We've made it to the end of the road, the final show before lock
tomorrow. It's our finale.
We got Dink, maybe we got Leone, we got Gretch, we got Korain.
We're going to talk through our final thoughts here.
We've spent a week digging into the ownership, finding our
favorite pivots, all our favorite leverage angles.
Any questions in the chat, hit us up.
I'm Pete. This is ship chasing.
Let's do it, Pat Fryer, Helmo this.
Is what? This is what I'm Pat.
Anita hand job. Fix your sight.
Jamar and Alpha play chase you. Can't handle the heat.
It looks like we're. Finally, at this point, you're
right. All right, here we go every
every year this show on Friday. I feel like we just get more
tired and weathered by the end of the week.
Like I feel like the first year we did it we just all got
hammered on the Friday night with for like 3 hours and now by
the end of the. Week I was like Jimmy quarantine
I feel. Great, I feel great.
And, and you, we were talking about, you know, when we're
going to actually start building lineups and we all had estimates
of mine was the latest estimate of, of basically how long the
show would go. I I feel I don't know, I'm I
still I got wind in the sails. I guess it's not a coincidence
that The One Show I wasn't able to join this week with for three
hours. It is not a coincidence.
There were many times where I was thinking like, I should
probably try to move us on. Davis admitted later that he was
just like, yeah, I'm not even going to try moving you guys
along. I thought about it several times
but then I was like no, I want to say something about this.
Conversation. I want to talk instead.
What happened was I went and watched an entire NBA basketball
game, drove home 40 minutes back to my house, brush my teeth, got
ready for bed and you guys were still live.
And I thought for 1/2 second about poking my head and I was
like fuck this that. Would have been great.
Mike, welcome back to the ship chasing airwaves.
I can't remember when the last time was.
Oh, maybe a ship cast earlier this year.
But how are you doing? Good.
I yeah, I was on a ship cast where we won.
Yes, Yeah, That was the the Josh Allen fifth leg that you
contributed was all we needed. Yeah.
People want to know. Leone, are you are you shaking?
For the Bills, it's Buffalo's years.
How do you feel about a comment that says something along the
lines of Leone repping Team Liam?
I think it's unfair and frankly Bush league for you to put up a
comment like that and put me in this kind of position.
Oh, my goodness. Yeah.
So, Leona, you couldn't help but you were sharing a lot of clips.
You're saying all the public, all the squares, everybody's on
the Jags. And were you implying that all
the sharps are on Buffalo or just that all the squares are on
the? Jags.
I think everybody's on the Jags. I think it's just everybody's on
the Jag. I use squares super
derogatorily, even when it's like, not necessarily when it
just kind of means like public, but I am using it in a very
condescending manner in all of our chats.
And that is intentional. I every clip I see out there,
it's Mina Kimes picking the Jags, it's Silva, it's Bill
Simmons. It's Gretchen in our internal
Discord. I didn't put a clip out there,
but I will. Right now I'm picking the Jags.
Everyone's picking the Jags. I think I, I mean, it's pretty
close to a flip, but I do think the Bills are going to win.
Are they are they the better team?
No. But at the end of the day.
That's just Sean Mcdermott's opinion.
You. Know Josh Allen?
All right, Leona. The favorite thing is what I
talked to about it and I'm like, they got, you know, Jake's got
these things going for him. This is not the other thing.
And Leona's response every time is Josh Allen is the Josh Allen
playoff. Josh Allen is a top five team
of. All time You guys got playoff
Trevor Lawrence versus playoff Josh Allen.
We'll see. How that's true?
That's a that's a good counter, but I mean McDermott like like
getting ahead of the finger pointing like pre setting up
this roster sucks ass. It seems bad to me the.
Defense is worse than usual. The skill players are bad like
the the Bills are worse than usual.
Yes. Leonie rank, rank these things.
I do think McDermott, though, will surprise.
I think the defense will show up a little bit more than people
think. I think Mcdermott's really good
defensive coach in non KKC games I.
Mean has anyone told them about the running game and maybe
trying to stop that because they're.
They're, I mean, there's this fine line between where they
like, want teams to run, but then they don't want teams to
run for six yards of carry. That's bad.
So we'll see what happens, but I I think they're going to be, but
not a complete disaster defensively and it'll be it.
Leonie, this is what I want you to do.
I want you to be completely objective.
I want you to metaphorically take off that Bill's jersey
right now, and I want you to power rank the best plays to
make in the contest for the bill.
So I'm giving you Josh Allen, James Cook, soft fade, hard
fade, Dunkin Cade. If you want to fucking Brandon
Cooks it, go for it. But give me ranking those of the
best way. Let me know if you're going to
do that though, because I got to up them from zero.
Percent the best plays. Oh man, it's difficult in this
time. I mean, it's, it's probably
James Cook. OK, the.
The play that is probably right that you guys are all on and
we're on a little, you know, I, I know talk about a little bit,
but the full Buffalo fade is definitely, you know, possible,
I think. You just set set you up to to
have to say that. This is so brutal Pete, because
Buffalo fade is like math wise, such a great play.
It's a decent play. Let's not get it's a decent.
Play. It's man versus machine, but
just Leonie's brain. The I think the Cook play.
I think the Cook plays good chalk though, because I think
cook, the way some of these games set up even in a loss like
he can get what? About Alan.
Where you at on Alan? I like Alan, but he's going to
be owned a lot for a team that is 5050 to lose round one and
you probably need at least two games out of them.
But I do think he could get there in two games.
And we were, you know, looking at the look ahead lines and
stuff. And the market, you know, is, is
buying into the playoff bills a little bit.
You know they are favored in the lookout lines against almost
everybody you know, despite being on the road.
Well, I've seen that as a popular take of like, whoever
wins that game is going to go to the Super Bowl out of.
The yeah, I think the the lines like Jacksonville too, they just
have this is a really good game. It's also it's a super high
total. If it was a lower total, if the
game totals were a little bit more spread out round one, I
think the Buffalo fade would be like an amazing play.
But because this game has such a high total and the way these
teams are going to play, I think that there's a good chance you
need a player on both sides of things.
Now, it's still worth taking some shots on the fade just
because they're 5050 to lose round one.
And if James Cook has a bad game, you're not really fading
that much else, right, Because you Alan getting there one game
is pretty unlikely. You know it's.
Probably in. But it's unlikely.
I could be wrong about Kincaid, who's not on the injury report
and maybe he comes in higher than 6%, but I don't I don't
think people really want to play him.
But if they don't like if they don't play him and Jake was
making this point a couple days ago that you you're really only
fading Cook as far as what other people are actually going to
play like, it would be nice to have Khalil Shakur if he scores
twice, but if it's a loss, it doesn't really matter.
You know no one else is. Going to because he's not on
enough other rosters. He's like won't be on any
rosters. So like, he's not the ball, but
it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.
What other stuff Mike going through like the ownership and
and looking at the how to build lineups this year do you think
are like the trickiest spots to to try to nail down?
I mean, we have a lot of spots where we don't necessarily the,
the balls kind of spread out where it's going, right?
Like you've got 4 skill players in Philly that are legitimately
viable. You've got 4 skill players on
Jacksonville that are legitimately viable.
So there's a lot of weird spots like that that are tough to
figure out, especially in this contest because we talked a lot
in this contest about not overly Galaxy braining this stuff,
which is usually like, you know, don't take the wide receiver 2
if you don't have to or the wide receiver 3, like just kind of
construct a little differently and then being on the core
player when you need to. But that dynamic is, you know,
definitely trickier this year where you might have to take it
might be worth taking some chances on on those types of
skill. But.
There's a difference between like a Devante Smith and like a
Pat Bryant as far as getting gal brain goes.
Like if you're, if you're still drafting, you know, or selecting
a guy who's, who's a really good player, who's projected pretty
well, that's, that's a much better pivot than some of these
really off the board, please. They said Dink is going to be a
scam. They said Dink for real.
They said dink, said Deuces. Well, to the haters and losers,
look what we drug from the depths of NBA projections, Drew
Dinkmeier, welcome to the stream.
Of which there are many. Welcome, boys.
Yeah, one of the most festive weeks of the year.
Sure is. I catch up on all the nonsense
that you guys have been participating in for the last
three days live on air with everybody else.
Yeah, and people like say to me throughout the week, they're
like, Dink's not really going to be there.
I'm like, honestly, I don't know.
