All right, Ship chasing playoff week finale.
We got Leone here, maybe Dink swinging by if he can swing it
in a bit. And this is our last show of the
week. We like to kind of get some
final thoughts here. I'm curious from you guys as
well, some of your favorite plays.
We'll talk it through our favorite strategic angles after
pouring over all of the details and the projections for this
past week. And then we'll wrap up with one
final lineup build and send everyone on their way to build
their teams for the contest and win that $1,000,000.
I'm Pete with Gretch and Pat and Leonie.
Let's do it. Pat Fryer, Helmo.
This is what This is what I'm Pat.
Anita hand job. Fix your sight.
Jamar Alpha play Chase. You.
Can't handle the heat. It looks like we're finally at
this. Point you're right.
All. Right.
Welcome back. Long time no see for Leone.
We got Gretch, we got Pat. You finishing up dinner?
Starting dinner six O 5. Normally eating some popcorn and
drinking high noon, settling in for for a very fun night.
Wow, there you go, Gretch. How you doing?
Good. Good.
And then Britt just came in and asked if I can watch TV for 10
minutes on the stream. So.
The vibe shifted hard. Leonie, how are you doing, man?
I'm doing well. I'm excited.
Yes, it's you know, this is always Business Today, this this
show, it's like the first time we did it, it was I feel like we
all got drunk and it was like this grand old time.
And then every year we've gotten older and wiser and realize how
long it takes us to make our lineups after this.
And so then I feel like we've matured is basically what what?
I haven't, no. I I got a whole.
I thought we were doing it like before.
No, you're. Little child.
Yeah, I was debating it, but I made the decision to do, you
know, dry January and maybe even longer, just kind of get rid of
alcohol for a while here. So I was like, you know, I'm not
going to give that up 10 days into the into the new year for a
stream. It's very.
Mature of you. There you go.
I mean, it was, it was 5050. If we win this time, if we win
this year, you just, you can have her drink your dad.
I will. Yeah.
I'll join you. If we win, I'll have one very
expensive bottle of champagne and then never drink again.
How about that? It can be the rule.
I keep living, my life is normal.
I mean, that's kind of bold there, Peter.
Do you? I mean a lack of faith in US.
No, I, I actually was just talking to Davis about this.
We recorded like a take cast New Year's resolutions thing and I,
I said, I think within like the next year or two, I'll quit
alcohol for good. I got, I got to work my way
there. I'm not quite there, but I, I
would like to get to that point anyways.
We could save that. You can go watch Davis and I on
the take cast if you want to hear that.
Let let's start kind of where we did last night.
You know, Pat, as far as kind of tweaks you've made to ownership
projections, any shifts that you find, you know, meaningful
enough to to discuss. I know you've been grinding a
ton of content and kind of just hearing, you know what the
sentiment is out there. Yeah, I, I'm kind of, I, I
fiddled with the quarterbacks a little bit past the top two.
I mean, it's pretty obvious that it'll be Alan and Lamar.
That's like that's just a guarantee, but how people play
it with Hertz if they sprinkle in the homes and at what rate
Daniels does he catch any all that stuff and that the general,
I kind of moved Hertz down a little bit from last night and I
moved the other two guys up a hair.
But I think that that is going to be that's going to be
interesting to me to see is obviously Alan and Lamar are
going to capture a gigantic share of the ownership.
But then how else do people play it?
I think will be really interesting.
Yeah, yeah, cuz they're it is interesting.
You know, if it was just like Lamar and Allen and then a bunch
of pocket passers, you know, people would probably get
spooked off of it. But you can really tell yourself
a story that Jayden and Hertz can keep pace with those guys,
and then it starts to make the two V twos not feel is
disastrous in a way where you could just get buried.
Otherwise, yeah, I mean that's probably the four Q BS in 2025
fantasy ADP QB one through QB 4 probably and they're all playing
wild card weekend. They all theoretically have the
four-game path. Last year we had obviously Lamar
on a bi Hertz in a worse situation.
He ended up losing in week 1. Like his path is pretty clean
this year. Daniels has obviously got the
toughest path, but there's ways that it it could work out.
The NFC is not like like Justin Herbert's really good, but a lot
of us are kind of like, I don't know about you guys, but I mean,
like just like in general, I think a lot of people are just
kind of writing off the charges, making a strong run.
But on the NFC side, like I could see it for Daniels.
It depends on a few things, but I could see it.
But yeah, I mean, it's like you get someone's going to get three
games out of that group. It's a really strong quarter.
We talked earlier in the week about the tight end class this
year, the tight end competition being weak, the the quarterback
competition is really strong. Yeah, and it comes down to
because we've got to come in here, ask him out.
Golf, a big part of it is like, how are they going to do
relative to their teammates? It makes golf like super tricky
because he's got outscored Gibbs and Amanra and Laporta.
And like there will be like a tiny sprinkling of Jameson where
you're like, you know, you and you're going to go against
teams. If you get to the Super Bowl
with golf, you're going to go against teams that have the the
quarterback on the other side. So it's like, is he out scoring
that quarterback? Maybe not.
And then is there go player out pouring your golf?
So yeah, it's it's tough with Goff.
I think the other big change I made was I'm bringing Gibbs and
Almond raw a little closer, actually a lot a lot closer from
where we first started the week. I still have Gibbs as the
technically the chalk, but they're within 4%.
I just have not heard anyone be like, I'm Jamie Gibbs.
I don't care. It's like everyone's going to
play Gibbs. Gibbs is a great play.
I want to play Gibbs, but I also want to play Amanara and what a
pivot he is. And so I'm starting to think
that maybe Blair and Hassan, you know, they were, we're kind of
meeting in the middle on on the initial read where we thought
it'd be Gibbs, they thought it'd be Amanara.
I think they might be kind of code chalk in the end.
Yeah, yeah. And I, I do think like we were
talking about like the lag in news as it relates to people
kind of catching up to stuff, you know, with the hurts.
And I do find I've heard more people talking about the David
Montgomery stuff lately. And it seems like people are
coming around. I've seen people talk about
like, oh, Gibbs now feels like the toughest click in round one
of the underdog drafts. Like, you're taking the bye and
then Montgomery's coming back. Like, I'm starting to see that
sentiment tilt in a way that I think kind of backs up your, you
know, instinct to to bring him down.
I could see I'm on a rough flipping Gibbs, but I as of
right now, I I think it'll, it'll come in a little bit
favoring Gibbs, but it's I've my confidence has like gotten lower
and lower on that as the week is going on.
I was saying to you guys earlier, I feel like everyone
that I've heard talk about it, they think the, the one that's
going to be higher is the one that they don't want to play
because like their, their next sentence is that they really
want to play the lower. Like I've heard some people say
it's going to be Aminara that's higher in ownership.
And they're like, I really love playing Gibbs.
Like, well, I mean, if that's the way you're thinking about
it, that it's probably not as advantageous to your life.
You know your situation as you're hoping.
I don't think you're getting leverage in the spot in any
meaningful way. So if you're playing one line
up, play the guy you prefer. If you're playing a couple line
UPS, maybe mix it up. But yeah, I would be surprised
if one guy's like a smash because everyone plays the other
guy. Yeah.
And so basically where that leaves us is we've it's kind of
approaching the Bucky and Mike Evans dynamic.
I think Bucky might have a a significant gap in the end.
OK. So you think they that might
actually be moving in the other direction?
When you look at the match up, it's like you can run on the
commanders. They're not only are they bat
against the run teams run on them, they're clear run funnel
bucks are home. You get you get a running back
who you think is going to win, then you get the running back
again. You know that's always not the
two game thing when one of them's a win.
Don't these, don't the Pucky. 'S wrath sucks.
God. Leon I mean, I don't have it
massive, but I think I think that gap will be will be a lot
bigger in the end. Leonie, what about on your
guys's side over at ETR with the actual projections?
I know you guys have projections both for the wild card slate,
all the playoff stuff. Have there been, you know, you
guys in the trenches kind of any meaningful adjustments to
players over the past few days? Nothing too meaningful.
I mean, knock on wood, stuff's been pretty quiet.
We had like an A.J. Brown scare a couple days ago on
the Devante Smith scare earlier today, but neither of them are
on the final injury report. So there's not too much stuff.
