We finally made it. We are here for the fantasy play
offs. It is best ball pod advance
week. Unfortunately my trusty Co host
Draco is under the weather so we are sending our thoughts out to
him this week. But you are getting a very
special solo edition of Stat chasing this week.
Or should I say stack chasing? Pat Fryer Helmo, this is Anita
handjob. Fix your sight.
Jamar Alpha play chase. You can't handle the heat.
It looks like we're finally at this point, you're right.
Good evening everybody. Thank you for joining me here.
Happy best Fall pod advancement Week.
For those of you who celebrate, we're going to have a little
slightly different programming tonight than you're used to.
Normally I've got my my trusty Co host Drico with me, but he is
unfortunately under the weather so I'm just going to be rolling
this one solo and I just can't stand my giant face on this
screen, so I'm gonna go ahead and bring the charts up right
away. Things will be a little
different here without Draco. Honestly, he is the best Co host
I could ask for because he really lets me take what I've
synthesized from all of the stats that I've poured over and
the games that I've watched. And he kind of lets me vibe out
with it a little bit more. And then he keeps me more
grounded where I might say something that is outlandish or,
or what he feels may not be consistent with the data or
he'll have a good supplemental point to something that I say
and and he'll kind of keep us on track.
So it's going to be a little different without him.
We're we're just going to get the pure sack word vomit stream
of consciousness tonight. So what you can expect from
tonight is probably worse takes and analysis than usual.
A guy who you know, likes the sound of his own voice way too
much to be willing to do a show solo.
And you're definitely going to get a lot more playoff best ball
and things that are just more directly in my wheelhouse that I
am comfortable with because that's that's what sack chasing
is is going to be all about. So I think before we start
diving into the stats here and going through our charts per
usual, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge that it is
playoff or basketball pod advancement week.
I hope that it is going well for all of you out there in the
audience. Pretty pleased with how the
season went for myself and I've seen lots of people in the
community with really good advance rates and some fun
teams. Lots of people at the top of
some of the leaderboards, like for regular season prizes or for
the marathon. I won't jinx any of you who
happen to be sitting near the top of the marathon, but just
know that I am watching your teams eagerly hoping that you do
take down one of the big ones here, and and hoping that I
don't see any of you in my pods. And if we do, I I wish you the
best of luck in all your other pods.
But that's enough rambling. You're, you're all here for the
stats, so we'll get into our quarterback chart.
I'm not going to do the normal preamble where we explain what
the chart is. It's week 14, man.
If you're still here, you know what this is about.
The first note that I had on the quarterback chart is
surprisingly playoff best ball themed.
I know that you're shocked, but the guys that I wanted to talk
about fall into the category of kind of disgusting quarterbacks
that I'm like, not super excited to watch play NFL football, not
really excited to have on my fantasy teams.
Like if I see these guys on a team, I'm advancing in a in a
normal regular season basketball pod, I'm like, ah, shit, I wish
I had a different quarterback. But for playoff best ball,
there's a confluence of factors that make them much more
palatable. And those guys are Trevor
Lawrence and Bone Nick. So you can see where they're at
on the chart. They're both in the quadrant
where it's these guys have volume but lack efficiency.
They're getting a decent number of drop backs per game.
Bonex has had this a little bit inflated where he's he's got
that, you know, crazy overtime game where they ran a ton of
plays and there have been a couple.
It really just feels like the Broncos find themselves in spots
where it's like, oh God, we need to come back in the fourth
quarter. And there there's nothing we can
do except let Bonex throw it 20 more times in the game.
And like, if you remember the Giants game that happened, you
know, you get the Commander's game that happened.
So Bonex just does this weird thing where he's not
particularly good. He's very inconsistent, but he
has like he's good for like 3 or 4 really sick plays in a game.
And like, even as the certified card carrying member of the
Bonex fan club or Bonex Hater club, excuse me, I I have to
admit that he's got those in the bag.
Why he's so interesting for playoff basketball is he's a
quarterback with a pulse and he falls in the quadrant, one of
the two quadrants where it's like, hey, this guy has a
volume. He's not down in the, you know,
Aaron Rodgers quadrant where, hey, that is a guy who could be
live for playoff basketball. His team is, you know, favored
to make the playoffs in his division over the Ravens, but
just the volume is not there. And like, sure, he's a little
bit more efficient than Bodnik's, but I mean, the the
difference in number of drop backs is more than gonna make up
for that difference in efficiency.
