All right, Ship chasing is back at our afternoon time.
We're going to move forward here at this Thursday afternoon time
slot. We got lots to catch up on.
I believe last time the three of us were on air, it was a late
Friday night show with Dink and Leone getting ready for the FFPC
playoff challenge. So do a little recap on what's
transpired in the playoffs, how our FFPC portfolio is looking,
maybe if we got any other playoff best ball sweats and and
the like. It's good to be back, Pete,
Gretch and Pat. Let's do some ship chasing here.
Pat Fryer, Helmo 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. All right, fellas, it does feel
like it's been a long time here. We've had a lot of football that
has transpired since we were last on the airwaves.
How we doing? Gretchen Pat.
Doing good. How you guys doing?
Good. Yeah, there's been a lot of
football. We we're last doing the playoff
stuff. I was just thinking about it
before we went live. It's crazy.
Like, there's still a lot to come for the sweats for like
underdog where you're just trying to kind of advance each
round. But at this point, we're through
two rounds. You think of it as like, there's
4 rounds in FFPC, 110 of the 14 teams are finalized.
The other four teams have, you know, have played and we kind of
have an idea of what they're going to be as well.
Like the tournament's like 90% done right, right?
Yeah. Well over on on underdog and
stuff, it's it's kind of, you know, it's consolidated too,
because you're there's like kind of these chalk teams that have
advanced like you're kind of you're, there's specific
instructions that have advanced. So like you're like, you're,
you're happy if you have like a Mahomes Saquon, like I have AI
have a gauntlet that's Mahomes, Saquon, Kelsey worthy Hollywood.
But it's like in a pod with a like a better version of that.
And then I know when I get to, if I, if I get to the final,
that I'm going to be like facing off against probably better
probably blocks. There's probably a version of
that team that also has Kareem Hunt or Kareem Hunt and sell
Hollywood, right? So it's like there's that team.
There's also the, the, the Jayden Daniels version of, of
stuff with maybe that has Saquon too, but then also has chiefs.
So it's going to be interesting. I think the bills making the
Super Bowl would really shake up the playoff baseball concept
because there's very few bills that have advanced.
I also happen to have a live DK team that has Jayden Daniels and
Bills. So this is me also selfishly
hoping that the Bills get that team through, but yeah.
Because if you, if you would have known the outcome and the
scores of say like the Bills games and the fantasy points,
you probably would have just drafted like Allen, Ty Johnson
and like Curtis Samuel, like just like get through with those
two and then just have Allen as like your only piece.
I don't even know that you draft Allen.
I think you draft Daniels and Hertz and you, you know what I
mean? And you're like, I'll like
because Allen hasn't scored enough points.
I had some sick Allen teams I thought heading into last week
and I was like, as long as Allen does his part, I'm in and I'm
not. I didn't get it, you know.
Yeah, I'm, I'm similar to you. I have one team in the Gauntlet
final say it's actually pretty good.
It has seven live players, but it is there's a similar
construction to a lot of though, which is Mahomes.
It's Mahomes and Daniels on both of them.
And then I have Barkley. But the reason the team like
worked out so well is 'cause I had Ladd and JK Dobbins as a
round one advancement and then I had likely last week as a one
off piece. And those two things like helped
keep the other seven players intact.
But you you really had to thread a crazy a crazy needle there.
I don't I don't draft a lot of those, but that's what I've seen
on I mean, I was a Cam. I don't draft any of them other
than with you guys a little bit. But that's what I'm saying on
Twitter is people being like the ways to advance this year were
to just have like basically, not necessarily good builds, builds
like the what the the lineup center thought to be dead.
We're just taking random players from different teams that have
a. Bad.
Well, you needed to have like a kind of a team That was not what
I would say was like optimal, but wasn't a total garbage pile
either, right, Because you need to have a lot of teams that are
so the the nuts, the nut. Like if you have Jay and Daniels
with a bunch of Eagles, that's pretty sweet because especially
if you have like Bills or Chiefs on the other side, now you're
like, you're feeling great. You couldn't.
Get the Eagles through because AJ Brown's done nothing.
Devante Smith has done nothing like.
Well, that's why you need Daniels.
You have to have Daniel to make. You had to basically use you had
to build like the Eagles had a bye with commanders with your
bye league team. And but like then then you'd be,
but you'd still like built a very structurally sound team
with that one thing. Like I'm going to draft the
Eagles, like they're not going to score any points because they
have a bye. But then I'm going to like keep
it ideological after that so that I have like a bunch of live
commanders, bunch of live chiefs or Bills.
You're right. And you probably have lad or
some other advance rate piece on there too.
That's dead. But it's tough because you you
still need to have like, you know, 6-7, ideally more live
pieces, but it's tricky. Yeah, and we were talking about
this on Swellcast and Davis's line was Kitchen said did you
learn anything because Davis didn't advance any.
James and David just said what is there to learn?
And partly it does. Like with the randomness of how
some of this breaks, it's like, I don't know what the actionable
takeaways are. It's just a very cruel random
game. Yeah, I, I am, I am starting to
let's see, I got this, the team I got through in DraftKings,
maybe I can pull it up is I am, I am excited about it.
It requires, I mean, it has to be the right Super Bowl, but.
Yeah, the if. I get the right Super Bowl.
I'm I'm very live. So we should talk a little bit
about our FFPC, obviously, because we went pretty hard at
it like usual. Gretsch, do you want to kind of
maybe set the table for people kind of like what our overall
portfolio look like or what kind of our big stands look like
heading into the first round? Yeah, We had 80 teams in the 200
dollar one, so pretty, pretty big.
Went pretty hard at it. Like you said, definitely tried
to balance our exposures and stuff relative to Pat's
ownership projections, which came in really, really great.
We haven't had time to talk through that, but your ownership
projections were, I think, the best ever, right?
I think it was my best every year, yeah.
Hats off to you on that. That was awesome.
We had, I'm pulling up our leverage right now, our biggest
underweight position on I guess this is yeah, it ended up.
Being an actual. Leverage.
It ended up being Saquon Barbie. So we were like, look, you know,
we went down with Saquon in the regular season.
We might as well go. Down.
In the post season as well our third biggest was Lad Mcconkey
who scored the most non QB actually I think the most raw
points. Remember how grossed out the
chat was by the by the lad chalk?
The lad chalk grossed the the the chat could was barfing in
the streets. We had people watching while
they're outside walking the dog, just puking into the gutter and
he was the absolute nuts. He was and then we all get to be
to puke. He had that 88 yard touchdown
catch. I think that broke Leone because
the first game was going really well for our different positions
and that play because we had like an overweight position on
the Chargers D, for example. Yeah, and without that play,
Lad's score was fine, but not like you had to have it.
And the Chargers D had had a really strong game in a loss,
and they were looking really likely to be the optimal D.
And as soon as he had that play, it's like, well, now Houston's
D, who had already had a defensive touchdown, might be
optimal at a 2 gamer. And a lot of our like Chargers D
stuff was like predicated on Nico or we had our overweight
position on Joe Mixon as well, because the market really didn't
like the Texans to win. And we, it turns out, smartly
played the Texans to win more than the market.
Unfortunately, even though the Texans won, lad was so explosive
with that late 80 plus yard touchdown.
He had to be in and and the the the Texans saw fades in two
games were viable. So it was almost like you wanted
to be playing it the way that the field did as if the Chargers
won. That one didn't break our way
all really because of that Mcconkey big play.
That's why I say it kind of broke me in the first game.
But like as we were tracking it through the whole weekend,
everything else went really well for our positions.
We also had Maconkey. Maconkey wasn't like someone we
we played with a lot of teams, so we had good Maconkey teams as
well. 56% field ownership, we were at 40%.
We were 16 points underweight, but still had him on 40% of our
teams. So it's not like we didn't have
any Maconkey, right. And so we had some really good
Maconkey teams. What is that 40% of of 80 teams
is should be able to do that math, but it's 32, I think I.
Mean, I think that's all right. A decent number of teams,
obviously they have Mcconkey, and we had some really good
builds after the Saturday night game.
The Sunday morning and the Sunday afternoon was the Packers
game, and we had a really big overweight position on Josh
Jacobs. That was a very specific one
that we thought #1 the Packers had a chance to potentially
upset. They didn't really play well
enough to do that. But again, that we thought that
the field would play it less than the market was telling us.
The odds were because the market did kind of like the Packers in
a way that was maybe a little bit overpriced, but you know,
looking back on it because they didn't look great.
But Jacob scored their only touchdown and was sort of the
key piece in a loss there. And so we were pumped about
that. Jacobs was a guy we knew we
needed to get right. We locked him in as the as the
clear Packers piece, but he wound up not even really
mattering, in part because the chalk just absolutely smashed
in. This.