I just put him on all the marketing materials.
It's a good click bait, you know, and and then just see if
you'll show up. And you did this year.
So it. Worked.
Out that's I I when I when I put out the projections I was going
to message you. I was like, is Dink actually
going to show up? Because I was like, we're going
to be joined on Friday by by Leonie and Take.
And then I saw his on the thumbnails.
Like I mean if he's on the thumbnail I can say he's coming.
It just shows you can manifest whatever you want in this in
this life. Drew On a scale of 1 to 10, how
excited are you to watch your beloved Bears this weekend?
I mean, it's, it's, it's just terrifying.
It's just honestly terrifying if there's too much emotional
investment. I'm not used to being a laundry
bro, but when it comes to Bears, Packers, it's like really
intense, mostly because I have one work colleague from many
year from finance from like before I was even in DFS.
There's a Packers fan that has texted me every time from a
position of power just mocking the Bears for like 15 years.
And I just I can't face it. I can't face that It's so I'm
just terrified I. We all have that one friend.
I just, I just like I didn't even after after the last game,
I didn't send a message. I just, I was like, I'm trying
to opt out of this interaction in this relationship and I just
know the message is going to come.
So you didn't? Send him a message after the
bears. I did not I, I I want no part of
this. I'm not trying to take joy in
others pain as he has been trying to take joy in my pain
for the last. 15 years you're still, he's still gonna text you
that. Wasn't I know, there's I know
and I'm prepared. I told the guys in our slack
like a month ago. I was like, the scenario that
makes the most sense happening is that the Bears are gonna win
the next game. They're going to win the
division, They're going to have home game.
I'm going to be invested. I'm going to have my hopes up.
And then the Packers will steal my joy, because that is what
happens in this Bears Packers rivalry, at least as long as
I've been alive. Dude, I'm sorry to get us back
on track, though I did want to mention Josh Jacobs is one of my
favorite. Players in the world.
The amazing thing, the amazing thing is every year I come on
the show and every year you guys are touting Josh Jacobs every
single year, Every single year after not.
Touting him in. August after not touting him in
August every year it's January. Josh Jacobs.
It's like it's like the reverse to Hember.
Like it's, it's incredible. Drew, I told Micah you were you
were kind of mad at him. And he wants you to know that
he's rooting for the Bears. He just thinks the Packers are
going to win. That's fair.
OK, we can.
We're back on speaking terms, then me and your.
How is how is ETR not paying for you and Silva to go to this
Bears game with a camera? Oh my God.
Dude, that's. The content we all need.
For real. So they would be trolling the
Bears fans and then they would get into a fight and it I don't
think it would end well. All of this sounds like great
content, like you just described what we're all hoping will
happen. Also, I want to, I want to
circle back on something we only just said because Drew took it
really well. What Micah said that he's
rooting for the Bears, but he thinks the Packers are going to
win. You didn't take it so well when
I said I was rooting for the Bills, but I think the Jags are
going to win. That's you're.
You're not. You're not thrilled?
Drew told me earlier this week that he was not speaking to my 8
year old son. So let's let's put a pause on
him handling it well. Also, is is, is is Mike the one
who's been texting you all these years from a position about
we're calling? I'm not as Bill's Homer as I
think you think I am, Gretch. I'm, I'm just playing the odds
here, buddy. We're we're, we're fine with
whatever happens. Yeah, it is funny to see like
the dichotomy of how your guys's fandom is manifesting with the
the public consensus. Drew's just like going into a
shell, and Leonie's like I'm the only believer.
You did a a minute ago, you asked about the like the best
plays in this tournament. And I do think this year is so
fascinating because we've been talking about it since the
beginning. It's so wide open.
But the more this week has gone, I I normally at this point in
the week have like a handful of plays.
I'm like, oh, I really like those plays.
I don't really have any this year.
Do you guys like, feel like you have some that you really like
want to smash? I there's a lot.
In the in the the bit ones that we did, but they're not a bit.
I like Buffalo Fade a lot and I like Josh Jacobs a lot.
Do you guys want us to put those on different teams or just like
like what is what is best for the morale?
Do we just like pair those together?
We just have like a set of teams that are just like Leonie think
Misery do. You have misery teams or do you
guys want to be miserable together or separate?
We usually choose together. We usually choose to be
miserable together. Maybe we'll pair those.
I do I To me some of the most interesting stuff is around the
fades and what you can do with the 4th fade because with
Hampton so Hampton Hampton limited today ankle brace says
he's going to play. I don't think a lot of people
are going to be super excited to play Marion Hampton at less than
full health. Like I do think he plays, but it
like what capacity I have him at 9%, which could ultimately be
high, but I didn't want to get too carried away.
I've got Ladd Mcconkey and Gadsden and Johnston and Keenan
Allen kind of combining for 20 like 21% total among the four.
So that gets us to 30%. I've got 1% Herbert, which might
be high. So they're and then the rest is
fades of some kind. Dicker will be popular.
Chargers fade. I have up to 33%.
So 69% of the field, softer heart fading the the Chargers,
73% of the field doing that with the Steelers, 87 with the
Panthers. There's not like a lot of fade
leftover. So like, do you want to fade
Denver, which is an interesting way to play that.
Do you want to fade one side of the chart or the the Bears or
the Packers, which which is an interesting game to pick that
most people might not pick. Do you want to fade the Jags?
Because people really like Cam Little.
I've I've seen a fair amount of people talking about him kicking
those long field goals and and the FPC kicker scoring being
beneficial. Yeah, kicking for touchdowns
like people like this. So I think some people are going
to fade the Jags, especially people who take Allen.
So obviously people who take Allen aren't going to fade
Buffalo, but there's like a lot of cool fade spots.
Denver, Buffalo Jags to a degree, although I like that one
less Houston and play a Steeler. Maybe like there's some New
England, frankly, if you if you do want to play a Charger, but
it's like it's tough to you. You can't fade as many with the
that's becoming such an obvious fade.
You can't fade as many teams as maybe you'd want to.
I felt like in past years there were games that were like, this
is the way to play it. This is the way on paper that
seems like and and a lot of the fields going to play it.
And so there's some pivots off of it.
You just went through like it's it's more open in a lot of the
different games this year. I mean, other than obviously
Rams, Panthers, like you can play everything both ways and
tell yourself a pretty comfortable story about it,
which means something. That's a really nice play.
Like when you start talking about Armari and Hampton, we
start talking about the Chargers.
They're they're very live to win in the first round and they're
not going to get played like it because they're like the fifth
most exciting underdog. Yeah, which is most years a team
in the Chargers spot is one that we're we're comfortable playing,
but. Yeah, 3 1/2 point dogs.
I think there's a lot more 5 quarterbacks this year.
You can go a lot of different directions like QB.
One of the things you were talking about the other night
was this idea of holding hands with the field.
I think one of my favorite plays is this idea of playing like
lock buttoning either CMC or Kittle on the Niners is the one
thing that I've come around to. And I'm like, if you're, if
you're playing CMCI mean obviously he's the best player
in fantasy. If you're not playing him, if
you're fading someone that's that big of chalk.
Like the way I was saying it in the chat earlier this week was
if if CMC got hurt in practice, I think Kittle would jump to
like 70% ownership, but you're getting him at 15%.
So if you're if you're if you're making the decision to not play
CMC, you're saying he's scoring 10 points or?
I'm up to like 20 but but yeah, yeah.
You have kittle up to 20%, but that's.
Still like, yeah, exactly 20, yeah.
In a in a non CMC lineup, you're getting to play a 20% guy that
in a non CMC field might be a 70% guy.
Like at least it's the way that I'm thinking about it.
So to to not play CMC and then also not play Kittle.
And then the play that you do make is another one of those
ones like we were talking about earlier where it's it's so low
percentage. Do you get burned?
If that's right, like if Eddie Pinero is the right kicker, it's
not going to be so meaningful that there's not going to be
enough lineups to matter. You know what I mean?
So I don't know I there's a few of these like that that are.
I'm with you. San Francisco's kind of in the
cap for your Kittle to me too. I mean, I think the field is
going to play it like that. I've got San Francisco 6% total
faded, most of that being Pinero and then Jawan Jennings at 2%,
which kind of fills in for if anyone plays like any anyone
you. Know you've got Houston at 0%
full fade. You think that's right?
I mean, maybe I, maybe I. Need everyone's been.