And so combine that with the fact that the Broncos are one of
the teams with the highest odds of making the Super Bowl on the
AFC side. And when you couple that with
Bodnik's price as well, where I feel like on DraftKings, he's a
lot more hotly contested, there'll be teams where I just
get sniped on Bonex and on Underdog.
At least today in the limited drafting, I'm done.
He's a little bit easier to kind of like stake your claim on,
like if you get RJ Harvey, no one, at least so far for me
today, I haven't really had anyone try to contest me on
Bonex. So he's pretty interesting.
I really like him at his price. He's definitely one that I'll
probably have a lot of if the current market behavior holds.
The other one I mentioned is Trevor Lawrence.
So Trevor Lawrence is like the emergency, like break glass kind
of quarterback where what I've been realizing more as we've
done more stuff with The Sims and playoff basketball is the
game is just a little bit different than I think a lot of
us had come to understand it over the last couple years.
Where I used to think of the game as, you know, by any means
necessary, get a viable Super Bowl line up.
You know, one one that has like at least a decent chance of
being in a Super Bowl and and has, you know, the ability to
fill out my starting roster in every draft that I do, right.
It's so important in every draft that I do.
And I actually don't think that's correct.
I'm pretty sure. And we've got some very solid
math to back this up now with The Sims that what this game
actually is is it's just a it's a game about patience, man.
You you just got to go into the rooms.
A lot of rooms aren't going to break your way.
People do stupid stuff. They blow up your stack, they
they snipe A combo that you need.
What have you, you it it might even not be that anything in
particular goes terribly wrong in your room.
You just might get kind of ho hum combos and and it's just not
going to be enough to take down a finals in that particular
Super Bowl combo. You might finish, you know,
highly, but you're just not you're not live for 1st.
And So what The Sims really helped illuminate for me is it's
more about trying to tread water in the rooms where you can't get
these monster teams and you're just trying to stay alive, stay
alive until you can hit that big play.
Basically you're, you know, you're trying to be the
quarterback that has a better success rate than Bo Nicks, but
still is able to deliver those big plays downfield.
That's what you're doing in playoff basketball.
You need to hit the deep shots. That's how you win all the
money. But you can't just go and turn
the ball over, go 3 and out all the time when you don't get the
monsters. And that's, that's kind of how I
feel like we had been playing in the past and people who had
followed kind of conventional wisdom had been playing in the
past. And, and I do think that it's
better to have break glass options like the Jaguars and
Trevor Lawrence in your bag where if I'm doing something
like, man, I really want to want to try and get a super strong
start. I got CMC and Saquon.
I'll try and get Hertz and all the Eagles.
If I miss out on that, though, I've got these really strong NFC
pieces where if those teams are in the Super Bowl, they'll be
the highest projected player. And so I'm just gonna play it
through some low probability AFC Super Bowl where this guy's and
this team is gonna get at least a game 'cause they're very
likely to make the playoffs. Maybe they sneak to if they do
go on a run. This is how I actually win all
the money. And I did it in a way where I
didn't just punt my entry. I'm not like dead to advance
round one anyway. That's probably a whole lot more
playoff best ball insight than you cared about for Trevor
Lawrence and Bonex specifically. But I felt like those guys stood
out to me probably just cause I've been doing so much playoff
basketball drafting so much of them.
But where they're out on the chart, it's like I got my
playoff basketball beer goggles on now.
You know, they're starting to look a little Trevor Lawrence
and Bonex. They were like a, you know, 2
out of 10 earlier, but it's close in time now, baby.
And they look good enough to take home on some playoff
basketball rosters. So all right, next next note
that I had this is a short 1 Jacoby Brissett.
He can't keep getting away with it meme.
I've if you've been watching the show, I'm pretty sure for like I
don't know how many weeks it's been now.
It feels like forever, but I have consistently said like
whatever Jacoby Brissett projects for in whatever
projections it is that you're using, go ahead and bump that
up. Just the volume is so ridiculous
there, man. I mean, he he averages the
highest number of drop backs per game now, I believe, if my
memory serves, they get the Texans this week and they're
missing. I believe they're they're
starting tackle. So it's bad news for them this
week. I might not be quite as
aggressive with the Brissette projection bumps this week as I
have been in the past, but I bet you I I still bump him up just
purely on the fact that his volume remains under projected.
