's still
Speaker 2: hanging out there. He shouldn't be out there, and he's
Speaker 2: a twenty seven dollars player normally, but he's going to
Speaker 2: go for nineteen or twenty now because it's too late.
Speaker 2: Now you don't necessarily have the money to compete with
Speaker 2: the hammer.
Speaker 1: Sit there and just say.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna wait on Terry McLaurin and I'm gonna get
Speaker 2: them later, because you know what's gonna happen. You're not
Speaker 2: gonna get them, and then you're gonna have passed on
Speaker 2: deals that were good for your team at that point.
Speaker 2: So you need to stop dreaming about that last player
Speaker 2: on the board when somebody has the hammer. Instead, you
Speaker 2: need to nominate that player so that the hammer has
Speaker 2: to use their hammer. Remember how we talked about that.
Speaker 2: When you use the hammer a lot of times, you
Speaker 2: lose it, and that's what you have to do. You
Speaker 2: have to hammer the hammer sometimes. So there are elite
Speaker 2: ways that you can start working on your nominations. There
Speaker 2: are simple ways. We talked about those all summer long.
Speaker 2: Elite nomination strategy goes further. It uses your human tells,
Speaker 2: it uses your playing against humanity, and we're gonna stop runs,
Speaker 2: we're gonna stop positional runs, we're gonna beat the scarcity.
Speaker 2: We're gonna hammer people that need to be hammered. That's
Speaker 2: how nominations can become an elite asset to you rather
Speaker 2: than and just who's the top guy left on the board?
Speaker 2: All right, that's number four. Let's talk about number five.
Speaker 2: Number five is my favorite one, and it's a topic
Speaker 2: we haven't talked about at all this summer, and that
Speaker 2: is inflection points. And inflection points are hard to talk
Speaker 2: about on the show. And I know I spent a
Speaker 2: couple summers ago an entire episode on it, and I
Speaker 2: had intended to do that again this summer, but I
Speaker 2: think this is a better way to do it, because
Speaker 2: this is how I want to end, mostly end the
Speaker 2: conversation this summer on the auction brief before we get
Speaker 2: to the manifesto. Because inflection points are one of the
Speaker 2: most difficult things to point out and one of the
Speaker 2: most difficult things to read in the moment.
Speaker 1: When they're happening.
Speaker 2: And that's why it's an elite skill, because you need
Speaker 2: lots and lots of raps to figure out the inflection points.
Speaker 2: And a lot of times you're going to be wrong
Speaker 2: on the inflection points.
Speaker 1: And what do we do?
Speaker 2: Everybody say it with me, We go back and look
Speaker 2: and see whether our predictions about the inflection points.
Speaker 1: Were right or not.
Speaker 2: You can't do it without that last step. Don't forget.
Speaker 2: You can't do it without the last step of examining
Speaker 2: whether you were right or not. What is an inflection point?
Speaker 2: I say it all the time in an auction draft.
Speaker 2: It just means that the room shifted and things are
Speaker 2: going to change. You have to be able to predict
Speaker 2: those things as an elite auction drafter, and not only that,
Speaker 2: you have to be able to see them coming and
Speaker 2: act on them in a timely manner. But I don't
Speaker 2: just want to talk about inflection points in the room,
Speaker 2: because I believe the real elite skill here is personal
Speaker 2: inflection points, and the intersection of the two is how
Speaker 2: you become the best of the best. We talked a
Speaker 2: little bit about the King's Classic Room, where I thought
Speaker 2: that the spending was really disciplined in the room and
Speaker 2: we were going to see a spike in prices at
Speaker 2: some point.
Speaker 1: We did see that.
Speaker 2: It took a little while longer than I thought, but
Speaker 2: we saw it, you know, in the Hoary Cap sum
Speaker 2: at the other night, the Superflex auction.
Speaker 1: I thought that people spent a.
Speaker 2: Little bit too high on the position groups early on,
Speaker 2: and note enough money went to the quarterback market. If
Speaker 2: I were in that room, i'd have five quarterbacks coming
Speaker 2: out of that draft because people weren't respecting the quarterback
Speaker 2: position in a superflex. So you can see that kind
Speaker 2: of stuff happening. But that's a room inflection point. That's
Speaker 2: an entire league inflection point. You can't just operate off
Speaker 2: of league inflection points because sometimes it doesn't matter for
Speaker 2: your roster. Right Why would it matter that the room
Speaker 2: is suddenly about to pay a bunch of money for
Speaker 2: wide receivers if your roster already has your wide receivers.