Like, I mean, we like increased Deonte Johnson's role tonight,
but like that's not really affecting, you know, mixing or
Nico guys that you would you would take.
So I know I felt all all week that our our Jaden Daniels
projection was maybe a little bit hot talked about that on ETM
this morning, but you know, we didn't we think the inputs are
good. So we haven't really moved it
down. So no, pretty pretty quiet week,
all things considered. Yeah, yeah, pretty much
everything settled. I don't think we're going to
have any, you know, big news bombs like the the no Leonard
Fournette at the last second, although I guess you never know
with this stuff. I wanted to do something I, I do
this during the the crams on my channel for individual DFS
slates, but it's always kind of fun to see where everyone is at.
So I'm curious in the chat if you guys are playing in either
of these contests, the 35 or the 200, just tell me your favorite
play on the slate. Can be chalk, can be contrarian
just like the one you. If we had you on the show and
you got to put the 1st pick in a lineup, let us let us know who
you would pick. I think it'd be fun to.
Love that while they while they start doing that, Nick has a
note that I don't think Nick can go really overlooked.
And I I I think is definitely solidifying things for Bucky
that the lot the lot of more stuff.
I don't know, you might have mentioned it too a second ago,
Pat, but the with the with the matchup, but people didn't do a
lot of more. The lot of more Evans thing is
very well known man, and he throws Evans off his game.
He did for years and years and years.
People, I mean, people will be irrationally concerned about an
injection. I saw references to it on
Twitter, like when they're talking about a lot of more was
going to play. It's like, well, Evans might get
tossed and it's like, yeah, we'll see.
We. We were doing our DFS breakdown
on off and on the clock today and and John was hitting us with
a stat about how many games in his career that I think it was
like Evans had cleared 100 yards on Lattimore.
It was some art threshold and it was like once in his entire
career or whatever. So like the, the Lattimore wide
receiver cornerback matchup is certainly starting to, you know,
infiltrate the the analysis this week.
So I think that is a good note. Like if there if it is 5050 and
people are looking to break a tie, they're going to break it
away from from that matchup. All right, let me let me read
some some quick pull results here.
I just kind of do these rapid fire and then you guys can kind
of help me if you notice any interesting 3 lines or themes,
Laporta, Ladd, Mcconkey, Bucky, Addison, Josh Allen, Jacobs.
With an Eagles wide receiver, there's worthy there's ertz but
with double tight end, there's another worthy Henry.
There's a Nico as a pivot off of the hard fade here.
Sutton Worthy. There's another worry.
Oh, a Jalen Warren. Now we're getting spicy puka.
There's a Bucky. Here's a Kyron, a Mike and a
Mark Andrews. Another Bucky here.
Laporta and Jayden. So some Laporta.
Bucky. Not hearing about too much
Galaxy brain at quarterback. Didn't see Evans in there.
No, just just lots of Bucky this is.
The audience that I I may have mentioned Bucky more than anyone
has mentioned any player this week, so.
All right, Jade, now we're getting more in the Galaxy
brain. There's a Khalil Shakur, there's
a there's a Marvin Mims there. OK, cool.
If you guys have any other favorites, feel free to let
those trickle in. Always curious to see what you
guys are on. Do you guys do either of you
guys have a favorite play right now?
Gretch is is Bucky still your favorite?
I. I mean, I don't think I would
say he's my favorite. I I think there's a chance Bucky
comes in really high and. Dude, I mean, that's the vibe
I'm getting right from that. Like we're talking about Evans
coming in like. The Boomers will keep Evans up
enough. What?
Who will boomer? No, the boomers left Bucky, man.
Bucky is is a really good running back who came on down
the stretch and won people money like the boomers are.
They're familiar with Bucky's game.
They they like what they see. Yeah, So what Pat, let the
people know just right now, what do you have the the ownership at
for for Bucky and Evans? As this went, I, I, I'm testing
out 57 and 3057 Bucky 3030 Evans, Yeah.
Were you asking, Pete, just sorry I didn't answer your
question, but were you asking what our favorite?
Yeah, I was just curious like if right now, you know, you, you
factor in all the different inputs, we're kind of juggling
if you have a guy you really like right now.
What do you guys have on that? My guy's probably Jacobs.
Yeah, he's a good play. It's kind of my my type of play.
The It's the Acres play from a couple of years ago.
Yeah, I like, I like mixing and a similar play.
Just these these underdogs that aren't massive underdogs that if
you get it right, if you get the winner of the game, right,
especially in Jacobs's case, like the winner of the game,
like Jacobs is in the optimal, you know, not 100% obviously,
but really, really likely that he is.
So you're just making this bet and then you've got some outs
that he's scores well enough in a loss too and you're fine.
You know, depending on what you do on the field side.
I do like just looking at stuff more playing like what the
lineup looks like if there's an upset as opposed to say like
flipping Courtland Sutton to Marvin Mintz or something.
Just thinking through it, you know, if you think like there's
like a 20% chance Marvin Mims outscores, Cortland sought it,
right? Even if you get that right in
that 20% chance you might, you're not picking up that many
points probably. And you're competing with a
bunch of other chalk lineups too that like you're really hoping
to get this weird outcome. You could take that same 20%
gamble and say the Broncos beat the Bills and now you've got a
Bronco in two games, skill player that's definitely going
to be optimal and you've faded Josh Allen, who's on 50% of the
teams like you get, you've taken they're both 20% gambles, but
one puts you in a much better position to actually win than
the other. And the field's going to do the
other one more than it should because they'd love to just
like, pick a random player. I mean not a ton but people will
throw in the random guy because it.
There's a sweat aspect equity to it where if you take Marvin Mims
and he's not that good, like you're still live, you know, and
you feel better about that. If you project the bills to lose
and they don't and you're instant dad, you're going to
feel crappy. But you know, the goal is kind
of to try to win, even though me tilting in our Discord space
would lead you to think the goal is to just have one live line
up. This is really similar to the
optionality thing we're talking about where where you're saying
like what 20% bet do you want to make?
And there's kind of the undercover 20% bet that you can
make that's more related to like the whole bracket and picking an
upset and people don't think about it that way.
And the optionality thing we talked about is how people in
the first round will love to play both sides of the first
round games. And there's also, you know,
that's going to be played heavily because they don't want
to pick a winner in the first round games.
We've talked for years about you pick a winner in the first round
games, it's going to help your line UPS overall typically.
But that doesn't mean you have to sacrifice all optionality.
There are decisions you can make with the bracket that create
optionality for a different, you know a couple different types of
bracket, right? Like if you play well, I mean, I
think my. Answer to four teams to lose,
but six teams are going to lose. So you've got some some ways you
can play, you know, James Cook and Courtland Sutton and right,
right, Hope Denver wins, but you're not totally dead if if
they they don't. It is funny because I do the way
you put it, with like the two things are both 20%.
But the way I think most people's brains work is like,
you can kind of sit, sit them down and like talk through the
projection and talk through like the Vegas line and be like, so
both of these are about 20%. You know, one of them being the
Broncos beating the Bills. The most people just be like,
yeah, but the Broncos aren't going to beat the Bills.
You know, it's like the the other one, like Mims could
outscore Sutton, but the Broncos aren't being the pills.
Like, even if they're both 20% on paper, it just doesn't feel
that way. That type of thing.
It's so much easier to imagine like a player doing better in a
game. But it's hard like, and that's
where I think like filling out a bracket is, is such a key part
of this contest actually deciding who's going to win
these games. It's like you you talk about all
the time in DFS too, right, Leoni?
Like if you're building AGPP lineup, there's different ways
to get unique. You could make a one for one
positional pivot, or you could flip the build.
I feel like flipping the build in this case is kind of playing
a different bracket and it's like you don't, it doesn't
necessarily have to be a 1V1 off of a teammate.
You know, it could just be like I'm going to play a a bracket
that no one else is is anticipating.
Yeah, I think sometimes there's line UPS.
You know, it's in main slate DFS 2.
You know, I've changed the way I played.
I bought the last couple years where it was used to be just
kind of like let me jam in like my favorite leverage place, you
know, a kind of subjectively decide how many of them I want
in there. Just get that one off high
ceiling at low ownership. You know, it's more evolved to
like building lineups that have the best chance to win.