In these past couple weeks, I've been adjusting his projection up
as much as like if he'd he'd projected for like 16 some weeks
or things I'm projecting him for like 20 or like there is a week
where I think Mahomes projected for like 2122.
And and I had in my notes for the slate like make sure percent
should project for as much as Mahomes on this slate.
And I was like, oh God, I don't know if I can can bump him up
that much. And so I I chickened out a
little and and moved him a point lower than Mahomes.
Then sure enough, that was the slate where Jacoby was like mega
optimal. It's like I should have just
listened to my own analysis. But yeah, Brissett just
continues to be fun. It'll be curious to see how he
fares against a really tough Texas defense this week.
But feel pretty good about that call.
And I do think that for the rest of the fantasy playoffs, you
know, you're pretty happy to have pieces of this Cardinals
offense because the volume is is just really, really good.
And I guess more specifically, the passing game.
Last note on the quarterback chart.
We're going to we're going to keep it tight here.
The last guy had was shooter Sanders, who had been so bad in
previous weeks and over such a small sample that he kind of
broke our chart. It's just like so low on the
chart that it skewed everything and made it really hard to, you
know, get a good visualization of where everyone else was.
They just were all too tightly clumped together because of how
terrible he was. Has a monster game against the
putrid Tennessee Titans team. Like absolutely awful.
I do want to inject like a little bit of caution here for
anyone who is like, oh man, I can totally play shooter Sanders
now or the the Browns passing game.
Like they've got the solution. A big chunk of this efficiency
for shooter was generated by huge yards after catch by his
receivers. So you have Jerry Judy takes a
slant to the house monster play. I can't remember exactly how
long. I want to say it was like a 60
yarder or something ridiculous like that 60 yard touchdown or
something adds a ton to Shuder's numbers there where, you know,
we can't take that away from him and and say like, Oh well,
actually since the receiver ran after the reception, it doesn't
really count for Shuder. Like that's not what I'm saying.
But what I am saying is it's a lot more volatile than, you
know, if he's hitting guys and and doing that with like
significant air yardage behind it and not as much yards after
catch. The other one you get a huge
Judkins run after the catch as well.
So anyway, just wanting to add a little bit of caution there to
the CHADUR efficiency. I would expect this to regress.
But yeah, overall my sentiment is bullish for the Browns, where
this seems like a meaningful upgrade over Dylan Gabriel.
I know that's not a huge bar or a very high bar to clear.
But yeah, ultimately think that it's a a positive for him and
the Browns going forward. Just something where I I don't
want to like read too much into it here, so I'll go ahead and
move on to the next chart here. We've got the running back snaps
and usage my notes on this one. All right, this one I think
pretty important for playoff bestball.
Also kind of be useful for DFS. And you know, if you've got
these guys on your, your teams and basketball pods, you, you
probably care about this. But the Kyron Williams versus
Blake Coram stuff like how much of this was signal?
You know, how much of this is like, Oh my gosh, like we need
to be worried about Kyron Williams, but Korum is taking
over. I'm here to tell you, if you are
a Kyron Williams manager, don't fear.
This is basically the exact same split that has happened over the
last four games. Granted, Korum had a little bit
of an uptick in usage this game, but that's 'cause they're
beating the brakes off a shitty Cardinals team that you know,
they they don't really need to to go out there and load Kyron
up with touches. So Korum does see a little bump
of usage, but I'm pretty sure it's it's very game script
driven and also Korum's like efficiency just looks really
good. He popped a popped a big run,
gets a touchdown look good on it.
Don't want to take anything away from him.
He wasn't like terribly explosive.
Pretty sure he gets caught from behind if it's like 10 more
yards, but like good enough that he's a serviceable back.
He is like a a solid backup running back.
Never someone you should be like playing really in DFS or or even
like, you know, AA12 man underdog draft.
That's like not a thing that you do.
The fact that it got there is like very, very cool.
Like you played a player projected for six points and he
he happened to smash. All players who are are
projected for six points can smash.
You know, that can be in their range of outcomes.
Like I, I think back to, I want to say it was last year, I want
to say it was against the Panthers where people were
talking about, oh, do you play Tyler Algier against the
Panthers? Because there might be a ton of
garbage time. It's like, I mean, no, like cool
thought. And yes, it, he does end up
smashing in that game. Think he puts up like 20 half
PPR points 'cause he gets 2 touchdowns, but that's just like
not a thing that is good process.
It's a thing where you're going to lose money over the long run.