Speaker 2: It's the intersection of the inflection point in the room
Speaker 2: with your inflection points on your roster that lead to
Speaker 2: elite results. So let me leave you this episode with
Speaker 2: a hypothetical that I think might make your brain scramble
Speaker 2: a little bit, but I want you to understand that
Speaker 2: it is incredibly complicated. At the same time, you don't
Speaker 2: have to psych yourself out by saying, boy, that's too
Speaker 2: hard for me to learn. What you have to do
Speaker 2: is say I will get there someday because I am
Speaker 2: paying attention to all those factors. Maybe I'm not able
Speaker 2: to assimilate them perfectly, yet maybe I'm not able to
Speaker 2: weave them together perfectly. Yet maybe I'm not able to say, hey,
Speaker 2: these variables bounce off each other in this predictable way. Yet,
Speaker 2: But the fact that you're thinking about it means you're
Speaker 2: training yourself and you're developing. That was a really sweet
Speaker 2: drum roll? Did you guys like that? Let me do
Speaker 2: it again, you guys, you guys like that? So drum
Speaker 2: roll please? What are we developing here? We're developing our
Speaker 2: gut and not always do we have to sit around
Speaker 2: and go, this is happening, and this is happening, and
Speaker 2: this is happening, and I am able to elaborate that
Speaker 2: these three factors exist in the room. That's not what
Speaker 2: it's about. It's about training your brain to figure this
Speaker 2: stuff out on the fly. And pretty soon you're having
Speaker 2: gut calls and you're saying, hey, I think this is
Speaker 2: about to happen, and that gut call is correct because
Speaker 2: of your skill and experience, attention to detail and working
Speaker 2: on the skills. So the hypothetical goes like this. Let's
Speaker 2: say that your plan was to spend a little bit
Speaker 2: of money at RB two, and you have twenty eight
Speaker 2: dollars on your par sheet for your RB two. Your
Speaker 2: plan was to spend in the upper thirties at wide
Speaker 2: receiver one, but you overspent on your wide receiver one significantly,
Speaker 2: so you're behind your par sheet. There are still plenty
Speaker 2: of wide receiver twos available, guys like Terry McLaurin, Ted McMillan's,
Speaker 2: guys like that. And when I say plenty of let's
Speaker 2: say that there's four or five wide receiver twos left
Speaker 2: in the room. And let's say also that your room
Speaker 2: has been a little timid on the spending at wide
Speaker 2: receiver two.
Speaker 1: So guys that are.
Speaker 2: Normally twenty six twenty seven to twenty eight dollars players,
Speaker 2: maybe they've been going for twenty four or twenty five
Speaker 2: or twenty three. It's just been a little bit cool
Speaker 2: in the room towards wide receiver twos. Now you also
Speaker 2: notice in the room that the money's starting to come down.
Speaker 2: But there is a reasonable amount of money on most rosters,
Speaker 2: somewhere between forty and seventy bucks. You're getting some maximum
Speaker 2: bids that are starting to get lower because people need
Speaker 2: thirteen players on their roster still.
Speaker 1: But you're getting fairly deep.
Speaker 2: Into the draft and you're realizing that the money is
Speaker 2: starting to dry up. Just a little bit. Set this
Speaker 2: scene with all of these factors in your head, and
Speaker 2: then Derrick Henry is nominated record scratch. What do you do?
Speaker 2: The hypothetical is this, there are some wide receiver twos left,
Speaker 2: but the wide receiver twos spending has been a little
Speaker 2: bit cool. You wanted to spend upper thirties on a
Speaker 2: wide receiver one, but you overspent was to spend twenty
Speaker 2: eight dollars on an RB two. Derrick Henry's up. What
Speaker 2: do you do? The decision that you make in this
Speaker 2: moment is a personal inflection point because Derrick Henry ends
Speaker 2: up going for thirty one dollars. That's a pretty good
Speaker 2: price in some rooms. Dereck Henry is going for twenty
Speaker 2: nine dollars. You had allotted twenty eight, but you're behind
Speaker 2: your parshet and you're thinking to yourself, I could make
Speaker 2: up some money at wide receiver too or RB two,
Speaker 2: and now Derrick Henry staring me in the face as
Speaker 2: a good value. Do I take Derrick Henry as my
Speaker 2: RB two. That is a personal inflection point for your roster.
Speaker 2: And the reason it happens that way is because there's
Speaker 2: a marriage of your personal inflection point and the point
Speaker 2: in the room, Well, what's the point in the room.
Speaker 2: The point in the room is that the market is
Speaker 2: about to see a spike at wide receiver two. Right,
Speaker 2: because the spending has been a little bit cool so far,
Speaker 2: scarcity is starting to creep in. It's not there yet,
Speaker 2: but it's starting to creep in. But if you take
Speaker 2: Derrick Henry and you already overspent for your wide receiver one,
Speaker 2: you're taking yourself off the board for those remaining wide
Speaker 2: receiver twos. Right, You're shutting off that portion of the
Speaker 2: draft for yourself. So there's a personal inflection point for
Speaker 2: your roster as well as the league. You have to
Speaker 2: marry those two wide receiver two prices are about to
Speaker 2: go up. Do I want to wait on Derrick Henry
Speaker 2: and say somebody else can have a deal because I
Speaker 2: need to pull money off of RB two or wide
Speaker 2: receiver two? Which one am I pulling money off of
Speaker 2: to make my par sheet work? Because I'm already behind
Speaker 2: from my overspend on wide receiver one. Do you see
Speaker 2: how all these things are in a circle. It's just circle.