And sometimes the lineup you build, it might seem like the
path is narrow, like, oh, you need like these two upsets to
happen or something that seemed really unlikely.
But if it happens, that lineup is really, really well
positioned versus sometimes when you build your one offs, you
might get the result you want and you're still not like
gaining as much on the field as you think you are.
But it just, it feels comfier because you're more likely to
get points and then feel better about the play that you made
'cause you, you know, got those points from.
That right, right. Pete, who's your favorite play?
I. Think.
I think right now it might be A.J.
Brown. You know, when I just kind of
look at all that stuff and, you know, again, to me, he feels
comfy. When you look at his ownership,
I think he could get there like in an Eagles loss, still being
kind of an alpha. I think he could separate from
Barkley over two games. Obviously you got some heavy
hitters to surpass. It hurts in Barkley, but yeah,
I, I feel like he has just been, I don't know, like a sleeping
giant. Just like waiting to explode for
one of those insane like 102 tutty games.
And if you get one of those across, you know, one to two
games, I think he could like, in retrospect, be like, wait, why?
Why weren't we playing more A.J. Brown?
Totally. I think mine would probably be
Bucky still even with the increased.
Ownership. Yeah, he's gonna.
Well, I'm only increasing more. Yeah, the other shock piece that
I'm well and I think Sutton's a really fun one and to a lesser
extent Pickens. But picking you know, one of
those guys on the Denver or Pittsburgh side and playing the
20% side that Leon was just saying as far as like a lower
percentage one. But the, the other, I think the,
the one, that other one I was thinking of is really chalky as
well. And I was talking about him a
little bit earlier in the chat. But I, I'm coming back around to
thinking that you just need to play Kelsey and that he's just a
really clean play. I think it my, my whole early
week was I wanted to find other good tight ends.
I thought for a while that Andrews was definitely the play.
And then we were talking about some of the different tight ends
at various points. I saw some people mention
LaPorte. I saw several people mention
Worthy in there. People have mentioned to
Andrews. I think people are going to play
some Goddard, certainly some ertz some of these different
options. If you go look at the tight
ends, I mean, Kelsey just scored a lot more points than all these
guys, caught a lot of passes. This idea that Kelsey needs to
turn it on the post season is probably not even that true.
We caught 97 balls as tight end premium.
Like he just, if they play two games, he just needs one of
those eight or nine catch games. He's going to separate from
these tight ends by like pretty meaningfully.
And it's hard to talk yourself into any of the other KC plays
like they're not clean this year.
I, I do really like Xavier worthy, but I kind of feel like
Kelsey's just going to be like the he's, I think he's going to
come in a little lower than he should too, which because I
mean, everyone is saying everything that I'm saying, but
they're also like, we're doing it by default.
And I think we should actually be excited to put put Kelsey in
instead of like by default, which can lead to convincing
yourself to pivot. Off of it, yeah.
I think like Kelsey is the inverse of say Jared Goff, right
in that think of all of Jared Goff's positional competition
and all of his teammate competition.
And then you look at Travis Kelsey, look at all of his
positional competition, NIL teammate competition, very weak.
Like he just separates in two different arenas in such a clear
way. He.
Does, yeah. He really does, yeah.
People want to play him, they're just like, meh.
Yeah, we're also like together, we're building a lot of lineups.
So sometimes it's hard to talk through this because most people
are probably making like 1-2 or three lineups.
And it's like, obviously very different where like, we could
play, like underweight Kelsey by a little and still have a ton.
Yeah. And, you know, take shots on
like, Laporta here and there. So I feel like Gretch, there's
definitely some good chalk between the guys, Gretch Munch
and Bucky and Kelsey. I think Alan, you know, I've
been ranting, raving about Alan all week.
And, you know, Puka would be a guy where I'm just like, it just
feels like he always gets there, you know, no matter what
happens. Do you think, you know, he's
probably far enough away from Kyron and ownership that I think
Kyron's fine, but I think Puka is also like very like, I
wouldn't be mad if Puka was 75% and we played in.
I think he will be 75%. So there's a couple comments
from Fisher. The puka thing is crazy to me,
76% Kyron's projected a bit less, but 160 ownership.
Nick says I like puka. I don't know.
There was another thing questioning the puka.
But anyway, there's a ton of puka love in the chat as well.
Puka came in as the favorite play for a couple people.
Jordan said he feels like the Skeleton Key.
Nick said he likes me. He thinks that things are set up
well for the Rams on Narrative St.
So like, well, I mean, can you give this skeleton key at like a
75%? I was trying to think of like
what the door, the lock on that door.
Looks like the door just open. It's just open, yeah.
But like when I'm projecting a guy for 76% ownership and people
are like, he's my favorite player in the tournament, He's
the key to the tournament. It's it's happening like this
76% is like people are playing puka.
I think we're going to play Buka.
I'm not saying don't play Bukka, by the way.
I'm just saying I I feel really confident in this ownership
projection. It is.
It does have a little bit of vibes to, you know, Devonta
Adams, Aaron Jones years where Devonta Adams came in at like
90%. You know, the gap between those
two is a little bit similar than to Puka and the difference being
they're less likely to win a game than I think we had some of
those Adams Aaron Jones years. If I'm remembering correctly,
they were favorites, but another thing that the point.
But then they lost. Yeah, I thought they.
Lost that? And it was Aaron Jones, the
point Ben was making about Kelsey.
We have him in the ETRFFPC projections leading the tight
end position. Laporta very close, but we have
Kelsey highest in points per game, but also highest on his
team among skill players in points per game.
No other tight end is really close to being the highest.
So like those two things combined, there's a lot of
buffer for Kelsey to under perform and still be the guy
that you know you need on Kansas City.
Right, exactly that. That's the idea I'm thinking of
is like, and, and when we talked about it earlier, Leonia, I,
I've said that I felt like people were less interested in
Kelsey this year. And you were kind of maybe
thinking the opposite. And I think part of that is, I
think you're right to A, to a degree for sure, because part of
that is that last year there were some other good tight ends
and we felt like he needed to turn it on, which he ended up
doing. But it, it felt thinner this
year. He's not been great all year.
And it's still clearly the, what you were just saying, clearly
the best tight end for the season and scoring that's in the
post season for projections. I'm looking at it right now.
The next highest, he had 97 catches.
The next highest catches for any tight end was Zach Ertz.
He played all 17 games. Kelsey played 16.
So he Zach Ertz was at 66. He was 29, excuse me, 31 catches
behind Kelsey. I mean, that's a massive gap, 2
catches per game basically. And and then there's like an
even bigger, like, I guess Fryman was there at 65.
Some of the dudes didn't play the whole year, whatever.
You know, there's injuries, etcetera, but there's no other
tight end in the entire field that caught 70 balls this year.
You know, I mean, Kelsey's just like head and shoulders.
Yeah, like we were talking about the different ways to get
unique. And I actually think the Puka
Chiron examples are pretty good. One of like, if, if Puka is that
overwhelming of a good play, I think the temptation is to say,
oh, to get off that shock, I have to play Chiron.
It's like, well, actually just soft fading or hard fading the
Rams is the way to get way unique.
Because you're saying, how does Puka fail?
Like, sure, could Chiron have 25 carries and two touchdowns and
Puka only scores 12? Like, yeah, but it's more likely
that that entire game fails, or the entire Rams offense fails,
and you can sidestep that chalk and also remove yourself from
the systemic risk of the Rams offense failing at the same
time. I think hard fade is a is a very
viable pivot for the Rams. I don't think a ton of people
hard fade them. I think actually very few people
hard fade them. I can see some kicker in that
game because it's got a high total, but just like hard fading
them and then say the the Rams have a really bad game on
offense and it's puka. It's my puka versus it's your
puka versus my Sutton. It's your puka versus my
Pickens, right? I'm or whatever else, like I'm
getting another I'm I'm getting a skill player to go against
your puka who's a dog. But I'm also betting that the
Rams lose. And if you take that skill
player, maybe a better example would actually be like a Nico or
a lad. You're playing both sides of
that game. So you're taking like a hard
faith of Houston and turning it into lad.