Contest you could also get that piece was with with Pickens and
stuff right. You could go get another guy who
was like solid in a loss. Those weren't like.
Even Pickens. Pickens, what wasn't super high
own, but in terms of actual ownership.
So Jefferson, Nakua were the top 2, but we were talking about all
this before Monday night and Jefferson obviously ended up
failing and it did. It did help us because we had a
decent Hawkinson position, but Nakua winds up with a pretty
good score. Saquons, the next guy he hits in
this tournament. Kelsey's the next guy.
Clear chalk tight end hits in, you know, in both games so far
he's hit big. Mcconkey was the next chalkiest
player at 56% by the field. He obviously was massive.
Derrick Henry's next, because the field really played Josh
Allen Henry combinations like we talked about and Henry had 190
something rushing yards and two touchdowns in the first round.
And so he was it over Allen and Allen threw touchdowns to Ty
Johnson and Dawson Knocks in the first round or whatever.
And then he became the logical 1 and he's in the second round.
So yeah, I mean, the Allen teams are very live, but oddly enough,
the Jane Daniels teams are are pretty live as well.
Not oddly enough, but the the Allen or Jane Daniels
quarterback path is is really going to be the answer.
And Henry, who was really chalky, is going to be the
Baltimore answer. And so anyway, the point was
like the top scoring players across the board, you know,
including like Terry McLaren, including Nico Collins, all of
these dudes scored. So the Jacobs play was like.
Yeah, Daniels should be amazing as like a pivot, but he's not
because the Bills don't score any points, so you still just
want Allen assuming they go to the Super Bowl.
Daniels now has to like go to the Super Bowl and not face
Allen to be the the quarterback that you actually want.
Because you'd probably rather just have Terry instead of a
Bill, right? The Bills don't.
It's all spread out so. Mclaurin's big first round made
it tough for Daniels. So there was a bunch of dudes.
When I say a bunch, there was maybe like 15, I can't remember
the exact number that had 34% or higher ownership, so 1/3 of the
field or more. And then the rest of the field,
the rest of the players in the in the player pool were 25% or
less. So there's this like real
delineation where you're either in a third of the lineups or
more or a quarter or less. And if all the players and a
third or more, basically all of them are going to be optimal or
close to optimal for their team, except for the players that were
the teams where there was multiple players.
So like Gibbs and Amanraw, the one that ended up working out
really poorly is the guy that I loved all week was Bucky Irving.
And he still had like 16 points, scored a touchdown and all this
stuff. But Evans was a little better
and Chase McLaughlin wound up wound up being a really great
kicker option. But the big thing that hurt us
on Sunday night was that Tampa Washington game.
We had a really big fade position on Mclaurin, one of the
ways, one of the. Ways this tournaments works is
even if you have a bunch of teams, you end up getting
funneled because there's like OK, you got a bunch of teams,
but like you don't have like every single combo evenly
distributed on each team. So what ends up happening is
like where are lad teams? Where are the LAD teams that are
paired with, you know, Houston D or Nico or, you know, like the
right fades on the other games that don't?
What are the lat teams that don't have Jefferson?
So you're like you're all kind of funneled.
I guess the Jefferson game was after, but you know what I mean?
You're kind of looking for the right combos and the combos that
we were looking at that were pretty good.
In fact that we're leading the contest.
We had the number one team in the contest heading into the
Tampa Bay game. So we were feeling good about
that team. That was a straight up
Washington fade, a hard fade, hard fade, which could have.
We had a bunch of other stuff. Yeah, that was that was all kind
of they lose. And they probably should have
lost. That was the other thing that
broke all of us. Because Baker fumbles an end
around. Play with Jalen.
McMillan, This is what I was talking about this offseason
about Jalen McMillan being unreliable.
This is he had these drops in. That's the shit that I was
trying to tell you guys. The biggest moments.
This dude is like not getting his hands up for a fucking
handoff. Like I was watching that game
and I was like, this is what I was trying to convey to people.
Like just like the lack of focus.
Anyway, the fucking settle was that they get a short field
touchdown, they drive all the way down and they have a shot to
score TD to regain the lead and fumble another snap and then
have to kick a tying field goal and turn the ball back over in a
tie game with like 2 minutes left.
Washington goes down, kicks the game whenever they win the Game.
2 snaps hap related snafus in the last like 2 minutes.
I mean that was a such a frustrating thing cuz to your
point we had a lot of these teams where we are fading.
Washington corn had a good game but not like a must have game
necessarily. I have.
A. Jacob B.
Both the kickers in that game were doing well.
If Washington loses that, we had a huge overweight position on
Zane Gonzalez. He becomes a really nice kicker
option that trades off with the Mclaurin stuff.
Because so many other chalk players hit, you didn't have to
have Mclaurin. You might actually have wanted
their kicker, even though Mclaurin.
Kind of sucked too. The losing.
The losing team kickers kind of sucked, right?
All the. Cookers were terrible.
It was it was like blowouts all weekend.
And so we're in this position where like, man, if Tampa pulls
this out, we have some really nice teams that do have Mcconkey
but have Washington soft fades. And instead, because Washington
won, it basically locked in, you're going to wind up needing
a Washington player. And and then it flipped the
Tampa side to the clear saw fade because McLaughlin had kicked a
bunch of fuel and we were underweight.
McLaughlin, as it as it turned out, because we had a lot of
Evans, we had a lot of Bucky. Some of the Evans stuff worked.
Some of the Bucky stuff was certainly not as good, but was
on some of our better teams. And we're sitting there like,
man, if Tampa would have pulled that game out, which is a
fascinating sliding doors thing, We were talking about it with
Dink the other day. Because Tampa would have played
Philly and then the Rams would have went or sorry, yeah, Tampa
would have played Philly. The Rams would have went to
Detroit. And so where would we be at now?
Because Washington goes to Detroit and wins.
Yeah, the whole postseason. Yeah, it's wild.
And the, the other thing too, you mentioned, like the chalk,
the one way you could tell it's pretty chalky is like there's a
bunch of like dupes up at the top.
You know, if if the if the bracket breaks in a slightly
contrarian way, you're probably not seeing too many dupes at the
top. But there's like a train here in
fourth place. Our guy Toyo looks like he self
duped himself here. The two teams in second are
duped. Toyo and duped both of my Toyo.
I love how he's duped. Yeah.
That's so good. But yeah, you can see that team
in first. So much chalk here, other than,
you know, mixing, mixing and Jacobs, I guess.
What? What did Jacobs come in?
Did he come in as chalk? He he was not really that he was
34%. He was like that last one I was
talking about that cut off of he's right at like 1/3 of teams.
So not like heavy chalk that. Counts as a pivot in this
contest. It does, yeah.
Yeah. But other than that, looking at
this, I mean, it's what it's it's Chase McLaughlin in Jacobs
like or sorry in Nixon. Rams defense Rams defense is a
big pivot. Yeah, getting off of Puka, who
was the second highest that's true roster player, which is
fascinating because they played two games and so to have the
Rams defense they have Jefferson that teams in first.
I mean, that's what, what am I because?
What Rams defense just had so many sacks in both of those?
They did. That's right.
They they were like. One of the nuts after that.
And Puka didn't really have a great game in either game.
I guess I hadn't really thought through that, but he didn't have
a great game in the first game. Kyron had more points in him in
the first game. The second game, because I
played a little bit of the of the round two tournament with
Sean and in the second game, which just starts in the second
round, he was behind Chiron for most of the game.
At the end, he caught a couple passes, went ahead of Chiron.
They both finished behind Higbee, who some people like
pivoted to and like some Higbee lineups have a shot to win that
Round 2 contest. But anyway, Puka's Puka and
Jefferson were the two chalkiest players wound up both being
players you didn't necessarily have to have, which is the one,
you know, way that Chuck didn't hit.
Right. Yes, Bruce saying was Texans D
the defense he needed. No, so far it's looking like
Rams. And there as I click through
some of these teams at the top, there were a lot of different
Texans. There's some mix in.
There's a Nico, there's a fair Baron.
But what? What's technically optimal for
Texans Nixon? I don't know.
I do. I think there's a couple
different combinations. First of all, because
essentially there was no clear one and done soft fade options
that were like really perfect. Like even that team just clicked
on Chris Ballwell. What's that?
McLaughlin was probably pretty close, but I don't think he was
played heavy enough. Maybe as maybe he was played a
decent amount, but just not like so, so much.
He couldn't have played that. Much because of Bucky Evans
chalk. Right.
Yeah, He was only played 4% by the field, but like you just
clicked on Boswell. Boswell was the chalkiest
kicker. He had like one point or two
points, but he's actually in some of these very best build.
He was one in some of our best lineups where we played him a
little bit sort of by happenstance for us because we
didn't have a big position on him.
Actually, we did. We we played him 19%.