If you're chasing these really low projection players and
saying Oh well this game script is gonna be the thing that leads
them to fall into the end zone twice.
It's like any anybody that is getting touches can can fall
into the end zone twice. Like you don't need to go chase
a guy with, you know, a projection of 6.
That's just not a thing that I would recommend doing.
So in summary, not terribly concerned about Karen's role
going forward. I think this was pretty game
script dependent. Probably makes a quorum price a
little bit more expensive in playoff basketball, but he was
already a pretty important piece just to be able to fill out Rams
Super Bowl rosters because the Rams really don't have very many
pieces that are viable. Like on underdog.
I'm not drafting any Rams receivers outside of Puka or
Devante Adams. Like you can miss me with that
22 out. Well, shit or whatever, whatever
random guy you want to click there, you know, that's that's
good for you and it's not something I'll be doing.
But quorum is kind of like my last stop there.
And then on DraftKings, sometimes you just find yourself
in a position where you got to click a random Rams tight end
and and you just got to do it. But for the most part, quorum is
like my drop deadline on Rams. I'm not going to take anyone
that projects for lower than him in playoff basketball.
OK, next note I have here, I think is I think are all of
these on the the next slide? No, I've got Tony Pollard here.
We'll we'll do Tony Pollard before I go to the backups only
note that I have here cool game. Tony Pollard.
I don't think there's a ton of signal here.
They just you know, the Browns did not show up to play and
there is some really poor play on some big Tony Pollard
breakaway plays like that, that long touchdown run.
There's just a lot of guys falling down.
And so that was cool. I was happy for Tony Pollard and
it it helped me advance some teams.
I I have way more Tony Pollard probably than I should.
I think our inputs may have been a touch hot on him given the
overall offensive environment this year.
So I think Tony Pollard might have been one of my process
misses this year for regular season.
Best ball. But sometimes better be lucky
than good baby. So we will take the Tony Pollard
nuke game when we needed it here.
OK, the next running back notes I have for you I believe all
come from the backups chart. So let me go there.
Yeah. So Omari and Hampton, he is
bigly back looked really good in the usage that he got.
He did. He did miss, you know, he had a
a bad Rep in pass protection. I didn't think Vidal was perfect
in pass protection either. For the record, I think PFF had
them graded slightly higher, but there there's a play where I
felt like Vidal it, it might not have been his fault, but if it
was his assignment, he he missed the assignment.
But yeah, I, I think over time you're gonna see Amari and
Hampton get more and more of this role.
Vidal could be annoying in that he could hang on in the passing
game, but it's not like Hampton was unused in the passing game.
He looked good and very fluid when he caught the ball as well.
So if anything the most annoying thing would be if Vidal carves
out a third down roll and they really like him and prefer him
for pass protection stuff because of how Hanford this
offensive line is with all their injuries.
I mean they lose Trey Pipkins as well in this game.
Like the the Chargers are probably the least lucky team as
far as offensive line injuries this season.
Just when you consider like the number of offensive line
injuries and the caliber of players to which they happen,
like charges are down really bad at offensive line.
But overall, I think very bullish for Hampton.
He's someone I'm super excited to have on basketball teams.
Like if you've got him into the playoffs, that's pretty good.
You're you're pretty, pretty stoked for Hampton there.
Next note I had Oh man. So for every rookie running back
that we are excited about, there's a a rookie running back
for which we are sad. And this poor guy doesn't even
make the chart for us because his snaps just aren't high
enough. And that's Basial Tooten.
Basial Tooten 2 really bad fumbles.
Man gets benched for fumbling the game.
Even when it's out of hand and they take Trevor Lawrence out of
the game. Basial Tooten still does not get
snaps. It's still ETN.
Pretty pretty bearish there. The the like Basial Tooten
breakout week just seems like, you know, he took one step
forward and and maybe 2 steps back.
Maybe it's a 2 steps forward, one step back thing and we're
just in the middle of the step back and it it feels bad in the,
you know, the world's ending. If you drafted a bunch of Basil
Tooton. I got a bunch of Basil Tooton
teams in the in the best of all playoffs, and I sure hope he
could do something. I think at this point for like a
a real ceiling outcome, you need a ETN injury ET NS a great piece
in playoff best ball, by the way, like phenomenal advance
rate piece. And like the kind of guy where
if that team makes noise and goes farther than you think,
like he's just, you know, it's all it's all gravy, baby.