And it's like maybe maybe I end up getting heartbeat of Houston
turning into Nico. Maybe I get 2 games out of
Houston that I'm not really expecting cuz I'm playing Glad
as well, but it's like 2 games of Nico now versus your one game
of Puka. We were talking about the chalk
that we really liked. Who do you guys think is like
the bad chalk? I don't know if I feel like
there's less like clear bad chalk than in some years we've
had like there was that year with Eckler was like probably
way too high versus Jacksonville and we were like pretty on it.
We'll this one out. I, I, I think Justin Jefferson
is bad shock. I think that the overconfidence
in him like this just isn't the same Justin Jefferson in offense
that we've seen this year. Gretch has made a lot of good
points about Addison and them kind of splitting these blow up
games. Like, I just don't think
Jefferson is on the level of puka, you know, as far as like
on this slate. And he's being treated as if he
is. And so to me, that kind of
overconfidence where it's like we know if there's an alpha game
on the Rams, it's it's going through puka.
I don't feel comfortable saying that for the Vikings.
I like that take. I.
Throw out. Oh, good, good.
I'm a little bit of a coward on a lot.
Like I said, I like a lot of the chalk, but I guess I would say I
think Saquon's like one of the more over owned guys.
You know we're going to let Seguan Berrius again.
But we definitely, you know, seen the floor at times, even
though he's hit the ceiling, you know, remarkably well and
consistently. But he's got, you know, over the
course of the season, he's got three games where he didn't
crack double digits, which I know it's like a low percentage,
but you know, when you're playing this tournament and.
You could almost say that's a good thing, but.
They're in, I guess they're in there like he's not in.
I think, you know, I'd be more shocked with a puka single digit
game than a Saquon Barkley single digit game.
And there's obviously, you know, routes where him score scoring
16 points isn't enough because the teammate A.J.
Brown either goes off or they just lose this first game
against Green Bay. So, and I, I say that because
he's 75% owned, you know, like if he was 60% owned, which is
still really high, I wouldn't feel the same, but it does start
to, to matter. Yeah, I'll say James Cook, he's
obviously, you know, he led the league in touchdowns, but like,
he's not, you know, remember when we were drafting him this
summer, it's like, well, he's not going to score any
touchdowns. So, you know, otherwise we'd be
going in the second or third round or whatever, but it feels
a little bit kind of a default playoff Allen.
You can't play Allen on every lineup.
You want to play some Lamar, you want to mix it up at quarterback
and then you're like, what else do I do on the Bills?
I I put Dalton Kincaid in the lineup and it was so gross that
we took him out. It's just not really, you could
do Shakira, I guess, but that's not I bet you end up flipping
that to Cook by the end of the builds.
So it's not like I we're going to play Cook, but it's like a
default play. And I think finding ways to get
off like a, a play that you're, you're not even excited about
and is pretty owned would be, you know, a good thing to think
about ways to do. Excluding Week 18, you know,
where the Bills weren't trying, I think these are pretty
shocking opportunity numbers for James Cook.
You know, starting Week 13, this is last five games. 14 carries,
1 target, 6 carries, 2 targets, 14 carries, 1 target, 11
carries, 3 targets, 15 carries, 0 targets.
That's a tough workload to be looking at when Josh Allen has a
huge portion of the touchdowns. Now, do I think he gets more
receiving work in the playoffs? Probably, But it's not going to
be like that Devin Singletary year where they condensed on him
like they like using Ty Johnson and Ray.
Love Ty Johnson. Caught on.
And to Pat's point about the touchdowns, he had more carries
last year, 2 touchdowns. This year he has 16.
Truth's probably, you know, somewhere in the middle.
And even though he led the the league in touchdowns, there's
and maybe this is just like wrong bro science and maybe
Leona, you could check me on this, but it feels like he's
been more like positively correlated with Allen.
Like in games where the Bills roll, like Cook has a big game
and Allen also has a monster game.
Whereas we sometimes see some more of like a negative
correlation between Barkley in Hertz or Kyron in Puka.
And that makes it even harder, right?
Because what game scenarios then are you threading that needle of
Cook hitting but Allen not? I love this take and I thought
this earlier in the week briefly and you're you're bringing this
back that Cook doesn't work in this contest because how does he
get there in a loss? This is exactly what you said.
I feel like he scores when they're rolling when Allen's
also scoring. Yeah, because he's he's smaller
backs. So you assume, you know, just
from like playing a while, you assume like, oh, he's going to
be like a pass catcher guy. Like if they get in shootouts.
The other thing that's tough about Cook is like what happens
when they get in shootouts? What about that Rams game, right
when the whole offense blows up? That was his worst game maybe of
the season. It was a horrible game for him.
That's the game. Johnson scored a bunch.
Yeah, it was absolute dud. You're like, how can this guy
fail when the team is like putting up so many points?
It's because he's not really their third down back.
Ty Johnson is. He's like a he's a speed back,
but he's a more of an early down speed back.
So you want them to be, you want positive game script?
Yeah, I think, I think. If you're not playing Allen,
playing some Kincaid teams, I'm probably over playing this in my
head. But I do like with a tight end
premium, like the inefficient catch volume and a loss for some
of these tight ends. Ben and I were talking about it
with like, you know, Hawkinson versus Addison if you're fading
Jefferson. And it's like if you're playing
them to lose that kind of like Hawk and just like less
efficiency, more catches. Same thing with Kincaid, like
Buffalo's playing from behind. There's more catch volume than
usual. James Cook isn't scoring
touchdowns because they're not winning and James Cook's 38%
owned Kids 4 so. And I think you can maybe have a
little bit of underdog brain from draft in the wild card
slate. But like, I think you can extend
that to a guy like Kate Auten, you know, Bucks in a loss.
You can extend it to Will Disley like Chargers in a loss.
Like those guys can easily rack up 7 to 8 receptions and be the
optimal player on their team in a loss.
Leonie mentioned it with Friarmouth when I was talking
about Pickens a little. I think that's another great
application. Yeah, I mean it's possible for
sure. Yeah, this.
The tight ends just do not separate.
At least you know the ones playing this week.
No, I. Still like Andrew's though.
I know, I know Groucho's on Andrew's beginning of the week.
I still think, you know, I think there's a chance to say injury
is is a little worse than than being on.
Certainly seems like he would play in the divisional round,
but if there's any chance he misses or just isn't 100% in,
you know you're probably playing Andrews in non Super Bowl
outcomes anyways. So once you'd be playing Lamar.
So like if you get 2 really good games from Andrews with the
title. Or just one huge game wild card
weekend. Like what if he catches 9 balls
or 10 balls, which I think might be possible because they're
going to have to run in a lot more routes and he's.
He's been insane in the red zone too.
Dink was talking about it on ETM but I didn't realize he scored
in like 5 like 8 like 10 of the last 12 games or something.
He had his touchdown streets like pretty pretty nuts.
Yeah. The tight end thing, the one
thing I want to say about a lot of those plays that I don't know
if we've actually explicitly said, but I think we're probably
all sort of thinking we're joking about it a little bit
when Pat took a Kinkade as a flex.
But some and somebody in the chat said the Urds thing with A2
tenant, a lot of those plays that we're talking about, I
think you want to do them on single tight end builds because
you want the math to work out where they are the obvious tight
end because of the constraints of the contest and everything
we've talked about. But if you start going into the
flex part of it, then you need the tight ends to hit so big
that again, they're one of the two highest scoring losing
players out of the six games, which is what happened with Jake
Ferguson last year. And the math still worked out
well for for Kelsey. But the Ferguson thing was such
an outlier, man, A three tight end game for one of these.
I mean, it could happen again, but I feel like you're playing
Kincaid. If you're playing those kinds of
guys, you do want to lean. If you're not making a ton of
lineups, you do want to lean toward one tight end builds.
The the part where I think you can make double tight ends are
in the AFC because when you're playing like Andrews and
Kincaid, you're playing Baltimore and Buffalo to not go
to the Super Bowl. That means KC's got a cleaner
path and Kelsey's going to the Super Bowl, so I don't mind
like. Yeah, that makes sense to me.
The AFC tight ends together a little bit.