So that was part of why we had him in a decent amount of teams.
But I think because the and one of the things we'll have to
think about next year, and I think as far as lessons learned,
as we've always talked about the soft fades, you want to play
them on one and done teams. Last year, the Texans were
optimal in two games. This year, the Texans were
looking close to optimal, but maybe aren't because the Rams
might be in two games because their players didn't really hit.
I'm starting to think that one of the like longer term lessons
is we have to consider more of these soft fades in multiple
game situations, which is. It's just annoying because
that's how the field plays it, right?
Well, it's like you're going to, we're probably going to the
field a little bit more on that. And yeah, the hard fades on the
teams that like you definitely like you really, really want
your hard fades to lose. So the the teams that get over
faded, you got they got to you want them to win like the
Packers. And it was frustrating because
the Packers, the Eagles do not look approved at all, right.
They they, they kind of tried to give that Rams game away.
The Packers go out and lose the opening kickoff to the fumble
and everything and then kind of just like just didn't have it in
that game. But the Eagles did not look that
great in that game. So in like a different universe,
I I could see the seven seed winning in round one, but
ultimately like, yeah, Jacobs didn't have a big enough game.
And then you then you lose the ability to have hard faded one
of the teams that that was pretty likely to lose in round
one. So yeah, but Boswell kicker is
probably worse than than it. I mean, that was chalk too.
I, I, I was wrong about that. I keep being wrong about the
chalk kicker. It drives me nuts.
I thought it was going to be Zane and then it ended up being
Boswell, which kind of makes sense.
But I actually think to your point, Ben is is probably not
good. Like if you're picking them to
lose you probably just hard fade them.
It it right, But it's it's the classic, you know, he feels
comfy because he had such a good season.
You know, Pickens limps into the playoffs doing nothing.
And even though you should just fade them, it feels good to have
a kicker that you actually like. It was the one name brand kind
of kicker. Right.
That was. So we just to finish that a
couple of thoughts there. We we went in the division round
not in great position. The Vikings Rams game did go our
way. We did need some like crazy
chalk to miss a little bit in the game.
It did. Big time, yeah.
Yeah, Hawkinson was a a big piece and he ended up the
Vikings top scoring player. So our some of our Hawkinson's
teams were in really good shape going into the division round.
The biggest thing Leonie was talking about during the week
was we needed A.J. Brown to come back and have a
big game for the Eagles and be right for the Eagles.
And Saquon went absolutely nuts against the Rams.
So that was the nail in our coffin was that Saquon game
against the Rams in the division round.
We're pretty, pretty dusty at that point.
But to Pat's point, we had the team that was number one unduped
overall with a Washington fade. If Tampa would have won that
game. In addition to that part of the
IT wasn't just that team. We had another top 10 unduped
team that had the Zen Gonzalez thing we were talking about and
had either Evans or Bucky. And then we had, I want to say
two more in the top 100 that were reliant on this Tampa over
Washington path. They're really pretty reliant on
that. So we were going to have like 4
really nice combinations going forward.
If Tampa would have just closed out Washington in a game that
they fucking should have won like they they absolutely should
have won. So I thought a couple people
were asking about our Jane Daniels teams because we do have
some Jane Daniels. What what percentage was he
rostered and what did we play him at?
Daniels was, I mean we had a, we had him in, I want to say like
he had six climates, maybe 66. Let me find him.
He was in 3% of the field. We played him 9%.
We had seven. It was right between what me and
Pat said. The tricky thing on that is we
all really like the Daniels stuff.
And when we started to do our builds, we were like, OK, we'll
start with some of the, you know, the, the non chalky
quarterbacks. Let's knock some of those teams
out. And we built the Daniels teams
1st. And I remember this because on,
on Saturday, we were going back through like a whole portfolio
trying to like line things up and figure out some of the
combinatorial stuff. And it's, it's a, it's a whole
process when you do a lot of teams in, in this because
they're, they're all uncorrelated builds, right?
So you do, as Pat was saying, like you do wind up on these
certain paths where you're like, because of certain things
happening, all your good lad teams have this and you don't
you still want to have your lad team spread out on the Bucky
versus Mike Evans point, right? Like you want, you don't want to
have everything be completely lined a certain way.
So we're trying to do that as best as we could.
And we we were talking about Daniel's and I remember him
being like, I don't really want to touch with Daniel's teams.
We spent the most time on that because they were the first
teams we did. And we really did spend a ton of
time on it. And not because we always start
really inefficiently when we start our Bills on Friday night
after the show, but after the contest had started and we're
looking at it, we're seeing Daniel's could be good.
I kept looking at those teams and I'm like, man, these are
like they're not our best builds.
It's like we kind of, as we started building more, we kind
of found the things that we liked and we had some really fun
builds. I think with other quarterbacks,
this is just my perception of it, but we because because we
started with the Daniels builds, I feel like they're overly like
leveraged and wonky and weird, not like our best possible set
of seven Daniels teams. We played all the, I think as a
as a whole, the issue with our Daniels teams was that we played
Daniels as A2 game play. We never played Daniels to beat
the Lions. What happened, right?
So like it was all like, well, we got to make sure we got
Cortland Sutton in there. We got to get right.
We we would saw fade Buffalo. So the album wasn't even in the
tournament. Yeah.
And then? Maybe let's fade bucker so we
don't even have a chief. And it's like, what if, and I
know this thing's crazy, but what if the commanders win two
games? Like why?
We didn't really build line UPS like that, which is another
path. The most the obvious path was
Daniels is optimal in two because like Allen blows it and
Lamar doesn't and it's Henry and then like, but they lose to the
chiefs or whatever. But we could have just done the
simplest. The path of least resistance
really is just like the commander's surprise.
And in three games, Daniels is optimal.
If it's not Josh Allen, if it is Daniels, the Bills, what is it
going to be? James Cook, Who's it going to
be, do you guys think? Probably cook.
Probably. So I'm looking at our teams.
Of our seven teams, it looks like we had two cooks because to
Pat's point, we did. We did Bass, we did a hard
Buffalo fade. We have two Shakur's, We have a
Daniels Kincaid team it looks like as well.
So we were we were doing these weird like one and done
potential scenarios or fluky like 2 gamers for Buffalo
because you're you're inherently fading Alan.
And to your point, you're like, we're thinking, oh, well, it's
probably a 2 gamer for Daniels. So we need Alan to like, you
know, not be right. And so we need some weird things
to happen for Buffalo And we did other weird stuff.
We have some KCDST on two or three of these Daniels teams
looks like. So there's just like.
It's too much weird. I'm bummed about that because we
we did like the Daniels position, but you, you build 80
teams and you're three times the field's weight and yet this is a
12 man lineup and you just don't have a good combination for what
actually happened. It's it's a dynamic that you
were just describing that kind of plays out like in basketball
mania drafting right where say you go hard at someone like
look, this is actually a really good example.
I was drafting a shit ton of Marvin Mims at the beginning of
the season and then I'm like, all right, this isn't looking
good. Like I need to back off of this
exposure. Sean Payton's going to Sean
Payton. Then at the end of the year, I'm
building my information heavy teams.
You know, I'm getting my Jordan Masons on there and building
these really good teams and I'm done taking Marvin Mintz, who
ends up being a really fucking nice piece and.
The plus but. I'm already done with it from an
exposure standpoint. And it's like, how do you break
out of like these takes I have, I want to sprinkle them out
throughout your whole portfolio. It's hard to do.
Yeah, but you know The funny thing about what I just said of
like, why didn't we build Jayden Daniels just to beat the Lions?
I bet you we don't end up with Gibbs on those teams, right?
And we need you want Gibbs back. So it's like Daniels.
How do you get to Daniels Gibbs without some goofy, you know,
Tyler Bass, Scotland, Sutton pivot?
It was kind of tricky. You you kind of we always talk
about building a bracket and then playing that bracket.
And it was Daniels was a tough one to like really see like, OK,
the Lions are going to score very they're going to run the
ball really effectively with Gibbs and he's going to go nuts.
But then they're going to lose at home.
Like, OK, what are they going to give up 45 points to the rookie
quarterback? Give me a break.
That even setting aside the Buffalo stuff as you were
talking through, like how bad you want Gibbs, we have 7
Daniels teams. Again, I just mentioned that
it's 3 * a field because of the way that this tournament just
works out as you build stuff. We have 3 Gibbs teams, 3 Almond
raw teams I'm missing. Maybe we have a Lapora team in
here. And then we had four Mcconkey
teams with Daniels as well, which is like 4 out of seven.
We were actually underweight the field at 40%.
So we actually got a nice little bill or no, sorry, it's only
three. So now I'm lying.
Anyway, three out of seven closer to our actual percentage.