Just enough. I just don't.
I think that's me trying to put as much to Fair Baron and
Houston D as I possibly can because I think both those like
Fair Baron is going to have a lot, a lot of backers and so
will the Houston D. So it's not that I have Houston
total fate at 36%, which is really high for a team with
their odds of winning the AFC and their odds of winning around
1. So it's not about people not
fading Houston. I just think if you're fading
Houston, aren't you just taking their D?
You know, or the. Or the kicker.
Yeah, I mean, I should probably get it to one just as.
But their their total's low enough that like.
Yeah. But they're not a crazy team to
fulfill. Well, Speaking of total, why
isn't San Francisco fate more in the conversation?
I mean, they have the third lowest total on the slate.
And I think it's because the concentration on.
You might have been doing a draft, but I just talked about
that, yeah. Then it went the whole lot of
conversation. Yeah, I don't know.
But I I what? Do you guys think about like
going off the board in San Francisco, you guys into that
or? No, but I I just think both
those guys can fail. Like, I don't that total is like
hilariously low. I mean, the Texans are projected
more score more points than the Texans and they're pretty
concentrated as well. So I I don't know, like why that
isn't more of a combo. Yeah.
I think like the reception volume for CMC is just so huge.
And then the the tight end premium for Kittle, I mean, I
know obviously Dalton Schultz gets that that as well, but and
the San Francisco offense probably just being better
overall. There's a significant constraint
on tight end this year too. That's that's what I was trying
to say was if if CMC was out of the game, Kittle would be a a
really huge chalk tight end in this contest.
Because, and I would want to fade it even more in that
scenario because I would think the systemic risk for the team
failing would just be so massive.
Like just looking at our projections for just the wild
card rounds, just these are DraftKings projections, but we
have CMC at 23 and Kittle at like 16.
That's not tight end premium. We we don't have new, we have
Nico Collins at 14.8 as the highest Houston player.
And then the next is Woody Schultz at 12.2.
So there's just like a, there's a pretty meaningful drop off if
our projections are like close to reality.
I mean, that's like, that's like who?
Are you fading Kittle for, like, to Leonie's point, who are you
fading Kittle for? Like, you have to fade him for
like Dalton Schultz in this contest, or I mean, Coulson,
Loveland's the chalk, but there's just not a lot of you're
like. Man, like a Carolina player,
like you need Tataroa, McMillan, outscore CMC, like you know
which which can kind of happen, Yeah, but.
Can happen. Well to this conversation I was
talking to. Points you pick up too, it's
like. Right, Let's look, Pete, let's
look at the actual wild card scoring last year.
So the starting several years ago.
I the way that I like to geek out with this is on wild Card
weekend, putting down like the actual points that were scored
on this little tab. The first year that this tab
existed in our big spreadsheet, I think I wanted to like track
the results and Leonie called it, I think it was called Ben's
fucking tab or something like that.
Like, fine, you can have your little fucking tab over here.
But so this was this is the actual results only from wild
card weekend last year. The red in this column is teams
that lost. So this was the the highest
owned players that did fail. And like what some of so we, we
always talk about like what actually happens in these types
of things. And I thought it'd be
interesting to, to look at the ways that that these things
actually play out. So like for Minnesota with
Jefferson, man, I'm so zoomed in that I can't, I can't do the
with with Minnesota for Jefferson, Hawkinson had 19.9
points and was the awesome tight end 5%.
Was Hawkinson ultimately in the winning lineup?
I couldn't remember this. I can't remember what year was
this I can pull out. Last year.
I don't think he was. So even at a 5% ownership.
I could be wrong, I don't think he was.
I thought it wasn't live line UPS up there that didn't have.
Him. Hawkinson was in the winning
lineup last year. Yeah, he was OK.
He did. So he was solo tight in
Hawkinson, Yeah. So he was the clear Minnesota
play. He was actually in the top three
line UPS last year. The other way I want to look at
this was to show you guys kicker because I was talking about this
the other day. So this was this is just wild
card weekend. I didn't I didn't keep adding
points, but these top five kickers all won the winning
kickers tend to score points. The losing kickers that scored
points came from Tampa and Lac. But if you go look at just so we
talk about this every year on wild card weekend, six teams are
going to get are going to lose and you have to have at least
two flex plays out of out of there, right lad.
Mcconkey was so huge that Cameron Decker couldn't be
right. Chase McLaughlin didn't work out
because Mike Evans scored so many points.
Hawkinson is on here as well. Josh Jacobs is on here.
They all wound up being really strong plays and Pickens who was
only played 5%, they all wound up being really strong plays.
There's good players that scored like Bucky Irving was 45% on
scored 16.3. Even at 16.3, which is a pretty
decent game. He was like a terrible play
because he had a teammate that scored 22 in a loss and there
were just so many better one. And so many good Bucks teams.
This just reminded me how I. That's that was my visceral
reaction to Yeah. I don't think we.
Could say all this was so good for.
This was so brutal the way that this played out at kicker.
And so the point I'm trying to make here is the losing.
Losing teams often don't score a lot of points, just generally
right. Losing kickers, 4 of them had
really low totals. These two weren't right because
their teammates scored so many points.
The the kicker that we were all fading was Chris Boswell with
23% ownership and he was right for a lot of people at 2 points
because. He was on the top three when he
the top three teams had had Boswell last year.
And that's the thing. We're like, if you saw fade San
Francisco, even if Eddie Pinero scores points, I don't think
it's going to matter that much for your lineup.
That's why I'm like. Well, unless San Francisco
doesn't. You're risking a lot, I think.
I mean, you're, you're really risking a lot for a narrow
outcome. Now there are, you know,
obviously the Hawkinson versus Justin Jefferson was like a huge
win, but that was like a sane teammate thing as opposed to,
you know, a fade thing. I don't think it's crazy to have
like some San Francisco fade stuff.
But in general, I'm with Ben that like, I don't know, just
like ADFS contest, there's going to be 20 to 30 ownerships you
disagree with, right? That like aren't maybe efficient
in your mind, but you you can't play them all right?
Like you got to you got to filter down to the ones that you
think are the most important. And that that one's probably
like we could nitpick like, yeah, maybe the fade should be
like 6% instead of 2%. But like, I don't, you know.
They they have a 20 point team total.
So it's not it. It's the thing with San
Francisco is that we just know where the points are going to
go. But like, this could be a dud
game for them with the the kicker.
The kicker could be optimal because they just don't score
many points and lose. Yeah, I'd tend to be with you,
Ben. Where?
Here's another one where. They put up points through the
guys we know score points. Totally.
Here's another one. This is the year prior, if we
look at just the flexes and the one and done's CD Lamb was the
massive high owned player that year 20.5.
But this is the Jake Ferguson year way down here, 42.3 at 1.3%
ownership. But also, like I was going to
point out Tyreek when we look at this 150% owned this year had a
really great year in 2023 and even like in Joku, but there
were guys so Puka winds up he was at 32% this back when they
still had cup. This is his rookie year.
He has a 33 point game in a loss.
Devonta Smith down here at 22% owned had a 23 point game.
You those guys are owned enough that they're going to be on good
line UPS. You wanted them more than you
wanted like Tyreekin and Joku. So even when Tyreekin and Joku
scored, this is just another point similar to the Buck Irving
point where even like good players can score some points
and not be right. It's OK to get different when
you're picking guys to lose. And I mean the lesson is like
you can you can end up soft fading.
Like I think Miami had like some a Chan ownership as well this
year 16% and he didn't score. And the answer with Miami was
probably just a full fade here. Like Tyreek wasn't right one and
done even though he scored some points.
They must have had a decent team total.
I think this was maybe the the year Miami and Buffalo played in
the first round and there was a high, you know, high over under.
It wasn't that high though, because it was freezing cold and
Miami was kind of struggling around the stretch a little bit.
That's what kept this was the year.
This was the one I really over projected Tyree kill because
he'd had a great year. But the narrative and correctly
that, you know, they were cooling off and we're about to
be awful in the cold was correct.
Anyway, I just thought these were interesting when I was
looking back at them today and I was, I wanted to pull them up
because we always talk about like what can happen.
It's good. I think it's like it's
informative to look at the actual like results of the last
couple of years and think through the ways of the
different constraints play like, you know, different.
Yeah, because you want it. You're like everyone I pick
will, you know, score a bunch of points and then lose if I need
them to lose and it's going to get chaotic.