It's a bracket play, but yeah, pairing like Kelsey and Hertz is
like you're playing Hertz like. Yeah, use that.
Do something difficult. What were you saying, Leone?
If you're playing Kincaid or Andrews, you're playing Buffalo
and Baltimore. To not go to the Super Bowl,
Most likely, yeah. If you're playing them to not go
to the Super Bowl, Kansas City's odds of going to the Super Bowl
are pretty high and Kelsey's the best play on Kansas City.
I definitely think that's viable for Andrews.
You think Kincaid could be the highest scoring like like
optimal Bill in a 2 gamer? I guess so.
Or or a loss in the round one. That's the one where, but if
he's a loss around 1:00 and you're flexing him, he needs to
outscore like Nico and George Pickens and Sutton and and
Jefferson. Yeah, I think.
Loses in all the other. Games, Yeah, with the Titan
premium scoring, I definitely think he could.
I think he could. But also, like in two games, you
know, or let's say you're playing a Lamar team, you could
have, you know, Lamar, Kelsey Kincaid's not crazy to me, you
know? Yeah, I don't like that.
It is crazy to me. Cuz that cuz you're playing
Kincaid to lose to Baltimore in round two, like and we are we
just how James? Yeah, I think it's a bracket.
Play it, it works. OK, sorry, you're saying A2
gamer, I I was thinking you're saying A1 gamer there?
I I still think he's fine in A1 gamer like.
But. You probably want Sutton to just
in case it is A1 Gamer. Yeah, I'm undervaluing the idea
of Kincaid in a 2 gamer though cuz that's it would probably be
a built player. I think, I mean, I I definitely
think he can get there in a one game or I know it's been like a
bad season for him, but we've just seen this play in premium
scoring, you know, going back to the the Ferguson game last year,
like Buffalo's just going to Chuck if for some reason they
get down in this game, there's an upset, which that was a huge
upset last year. You know, that was like a nine
and a half point spread or something.
You know, Kincaid's got recently, you know, since he
came back, he's. He's got a lot of like 7 target
games. He's got A10 target game in
there. I definitely think he can play.
He just really hasn't found the end zone much this year.
Yeah, the 10 target game was. Against Miami in Week 9.
Most before. Sorry, not since.
That was before he came back. Because his routes have not been
quite as good since he came back.
He's had a couple 7 target games.
I didn't realize he'd only played the three games.
It's yeah, I mean, maybe it's possible.
I think there's the Titan premium scoring too.
Just creates a weird range of outcomes where, I don't know, we
kind of boxed ourselves in last year where we made that like a
strict rule. Like if not Kelsey only.
I think if we didn't play Titan besides Kelsey, then we weren't
playing Kelsey. I don't know if you need to make
it that strict. I was making this case last
year, and I was wrong about it last year, and I'm making it
again this year because I think the Jake Ferguson thing was so
thin that you shouldn't try to play it.
Basically that's my case this year.
Which, yeah, I think it's like it's also relative to ownership,
like it's well, very you. Know what do you gain?
Dink's not here to say what you win when you win.
I mean the massive swing. Yeah.
If you are correct and all the Josh Allen teams get wiped out
and all the teams who pivoted to James Cook get wiped out, all
the teams who just decided to fade and you nail the Dalton
Kincaid and the loss. I mean the amount of lineups you
are competing against the rest of the way is is.
Crazy right? But just to clarify, I'm not
saying you can't play Kincaid, I would just you would still get
that benefit if you played them as a solo tight end.
I'm. Saying but the reason?
I'm not trading like Kelsey is just the best player on his
team. Yeah, that's the that's the
problem is that you're now kind of forcing a pivot off of the
obvious KC play. And then you're like, well, I
want KC to lose. Well, you just had Buffalo lose,
so you kind of want KC to to be in the mix is a potential Super
Bowl team for you so that you're not solely dependent on
Baltimore, unless it's Lamar. But the reason I'm forcing a
pivot off the KC thing is when I think of how does Dalton Kincaid
get there, there there are multiple paths certainly.
And we've talked about some of the two game stuff and he could
score enough. But some of the outcomes are
he's not even the highest scoring player on his team
because Kelsey just bottoms out. Like what if Kelsey just looks
terrible in the post season? No Gray scores or whatever,
right? Then Kelsey's not the tight end
and no one else is. And so by default, like Kincaid,
even like a 15 point game or two game stretch where James Cook
scored 20 could be the optimal tight end because there's no
clean tight end play the other the other tight ends.
I I get that part, yeah, gapped over.
Them. I wasn't really considering that
part of it. That's true, yeah.
I think that I definitely think that's viable.
It's more I just think both are like I I think it's very viable
to go the other. Like I don't think it's you have
to play Kincaid in a solo tight end lineup.
It's not not that you shouldn't play him there, but I'd be fine,
you know? In the chat, he says, wearing a
Kincaid jersey. There you go.
Well, I'd say it for Andrews too.
I'd say the same thing for Andrews.
Kelsey, too. Yeah, yeah, it's the same idea.
I mean there there's some weird scenarios you could play 3 AFC
tight ends with an NFC rushing quarterback.
I guess this does go back to me thinking that Kincaid's
projection is just slimmer because the routes weren't
necessarily great when he came back.
I mentioned it earlier to you guys, but I was thinking of a
Mike Tomlin quote from earlier in the year where he was talking
about it's hard to board a moving train.
It was, I think in relation to Roman.
What does that mean or whatever like that?
They've been rolling and then you're coming back.
So Kincaid was out. The Bills are playing.
It's hard for Kincaid to got. It they started using Ty Johnson
a ton when Kincaid was out and then when he came back they ran
Knox more routes than him. Like two of the first couple
games back maybe he wasn't fully healthy.
I think he ran more routes and knocks One of these games.
I don't have the exact data in front of me, but it's like I
thought coming into the year, he might be the focal point of the
passing game. I think they tried some stuff
early. He wasn't as much as I wanted
him to be. And then he got hurt and he
wasn't very effective. And then when he came back, it
was like, yeah, I mean, he's a part of our offense.
Like, we're not going to like, you know, make an effort to.
We're doing a lot of other good things right now.
This is what we're doing. And you're trying to you're just
going to be ancillary to that at at this stage of the season.
Maybe that's all like too much of a ball take or whatever.
But when Leonie pairs it with Andrews, I'm like, I don't see
an issue with it with Andrews. Zay Flowers is out and I think
Andrews could wind up being a stuck in the post season, you
know? Well, look.
At this Andrews. Is back.
Oh yeah. Drugging.
Dink. How we doing buddy?
Well, it's that time of year boys where I sweat NBA bets.
Well you guys talk about in FPC what NFFC?
What FFFPCI don't know what some of the PCs and FCS playoff?
Week and there's definitely FC NCS, you're right about that.
Yeah, well, we can give you the floor.
Like what do you want to talk about?
Paulo not having a minutes restriction tonight?
Dank what? What do you want to get into?
Right now I just want I just want to I just want to see the
Bulls keep laying it on the Wizards So Jordan Poole and Alex
are don't come back into the game.
And as I say that, it looks like Alex R is in the game.
So that's not going great. But no, something named Guy
Santos was taking up like half my day trying to figure out how
much that guy's going to play. It's it's a great time of the
year in the NBA. I wasn't an NBA player.
It is earlier. I wasn't.
Sure. Why was it a discord channel
where someone, I think it was mythology, posted a photo of GUI
Santos's significant other? So people were going down the
rabbit hole with you Drew, trying to figure out who GUI
Santos was? So.
Congratulations. I would I would imagine GUI
Santos is a lucky man if people are posting.
Definitely. So, yeah, obviously you're, you
know, you've been focused on on NBA, but you've been in our in
our group chat here. Do you do you got any hot takes,
you know, just coming and firing?
Obviously your beloved Chicago Bears, the one thing that gets
you really fired up, aren't on this slate.
But any hot takes for us? No, nothing, nothing super hot
other than I think, I mean, I don't know how hot this is.
I think the fire stuff in LA is going to have like a really big
impact. I don't think those teams are
going to play well tomorrow. I think that's like a really,
really big emotional thing that human beings are dealing with.
And I think both the Rams or this weekend, I should say both
the Rams and the Chargers, I don't think they're going to
play well on the opening. Weekend.