The 33 Mcconkey teams, 3 Gibbs teams, we landed with two that
have both Mcconkey and Gibbs who both wound up being like these
awesome one off pieces on Daniels teams but like 1 is a
KCDST team. The other one was our best
Daniels team but it it ended up with Bucky and A.J.
Brown. That's the one where we needed
A.J. Brown or we needed Tampa to win
and get Bucky. And that's the thing where a guy
like Jacobs or Pickens or Sutton not going like nuclear in a
loss, really, or like Hawkinson, like someone it would have been
if you're doing the Daniels thing, right, and you're doing
like, OK, let's play it. We're going to be a little too
cute. And we're going to bet we're
going to take. Tyler Bass.
We're going to take, you know, Justin Tucker, right, Raven's D
that didn't work. But there's in this contest you
can sometimes be saved by like getting Ferguson, you know, and
there was no Ferguson this year. Didn't have a Ferguson didn't
really have anything close. So that's another thing that
kind of broke against. So we we kind of sprinkle around
looking for Ferguson types. There wasn't one.
Yeah, and I think, you know, it's always going to look silly
when the chalk smashes, but the amount of line UPS you have to
compete against when one of those underdog or contrarian
plays does land in the optimal, it's like, holy shit, there's
six other teams that are even live to compete against for
this. And so I do think the lesson
there is still like, I I want to press those spots because it
won't always go so chalky. You just, you just look like an
idiot when it does go super chalky because you're like.
Why wouldn't you have? Jameer Gibbs on this team.
Yeah, This is why we do 80 teams in this contest too, because
like we we do want to press those spots and some of the like
the the the player that we played, the absolute that that
we played at all that was in the fewest number of teams, I
believe was one of the Packers receivers because Leonie was
insisting that we do a little bit of Jane Reed, but then also
a little bit of Dobbs and Wicks. I think Wicks was only in like
40 teams. I think Dobbs only in like 50 or
maybe even less, but like one of the things that happens is in
these 12 man teams, like, OK, well, you're you're really we
only put these guys into like one team, which and I think it
was sharp to your point into what Leonie was arguing, I think
was was was frankly sharp. If those guys in a loss
outscored Jacobs, which is not hard to see.
All they had to do was be the guy who scored the touchdown at
the end of the game. They scored one TD in the fourth
quarter. If instead of Jacobs, it was
Wicks catching that, then he's like a really nice piece in this
contest, especially if the chalk didn't hit as much as it did
this year. We talked about how.
Frankly been crap because remember we were thinking Kraft
would have done this the push push instead of Jacobs he got he
got tackled right at the one and we all thought Kraft was
probably live to get that tush push.
That's right, kind of a goofy way for the tight end to get in.
But like, easily could have been craft.
Yeah. And I mean, the, the, the, my
whole thing though, is like when you build any teams, you build a
couple of those guys in even when they hit in this contest,
like part of the reason we're building a teams because even
when they hit this contest, it's like, what was that a Daniels
team? Was that an Allen team wasn't a
Lamar team? Maybe like, and then suddenly
you're like, well, Lamar was not right at all.
You have to get the core pieces right, you know, and there's,
there's just so many different ways that this build can go.
I'm looking at our best Daniels team that has Gibbs and
Mcconkey. It's a KCDST fate, which I think
is the biggest issue. And it had Sutton on it, but it
has Henry as James Cook, it has Mike Evans, it had Hawkinson in
addition to Naku. It has Saquon on it.
Like, does it say no? We did play Saquon on some of
these teams, I guess just because it has Casey's DST
instead of Kelsey, Like because Kelsey wound up being pretty
important out of, you know, he's really hockey and he scored a
ton of points. What?
What place is that team in? I don't know.
It's our team four. It's numbered.
Because you also think about like from a, a leverage
standpoint, like how do you keep Josh Allen?
You know, KC defense has a couple, you know, scores.
Then all of a sudden it's like Jane's optimal KCDST can maybe
approach Kelsey a little bit. And then you wipe out the bills,
too. Who is out there in that team?
The bill on that one? Is well, if you wipe out the
Bills, then you get KCDDST in the Super Bowl.
You need to pick. You need Jane Daniels to get the
Super Bowl. They meltdown.
I mean, if we're just talking real football, I mean, KCDST is
the best player on the Chiefs after Kelsey, I mean, so I don't
mind that. I don't have a counter.
Kelsey has just scored so many points.
I'm trying to, yeah, I've pulled this up.
It's it's in 201st, but maybe it's still alive.
I mean, it's got Daniel Saquon Cook in KCD.
Yeah. I mean, I don't know.
There we go, fire me up. Mike is the ultimate leverage. 2
pick sixes. Who says no?
Who? Says no, it's only, it's in
200th, but it's only 33 behind first.
I mean, I say only, but like you're matching a lot of the
players, so you need to gain 33 like Casey's D has to gain 33 on
Kelsey. You know something like that has
to happen. We would be at Daniel's.
What Daniel's? Nuke in the Super Bowl.
Daniel's Cook, James Cook, is that her?
That's what we would do. They probably want.
There's gotta be a big case of DST.
Kelsey. I'm trying to think that's
Kelsey with the DST. I'm trying to think the story
where James Cook goes nuts and the KCDST also has two defensive
scores. This is a team where we're
talking about the the Chargers win thing.
The reason we weren't talking about this team more and Leona
Pride doesn't talk about it more is this a team where we did
Mcconkey, Kaimi, Fairbairn, we were doing what the field kind
of did. We talked about even though we
were heavier the other way in this game, we were playing the
Chargers to win. We are playing the Texans to get
eliminated and soft fated them. And then when the Texans win,
you actually wind up with Fairbairn, your kicker versus
your DST in the second round. And you're like, well, this
isn't great. One of these teams is going to
advance. And yeah.
That's where that's where next year, if we do that stuff with
Daniels, I think we we should use it to play both sides of the
game or play a cheat. Let's like make sure that
doesn't happen. I don't want to end up, I don't
want to get Daniels right and then have Houston kicker versus
KCDST. Like that's just that's why were
we that specific? It's annoying.
I actually love that point. What what we did with a lot of
these Daniels teams is we said because he might need a 2 gamer,
we need to shoot out in the first round.
And so we do want to play both sides of Washington.
Tampa, that's I mentioned a little bit ago, our other team
had Bucky and I was like we might need Tampa to win.
And then I realized, well, we didn't want Tampa to win because
it's a Daniels team. We were, we played one Daniels
with Bucky. Most of our Daniels was with
Evans, which is nice because Evans did outscore Bucky, but we
were saying shoot out you want. We should have said we want but
we need, but teams are dead if Daniels loses round one.
So that was actually we should have.
Hindsight helps a lot here. But you could have, OK, it's a
shoot out, but we have to have the Bucks lose.
They have to lose. What's a good play there?
OK, good play. The kicker, you know.
It. Is.
It is so much easier to do it when there's like, all right,
we're just going to analyze this one thing that didn't go our
way. Now imagine doing this without
the benefit of what happened and be like we're going to go
through every single situation with that level of specific.
'Cause we did have one Daniels Chase McLaughlin and I and I
don't think we played a Daniels Tampa DST, but we did a Daniels
with a full Tampa fade. So two of our 7 Daniels teams we
did play that way as well. We were like, look, we're you
know, we're not playing a bring back necessarily.
We just liked the bring back on five of our seven.
Our our Daniels McLaughlin happens to be our Buffalo full
fade with Cortland Sutton on the team, you know.
And Bruce is saying maybe the play is whoever your quarterback
is, you always choose the opposing kicker.
Dsti think generally you don't. You just want a hard fade.
You're opposing quarterback because most of the time you're
opposing the quarterback will be Allen, he'll be Lamar.
Those are huge chalk pieces. And so you're like you're dead.
I mean, you're dead, dead, dead if they don't if they don't win
round one. So like, pick them to win round
one and you don't even need it to be a shootout because you're
you're saying you're probably dead if they don't make the
Super Bowl or at least, you know, go three games.
Maybe Allen in two could be optimal if he goes nuclear, but
that's probably more round two than round one.
You're betting on that like in a loss.
So when I when I'm thinking about Daniels, it's it's not
because of the quarterback thing.
It's because he was a contrarian quarterback that I'm saying
could be optimal in two because he goes nuclear in both games.
So that's a more specific bet where you're going.
OK, then I probably we we played it as we were all aligned on
this. Let's get more Mike Evans in
there. Let's get more Bucky in there.
This is going to be a big good game environment.
Those two guys are going to score well, they both did.
But ultimately you'd just rather have faded them and taking the
kick. Another thing I'm realizing we
did a lot of, and we did on this one that we had McLaughlin, is
we use that extra flex piece not to play both sides of the AFC
team like you were saying, but to play Josh Jacobs onto this
team because if Green Bay upset Philly, it helped Daniels path.
I still like that. I still like.