But yeah, Tooten. I mean, even after the game,
Liam Cohen had a comment where he said ball security, something
to the effect of like ball security is really important or
ball security is at a premium or something.
It's bad. It's not great for Tooten.
So sorry, Tooten Bros think it was a really good process pick.
The guy looks good. Unfortunate about the fumbles
and unfortunate timing for the injury on the game where he is
like taking over with the hot hand stuff, but that's just the
way she goes sometimes. All right, those are all the
running back notes I had on to the tight ends here.
All right, we got to, we got to start with the cover boy, I
believe, Trico said. He has been the cover boy for us
three different weeks so far this season and that is our duck
footed king, Harold Fannon. I mean, what can we even say
about Harold Fannon? He is the Titan 6 on the season
in Titan premium and half PPR leagues, 24% targets per route
run. When you look at this chart, by
the way, and you look at the guys who are like up around that
level, we're talking like George Kittle numbers, you know, we're
talking Zach Ertz numbers where these guys are getting peppered
with targets are like a major focal point in their team's
offense. Harold Fannon is the number one
pass catcher on the Browns. Like there, there is no real
debate about it. Got some fun Fannon stats for
you here. Over the last six weeks, he has
had greater than 10 yards per reception in every week.
Seems pretty good. So I I brought that one up in
particular because when you see his A dot here, it's 5.7 right.
So you think he's like kind of a shorter, you know, little check
down kind of guy. That's not really his game.
I mean he he catches balls downfield as well.
But when he does catch the short stuff, he is adding serious yak.
It is is the take away like Fannin?
Is he he's very, very good at the game.
I don't know how high he's gonna go next year, but it's probably
not high enough. I, I, I hope I can be really,
really hand on fan in next year is what I'm getting at.
But man, here's another fun fan in stat.
So 08 of the last 10 weeks. He's also had greater than 10
yards per reception. He's also averaged 6.5 targets
per game over this stretch. So he's he's doing it on volume
very efficiently. One of the tight ends I want to
see in my tight end room down the stretch.
My biggest regret in regular season best ball is that I did
not take 100% herald fan and he was probably the very best pick
in the last round of drafts. Just that's that is the way that
it is OK, other tight ends. All right, you got to hear me
out on this. I know there's many of you in
the audience that are have been scarred by this man, brutalized
by him. You know, you you've Martin
galed for many, many seasons on on this tight end and that's
Kyle Pitts. But you could do worse than Kyle
Pitts right now. I'm just saying you're probably
OK to play him in DFS contests. Obviously you've been marked
safe from Kyle Pitts for playoff bestball.
You're not drafting any Falcons. So don't don't worry there.
But he's he's going to be a solid guy down the stretch here
to close the season out. You know, if you got him in a
home league or something like that, he's a very strong
starting option. Over the last three games when
Kirk Cousins has started, he is averaging over 7 targets per
game and 65 yards per game. Pretty good.
His problem is he hasn't gotten in the end zone but once this
season. But I mean, you know that that
can change. So you get a Kyle Pitts
touchdown with the same usage he's been getting.
All of a sudden you're you're looking pretty good.
So I'm, I'm pretty into Kyle Pitts down the stretch here.
Really it's, you know, like in DFS stuff, it's just gonna
depend on his cost and ownership and things like that.
I I, I don't think he's really flying too far under the radar,
you know, in salary cap DFS, but the the underlying metrics in
the profile is good. That's what I'm trying to say
with Kyle Pitts. All right.
And and while you're all here, you're here for the playoff best
ball specific lens of the tight end position because our friends
at DraftKings require you to have a a tight end in your
starting lineup for playoff best ball.
And that is a very different dynamic than Underdog who has
the W/T position where it just combines all pass catchers into
one position and only requires 5 starting players in your roster
as opposed to the six on DraftKings.
Gotta tell you right now it it felt so much nicer to draft on
Underdog because just that additional roster spot you need
and the fact that it it is a tight end and the pool of viable
tight ends is so small in the playoffs, it can be really hard
to get a good team with six in the Super Bowl on DraftKings.
So I've put together a list of your vegetables that you need to
eat in playoff festival. These are guys that are going
later, but they're pretty good. And also here here's here's like
the they pair very well with some of the teams that don't
have their own strong tight end. So, for example, you're drafting
Rams. Obviously, you know, you'd
prefer to get like a Hunter Henry or a Dalton Kincaid or
Evan Ingram, one of the tight ends from the three teams that
are, you know, the highest probability to make the Super
Bowl in the AFC. Those guys are contested, man.