Wow. Yeah, yeah, I mean that that
part hasn't been discussed much. Obviously the line moved in
Vikings favor a bit when that shifted, but like outside of
that kind of like the mental aspect there.
People aren't really talking about it on the Chargers side
because they're not playing in LA, but of course it's a huge
thing as well. So, yeah, yeah.
I mean, we saw in the NBA the other night, like the Nuggets
were without Jokic, which usually they're like the worst
team in the league. Whenever they're without Jokic,
they're playing the Clippers team that Kawhi was away from
the team because he was dealing with personal stuff related to
the fires. And the Nuggets won by like 35
at home against otherwise a Clippers team that has played
most of the season without Kawhi, been really successful
without Kawhi. So I think the mental toll on
these guys and I, I just think it's big I, I.
So yeah, that's my big take for this weekend.
I'm kind of expecting the LA teams unfortunately to to not
play their best I. Feel like it's hard to know how
humans are going to respond. I, you know, it's, but it's
difficult. I'm, you know, surprised we
haven't seen a little bit more in terms of the line movement
stuff on that side of things. But we'll see.
Yeah, but you know, playoff game versus NBA regular season game.
For sure different. Big disparity, yeah.
For sure different and I understand like humans are
especially difficult for for you to understand like and try to
predict. You're the Dinkbot.
Did you do? I hadn't had a chance.
Did you guys do establish the million early today?
Yeah, we fired that off first thing in the morning.
Do you have any? Cuz we were talking about one
spot. We were wondering if it would
trickle over into the playoff stuff as far as like Lattimore
on Evans started to care a little bit more talk about that.
Do you have any single week DFS stuff that could potentially be
applicable? You know, we're talking about
these spots where you play a team in a loss, you know, and,
and who could be in a, in a good spot, even in a bad, you know,
team level set up. Yeah, I flag plants at
Mcmillions. So, you know, I knew I was
coming onto the right show, knew the right narratives to to hit.
And yeah, we made sure we made sure to get that recording in
because almost every year I end up staying up way too late after
the stream and am completely dysfunctional on Saturday
mornings of wild Card weekend. So we made sure to get that
stream in this morning. But yeah, I I think the
Lattimore Mike Evans things got to be somewhat real.
Like, I was like 8 years of this stuff, so I don't know if I
don't know if his new team is going to try to take advantage
and make sure he's on Evans as much as possible.
But that's what I would be doing if I was Washington, yeah.
The chats making some interesting, Casey says
counterpoint LA strong motivation.
Nick says he's kind of leaning the opposite, that he thought it
could be galvanizing for the Rams.
Playing for the community, all those things.
I mean, that's, that's hard, yeah.
It it's certainly, I mean, it's like I think the emotions are
going to run very high for sure. Like, I think that's definitely
gonna be the case. But I I agree with you, I would.
Imagine that preparation is being impacted.
Right anything that throws off the NFL six game weekly schedule
is tough to account for. I mean, we've seen it with, I
mean, we got you on. I think one of the best examples
of this this year was once the Bears fired terrible coaches,
they still didn't have anyone in the building who could clearly
manage anything throughout the week.
Were they practicing at all in the second-half of the year, do
you think because they. They were, really.
Struggling. It's a.
Basic, I think, I think they used the first half of games to
practice. I mean, they couldn't.
They literally like it was like drills in the first half of
games and then they'd actually like score when they were down
30. But yeah, just a completely
inept. And then end of the game,
they're like, how do we call timeouts?
What is the what? What sport is this?
Incredibly frustrating season. Yeah, I I think the stuff of
getting displaced from your routine for a game and all of
that, not to mention the added family dynamics.
I mean, think in the NBA stuff, right, Kawhi was supposed to
come back and like this stuff impacted him and he's like, I'm
still taking some time off. Like there are the trickle down
effects of that that I think could be, you know, very real.
All right, let's see here fellas.
Any other takes you want to get off your chest or you want to
you want to build a line up here?
I'm down for whatever. We all did our favorite play in
the whole tournament. Dinks come on every year and
giving us one play all the way back to the Gronk year.
That usually is the nuts. So where's the dink nuts play?
We got to get that all right. Let me, let me think through.
Give me. No pressure, please give us.
No pressure. Figure this out.
Like 90 seconds and I'll have the nuts for you.
Yeah, now you're. Clear.
We have a few of these. It's snags one guy.
Giving show and gives it. That's right.
Ink on this side, yeah. Then the thing that ties them
together is I never liked the pic and then it.
Always there were just two guys we haven't talked about that I
liked a little bit. Like generally we're not on to
like the one percenter plays, but I do think there's a like
Jameson Williams's target share is like high enough with his big
playability that you could play him.
And going back to Pete talking about Jefferson being bad chalk,
I think like the really obvious move for most people then is to
play Addison or Hawkinson like the other pass catchers.
But man, 4% Aaron Jones. I know there's been some weird
stuff with usage lately, but if they did just condense on to him
in the playoffs that's, you know, he he catches balls too.
What are you guys? How are you guys projecting?
Aaron Jones? He does.
I assume he has AQ tag Doc. Have you guys given any
additional work to Cam Akers like that's a it's a tricky 1.
Yeah, it is tricky. I can tell you.
We don't have like a big doc, but we also don't have it like
condensing on to him like we might have it, you know,
otherwise. So we have in terms of playing
time, we've got Aaron Jones with a 68% carry share and Cam Akers
with a 29% carry share of their, you know, their designed
carries. So about two to one in favor of
Aaron Jones. Kevin O'Connell loves Cam Akers,
but Aaron Jones is also. It really does.
Meaningfully better than Cam makers in football, so.
I don't think it's like an amazing play, but it's, you
know, a team's primary running back in, in a decent total game
that's just not going to be played at all is sometimes worth
a gamble. Yeah, makes sense to me for
sure. I think I think that's like in
the range on his ownership to be like he goes really late in the
basketball stuff is one of those guys like him and Zay people
just like not taking this guy. It's just like I think Akers
coming in and scoring and it's just the vibes are not good on
on the fantasy vibes. The way people feel about Jones
is. Not good.
It's very easy to just not pick him, like in this contest in
particular. In like to give people some
frame of reference and I just was looking at your guys
projections like you have him ahead of ahead of James Cook up
just slightly below Kyron Williams.
If you're trying to like figure out where that falls into play.
This is for obviously just the wild card round, not the the
full playoffs. But like he's he's in that mix
with, you know, Jacobs and Kyron and James Cook and yet doesn't
necessarily seem like he's getting discussed even on the
same wavelength that we are those other running backs.
Dank you got the guy. Well, I want to hear.
I don't want to. I'm afraid of duplicating so I
don't want. To.
I think that's that's. If you duplicate then we just
know that's it. That's.
It that's. It OK, the criteria is it's it's
going to be in the winning lineup and Corrine hates it.
That's the. Best.
Those are the two boxes you need to check.
You have to check both boxes. It's Josh Jacobs.
How? Do.
You how we know for sure things had us muted all week?
In our chat, I've said how much I like Jacob's like no less than
five times. There's been a lot of messages
in that chat to be fair, even I have not seen.
No, that chat, that chat's been muted long, long ago.
That's that's incredible. That Pat likes Shaw Jacobs.
Wow. Yeah, All right.
That's the guy. That's very Bayesian.
You know he's he's ready to to. Shift his.
His priors here. Beautiful.
All right. I guess we'll have to rethink
the criteria then. Yeah, well, you can.
I mean, to be fair, to be fair, Dick, I still do hate it.
I really do. Deep down.
I despise that I'm in on Josh Jacobs, but I am in on Josh
Jacobs. Yeah, I mean, it makes it makes
too much sense. And I think like the combination
of what you would expect their game plan to be in this week
down Christian Watson and then kind of how they've played the
second-half of the season really ever since the ankle injury for
Jordan Love. And then on top of that, like
the Philly fade or soft fade that kinda comes with that is
like really, I'd imagine really, really strong in this type of
format as well as I imagine people are going to be loading
up on Sake 1 so. Yeah, it will be, yeah.
Yeah. All right.
Let's build a line up here. We can go around and we can
maybe talk about a few other spots as we as they come up.