That if Green Bay and Washington both would have won in the first
round, Green Bay goes to Detroit.
But. They beat Detroit.
They went to Detroit. Detroit, you're like, this is
the best. Way to help Daniels get him
going away from Detroit and then just goes into Detroit and
fucking beats them. I mean, that's the other part of
it. There's the whole what if Jane
Daniels is just him element of of every contest.
You know, any best ball contest, anything you're building, you're
like, well, what if this is just the breakout moment for this
player, you know? Yeah, Yeah, it is.
It is hard to know, like what what are actual lessons like in
the way we do it. Like we do jot down some notes
each year of like process tweaks we want to make.
But you also don't want to like overfit it to a specific set of
outcomes and then get away from like we were saying, like you
still want to pull those levers. You still want to press some
spots that you think the field is overconfident in.
What do you guys have any macro takeaways?
I know obviously the slate's not settled, but kind of just
talking through some of the stuff that you want to do
differently. I think Pat was just doing a
really good job of talking through I what sort of a second
order effect of what we are already talking through, which
is not to think about your kicker and DST as like needing
to be like soft fades, I guess because there's just so many
combinations even in a year like this where all the chalk hit,
we're seeing Boswell up near the top.
You know, like you don't have to be perfect.
And so like Pat was saying, well, you, you you want your
quarterback to win the first game for sure.
You might as well just hard fade the opponent and give yourself
some other outs. Like we've we've always talked
about picking a bracket and not necessarily worrying too much
about optionality. I guess I'm going to be a lot
more open to optionality, even with the the soft fades and and
then how the bracket can play out and thinking more about, I
guess the teams, right. Like, who makes sense for the
Bills? It's mostly Alan, even in two
gamers, you know, Alan can be the dude.
Then I want to play him without really worrying about how far
I'm picking the Bills, you know, and that kind of a thing.
It's tricky, but yeah. Yeah.
I think one of the things for me, that's kind of this is the
thing I kind of already thought, but I think one of the things
that this year, again, kind of underlines is like in the
playoffs, if you're unless you're betting on a team to
lose, it's really nice to have the engine of the offense.
You know, And this is I think where you're seeing the chalk
hit so hard this year is because like, you know, in a way that's
not going to happen quite this much every year.
But I know in a in a way that I do think is part of the way the
playoffs work. Like when the Eagles win, it's
because Saquon Barkley had a good game because their whole
offense is built around Saquon Barkley right now.
You know, that's why I like the Jacobs piece so much, is that
like, their offense was Josh Jacobs to close the season.
And so if they win, you're going to have to have Jacobs.
Like Jacobs is going to be the guy because they beat the
Eagles. So he had a good game and now
you're getting them in a second game and they're going to build
it around Jacobs again and you're going to feel really good
about having him. But even in a loss, he was fine.
But The funny thing about the way these things work is who's
next year's Josh Jacobs? Like there probably isn't 1, You
know, it's or like you, you almost got to like look ahead.
Like next year we should be looking for who's the Aaron
Jones, you know, who's the Ferguson?
Like go back a couple years because Jacobs was kind of Cam
Akers from years ago. But the Cam makers wouldn't work
better because Cam Akers and the Rams beat the Seahawks in that
game. And obviously we didn't get it
with the with the Packers. But yeah, I kind of like I'm
filing away like types of plays from each year and it's sort of
like you're reviewing like, do we have do we have an acres
again? Do we have a a Ferguson again?
You know, that kind of thing. One thing I think I want to do
more of to the Ferguson point is take two years in a row we've
said, you know who we're not fading the Uber mega chalk
receiver because he's just too good.
He's too locked in. Stevie Lamb got to play him.
Puka got to play him and and that's I think that's a leak
like let's let's have more courage and fade the biggest
chalk on the board and then we're obviously that's going to
kill us next year, but like. I know we did that.
We did that in 2021 with Cup and it wasn't great when they went
all the way to the Super Bowl. You had to have cut, you had to
have cut. But I think Jefferson was also
that. Jefferson, we did hear.
What? When the Giants beat the
Vikings, I think it's been 3 of the last few years where there's
been a shock. I think he was a A.
Miss, That's a shocking. He was a miss, yeah.
He didn't want, I think he wanted to talk.
So like that's I think one of the bigger edges is like 8085%
of the field is going to play this guy.
And if they lose, like that's probably bad because you could
soft like soft fading because I mean, we're probably not
catching Ferguson, but what if we had Dallas kicker last year,
you know, one more instead of more CDs.
So taking the guy who's like 85 S locked in at receiver, which
you know, you know, can fail any week and and soft fading that
team. Yeah.
Catches in that Giants game. So it's your point.
It's been I think three years in a row it was that Jefferson
lost, Vikings lost to the Giants, then Lamb last year and
then both Jefferson and Puka. Really.
Cuz the Rams D winds up. That's a pretty good play.
And I think my take away just knowing how much, but we were
relying on the Bucks to win because looking at that spot, I
think it's the spot we would say the field is being too
overconfident, right? Like we kind of fell for that
same trap of like not building out more soft fades of the box,
knowing that that would be underutilized by the field.
Like we basically were in line with the field right on our
Bucky and Evans ownership. Yeah, yeah.
And thinking through that overconfidence, there is
probably like a good take away of like, in the same way like I
was OK, like fading Jefferson. I'm like, you guys are all
piling in on this. Like, I don't necessarily love
that spot, but it was like, it is really hard to do it when
it's like. 2 plays is. Like everything you love.
But I do think maybe a humility in that spot would be would be
pretty. Yeah, that's a good point.
That's a good point. Bucky and Irving, we were 6%
overweight, Bucky 4% overweight. Evans, we underweight sort of
the other stuff to offset that, but we played a lot like we 96%
of our teams had either Bucky or Evans.
We we didn't play McLaughlin like at all.
So. Yeah, that was a mistake.
Yeah. How did Montgomery do, Pete?
I don't know what this is in in reference to, I don't think.
I mean, Montgomery, like, didn't get played at all in this
contest, right? No.
And I don't think he was somebody we ever really talked
about either because Gibson Almond raw so.
And if you did play him, that team is dead.
Toyo chiming in in the chat because someone mentioned he did
the dupe thing in the $35 contest too.
He says it was a clerical error export error in which I intended
to input a lever and he's not doing OK about it.
Well, if if those teams finished first and 2nd, you'll be doing
plenty fine with it there. It happens, it happens.
Casey says Leone dunking on us with the olds.
We maybe shouldn't dismiss them as much.
That's an Evergreen comment there.
Any other like maybe zooming out from like the contest specifics?
Any other like either things that have really surprised you
in the playoffs or things that have delighted you?
We we haven't really gotten to talk about these games outside
of this fantasy lens. Jane Daniels is going to be a
future MVP. Like this dude is the best
player to enter the NFL in a long time.
Yeah, it's been. A yeah, I mean doing.
I've been working on the rankings for the big board.
Well, really, you're already at that lab.
Oh, yeah, I'm, I'm pretty deep in the lab because it's like,
you know, the big board will be out like pretty soon, I think.
So we got to, you know, we got to, we got to get things sorted.
Daniels, we have a head of Hertz quarterback 3.
I mean, I'm just kidding. I'm just.
Kidding. Maybe.
But like, yeah, I think he'll go
ahead. Like, I don't think that'll be a
stand. I think he'll go ahead.
That's where he's gonna go. What do you what do you have it
as, Alan? Lamar, Alan.
Lamar Hurts or sorry, Alan? Lamar Daniels Hurts, Yeah.
He's in that group for sure, you know?
Yeah, definitely. I think it'll be some debate we.
There will be people that that want Daniels to be the QB one I
think, right? I I don't know if he necessarily
should be. The size stuff is still
important. He did get banged up this year
and couldn't throw down field for a good chunk of the season
as a result of that. I mean, Allen and Lamar have
done it for a long time and scored at a really high level.
I think I should say could be Allen Lamar.
You can debate the order of those.
We have them back-to-back. I also like the other thing that
could actually boost him is if they invest in a wide receiver
in free agency or the draft. Like if they get a name that
gets people excited then you're like holy shit and he just got
an extra weapon and Diami Brown isn't his wide receiver too.
Like that could be fun. For sure, yeah.
And I guess I didn't really think about this, but I thought
I thought Kingsbury would be gone.
But with Ben Johnson landing in Chicago, I haven't really heard
a lot of buzz. Kingsbury It was a little bit of
buzz at King. Jacksonville mix, I don't think.
Yeah. And we're left with just a
couple spots available now. So I don't know.
The nuts to go to the Raiders. Yeah, I don't think think he
might be back and and that would be I think, a pretty big
positive for Daniels. I think the offense was cleverly
designed for Daniel's strength. But in Daniels is just I wrote a
whole piece over at the newsletter for anyone who cares
about some longer thoughts about it.