You're not going to you don't just stroll into a DraftKings
playoff basketball draft and casually pick one of the tight
ends on the favorites to make the Super Bowl.
That's that's not how this works.
But you know, Hunter Henry, whatever, wherever you think
he's going to go, you know, by ADP, he's going earlier.
Like he's the guy you just always get sniped on.
So it's good to have these break glass in case of emergency tight
ends, not only because they are there to help you advance guys
with a buy out of round one. So like, if you did do Patriots
and they end up getting the buy, you need someone to help you
scoot Hunter Henry through or you did the Broncos and they get
a buy. You got to, you know, get Evan
Ingram through the the players that I'm looking at for that
that also have some of their own Super Bowl equity.
I'm not just drafting a guy who's totally totally dead to,
you know, randomly luck box his way into a Super Bowl.
AJ Barner pretty interesting. Hear me out.
If you look at where he's at on this chart, 23% TPRR, very low A
dot, but he he definitely is the clear number one tight end for
the Seahawks. You know you could do an Elijah
Arroyo thing if you've got a Seahawks specific bill, then you
get sniped on Barner. But Barner is basically free and
he is someone who there's a still a decent chance to
Seahawks get the buy. It's around 20% ish right now.
But Barner is 1 where you know he can he can make his way to
the Super Bowl and some outcomes for you.
And that that can be pretty valuable in that format.
And you should be able to fill your tight end spot the vast
majority of the time in week 1. You know, the 80% of the time
they don't get the buy. So I like Barner a lot as a, you
know, one of your eat your vegetables type tight ends, the
other one and this guy's steaming up.
I I think the steam is just like coming for this guy in general
since he's gotten back from injury.
We actually we kind of lucked out this week as far as like
steam on this player. It could have been even worse.
He had a touchdown called back due to penalty.
That's Brenton Strange. Honestly, I think Brenton
strange could have had a much bigger game than he had.
So it kind of keeps him under the radar.
But you know, he's got 10.7 A .21% targets per outrun.
Jags are not a lock, but very strong probability to make the
play offs. I mean, about as much of A lock
as you get at this point in the season without it being a lock,
you know, like the Patriots or, you know, the best teams in the
NFL like the Patriots, you know. But yeah, Bretton Strange.
Another one I'm very happy to click as one of my eat my
vegetables tight ends. And here's the last one,
probably the grossest of all. There's so much that's gross
with this guy. It's the fact that we were
pretty certain he was going to lose his job over the summer
when we were starting the season, but by the grace of
injury, he's managed to hang on to it throughout the season.
The team in general is kind of allergic to scoring fantasy
points. There's like no one really there
that that scores anything outside of their number one wide
receiver. Not even their running backs
score points. And so you're kind of, if you're
playing this full team to go to the Super Bowl, you find
yourself kind of up a Creek where you're a dog to advance
out of round one because you filled your roster full of total
pieces of shit that don't score any fantasy points.
And you do need to score fantasy points to advance, especially in
a one out of six structure like DraftKings.
But that tight end is Dalton Schultz.
So the Texans have decent odds of making the playoffs and and
they could very much make a run with how open the AFC is.
But I, I really prefer Dalton Schultz, not as like I'm
slamming all the Texans, but more along the lines of like
I've got Nico Collins and I'll throw Dalton Schultz on there as
well. And, and he'll help me advance
out of round one. And if the Texans, you know,
string together a couple wins, that's really big for me.
So I like him more as like a push me through the round one.
You know, if I've got a tight end on by type piece, but
there's definitely some teams I have where I have outs to Texans
in the Super Bowl. Maybe not my primary objective,
but definitely an outcome where I've still got a strong six
player Super Bowl roster. I mean as strong, strong being a
relative term because it it has like woody marks on it and
something. And that's not a in general, I
would not consider that a strong roster.
But you know, when when his team is one of the only two teams
playing on on that slate, all of a sudden he becomes OK, all
right, I think that's all the tight end notes that I had here.
We will move on to the wide receiver chart.
No one cares about these backup tight ends.
We're just not making it a thing.
I mean, Evan Ingram is like the most overdrafted, but like by
necessity guy in playoff basketball right now that you
just like kind of have to if you're drafting Broncos Super
Bowl. It's like, I guess I'm taking
Evan Ingram. I like him better on DKI.