Speaker 2: You run around and around and around in your head,
Speaker 2: and when Derrick Henry comes up that will dictate how
Speaker 2: your draft goes forward. If you land him, you shut
Speaker 2: yourself off of the wide receiver twos that are left.
Speaker 2: If you don't land him, you need to go then
Speaker 2: and nominate one of those wide receiver toos and land them.
Speaker 2: Do you see how that influences the decisions that you
Speaker 2: have to make, because you can't pass on Henry and
Speaker 2: then go pass on the wide receiver twos if they
Speaker 2: get expensive. You made that decision, and if the spike
Speaker 2: happens before you can do anything about it, then you
Speaker 2: may have to overpay because that's the corner you painted
Speaker 2: yourself into. That's the decision you made. That's all right,
Speaker 2: and sometimes it's not going to work right, and that's
Speaker 2: when mistakes happen. But that's not a mistake that you
Speaker 2: can foresee. It's a call you made at the time. Hey,
Speaker 2: I don't want to bid on Henry because I think
Speaker 2: the wide receiver twos are the prices are too low.
Speaker 2: I want to get one of those guys. But before
Speaker 2: you can get to him, the price goes up. That's
Speaker 2: not your fault. You still had a reason it didn't work,
Speaker 2: but you figured out why it didn't work. Think about
Speaker 2: all those factors. What is the market about to do?
Speaker 2: Did it do that? What can I do to react
Speaker 2: against the market? And then when I do, what does
Speaker 2: that mean for my roster? The marriage of the inflection
Speaker 2: points in the room with your personal inflection points is
Speaker 2: how you make elite decisions in an auction draft rum.
Speaker 2: All right, folks, I think that is it for today.
Speaker 2: I think we have talked long enough for getting close
Speaker 2: to an hour here. But don't forget that. You don't
Speaker 2: have to have all these skills right now. You just
Speaker 2: need to start working on them. And the five elite
Speaker 2: auction skills I want you to start working on are
Speaker 2: picking your plan, playing against humanity, playing human tells, leaving
Speaker 2: yourself options as you move throughout the auction, developing elite
Speaker 2: nomination skills, and recognizing in inflection points for your roster
Speaker 2: and in the league, and marrying those two things to
Speaker 2: give you elite auction results. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: joining me for another auction brief episode solo on the MIC.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed the five eleague auction the skills
Speaker 2: that you need to have. Next week we bring it
Speaker 2: all home. Next week we're going to synergize everything that
Speaker 2: we've learned this summer in an auction manifesto that walks
Speaker 2: you through an auction draft and how you should be
Speaker 2: approaching your twenty twenty six auctions, my master auction Plan,
Speaker 2: the Auction Manifesto. Next week we wrap up the summer
Speaker 2: of the Auction Brief and we go back to work
Speaker 2: talking about how to win our titles throughout the season
Speaker 2: instead of throughout draft season. But hey, just because the
Speaker 2: Auction Brief ends does not mean the content ends for
Speaker 2: the summer. You can find me on Twitter at Drew
Speaker 2: Davenport FF. You can find me on the Patreon network
Speaker 2: at the Fantasy Football Lawyer. You can still reach out
Speaker 2: and talk to me about auctions anytime you want, and
Speaker 2: believe me, folks, a lot of people do. And I
Speaker 2: just want to tell you if you've ever written me
Speaker 2: a message or set me a DM on Patreon and
Speaker 2: I haven't written you back. Number one, I'm probably still
Speaker 2: planning to do that. I'm going to try to work
Speaker 2: through that stuff this week. But also number two, I
Speaker 2: see your messages. I try to get to them, but
Speaker 2: the anxiety I have from the forty or fifty or
Speaker 2: sixty messages that I have hanging out there. I tell
Speaker 2: you what, it's off the charts, but I'm doing my
Speaker 2: best to get to all that stuff. So hang tight.
Speaker 2: I am here for the long haul to help you
Speaker 2: win fantasy football titles this year. The draft is just
Speaker 2: the first part. Stick with me all season long. We
Speaker 2: are going to win some fantasy games, all right.
Speaker 1: Don't forget to.
Speaker 2: Use your code Auction Brief at FJA Fantasy Sports and
Speaker 2: get those auction draft boards ordered.
Speaker 1: Folks.
Speaker 2: It is that time of year, drafts are starting. I'm
Speaker 2: making par sheets. Now's not the time to slack off.
Speaker 2: Now is the time to bring your energy level up
Speaker 2: and get ready to go. Put in the work. I
Speaker 2: promise you'll see the results. Thank you so much for
Speaker 2: joining me. It's been another fun episode of the Auction Brief.
Speaker 2: I hope you enjoyed it. And the Auction Brief is
Speaker 2: adjourned and I am out. The Auction Brief is adjourned.
Speaker 2: That'll do it for this week's episode. See you next
Speaker 2: time on the Auction Brief