But I got asked by my subtitle was a question from an IRL buddy
Sparks a random long post because I got asked from one of
my one of my good buddies. We talk sports all the time, you
know, like, basically just how was he so good?
And I went into just this long, like take about him, but you
just don't have a dude this athletic with this much arm
talent and accuracy and the throat of Diami Brown that they
kept showing in that game where it's under pressure.
I mean, when you're off platform, you're under pressure,
stepping into a hit, being able to hit those throws downfield,
that's what the best pocket passers were able to do.
You know, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady for their whole careers
deals is doing that shit as a rookie and he's a a hyper mobile
quarterback. Once you have all of those like
things and the ways that defenses have to play you, they
got to put more guys in the box. Like that's part of the reason
why like all Lamar's receivers have these great separation
stats, etcetera, etcetera. Once Lamar developed and
especially the Todd Monk and offense came around and
developed the he's always been a good passer, better than people
give him credit for. But the really elite passing
stuff, their offense looked unstoppable too, because you
have to count for him in the running game with extra guys in
the box. Allen, same thing once he
developed as a passer, took him a few years, but there you get
that mobility with that type of touchdown field and consistency.
But Daniels I think is even more of a consistent downfield pass,
consistent downfield passer than and I think Alan and probably
Lamar, I mean, he's dude he's got.
He's not as good as a runner. As those guys, he's not as good
as a. Runner as Lamar.
No, but he's so good as a passer for a dude that's as mobile as
him, it's like, yeah, it's a really hard thing to scheme for.
That's what my whole piece was about.
Anybody wants to read it, but it's like, it's as far as how
defenses are going to play him. That's why he's so good.
It's you can't do anything about it.
You can't just leave. That's why Brian Robinson had a
great year running the ball, right?
Like, and their RPO offense was really good and we had like
Zacchaeus and and Zach Ertz popping up on good games.
Like you can't account for everything.
You where are you going to put your numbers on defense, right?
Like you can't take away everything.
So anyway, he's a, he's the biggest storyline of the of the
postseason for me and really fun dude for the future that yeah.
Matt wants to know where you have Terry Mclaurin in.
Early ranked? Let's see.
He's what early fifth round pick I think is where he closed this
year. We don't have him super high
because hang on, I got this sort of like quarterbacks Mclaurin,
we have it 35 or 30, yeah, roughly in that range because I
don't know what I don't know what ADP will be at.
FPC actually has some ADP looks like McClure.
Yeah, because FFPC launched their never too early basketball
contest. He's got an ADP of 34 over
there. So we're we're kind of in line
with that. But the concern with Mclaurin, I
would say is that they're pretty live to add somebody.
The other thing is like you talk about Daniels, you know, what
are they, what are you kind of looking for him to improve on at
this point? And it's like just like, do it
at higher volume like this, like this, this is what we want.
No notes, just like more, you know?
And so, so like, that's pretty appealing if you're a receiver,
right? You're like, there's openings.
They like, I can replace Olamita Zacchaeus or, you know, whoever
else. And I can or like, you know, run
out of the slot. Zac Ertz is a free agent.
They'll probably come back, but like, there's plenty of targets
available in this offense for a talented receiver.
You could see a Chris Godwin wanting to go there.
You know, you could see T Higgins wanting to go there.
If he if he obviously he doesn't return to Cincinnati.
Devante Adams is essentially a free agent and it looks like
Rogers is going to retire. So like he could end up he's got
a, you know, chance to like play with a fun young quarterback
slash, maybe ring chase. At this point.
They like they're not not in the ring chasing conversation.
They're about to play in the NFC Championship game.
So I think with Mclaurin you are, if it's this setup again,
he's a steal at at like 30-4, but it might not be the setup
again. And he only had a basically in
line with his career numbers in terms of targets per outrun.
He's always been really efficient.
He had a high A dot, he had a strong like weighted targets per
run, but it was about 21% targets per outrun. 1.98 yards
per outrun is good. It's really good being around 2.
I mean this is what PFF numbers is solid.
It's one of his better seasons of his career.
It's not like, and this has been the whole thing with Terry
Mcgorner's whole career. Some people want him to be
really, really good and he is really, really good.
And then now this year, I think a lot of talk was like, well,
he's just never had a quarterback and he finally has a
quarterback. He's never been an elite
receiver. He's never earned targets the
way elite receivers do. Even with bad quarterbacks, he's
always been a very, very good, but not elite, a great but not
elite receiver. So you start talking about third
round and you're starting to talk about added competition.
That would be a concern for me. I think it'd be still very good,
so at third round I want a guy who can finish top five, you
know, for a wide. Receiver yeah, I agree we're
we're probably going to be a little bit behind market to
start I and just baking in some of the downside.
But look, I mean, if he if they do bring in somebody and then he
ends up being like a fifth round pick or sixth round pick, like I
think I'm pretty into that because he can obviously have
good spike weeks to a really strong quarterback.
But like, just to compare him to Nico Collins, who would, you
know, be kind of the breakout receiver of 2020 threes, really
strong rookie quarterback season.
He had 3.11 yards per route run, which is absolutely insane.
And then this year he was at 2.86, even with the offense
taking a step back, far more efficient than Mclaurin.
So that's like Mclaurin just didn't have anywhere near that.
Like, OK, you're now an elite receiver.
Now, granted, if he did, he'd be going in the second round, not
the third. But yeah, there's just like a
little, he's a little fragile and the ceiling, like what's
different next year? Why would it ceiling unlock
next? Year that wasn't available,
people are going to double count that because they think that he
now finally has a QB and so now he is the Nico Collins.
But probably this was like his best moment.
He's going to be another year older as well.
He's not a young receiver. He's like 29, right?
He didn't come in super young. He's at least 29 I think.
Yeah, he turns 30 in September, so yeah, he's going into his his
seventh season. He started as a 24 year old.
He was an older like you would think at 29, this would have
been one of his best years without much competition.
And it was it was a really good year, but people talk about it
like it was a top five overall year.
And that was the thing to your point, Nico, back-to-back years
over 2.8 or higher yards per hour run.
I was just saying Makono's about two O right, Like that was the
thing where I was talked about with A.J.
Brown starter's crew with 2.5 plus every year.
He's probably, you know, continued.
What? What would Terry's be at if he
played alongside Stefan Diggs and tanked L for the year?
A.J. Brown has been 2.5 or higher
yards per hour run every year of his career.
Jamar Chase, you know, every year, you know, about like the
very best wide receivers, they're at 2.5, They're at 3
yards per out run. To Pat's point about Nico, like
1.98 is very good. He is very good, but just, you
know, pump the brakes a little kind of thing.
One more, one more of the where? Where's JSN at?
JSN. We have early 3rd.
Yeah, 30. And let me see, he's got an ADP
of 30 on FPC. On FPC, we have my 33 right now
because more tight ends jump him.
So basically like kind of the same thing.
I think my my take on JSN is like you got a new offensive
coordinator, which for him isn't great since he became the number
one down the stretch. I kind of prefer the status quo.
I don't like, I'm not sure Gino's locked in and Gina to me,
I'm like Gino's like the best case scenario, but they don't
seem completely sold on Geno. So that worries me a little bit.
So it's less about them adding somebody than about like what's
a team that could bottom out next year?
And I think Seattle's fairly high on that list, especially I
think who's their OC? You know, 181 yards per out run
got by a little bit on routes this year. 625 routes is a huge
number. There was, I think he was like
fifth in the NFL in routes, not so much great on a per route
basis. I mean, I think you can make the
case that he's going to be overdrafted next year.
Yeah, I mean, I'm, I'm, I don't think we'll have like a big fade
position, but like two or three picks behind ADP most likely to
start. Obviously I don't know what
underdog ADP is going to be, but but yeah, I mean in the third
round, I think he's fine. Yeah, the argument for him is
like he was a a young rookie. He had a really strong second
season and we don't necessarily know what a ceiling is.
He's still in 2223. It looks like in a couple weeks
he could be an even bigger year 3 breakout.
Like we just talked about Nico Collins.
His big breakout was year three, similar to this, actually, in
these yards per out run ranges in year 1 to year 2.
And then year 3 is when he really took off JS NS not Nico
necessarily, but it's with Terry.
I'm talking about a guy we've seen six years on and he's never
been higher than two point O 5 yards per out run at 30.
What do you what's going to happen?
You know, like, how's he going to become even better?
It's funny to think that JSN and DK Metcalf could just do like an
exact flip in ADP spots from. I think that's kind of what's
going to happen, although Metcalf will be higher than JSN
was in. JSN will be probably right where
DK was though, so they'll both be a little higher but.
Where do you think Metcalf's going to come in?
Probably in the 50s. So that would be slightly higher
than JSN. Little higher than JSN.