But you can still win that way. Yeah.
So, Dave? You've been previously you were
way back when the Gronk Whisperer.
What's what's what kind of whispering have you been doing
from afar here? What do you?
Like, I think the interesting thing is when you guys were
talking through things, one of the ideas that kind of
crystallized to me a little bit more was we've talked a lot
about the wide openness of things allowing us to like play
different, like lots of different combinations.
But I was as you're as you're talking through Pat, I was
thinking about like, man, maybe the whole way to think through
this is there's just more things that you can fade than you've
ever faded before. Like you're so focused on like
who you're going to play and like what teams and players are
going to like get into. And like in the past, we've kind
of had more confidence in what the brackets might look like.
And so we're trying to think of like, OK, well, in A1 game
situation, maybe Hawkinson can out score Jefferson.
But now it's more like, well, maybe we should be thinking
about the advantage that we can create versus our opponents is
fading the situations that they're more overconfident in
when we think things are a little bit more wide open.
That's the first thing that kind of hit me when we were talking
about. And it's like, OK, so whether
it's especially some of these teams like, you know, Buffalo,
New England, where I think the, you know, the ownership is
probably going to be pretty condensed on the on the on the
quarterback relative to some of the other skill players that
like those teams are coin flips essentially to lose in the first
round. And you are not winning this
contest with a quarterback with one game.
Like I just can't see how that's possible.
So I think in some ways that like this is ultimately like
maybe it's maybe the leverage that we're creating is like not
necessarily trying to figure out who's the best play on each
team, but just incorporating more of the fades on teams that
the field is very confident are, you know, need to be in their
line UPS. That's a great point on QB.
The last couple years it's been like Alan Jackson, 80, not the
country singer, Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson like 80% of the of
the field. And we have, I mean it's a lot
more spread this year. I mean, we do have May and Alan.
I think you have them pretty pretty heavily to the top 2, but
there's a bunch of dudes around 10%.
Like how many cubes did you guys say are viable this year?
There's a lot more. That's part of why.
I like part of me feels like, you know, maybe a Shorty Vegas
pick might ultimately be right that I had Lawrence a little
low, like Lawrence is a comfier click.
Then I was feeling like he like I'm like, I kind of want to play
Lawrence, you know, if he's going to be 10%.
So maybe he isn't 10%, maybe he's like 12 or 13 or something
like that, but I don't know exactly where it comes from
because I don't think I have Alan at 25.
I don't think he's going to get much below that.
May at 33. That doesn't seem super hot.
Maybe it's a little hot, but there's this like push and pull
of you kind of feel like, you know.
I think you could feel overplaying Stafford.
I could see them a little overplaying Stafford, but then
you have to give up Puka. I've got him at 7%, which I
honestly think kind of is overplaying him.
But yeah, the Lawrence thing, you're like, well, I want to
play Lawrence, but ETN is like very popular in the, you know,
the the playoff tournaments, the gauntlet and stuff that I was
drafting in some mitten threes today.
He's going as early as ever. And so people like Lawrence and
then you also have Cam Little as I talked about.
And then you have people want to play Allen.
It's like, am I really and play Lawrence over Allen?
Allen's projecting great and he's Allen.
So there's like I'm just the quarterback thing is kind of
tough for me to gauge this year. I think it will be more spread
out and I have it way more spread out than usual.
But I'm trying to figure out if it's going to be like way, way
more spread out than the typical year or does it kind of condense
around Allen and May, you know, making up well over half the
field? Yeah, I think it makes sense why
Lawrence feels so good because it's been so spread out and then
the one constant is when they crush Lawrence is leading the
charge. And so you like it's a really
you almost have to play them in a loss if you're playing a non
Lawrence, like I think immediately when you jump to two
games with the Jags, it's like, man, how is it?
How is it not Lawrence? That's the the guy there.
Mike, you were, you were looking like maybe a quarterback could
win in A1 game situation, do you think?
That's I, I think it, I think this year is weird.
I mean, it's certainly suboptimal to buy a long shots,
but I do think like a Buffalo Jacksonville shootout, like
those quarterbacks could potentially get there where the.
Prize He thinks Josh Allen could do it.
The. Wouldn't, wouldn't the quarter,
wouldn't the quarterback who's advancing in that shootout like,
be much more like? Well, if you get like, you know,
a a big James Cook game in advance and you're not, I mean,
I'm not saying it's. Likely, you know, I see what
you're saying, yeah. Like it's it's going to take
something weird for it to happen, but the NFC skill
players really are better plays than their quarterbacks kind of
across the board. And that's where Stafford feels
really bad to me. Because Stafford.
Like Stafford a bad play. Like if you you want Stafford to
outscore Puka, the better chance Stafford has of outscoring puka
and Puka not lapping the other skill position players is in a
smaller number of games. And why do you want to be
playing your quarterback to play in a smaller number of games?
Like that's, that's so like Stafford feels particularly bad
to me. I think the Stafford argument,
which again I don't, I don't think he's a good play, but the
I think the argument would be he paces with puka and then he goes
nuts in the Super Bowl and you get double points in the Super
Bowl. And all the TS go to Adams.
Yeah, T DS go to Adams or you know, the tight ends.
It's very, I think. I think it's thin too.
It's just I think I I can see people doing it though.
I could see people even doing it like way more than they should.
But just going back to the QB in one game, it's like, I mean,
you've got a really low total game in Houston, Pittsburgh with
you've got really good defenses with Houston and Denver in the
AFC playoffs. You've got all the really good
skill players, better plays and their quarterbacks in the NFC
with JSN, you know, over darn old CMC Kittle over Purdy, you
know, Hertz is probably the most compelling one.
But even then you're you know, you're dealing with Saquon,
who's got this really good match up to start and then possibly
Chicago around 2:00 so that this week, this year could just get
weird. You know, I do think it's a year
where you could maybe think about optionality a little bit
more where you don't have to tie your team to a single bracket.
Like obviously you want to play with a bracket in mind, but you
can play with like some teams might just be more robust where
like you have multiple outs and like, obviously if it breaks a
certain way, you definitely don't want your quarterback
playing one game. But you know, you might just
have all these little bit of outs that help, you know, the EV
of of a team on the fade thing real quick, just because I think
we'll talk about the fades and then we end up on the
quarterbacks. But it does look like
Pittsburgh's probably over faded.
And then you could just take a little bit more fade on like a
lot of teams. And you know, Dink mentioned
Buffalo, Jacksonville, their coin flips to lose.
Chicago is probably a decent fade with how they could be
spread out and not have a lot of completion reception volume.
So those those were some of the ones I was looking at.
Yeah, not note about the Q BS is I mean or just I don't know.
I'm sorry. Go ahead.
What were you going to say? Pat no, I kind of lost my train
of thought. I was distracted by a comment
that said that Hertz is going to be 5% in the play of the
tournament. And it's like the reason he
won't be 5% is because you think you'd be the play of the right
at that level. Like that's why he won't be 5%.
But he's a pretty good play. I was distracted by by.
Leone like in your head? All Yeah, well, it's easy to
have in my head because he's commenting a lot.
I was distracted by Leone very casually telling Dick that
Chicago was Fade. Was I?
I noticed. I noticed smiling.
Along I noticed that. I noticed that.
I'm delicate. I'm like you Gretsch, coming in
with a hammer. Noticed that noticed that.
I think I mean I keep delicate like honestly like when the when
the bears lose, it will likely be in a situation where their
defense just cannot get off the field and they are suppressed
play volume and like that is what the Packers love to do.
So love that shit like SO or anyone in.
Particular. Yeah, so I mean, I, I just like
from a contest standpoint, I totally get it.
Cuz they we've seen like a number of games the Bears have
against like these teams that can ball control that they only
get like two or three offensive possessions and a half.
And if Kate, like if Caleb isn't in rhythm early, like, it gets
ugly. The the thing I was going to I
was trying to think through was in past years when we had like
Alan and Lamar as our QB for most of our lineups, when we
went away from them, we felt like the other QB would be
pretty low, low owned. We did some like Jane Daniels
last year. And you're like, yeah, I mean,
you're, you're kind of you're getting different at QB.
You're kind of going to need to or you can play a little bit
more chalk or what have you. But even though we had this like
pretty concentrated quarterback situation, it always felt like
it was really I, I with this contest, I always get to this
thing where it's like it feels like a 12 light parlay.