And because we always get ourselves into some corners and
talk through what makes sense from both a, you know,
individual pick level, but also for an overall lineup here.
You know, Dink, we always let our, you know, our first guest
of honor here, you know, kick us off.
Do you want to go ahead and slot Josh Jacobs in?
Let's let him. Let's preload Jacobs and then
let him pick something else because Pat and Dig are going to
fight over picking Jacobs. Yeah, start with me.
Start with me and I'll go Jacobs.
OK, Yeah, Yeah, I appreciate one show around here.
Sticking to the honored guest bit, I've.
Never seen a bit get shut down. By our corporate headquarters
just couldn't handle that one. All the Dick jokes you could
possibly handle but we can't have.
You guys need to learn is with Levitans tried to shut down the
cash game bit for for years and I just tell him no so you guys
should have. Just told him no.
Yeah, you could. You should have powered.
Through, obviously. Yeah, Leo.
Leo D's the guy with firm boundaries on bits, let me tell
you. All right, so if we're going
with Jacobs, man, how saucy do we start?
Yeah, we get saucy. We we've had some pretty saucy
on Streamline up builds. This this.
Week, I think we go. A.J.
Brown, OK. We're going to roll the roll the
mini. Let's do it.
There you go. So no, no soft fade here on the
eagles playing both sides of this game, but with not the, you
know, primary pieces there. Let's see Gretsch or are we
going to go? How do we want what order?
Do we want to go OK? Well, considering Dink now has
said both Pats and my favorite plays now on this on this show
here, let's some let's do it. You know what I'm not fucking
scared of? Marshawn Lattimore.
Come on. Come.
On but like it's just. Blocking Bucky every chance he
gets this week. You've got enough, You've got
enough. Megan Evans multiple times did
we have? Bucky last.
Night. I think we've had Bucky on every
line. And we not.
Tuesday night I didn't get OK Tuesday I'll defer to you and
remember. Believe me, I wrote it down on
my calendar. I'll never forget it.
It was a. I'm doing you a favor, Gretch.
I'm trying to get this ownership closer in.
All right, so let's let's jam Mike Evans.
Come on. Is it?
It's me now. It is.
Let's do Mark Andrews. OK.
Mark. Andrews, my other play that.
I want. You could still play, I know.
I know I. Know, I know.
Hey, Gretch, You see what these this flex, there's four of them
here. You could.
You could put a lot of tight ends in there.
All right, Pat, let me think. Let me think about this.
So we have Jacobs. OK, I'm going to say Jaden
Daniels. OK, all right, now we're now
we're. Really think about this because
we got we got the Eagles maybe losing in round one and then
we've. Got Evans.
I like it. That's a good play.
And then they're going to the Packers are going to play
Detroit, so the Commanders are going to the winner of the
Vikings. Evans is more viable probably in
a loss than in A2 game. I mean Buck is probably getting
there in a 2 game. Yeah I love it.
My pick I will do so. We got both sides of two first
round games already. Got to start picking some
winners. I could take Courtland Sutton
and make Leonie cry, That would be fun.
But we're fading Josh Allen. So yeah, we've already.
Faded. He's like, I hate that about
Leonie. He's a fan, but he's like,
that's actually smart. That's actually really sharp,
Greg. Yeah, that's very level headed.
All right, I'm gonna take. I'm thinking of the different
games real quick. Yeah, no, I'll go something.
I like that. OK, well, we got our oh as a
soft fade is a is definitely a viable path.
You've been in two games potentially.
OK, back to you, Dink. We have very little chalk in
this line. Yeah, so we have Andrews.
We haven't touched Chargers, Texans, we haven't touched Rams,
Vikings. There's a lot of Chuck there.
And and we're we're fading the bills I.
Didn't want to pick that one because Dink had a had a take on
the Rams. So that's when I was thinking
about the different games. I was like.
Yeah. I I mean, I think, I think that
the challenge with the Rams is like, I think, I think Puka's
very likely in most situation, especially a losing situation, I
think Puka's very likely to be their leading scorer and could
still pile up enough receptions. So even though I think they
would lose, I think like I think Puka's still pretty good in
those situations. And I don't like yeah, so I'll
go Puka, yeah. That's a good point.
Yeah. I also think with this lineup,
we we would ideally like one of the two, the Rams of the Vikings
is going to lose to the other and then the other team is going
to lose to the commanders is an ideal situation.
So yeah, makes a lot of sense to go puka.
Yeah, I think we can on the same kind of thought process with
Puka. I think we can play.
We can play LAD on this team. And I think that works a lot
too, because what the Sutton pick I'm saying sort of forcing
us to be to be saying that that Buffalo could get bounced in
round one. You want, I think the Chargers
to win over Houston because I really think they're more alive
to then go beat the Ravens. We're hoping that Allen and
Lamar, that that's a really thin one.
But if Allen, Lamar both get bounced before, playing three
games meaningfully helps the Daniels pick right?
Yeah, I'm taking Tyler Dass. OK, I thought you were going to
say tie reel shavers for a second.
I like, I like it. We're we're like talking about
Liotti City over there. Like he's waiting for the volley
back in speed chess. He's like Tyler Bass.
No nonsense. All right, I'll go.
I'll go. Justin Jefferson, OK.
Complete this one. I don't think you can do that.
That means we're fading one of. Or do we need Kelsey?
He can. He, he can.
Yeah, that's probably, yeah. Yeah.
We still need a lion. We still need a lion, and we
don't have a Raven yet. Oh no, we have Andrews.
We're going to have to play Gibbs, I think like, yeah,
Gibbs, I don't want to yeah, pick, but like.
Yeah, we're going to have to. Yeah, do Gibbs.
That's what I was. Going to We're fading Texans,
right? We're fading Texans probably
fade Texans, right? Yeah.
Texans. Steelers.
You could do Jefferson and hope Kansas City loses, but it seems
like we've got enough lovers pulled here, though.
Oh. Yeah, the Kansas City thing was
the one I was thinking of. I couldn't remember what.
They so that would be. Well, we don't.
We only have one house. Have Kansas City lose.
So I still Kelsey's probably who I should take, not Jefferson.
Yeah, Yeah, I think that's right.
Yeah. I think I'd play Minnesota
defense here, but. I think it's it's your pick.
So that's sort of one. Yeah, that's a good.
Play I play Minnesota defense here.
Yeah, and they're they're not gonna get used much at all.
All right, here's the team. Jayden Daniels, Jamir Gibbs,
Josh Jacobs, Mike Evans, A.J. Brown, Pokonuku.
Ladd Mcconkey, Cortland Sutton, Travis Kelsey, Mark Andrews,
Tyler Bass, Minnesota Defense. I feel like, oh, go ahead, I.
Was going to say the reason the Jefferson thing jumped out to me
immediately was when we fade, we're essentially fading both
the Ravens and the Bills for the Daniels pick and as part of the
Sutton play. Obviously we have a soft fade on
the Bills. So we're we're significantly
fading the Bills. Andrews could be the play, but
probably in three or four, especially a Super Bowl run
you're talking about, Lamar you're talking about.
Yeah, it has to be. You're right.
It has to be Kelsey. So it kind.
Of has to be the the Chiefs in the Super Bowl in AIC, unless
you're really picking like the Chargers or somebody to.
Go yeah, and also yeah. It just it gives you more outs
on Daniels playing less games. Right, exactly right.
Yeah, Daniels in two could. Be Daniels could win in two
games in this lineup. If Bills lose in Round 1,
Daniels can be optimal in two. Yeah, we also picked the Eagles
to lose in round one. Like if all the all the dual
threat QBs get bounced early, I mean, that's that's not crazy.
It's not likely. But who said it was likely?
You want to put Isaiah like that, I feel.
Like, I could get the chalk Super Bowl and still win with
this lineup. You just need really need
obviously. This is a sick lineup.
But. This tells us specifically this.
This lad pretty much fades every team.
Well, the good news is this team has zero chance of being duped.
That's our goal. But I mean this, this team, this
team with a, with a one seed Super Bowl.
Yeah. Is is very very live.
As long as you get Washington, you would need you need both
offsets on the NFC side. You need, you need not even, you
need Washington to win and Denver to win.