Yeah, JSN was at times in like the eighth round last year, but
you're thinking like fifth round.
I'm thinking fifth round. One guy I think we'll be pretty
high on compared to the market, at least where FPC is right now
is, is Marvin Harrison. I think he should go on the
third round. People over you're saying
overreacting too much. Interesting.
Yeah, yeah, cuz like he, you know, this dude was one of the
best wide receiver prospects ever.
He. I think was at like 1.6
something yards per hour and ultimately, which is not great,
but it's not like a huge red flag.
Lots of really good receivers kind of start there.
Trey McBride is the number one there, but he's got solid
quarterback play and very little target competition outside of
the tight end. And so I think you could see him
taking more and and also just like being better and lifting
the ceiling of the of the passing game down the stretch
next season at the third round Price, you know, man, it's just
like from the the pedigree and like a pretty good situation.
And not like it's not like you had a disastrous rookie year
now. I mean, we just got JSN in the
eighth coming off a disappointing rookie year and
you'd probably prefer to get more of a discount than that.
Then you know, we're going to get on Harrison, but I don't
know, I think Harrison in the third is going to be pretty
good. It's a, he's a really good
example of betting and uncertainty and some of those
things, which is similar to what we did with JSN last year.
Rowan a minute ago said that like Terry's no Nico third feels
solid for that profile. I don't think a top five, I
don't think the top five upside really exists in round 3.
And I, I kind of earmarked that in the back of my mind because I
was like, I mean, I just, I don't think I could disagree
with you more, buddy, because that's like where Cooper Cup
went and he had, you know, the greatest season of all time a
few years back. There's other.
Examples worth I think. He was like 434 turns.
Higgs was fifth in his It's happened a ton.
Allen, it's happened a ton. It just maybe hasn't happened
last like one or two seasons. But I bring that up because you
said Harrison in round 3 and it reminded me of that comment
because what you're describing is like this guy wasn't a
legendary receiver prospect. What if he does have the huge
year to take off season? Are we really going to say
Marvin Harrison can't be a top five wide receiver?
We're drafting him in the first round as a rookie.
You know what I mean? Like there's obviously pass and,
and when you're talking about round three feeling high on him,
you push him down to round 4 around 5:00.
I mean, maybe feeling a little high, you push him down to round
4 around 5. Like you're still talking about
Marvin Harrison definitely has top five ceiling like those
guys. It looks like this early.
Round three pick and for a while in this year as a rookie was
looking like he was going to be a top five rookie, you know,
overall player and then, you know, have young players can do
it from round three, yeah. Absolutely, yeah.
Harrison's been drafted it looks like 4 times on FFPC looking at
fantasy mojo stuff. Four times that's that's our
sample size. Right now there's only 6 drafts
that have been started. So yeah, four, maybe 6 drafts
he's been drafted, but he's he looks like he's got an AP of 39.
So early 4th rounds, but maybe even a little later because I'm
not sure how far along that fifth draft.
Is where does Brian Thomas come in?
Oh, I think Brian Thomas is going to be like 1-2 turn. 1-2
yeah, yeah, I figured higher. Is he going ahead of neighbors?
Let's see. Thomas I don't want to I don't
want to be like anti Brian Thomas.
No, he's going, he's going. He's going after neighbors.
And we have it that way too. I've seen that position quite a
bit that people are saying Brian Thomas has to go ahead of
neighbors. And I'm like, man, this has been
something as far as like edges and things to think about as we
go into the offseason. That's something I've been
hammering in my content for years.
But people need to take a longer view and really still consider
the college stuff after the rookie year.
You just said it with Marvin Harrison, Neighbors was
meaningfully better than Brian Thomas in the same offense for
multiple seasons. Meaningfully better.
Go back and look at all the numbers.
Go back and look at the per out stuff, the volume, earning, all
of it. Neighbors had a worst
quarterback this year. He's got continuity at the
coaching position. They're going to get a
quarterback. Worst quarterbacks, Neighbors
would have killed for Mac Jones, right?
It's been delighted to have Mac. Jones Brian Thomas also late in
the year was getting a ton of designed looks.
I still think he's a superstar, but he was getting a ton of
design looks because every other player in that offense was
injured. They lost Christian Kirk, Evan
Ingram and Gabe Davis, and they were just throwing him wide
receiver screens like nobody's business in the last month.
I still think, again, Brian Thomas is is a star.
It was situationally, there was really no comparison.
And then he doesn't have a coach right now.
We don't know if Trevor Lawrence is any good.
Like more importantly the Longview stuff on the player
talent. Like I feel pretty confident
that Malik Neighbors is better than him because they were in
the same offense and he was better than him.
I don't think anyone's going to. Well, we'll see.
But I mean, right now I was looking at, yeah, the ADP for
neighbors is 12 and Thomas is 14.
Yeah, I'm fine with that. People are going to get upset or
get excited about the QB upgrade for neighbors and I think
that'll that'll. Keep that, that'll help for
sure. I was also looking at Hayden's
ranks. Let me see where he's got it.
He had I think his neighbor's at 14 and Thomas at 13.
OK, so so Hayden has them, has them the other way.
So maybe, maybe there will be an.
Argument there's, I've seen that on Twitter a few times.
So anyway, I just want to it's not they're going to be close.
It's not a huge deal. I guess my argument is long
term, looking at their prospect profiles, their, their draft
capital, all that stuff. Long term, if you told me one of
these guys is one of the five best receivers in the NFL in two
or three years, we're thinking about him like Jefferson and
Chase and A.J. Brown.
I would bet a lot of money it's neighbors over Thomas.
I still think Thomas is going to be very, very good.
I think he's more of like the 10th best receiver in the league
than me. Too that, but I do think like if
I was going to make the counter, which again, we have neighbors
ahead and I think neighbors should be ahead, but which guy
is like when I turn up in week 17, I'm like feeling very
confident that I'm like sick Ryan Thomas is on my team.
Like I'm feeling good. Like, you know, Lawrence is
healthy. Everything's like normal.
Lawrence is healthy. The Giants quarterback's
healthy, right? But like, fortunately the Giants
quarterback is Aidan O'Connell or something.
It's like the corpse of Kirk Cousins.
Or like, what? What is the The upside is?
I guess it's Darnold. But it could get Week 17,
especially for neighbors. Could get bad because Darnold
could be bad. Dabol gets fired.
Like now we're back to DeVito in Week 17.
I could imagine feeling pretty awful about neighbors in Week 17
because of how uncertain that situation is where Thomas is so
locked in. To at least.
Trevor Lawrence, which isn't ideal, but it's, you know, it's
better than. I mean, Giants have the third
overall pick if they don't get anything done in the in the free
agency period or anything else if they don't land down there or
anything, even if I know it's not a great quarterback class.
But even if quarterbacks go 1-2, don't you think they're just
going to take a quarterback at 3:00?
No, there isn't a guy. There's no quarterback at three
if if they go 1-2, there's two quarterbacks in the first round.
Like they would take Jackson Dart in the second round maybe
or Jaylen Millro in the second round or something, but you
don't. Ward, there's not.
You are the only ones I've been hearing, probably through the
process some. Some other guys might bubble up
like Dart. So like I was listening to Nate
Tice and he was saying he has Pam Ward ranked, like he had JJ
McCarthy or graded, I should say, like you had JJ McCarthy
where he'd like you'd be comfortable to take him to 25.
But then like half round inflation, you get to like the
early teens and then there's no quarterbacks in the class.
So like maybe we just take him one, but he isn't really there
with Shidur Even so the guy you're talking about like that,
you're just like, fuck it, we need a quarterback, let's take
him is kind of chador for. A lot of people.
And he might be gone at 3:00 and then there's like not really a
guy, I don't think maybe maybe, you know, it's a long process.
There could be. I think Jackson Dart has his
fans. Mill Row was like looking like
an intriguing first round project type of bet at one point
and seems like that's cooled off.
I think it's like. That is, the Titans or the
Browns don't take a quarterback because there's Abdul Carter's
like a sick edge prospect and obviously Travis Hunter.
So those two guys maybe maybe like the Browns, just like we're
going to take our favorite of those guys and then they take
Shidora 3 or something like that.
So they have a decent amount of cap space, right?
Yeah, they're like middle of the pack.
I just looked it up over the pack, over the cap.
I guess what I, what, what I was thinking is even, I mean, I, I
do know that the quarterback class is not expected to be
great and maybe they won't take one at three, maybe they'll have
to trade out or something. I think Dabel knows that he kind
of like needs to take a quarterback at this point or
else, like you just said, he's got fired.
I think the, the overwhelming wisdom or like thought process
is he's getting fired this year. But if you take a quarterback,
you almost buy yourself another year.
Like I think they're like really likely to be like, we actually
want to handpick our own quarterback.