It's not like DFS where you can like limit the number of things
you have to get right and all that stuff.
And you guys were talking about keeping the optionality open
this year, making it even harder.
The one way you can try to try to correlate things is picking
an actual bracket. But this year so wide open, they
were kind of like, how do we keep more doors open in some of
these line UPS? It feels impossible to get this
twelve leg parlay right. It was already impossible when
we had other things. I think This is why I'm so
fixated. I'm going back to that San
Francisco thing where I liked playing either CMC or Kittle or
like I really like just playing a lot of Jackson Smith and Jig
by this year. Or I think you can, I think you
can fade Seattle, but I basically don't want to play
anyone else on on Seattle's player pool.
Maybe maybe a little bit of their kicker or whatever.
But puka, I want to play like a lot of puka.
Like because there's so much different stuff that you can do
at quarterback and there's so much you can do bracket wise and
it's so hard to pick the bracket correctly.
Like if you do a very bullish Jaguar pick and like a Bears,
like we could see a Jaguars Bears Super Bowl and that who's
going to win it would. Be pretty great for some playoff
teams I've drafted recently to be honest.
There's not going to be a ton of FFTC builds that leverage that.
And yeah, I mean, that's why I'm saying like the other random
teams. That there's a lot of ways to
get different that there's. A lot of ways.
A lot of times we're like, how do we get different fading
Jefferson for Hawkinson, which was a good move and and helped
us and ended up being in the winning lineup.
That's that's kind of the the most obvious way to do it.
But this year, yeah, you can do it in other ways.
One, one of the things I, I just want to throw out there, I, I
wonder if people, and I've heard this idea that like the winner
of the Jags Bills game wins the Super Bowl.
I wonder if you do see people enter lineups with like I'm
entering 2 lineups this year and one's one's Josh Allen and the
others Trevor Lawrence, you know, and you kind of just like
play that game both ways and then you kind of build around
like a similar core, but you build around that well, I.
Was just thinking about that. Like the two things that
everyone wants to do is there's all these quarterbacks everyone
wants to play and there's all these like really kind of smart,
but big fades to make on stuff the field's overconfident on.
And yet there's only three spots for those one quarterback in two
fades. And so I, I think you'll
probably see a lot of cycling through just those spots and
people being way more condensed on, on the other main plays.
Yeah. And if you think about
quarterback a little bit more, the the Los Angeles stuff
obviously makes May a little bit more comfy if you're like now,
should it, should it have a huge effect on May's ownership if
Hampton isn't 100%? Probably not.
But like, I'm not playing Hampton now.
I'm probably not even playing a Charger.
Well, I'm fading the Chargers and I'm trying to figure out who
I'm gonna play a quarterback. New England becomes more
attractive because I'm already fading their opponent.
So I think it probably helps May and just solidifies May.
And then we talked about maybe people actually, if they're
playing multiple line UPS, have an Allen and have a Lawrence.
So I think I think those three are probably going to be the top
three and then Hertz not far behind, which would be a shame
because I would like people to play Stafford.
I still think he's going to get played more than he should.
Like I, I, I think there's enough people that aren't
thinking through the teammates scoring enough and they're going
to play the potential MVP on team that's massively favored
week 1. I could be wrong but I I think
people play it. I don't know if Donald gets any
or I'm not. I'm taking him down to 1.
The the Galaxy brain play at quarterback is is Justin
Herbert. If you really want a low owned
QB and the AF CS open. He's got a little bit of
Lawrence in them in terms of like sneaky rushing stuff, you
know, really spread out pass catchers in terms of separating
from the teammate. This spread round one's only 3
1/2 match up. Round 2 is definitely bad at
Denver, but the look ahead line on that spread is not that wide
either. I pushed back on the Herbert
play because I don't think you even have to like now it's
spread out enough that maybe my this hurts my argument, but you
don't have to like get that crazy because just like playing
any charger puts you, you know, probably like maybe 1/3 of the
field even play the charger skill player.
Yeah, but if you get a charger, Super Bowl run.
I'm still getting it right. Dominates you have separated in
a huge way from so many teams, whereas if you just did the
Chargers skill player, you haven't separated in that same
way. Yeah, like I was thinking you
might win the. Tournament with like 4 mistakes
if you have. Herb if it's if it's Herb, yeah,
I I guess I just I don't believe in the Chargers at all to make a
run. I think they can beat the Pats,
but I think they'd probably get smoked by the the Broncos with
the with their offensive line against the Broncos D.
Yeah, I think I'm going to look it up now, though.
I think the the look ahead line wasn't like that big there.
It's three points. Denver's -3 against Lac next
week. Like I'm not saying it's likely,
but you're just I think everyone's thought is your
thought. There's no way and.
I think you're right. I think you're right about 3.
And a half points spread and a three-point spread and like, and
then obviously now you can win. Now Herbert can be the winner in
three games. You know, if he goes to the
Super Bowl, it's one of the plays you're not playing a ton
of Justin Herbert. But it there aren't a lot of
plays you can make in this tournament where it's like you
bank that play and you can make a lot of mistakes in your
lineup. He's one of them where you get
this one thing right. The Chargers go to the Super
Bowl and you've given yourself so much wiggle room over.
I. Don't think you have to get.
First over a large part of the field, but I don't think you can
make a lot of mistakes still. That's the thing that I always
come to. Is like, it's really good.
You can you can make like 3 or 4 like decent mistakes small I
think and still I like like you go to that.
I think that would be a game changer.
Like he's like, so Jake Ferguson that year wasn't didn't end up
on the winner. He outscored CD Lamb by 23
points and he was, he was one point.
He was higher owned than we have Herbert projected this year.
For sure I would call that a small mistake because he was
1.3%. But Herbert's projected at 1%.
No, no. Oh, sorry.
You're saying I I was, I was misunderstanding if you had so
if you had. That was in a loss.
I mean, he could have been. You're saying you can make three
or four other mistakes in your lineup.
What are you saying? Yeah, you you've got some
wiggle, but if you're getting a big win, like some of these
routes is like you talk about hitting the perfect parlay, like
some of the routes is like this team is more likely than another
team hit the perfect parlay, right?
Like, and and some teams like that are good.
Like it's still going to be hard to hit the perfect parlay, but
we're gambling like that's that's what this is.
But there's other routes, which is like, hey, if I get this one
thing right now and now I don't have to hit the perfect, you
know, parlay or. You don't have to hit the
perfect parlay and I don't think you have to hit it necessarily
in all situations either. I'm not.
I'm not trying to, yeah. I mean, you're not trying to
make 3 or 4 mistakes, but right? Well, so the like Shorty Shorty
is. To even fill out the rest of
this team Shorty. Says you win the tournament.
The Chargers make the Super Bowl.
Leoni nails the Herbert take even.
You know he's saying that like that's just wrong.
I'm certain that's wrong. You can't.
You don't just win the tournament by playing him.
Even Jake Ferguson at 1.3% was in 100 or so lineups.
I think there was. There's 7800 lineups this year.
1.3% of that is almost exactly 100 and he wasn't in the winning
lineup even though there was 100 versions of Ferguson lineups.
Like it's you don't just win the tournament over the other
hundred teams. You still got to be 99th
percentile to beat 100 teams, right?
Like of the Ferguson teams and that wasn't good enough
compared. To getting a low owned
quarterback. Way more valuable than getting a
low owned actually. Playing right?
No. No, yeah, 'cause you're probably
less valuable. You're it's more valuable 'cause
you're probably separating. It's probably more than 23
points optimal, which was what Ferguson was.
It's probably even more than. That also Ben think of it if he
goes to the Super Bowl, this is this is a bracket where may
Allen and Lawrence. Didn't make you've killed.
And they're going to be a huge part of the field.
Right, they have, Leonie said. It's more than 23 points.
It is, but his teammates are going to come along as well.
And and there's not going to be a ton of people that are going
to play Chargers teammates, but like Omarion Hampton will be
viable in some forms of of the build.
You could play the NFCQB with Omarion Hampton versus Herbert
with the NFC skill guy. I mean, you're not going to.
It might only be. 23 points literally yes.
You're not guaranteed to have the winner, but like.
No, I'm just, I'm not taking it literally.
I don't know. I, I don't know.
I just, I think about, I don't know.