You get those two things, you've got a shot.
Hey, Pat, bring down Mike Evans ownership just a little bit to
why we're at it here. Big silly, no Big billion love
with Lattimore in Washington. Dude.
Evans a legit thing that's. A good play.
Mike Evans is coming in at 12%. He's he's going to be below 30,
I think, yeah. I'm silly I.
Mean if he comes on in flag plants, McMillan, the
quarterback Bros are are out and about.
He's coming in low. They could also like he could
have an OK game and they win given that they're favorites and
then have the better game the next week.
This was the worry early in the week.
I was worried Bucky would be shocked.
But why can't we just have nice things?
It just seemed, it seemed like early in the week we were we
were thinking it could be Evans, but Nope, nobody's playing
Evans. Does anyone wanted to play Evans
other than beat this whole week? I haven't heard anyone say let's
put Evans in the lineup where I want to play Evans.
It's all like Evans will be chalky, but let's go Bucky here.
God, I guess I'm on Evans Island.
I'm I'm with you man. No, it's a good play.
He's a good. I mean, the further the
ownership comes down and he gets, the better play he gets.
Let's just fucking jam Evans, obviously.
Like, yeah, he's like the Hall of Fame wide receiver.
It does. It always reminds me like what a
journey we come on. You know, it was only Monday
when we first started doing this, but that feels like an
eternity ago when we made the boomer optimal and at the time
it felt so indecisive that we gave them Co boomer optimal
shock status. Like that's the one time we've
ever put two players from the same team.
We put Bucky and Mike Evans and now it's separated in a massive
way. Yeah, I know.
And that was one where I had it as Evans, I think, and then we.
Sonded too, and I was telling you guys both had Evans and I
was like, I think it's probably Bucky.
Yeah, as much as I don't want it to be.
No, you convinced me. And then it was it's just it's
just been kind of a drum beat. Bucky's looked really good.
And then the matchup, right, you get like, and that's the way
every it's going to go for everyone this week there.
It's like, who are the players that want to play?
OK, now let me look more into the games.
Help me break those ties. Yeah, and this is a very clear
cut, you know. Great.
Well, it was. And it was also Leonie coming on
on Tuesday and having Bucky at ETR projected ahead of Saquon
Barkley and Derrick Henry, which maybe was like a like a gong
really on Tuesday. Yeah, use the symbols.
Oh my goodness. Still have Bucky RV22IN points
per game for FFPC. Yeah, well, my see, my hope was
here. Dink, This was my take the other
day. If we could get some a default
app discount because you have to scroll so far down to find Bucky
in the points, like right next to Rashad White.
I was like, baby, baby's a little out of sight, out of
white. The Bucky The Bucky's team is
too strong. People.
People love Bucky. The crazy part isn't the.
Do you think if his name was Charles, we'd like him enough?
Like as much. If it was like Charles.
Irving. Charles Irving.
Charles Irving is like 32%
Chucky Irving. Oh, it could.
Well, OK, maybe not Charles. Yeah, maybe just Chris Chucky.
Irving is fun, Charlie, just. Chris.
Chris Irving, the curator. Yeah, Like, no one.
No one. 'S.
Playing that the crazy thing though out of this is is the
Evans hate. It's not the Bucky love, it's
the Evans hate. Like that's.
I know. That it's surprising.
Yeah, yeah. There's also like almost all my
experience with this because I'm usually the guy who's coming in
with like the well, this guy could outscore this guy in one
game and if they lose, it could be enough that like you don't
really need them. That take is usually bad because
the, the like in this, in this case, like if you wanted to play
MC millions or whatever at like 1-2 percent compared to like
Evans at like 30%. Evans is not 15 times more
likely to outscore him in one game, but he's probably 15 times
more likely to outscore him in two and definitely more than
that in three. And so like, it's, it's, it's
just such a narrow, I think sometimes with these types of
contests, we focus on two narrow of a path and we get like
excited by this very narrow path of this like 1 offshoot play.
And then people think they can play that like 1 offshoot play
and then chalk up the rest of the line up.
And it's just like those end up being kind of bad line UPS.
I think it's true, Yeah, this is.
Yeah, we talked about this at the beginning, but it's like
you're better off predicting an upset that changes your whole
team than you are projecting A1 random guy to like maybe
outscore the other guy by 5 points.
Yep, Yep. Well, dudes, I think, I think
we're going to power this down. We've said all there.
To say this comment is made Brian grievance versus Evans,
there's less people worried than Lattimore narrative.
And someone said we're better than the Evans take.
To be clear, we're only trying to predict what the field does
when we're talking about the Evans Bucky stuff.
We're not saying we won't play Evans.
What? Evans take that.
We think Evans is a good player or that he's going to be.
He was the guy that wanted McMillan because Evans is
getting shut down. Oh, so he's actually putting the
narrative OK. Also, like, isn't it so funny
how quickly like Mike Evans just had his 11th straight year with
1000 yards? It was like one of the coolest
moments of the NFL season than building that.
And we've just like he's like the last remaining dude.
You know, Brandon Cooks was in that draft class fucking Cody
Lattimore out. It's like one of the greatest
wide receivers to ever play down.
Like he's going to get fucking shut down by Marshall.
And the quarterback you were worried about wasn't even
certain to play. Is playing on one hamstring in
the most like reactionary position on the field probably
going to? We get torched the whole
freaking game? I mean what are?
We talking about Mike Evans revenge.
All these years of pent up animosity and revenge and Mike
Evans is finally shit. Gun is weakened opponent and
he's ready to sweep the leg like Evans.
Sweep the leg. Week.
I actually think, what if he gets suspended, you know, then
there's two games. I just imagine no Deke was the
initial guy who said he wanted Pat.
Like Steve Kordacki doing it I feel like.
Let's go it. Up, dude.
I mean, the Evans revenge game thing, if they put Lattimore on
an island with one hamstring on Mike Evans, like that's how the
Bucks are going to win. They're going to just throw it
up to him. I'm, I'm fully in on the Evans.
I I'm joining you guys, Pete and Leone on your Evans Island.
There, Greg, you're you're a roller coaster of emotions with.
Buddies, I'm swimming over there.
Yeah, it's almost like we're going to have about even amounts
of both. All right, ship chasing playoff
week. Always a blast.
Thank you to all of our guests, starting with, you know, Hassan
and Raheem Boomer opto show. We had Pat, you know, share all
of his projections with us on Tuesday.
We had Draco and Chris G yesterday.
And then obviously our ETM guys, Leone and Dink making time in
their busy schedules to to chop it up with us.
And yeah, hopefully you guys all enjoyed this week.
I know all of us here, Gratchpad myself, look forward to it every
year. And yeah, lots of stuff to
draft. I know you guys got playoff
basketball contest, you got DFS, you got all kinds of stuff going
on. So good luck.
Hopefully we can get another, you know, member from the the
ship chasing community taking it down.
I see Toyo jumping in here becoming a member after taking
it down last year. So any, any final words from any
of you guys before we sign off? It's always like blast, it's
always a blast every year. And you know, it's like, all
right, got to get the ownership projection fired up, you know,
see, and this year it's been probably more fun than ever.
I just, there's something about it, you know, the way like you
kind of things shift for the week.
Get a sense of what everyone wants to play.
It's such a simple contest in terms of the rules, but just
trying to figure out where a little sentiment is because
that's really what it comes down to.
It's kind of the ultimate leverage contest.
Beautiful dink Leone, any final words here?
Echoing what Crane said, I told this to Peter and Crane before
the show, but I was driving home from dinner and I was like,
every year it's like we decide to get together and pay 10 grand
to do a school project for a week.
So you were actually telling Gretsch too, but Pete hadn't let
him in the. Listening in the background.
All right, all right. I think that's it.
We don't know what our schedule is going to be next week.
We need to decompress a little from this.
I will say I'm doing my after dark show tomorrow.
So I'm going to be I think just going to be going live during
the the Ravens Steelers game, maybe around 9:00 shooting the
shit. If you guys are watching that
game, you can join me over on my channel.
Otherwise, we'll be in touch with kind of our schedule plans
going forward. But everyone enjoy the weekend.
Good luck with all your teams and we'll see you when we see
you. Yeah.