Let us do that. You kept us on to let us do
that. We we got settled with Daniel
Jones. And so they're going to do
almost anything in their power. They might trade up, you know,
to get to. They could trade up.
Top one, maybe give up a future 1st to do it because they're on
their last year. Who cares?
Yeah, yeah, they don't give a shit.
Like it's not our, it's not our money.
We're going to be gone anyway. But then also bring in a vet as
a bridge. So like it it you mentioned JJ
McCarthy. It could wind up being very
similar to what the Vikings came into this year with where they
just replace Cousins with a Darnold McCarthy tandem.
And if you do that, then I start thinking, OK, well, the
quarterback play has a little bit of a higher floor when you
give me two options. I mean, I made that case with
the Raiders last year when you had both Minshew and O'Connell.
Those guys are both bad options. But it did actually end up being
a pretty decent passing environment.
Bowers ends up having a great year and still doesn't.
The Raider had to play and then it was horrible and doesn't know
how to play. But that's so frustrating, like,
you know, I had a 555 with Bowers and it was like, as long
as Bowers has a good game and then you're like, does see
Desmond, you're like, I'm so fucked.
No for. Sure, but I'm hoping the Giants
love two guys where the floors like, you know, a little bit
there. What?
So dude, in ranking the quarterbacks, it's so ugly.
Like I have Chador and Cam Ward in there and then I'm like, I'm
out of quarterbacks by 30. Like there's just not enough
dudes. Like I think is Daniel Jones
starting for for a team this year is well, that's why I
think. Donald's gone from the Vikings.
I think Daniel Jones and McCarthy is what the Vikings do.
I think they just keep him. Minnesota, he chose to go there.
Kevin O'Connell seems like a guy who likes likes to give guys
other chances and like build them up.
And they want to probably turn it over to McCarthy after Donald
completely collapsed late last year.
I don't think Donald's going to be back.
Like Hayden, for example, I know has been talking about they're
going to use some type of tag on him.
I guess I'd be kind of surprised the way that O'Connell talked
about it after that loss too in the postseason.
He had some really good, like, I, I tweeted about it.
I, I thought he's a great coach and just like a good, like
thinker. A lot of really good stuff about
like, like perspective about like, look, we've been through a
long journey this year and, and things that we can do better and
things that Donald can do better and all these things.
When he was asked directly about it, he wasn't avoiding the
question, but he also was talking in a way that was like
certainly wasn't like that chapter is certainly over for
us. But to me, it was like, I wish
him the best sort of was the vibe that I got, you know, in a
very like mentor way. But I don't know, I just never
really heard a coach handled something as well as I thought
he he handled that. But the the vibe that I got, I
could be wrong, was that he was basically like, yeah, I mean,
we're we're going to move on from it.
So I'm assuming that McCarthy, I'm assuming that Darnold is
elsewhere. I'm assuming that Fields or
Russ, let's say, but I think it's probably Fields takes the
Steelers job. And I'm assuming that, you know,
like some of the like Justin Fields is still, sorry, Geno
Smith and Derek Carr and like kind of like the some of the
starters we're like less excited about are all still in place.
What about and? You were saying, what if he's
gone? Well, but I what I'm saying for
this is that I'm assuming he's there.
I'm still I'm still and I'm assuming Shidor starts week 1
and Cam starts week one. I'm the quarterback short,
right? So here's the guys someone
starting from this group. I get like or maybe, maybe
another name, but Kirk Cousins, Daniel Jones, Will Levis, But it
won't be him. Gardner Minshew, Aaron Jones,
Deshaun Watson. Obviously won't be Russell
Wilson. You think it's?
You said Aaron Jones. Did you mean Aaron Rodgers?
Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, so I mean between Rodgers
and Cousins. A team at the Giant retires, I
think. I think Rodgers is going to
retire. Maybe he retires, but I think
it's possible he continues to play because he wants to go out
on his own terms. Cousins, I think, start
somewhere. Yeah, I think that's what it is.
Probably it's cousins. He's going to get cut or
whatever, but wherever he goes, he's going to go where he thinks
he can start. It could be the Giants.
I mean, I'll take Kirk Cousins throwing them in league
neighbors. Fuck it.
Yeah, it won't be great, but it'll be.
Better won't be great last year. It's something I'd like Cousins
to the Browns because then the Browns can take Abdul Carter or
Travis Hunter and like get a blue chip defensive guy, which I
think I I think Hunter. That's another one of the big
questions the offseason is what position is Hunter play?
It seems like cornerback. What are you, what are you
putting him at? Because I think I heard
underdogs just going to put him as a wide receiver and let
people take the risk. Oh, he should be.
He should. If they don't list him in a wide
receiver, I'll be annoyed. I want him in the pool.
Yeah, he'll be in the pool. I think he should be.
We, we have him at like 1:30. That's that's where.
We have him Jalen Polk range. Jalen Polk range where like he's
he's he could literally be a zero all year.
So you maybe there's a chance he plays receiver?
You could draft Travis on the set up, Kirk Cousins if we're
going to extend that. And I feel like he's going to be
a top five pick and even if he is a corner, he's not going to
be a 0. They're still going to put him
on. Off won't be a zero, it'll be a
0. Yeah, you'll have some trick
plays and some shit that maybe it'll work out.
The issue is the ceiling though. Like you're like at what point
is it OK to not really have a ceiling for sure?
You know, like you're like in the best case.
Scenario is like discount Jameson Williams or he's just
like racking up explosive plays on pretty limited volume.
Right. It's like where does like one
spike week get me to where I'm like, man, OK, that's fine.
And it's it's not it's not like the knife.
You just. Count Marvin Mims, even.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
A few manufactured touches, a few bombs.
Yeah, but I, I mean, I don't know where he goes.
It's I think we're probably fading him, but I would kind of
love if he's announced as a corner and but honestly, like if
he's a receiver, then I'd be really in.
He plays both ways. At the NFL level for a period of
time, I honestly it. Would be so fun young.
Players like they're going to draft him really high.
He did it in college. He's not going to like when they
start interviewing him at the combine and stuff.
He's going to be like, I'm playing both ways.
Like stop asking me that question.
You know, like when Lamar would people like, are you going to
work out a receiver? He's talking about quarterbacks.
Stop asking me this stupid question.
Like this is just speculation about him because people think
he's a better corner. I think he's going to be like,
you want to draft me? I want to play on both sides of
the ball. That'd be my guess.
Man, I, I think I'm, I think I'd get mostly on board if he is was
adamant that he's playing both ways and the team and that
started to be noises that the team drafting him would be open
to that. Then I think then man, you'd
talk about him maybe in the 70s, something like that, because now
you actually do have a bit of a ceiling.
It's risky. It's still like riskier than
it's a lot riskier than Tat because he might not play
offense. But this dude went and played
for Dion the last, like the last best guy that played a little
bit on both sides of the ball. Dion actually played some legit
receiver for Dallas for a season, followed him to
Colorado, desperately wanted to be great, desperately wanted to
win the Heisman. There was talk about that.
There was like a whole campaign. Players don't want to just like
limit their ceiling and go, I'm going to go play defense my
whole career. This guy wants to be known as
the greatest player of all time, like play individually.
He wants to be elite at everything.
I think he's going to play receiver and.
We need we need FFPC to judge his question to weigh in and
what they'll do because they they're the the site that goes
with the official depth chart, even if the basketball contest
has been opened. So what is it 80s quarterback,
what happens? Tell us now.
That would be incredible. We need.
To know. All right, well, we're gonna
have a we're gonna have a long offseason to discuss all such
matters, but it was good to sync back up.
Like I mentioned at the top of the show, we are gonna be
rolling regularly in the afternoons on Thursday, which is
what we did last year in the offseason.
Works much better with all of our schedules.
We'll also have ADP chasing you guys will keep your your Monday
time. Although there was something in
your group chat path that you guys were going to maybe try to
get together for an episode later this week, or I guess that
would be tomorrow. Yeah, I need to figure that.
Out. So maybe that'll happen.
You know, we had we had the bike show Davis Matic bills versus
Chiefs angle in case you didn't get enough of the Davis Matic
versus Liam angle there. And why is Lambie on radar?
The Davis Matic versus Leone angle?
I mean, there, there's Davis against the world.
That's true. Oh man, we had yeah, Mike was
busy, but it's it's he's lucky the bills won, you know, cuz
it's it's a it's a different vibe.
If if we cancel the show after bills win than after Bills loss
you know. It's true, it's true.
All right, appreciate you guys. If you want to hop in the
discord, you can become a YouTube member, hop in there.
Otherwise, you guys should see ADP chasing and then we will be
back next Thursday at this 3:00 PM Eastern Time.
All right, for Gretch, for Pat, I'm Pete.
We'll see you guys next time on ship chasing.