I feel like I'm on an island. I'm just trying to make the
Super Bowl. You know, there's a very high
likelihood that assuming Herbert's 1%, that one of those
70 teams wins. I think it's a pretty powerful
play if you think the chargers can make a run, which I don't,
but that's why it's a powerful play because no one thinks that.
So then you but and it's it's it's boosted by the fact that
you you wipe out the other AFC quarterbacks.
I guess it's a little annoying that their path only runs
through Meg and then Nicks. And so like you do potentially
run into Allen in three being optimal or Lawrence in three
being optimal. So it's not as clean as if they
would play like the Bills in round two or something, but.
My main point on the on the on the, on the point about
Ferguson, the year that Ferguson was really good, he was in 100
line UPS is that you still have to get 11 different things in
addition to that, right? There was 100 iterations of
that. And though when you do make
three or four more other mistakes, you, I think you do
end up giving up that edge. Maybe the Herbert edge would be
larger in a Super Bowl run, to your point, Leone, but.
Yeah, and again, there's. All I think you'd make up more.
Points to make those mistakes. In fact, you're probably playing
it a decent bit chalkier, you know, around it.
Yeah, yeah. It would be.
It would be definitely. Helpful.
If it wasn't risky, he wouldn't be 1%.
I mean, I, I think on the NFC side, like, you know, Caleb
Williams is probably a decent play too.
I like the Herbert one better because Pat's point about like
you're taking out some of the AFC quarterbacks along with it.
But you know, Caleb on the other side is also, you know, if you
want to play like Ben saying there's a lot of good chalk on
the skill players and if you want to.
The Chad is saying this too. You're comparing one game of
Ferguson to four games of Herbert.
That is not the comparison. It is not that direct.
It is four games of Herbert and his teammates.
It's a different it's there's always the other side is moving
with it. It's not Herbert sport 100 total
points. It can do that, but it's not
guaranteed it's. Of course it's not guaranteed,
but you you could pick up 80 points, you know?
You could pick up a lot of points.
You could you could I? It's obviously it could be very.
Valuable. I could just.
Say it's. It's not this simple and I think
people think. These other thing.
These low end plays, like I can just get one 1% play right and
then play all the chalk and then I'll be fine.
That's not really how to play this the tournament.
It's not that it's not valuable. That's not really how you play
it, man. But it's.
It's context of the chalk. It's the context of this
particular play does make it like a more viable obviously
wouldn't play like every single you would do some other smart
things. But the, the other thing, like I
think Dink brought up earlier, you know, some of these fade
teams and he said it in kind of a roundabout way because because
he's a nice guy who doesn't even text his buddy back who harasses
him about the Packers when the Bears win.
And he didn't want to say that fading the, the fading Drake May
was super, super sharp. But you do fade Drake May in a
game where a lot of people are going to have them and they
could pretty easily lose. I only have 9% of the field hard
or soft fading New England. I could see myself, I could see
that actually being over projected.
So it's just a, it's another, you're combining 2 plays in a
way fading New England, which is probably a sharp pivot.
And then you're fading it directly through the quarterback
who could then go on to make a run.
So I I'm again, I don't love the play, but I no it's I totally
see the logic. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm not
trying to like argue with you guys.
It's more the way I think the some of the chat is taking what
you guys are saying with some of the comments that I'm reading
that I'm like I, I just really don't think it's as simple as I.
I think they're using some of their words a little liberally,
you know? Yeah, you guys want to have
Shorty on the show? You want to just.
I have had Shorty. On my.
Shows before, yeah, let's see here.
You guys you want to build a line up here?
Yeah, give me the 1st place so I can take Herbert.
I'm not saying Herbert's a bad play.
I want to be clear, you should build some Herbert teams.
It the the whole to me, the conversation, it it it's
unfortunate that there's not cleaner ways to play a patriot's
fate. That's that's the rub.
Let's. Take Herbert.
Let's put Herbert in the lineup. I think we have to build a
Herbert lineup now and see how it works, yeah.
Let's do it. What have I done?
All right, who did this? There you go.
But but but Pete, your point about I wish there was cleaner
ways to fade the Patriots like that.
Just from the history of like my experience doing the the
projections on this, that doesn't lead to generally to
people like coming up with interesting ways to fade the
Patriots. It's leads, it leads them to not
fading the Patriots. And that's what I mean, you
know, and so that creates the situation where and like, I feel
this way about the Patriots. I feel this way about the Bills,
you know about the Bears and the and the Packers like picking
that game. So you end up but I probably on
a given line of only doing like two of those.
So it it it's like even the sharp stuff is hard to fit in as
far as these contrarian fades. I kind of think though, like
once you like, once you do something like this, this is
what I was trying to get out with the, it's almost more about
the fades than like the pivots you do.
You do 1 fade like this and it's like you can kind of play
whatever you want from here in terms of like the chalk pieces.
Looks like I say you you want to do 1 contrarian pivot in this
tournament and then just build the chalk the rest of the way.
Right, that's all you need. Like maybe 1 slightly more
contrarian pivot, but like it's two, it's two at it's two at
once because you got Herbert with I don't know what.
We probably take New England kicker or something.
I think you go, you want to fade in one way or another.
I mean, honestly, you, what you might want to do is, is go New
England fade, Denver fade. Yeah, packed old baby.
Right, it's golden. Leverage.
Terrain full leverage. Oh, Mama.
Yeah, yeah. Pardon, they said.
The Red Sea we're not. Winning with Herbert unless they
win two games. We need them to win two games,
yes. So we just go New England fade.
Broncos fade. Bori Gallus, Denver, DST.
I'm saying full fade. Oh, you're saying full fade?
Yeah, take some sacks in that loss.
We could go, we could go Denver DST because like maybe, maybe,
maybe he's optimal in two, but but that still feels weak
because then we just have the DST going.
So I think we I think we do full fade on both of.
You got to play a shitty DST. I'd rather it'd be Denver's DST.
Of the two. Yeah, whatever we can we.
Can I think we full fade both? Wow, then where are you slotting
Panthers in? Tedaroya.
You do have Denver DST very owned.
I wasn't factoring that in Pat. Yeah, they're pretty chalky
because if you're not playing, but.
What galas isn't owned much anyways?
I'll I'll I'll claim the Herbert pick.
You guys can interview that to me.
I. Just like the additional out of
getting a game wrong but still having the kicker, the.
DI do think Herbert's a good play.
He's a better than than his ownership like you should be
overweight Herbert if you have a big portfolio all.
Right, let's go around the horn. Leone's claiming.
Herbert Dink, you're up next. Well, gentlemen, I'm glad we
started Contrarian. Let's lock in Colston, Loveland,
baby. You're either gonna say Josh
Jacobs or Colston Loveland, and I wasn't sure which.
There you go. You Gretch or no.
Is it me? We can go around the horn.
Yeah, yeah. I'll keep some layups going in
here. I'll throw JS in.
I was gonna take Jason. I'll take, I'll do puka.
Yep. Someone else can get contran.
I've been talking about type playing Chuck.
Let's see. I'll do Nico Collins.
There you go back to Leone. To Ben's point, there are still
going to be like, you know, 70 other Herbert lineup.
So he's right that we can't just auto win it.
I'm not setting up for something crazy.
Counterpoint, if you've done Herbert, you're already more
willing to Galaxy brain in the rest of the lineup, in which
case I'm trying. To I'm going to take $4.00.
I'm not with Pat on full fading New England.
I think we should take, I think we should take the kicker here,
OK, because there's some there's some shitty teams that we can
full fade, especially how. Many different iterations.
I just want the. I just wanted the out of if we
can. Here's a question.
That game wrong we we don't have a a fade advancing.
I got a question real quick before we before.
We finish this hard soft fade advancing is better than a hard
fade advancing, right? Yeah.
Or Dad if Herbert loses on one anyways.
Well, I'm saying that right. So why would we have a soft fade
opposite and we could put the soft fade somewhere else and.
Oh, you want the soft fade to be on a team that could win and
still. Yeah, I'm getting it now.
Sorry. That's real.
I've been trying to find keep Borghalis off the board.
I see what you're. Seeing if there's 70 Herbert
teams, what do you think the most duped Herbert lineup is?
There's eleven other spots. What do you think the most duped
Herbert lineup is? How?
How many times is a duped out of 70?
And I think people won't full fade New England.
So I think I. Don't know, I'm just saying what
iteration of Herbert will be duped the most in this
tournament if let's say there's exactly 70 teams.
Just fill in I guess the highest owned players, so CMC, Saquon,
Puka, JSN, Nico Logan. ETN.
ETN you still have to make a tough fade decision.
You have to make two tough fade decisions because you have
Chargers. And I think people will go
Denver DST on that one probably kind of middle the fade we just.
What is it 1 Is it dudes? So I'll take Carol.
Who's Carolina? I'll take Carolina's kicker
here. Wait, I wondered an answer to
the question like I wanna. It's a serious thought
experiment. Do we have, is it 10 times?
Is it 2? No.
I think there's also a chance
that Herbert's like sub 1%, but maybe.
I mean, I don't know. I don't think anyone wants to
play Justin Herbert. But just total thought
experiment, Dick, will you answer it 'cause these three
guys? Already I'm not totally.
I literally just answer. Lineups.
Say 11 players my head. Scratch, I said that one to two.
Of the lineups, once would be duped once.
OK, yes, yeah. So you think that most is 2 is
2? It's like 1 dude.
I thought you were asking us to to say the players in the most
duped. So did I, So did I.
That's why I was like, what are you?
No. No.
Name. How many guys?
No. No, no, how many?
I was like, dude, I don't have this in my.
I was. Like he just.
Told you what that just like is going to.
Be up on my head. Is why not just jam the best
plays if the dupe? No, it's it's not even that.
I'm just thought experimenting on how how can train we have to
get if there was 70 lineups of Herbert, how many would we
actually think the most dupe lineup is?
And I I didn't know if it was eight or two.
I was just genuinely kind of curious what you guys thought
on. That maybe 3.
Three times right off the bat, Ryan Fitzgerald at projected
ownership of 0.2%. Lock it in.
OK, well now we're not duping, but now you can just jam all the
best plays 0.2%. I didn't.
I don't have points so I don't know where Leon is getting that.
I don't use decimal places in this ship man.
It's live ownership for this one that was just added.
Yeah. Talk to Sam Bright.
About that 1%, I have it 1%. We're going to have to full fade
good teams now because we have Carolina in there.
We have the Chargers in there. Yeah, sure.
Yep. Oh, New England's already full
faded. Right New England, Denver.
That's. How it fade?
I thought we wanted a kicker that was going to win.
We wanted the out. We want the out of if they went
actually, this is a sharp play because everyone's playing puka
anyway and so you and they'll full fade Carolina.
So in the off chance they win, we're kind of like, OK.
Gotcha. Playing as Denver and New
England, 100%. Loose.
That's a good point. Yeah.
Puka's got to be. You know what?
Yeah, Puka's on every team, so this is like kind of free
rolling a kicker. Like backing into the Herbert
thing, I think because his round two matchup's known, it does
also makes those line UPS actually a little bit better
because you know exactly. What, you know exactly to fade,
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, could you, you
could say similar for a Packers? For Packers, yeah, yeah.
Which someone was asked about Love before, which I I don't
think he'll be played much. And he doesn't wipe out the
other AFC quarterbacks. You know, there's not, there's
not going to be that many. He also doesn't play Hertz until
the conference championship game, so he doesn't wipe him
out. That makes it less appealing.
But I think he's he's an interesting play too.
All right, I'll do Jacobs Grouch's turn.
CMC. So we have, what do we have?
Eagles. No, we have.
We have Bills, Jaguars we haven't touched yet, and we have
Steelers. Those Jaguars, Steelers.
See like this path gets super contrarian, which is kind of
crazy, but it's not like wrong contrarian within the build,
right? It's just kind of nuts.
There's one more team, Bills, Jags, Steelers, and who else?
Or is there another full fade that we already, oh, Broncos?
Denver Broncos. Yeah, Denver Broncos with full
fade. So it's Steelers, Eagles and and
Bills to get. The wrestling Bills and Jags.
Oh, Steelers, Bills and Jacks. What's our eagle?
Oh, Barkley. OK, I'll go.
James Cook. Yeah.
Jacks, Steelers. Well, the charger the seven seed
all right, so they have to play Denver we.
Have to, yeah, probably should take a Jags player.
I don't think we need to go Steelers.
I don't. Think we need to go?
Yeah. So I I guess Etni would just
take the chalk there just because I don't think we need.
Yeah, I love it. Seems right to me.
Very running back heavy lineup which is probably the chalk way
to construct as well. Just based on the way that that
position scores these days. Why receivers don't score
anymore? Well, this, this this lineup is
dovetails with a question I saw earlier in the chat saying would
you aim for a certain amount of cumulative ownership?
And this is like the age-old DFS question too, where the the
product ownership with Herbert here is gonna make this look a
lot, lot better than the cumulative, which would look
like a near chalk lineup in comparison.
So this is the chalk plus Herbert.
It's kind. Of because of Fitz.
Because of Fitz, Yeah, Fitz is sort of the one V1 off the pure
chalk, yeah. Does it get duped do you guys
think? I mean well.
Well, it might in in a. World where it wasn't on chip
chasing. It wouldn't have.
I don't think it would. Have it would I don't?
Think I'd say I definitely bet at even money it's not duped.
It wouldn't have been duped, but yeah.
Yeah. Don't dupe us, Bros.
Pick a different picker. Pick a different picker.
This. Is this is kind of like the
perfect representation of the point that I was trying to make,
which is like we spend all these past years because we feel more
confident in the brackets, trying to think of like the
pivots within teams. And now it's like, no, we just
picked a fade that's very contrarian and just loaded up.
And it's like if this if the Charters make a run and this is
exactly the lineup you would want, like if if Chargers, if
Chargers win and Panthers win, is there a different line?
This is exactly the lineup you'd want, right?
You'd rather have. McMillan, I think you'd rather.
Have like Ramsbadan. McMillan.
Yeah. Like Ben's always talking about
how hard it is to hit the the parlay of 11.
We've kind of just said if the Chargers win two games, yeah,
odds improved dramatically. Obviously not an auto win or
anything, but our odds have improved dramatically if the
Chargers win two games and then obviously super good.
If they and the Super Bowl and if the Panthers like kick a
bunch of field goals in a loss, like that's actually what we
want is Panthers kick a bunch of field goals in a loss and no one
takes them because they're like, I don't want my kicker to be
eliminated. I'll take.
Awesome. Whatever this is, what's going
to happen. Pittsburgh's going to beat
Houston and Pitt. DST is still going to be
optimal, and it's going to be reverse karma for all the time.
We. Faded Houston DST and they they
won and they still. Yeah, except you know that
Houston DST is going to be awesome.
We. Actually don't win because of
that. I just had flashbacks with this
Houston Pitts game. Wasn't it that one of the first
years we did it where it was that Cleveland, Pittsburgh game
where it had a low total and then just went absolutely
insane? Juju was the one.
Yeah, Leoni was the one on Juju that year for sure.
Yeah. Was it Chubb that buried us or?
No, I think Chubb. Oh yeah, all the Browns.
Yeah, it was bad. It went nuts.
Yeah, I think it was the Monday night game too if I recall
correctly. Jobs.
Yeah, it was. Yeah, it was the last game of
the week. Week because we were like oh
we're. In Yeah, we're in great shape.
We just need this long game. Yeah, I think we had gotten like
A.J. Brown that.
Happens just every. Year it does, it's always the
last game wasn't plus. Game the last game.
Yeah, I think so. God.
Damn it, we've had. It's always the last.
Game we're like. Dude, it was the night.
Game, we're like, we're so much this doesn't happen.
Box wasn't the last one, but it was on Sunday and then Sunday
night all that was left is we were like, we need a bunch of
Hawkinson. And then Hawkinson was kind of
good. And we spent the whole next week
like we got a little life, we got a little life.
Yeah. Dude, yeah, 48 to 37.
I had to pull this one. Up here, Ben completed 47.
He would have pulled to Kobe Brusett in this game, yeah.
We made 40 Leone so hard for wanting to.
Play Oh, Chubb, wasn't he? Oh, Chubb.
Chubb, Chubb. 4 for 69 received, yeah.
This game was that's the best receiving game of his career.
What an. Insane way to go down to Chubb.
Oh my God. Juju's.
Only 100 yard game that season if I'm not mistaken.
He had. He had none the whole year and
Leonie's like he could though. And we're like, we're like
Leonie. It's not possible man.
Was it? Was it?
Hassan or someone, someone was was on my side with it.
Sounds like a Hassan might be. Yeah, that sounds like a Hassan
move to to be correct about that.
Wow. Oh Claypool.
This is when Claypool was sweet. Oh, that's what that that guy
was. Yeah, yeah.
Just this is just such an insane box score.
Like the Pittsburgh rushing too is just hilarious. 52 total
yards rushing. Oh man, yeah, that took me back.
So what I've now, what I've, what I'm remembering looking at
that box score is Baker Mayfield is our nemesis.
Whatever Baker Mayfield is evolved in one of the last games
of the Wild Card Weekend. So this year, fellas, this is
our year. This is our game.
No Baker. No, Baker.
Is Carolina Baker adjacent? Cuz he like no.
OK, but the other no, the other game that that one recalled was
the Packers, Cowboys one where Jordan Love basically did the
Baker and they were scoring and they kept scoring and then Dak
played the Ben Roethlisberger. He threw 50 something times.
Yeah. And Jake Ferguson got there and
that was massive. So hopefully it's not Jordan
Love either because we don't, we don't need to deal with that.
True, this was the early game. This was the Saturday 60.
Passes for Dak. The Sunday day game which?
10. O'clock my time.
I think we had a ton of Aaron Jones.
We just. We had a bunch of Aaron Jones in
this, yeah. We did.
We did leverage Jones well on this.
But we had we had a lot of Jones Lamb and we were like kicking
ourselves for not more Jones. I don't think we had any Jones.
Ferguson maybe, Or like one no. No, that was the year.
We were like only single tight end lineups for Ferguson, and
then it was, I think Ferguson. Kelsey Yep, that was my take
that was wrong. Did you like go into the sheet
history? We were like pretty united on
that. Try to find like the IP address
of the person who who probably swapped that Ferguson to CD
lamp. Yeah, wow.
Somewhat. Leonie, someone in the chat
earlier asked you where you're, where you're at on Dubs.
You are officially the Dubs Whisperer.
Is this the Dubs game? I'm kind of worried about him
because I feel like he, I mean, he's a routes play and his
routes are not as guaranteed as they've been in the past.
So I'm, I don't have any, especially in this contest.
I don't. I don't really have.
Aren't they only? Don't they only even have 3
receivers and one tight end now? Why?
Would he?
Jaden Reed Finally. He had like a 90% route share a
couple weeks ago. Yeah, but aren't they like base
going to be a lot more three wide now because they don't even
have tight ends? Yeah, I, I, I don't know.
I'm not sure. They have all sorts of random
ass tight ends. Yeah, what about like that
Fitzpatrick dude? Is he not playing?
Fitzsimmons, can you? Can you think of any of the
tight ends? John Fitzsimmons Fitzpatrick.
Yeah, isn't he done, Mark? Chamura, John.
To Mus Musgrave, Mark. Chamura, Bubba.
Franks. Let.
Me. Let me see what they're done.
Sure. Michael Finley.
Duh. I'm trying to think of a good
fake tight end name to see if I can get Ding.
It has to be a non Packer because I've like locked it on.
Oh, you're locked in. OK, OK, you won't.
Be able to get. That's what I was trying to set
Leonie up to. Make up a Packer name for you.
Oh, if it's Patrick's on IR. Yeah, yeah, you.
Got Patrick scouted. Oh, Drake.
Drake, Dabney, Drake, Dabney. Drake Dabney, come on.
But the Packers, like they have in playoff games, played random
ass dudes like. Bo Melton.
Bo Melton, Malik Heath have big games and and you know, Golden's
you know, not going to play a lot but.
There was another tight end like that name, like Dominique
something a couple years ago that was his number was in the
40s. I don't know, how about this to
close? How about we, in honor of the
established The Million fellas, we each give a FFPC playoff
contest flag plant to to close out here.
Let's do it. Yeah, Pat, you want to, you want
to start? I'll give these guys a second to
to come up with something here. Sure, I will say Trayvon
Henderson, who I just don't think it's going to really get
played at A at a high rate. The the the boomer love is for
romandre right now. The projections don't really
support him. Is like that great of a play.
The usage has been kind of, you know, uninspiring recently.
But to me, I'm like you do have some there is some worry with
May, like May obviously I like as a play, but there is some
concern about do they do they play enough games?
Henderson can get there in a game or two and absolutely smash
because of his big play ability. And I have him right now at 14%
tied with Stevenson, just behind digs, tied with Henry.
I just as we're talking about early in the week, I was like,
man, if he's this great of a play, like he's really going to
be this low. I do think he comes in around
this number. I don't think there's a ton of
excitement to to get him in these line UPS like gigs is
probably a slightly more comfortable play and you know,
Romandre and Henry will get some share too.
So and obviously may will be the big chalk piece.
So fairly low owned Trayvon Henderson would be my flag plan.
Very nice, Gretch, you got 1. I don't.
Let me, let me. That's a buck for a minute, if
you don't mind. All right, I'll do mine.
I will say, but Texan Steelers is going to be overly faded and
soft faded. I'll say play 2 skill position
players from that game. Dalton Schultz, Kenny Gainwell,
There's your mini. Coral, I love that.
All right, Dinker Leone who? Who's got?
One, I'm ready to go. I'm ready to go.
All right, all right. So if I know anything about my
flag plane history, it's that it's either blocking us into the
winner or it's going down in flames and I'm going to win
either way 'cause I'm going Josh Jacobs, baby.
There was a second I thought we were going to get a Robodudes a.
I literally ruined Rome's career with the last flag plant.
I can't possibly. I can't possibly.
Do it to him Well, as someone who also has a collectively a
Roma Dunze clip in the hopper here we can handshake emoji
Ruini Grob's. Career took a while, but we got
there. I was gonna go Josh Jacobs.
I'll do. I knew I needed to leap in front
of Leone. I knew I saw the Leone Josh
Jacobs grin. I know it's.
Such an on brand pick for me. I'm seeing in Pat's latest
ownership a guy that we've been talking about his chalk all week
is not even going to be 30 percent, 29% chalk tight end.
I think Colston Loveland 80 plus percent routes just the last
three weeks, 10 plus targets the last two as part of that since
his role expanded. There's it's not a good tight
end field. I think you got to play a lot of
Coulson. Lolin there you go. 29%
projected ownership. Feels like.
I might as well just go down in flames with Justin Herbert.
You know where we're on there. One of us will probably be
right. Leonie Herbert.
Unless it's May, which. Probably could be both, could be
both. Could be both, could be both,
yeah. Get the Herbert Shootout win
with Endo breaking on long runs. Yeah, this is this is your job,
Evan, to go build these teams with the flag plants and then
you can be pissed at us when it doesn't hit.
That's kind of how flag. Plants work.
That's sort of how they can work, yeah.
You probably are going to get less of a response though,
sending those to the ship chasing, you know, e-mail
address, compared to complaining to the ETR overlords about
Dink's romebit over and over again.
Send it all to at Sam Sherman FB.
Yes. Yes, exactly.
Leonie, my first flag plant was going to be Buffalo Full fade,
but I felt like that was a little too trolley, I mean.
You. Can go for it.
It wasn't even like that flag plant.
It's a pretty good. Flag Plant.
Can that just be like our group flag plant?
What if this year the Aaron Jones, Jake Ferguson for 2026 is
Justin Herbert in Bill's full fade?
The that's the mini correlation you you need.
I think, I think Buffalo full fade is, is kind of like the
Herbert play to an extent, right?
Like, it's not one you're probably playing a ton of, but
the field's going to underplay it.
Yeah. Yeah.
All right, I wish, you know, if we were all young bucks, we
could go for another two hours and then stay up building
lineups for three hours. But we have a lot of lineups to
build, so we are going to bring this to a close.
Super fun week as always thanks to the ADP chasing crew, stat
chasing crew, obviously Gretsch joining us this week and and
Davis and Jacob and everyone who joined in the chat and digested
the ownership rankings from Pat and all of that good stuff.
So fellas, it's been another great year in the books.
Good luck to everyone getting their final line UPS in any
other final parting shots for any of you guys.
No, I'm excited man, Excited to build some line UPS.
All right guys, this. Is the year.
This is the year. That's the final parting shot.
We're going to do it. Flag Plant.
Shipping it. All right, guys, have a good
evening. Good luck this weekend and we'll
see you soon. Peace.