Mean I basically don't really click him on underdog a ton.
He'll he'll get into some of my Broncos onslaught stuff.
But where he has you just need to fill that tight in position
and it's like a warm body will do.
I mean, shit, I'm clicking like Davis Allen sometimes for RAM
stuff, you know, so you can do worse than than Evan Ingram.
All right, on to the receiver chart.
Draco with a good comment in the chat.
Let's get rid of the backup tight end chart next year.
Yeah, you're probably right. We'll we'll think about it.
Maybe, maybe, Yeah, maybe we just specify guys that we we
want to add to the starters chart for guys that are like
young breakouts. All right, wide receiver chart.
So DK Metcalf did a thing. You can see him.
He's pretty near where the two median lines intersect.
He's in the quadrant of getting decent weighted targets per
route run, but like slightly less efficient than you'd expect
in his fantasy points per game. He's kind of draftable in
playoff basketball. Steelers look like they'll make
the playoffs. I I clicked them today, I hated
it. It's like, well that's a dead
team. I just wasted a roster spot with
DK Metcalf. But I checked our inputs in The
Sims. They're they're right.
He's he's fine. He can do worse than DK Metcalf.
Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me at all if after like
bemoaning that I drafted DK Metcalf on a team and I hated it
so much. If he's the guy who does like
the lad Mcconkey, you know advance rate stuff from last
year where he just goes crazy and and absolutely nukes and
pushes a bunch of teams through and he's a one and done piece.
Seems par for the course for the game I love so dearly.
But anyway, yeah, Metcalf, he's draftable, I guess.
So Brian Thomas junior, Jacoby Myers.
I, I I'll just talk about this. I think we talked about this in
the past. There's a flip inning right now.
Jacoby is like definitely the guy ahead of Brian Thomas junior
right now. And that's the way I'm drafting
it in playoff basketball. I I think like that is how you
operate until we're proven different.
You know, we we held on to the prior of Brian Thomas junior
from last year, you know, being such a superior talent and that,
you know, he was going to be the alpha.
But we've gotten enough enough sample under our belt this year
to maybe maybe Brian Thomas is a Mac Jones merchant or maybe
Trevor Lawrence is just really bad and he can't actually
utilize the best players on his team.
And he's much more comfortable with, you know, throwing in guys
like Jacoby Myers and Parker Washington, Bretton Strange and
all all that stuff. They can't hit the big plays to
Brian Thomas junior outside the numbers that that could be it.
They've, they've also deployed Brian Thomas junior differently
this year. You know, the, the Liam Cohen
offense. He's not just exclusively
running verticals. They're they're doing more
crossing stuff for him. I think in general, I, I
probably expect him to tick back up a little bit just 'cause I do
think the talent is really high and I think a lot of the early
season stuff was kind of marred by injury for him.
But I'm just not particularly bullish on him because I think
Trevor Lawrence is not very good.
But in playoff basketball, sometimes Trevor Lawrence is, in
fact, the nuts because he wins a game and having players move on
into the second round is very good.
And so Brian Thomas and Jacoby Myers, both interesting through
that lens. All right, next wide receiver
note I had. I think we're going to move on
to the next chart. Yeah.
So there's a couple couple playoff basketball warriors on
this chart. Nico Collins pretty damn
important piece right now. I would say so.
So here's the thing in playoff basketball, there's like a
drought at wide receiver points right now.
I feel like in the past it's been like there's a drought at
running back points where the teams that are in the playoffs,
you you just didn't have a good running back situation or
something feels like running back like, you know, they're a
dime a dozen now. Like I, I have drafts where I
just end up with like 3 workhorse running backs to the
first 3 rounds. I get something like CMC, Saquon
Barkley, Josh Jacobs, like all right, cool.
I hope someone leaves me Broncos so I can play Broncos with
whatever workhorse running back from the NFC makes it there, you
know, so running back is much easier to come by this year it
feels like. And so because of that, the wide
receiver position is kind of at a premium and it's really hard
to fill, especially on DraftKings where you don't have
the luxury of that WT aspect. It's really hard to fill out a a
starting wide receiver room in a lot of different Super Bowl
combos. Like if you're playing Eagles,
those Eagles receivers are contested, man.
And like, if you don't get both of them, you're relying on that
AFC team to have receivers that that are playing there.
And so if you're playing Bill's Eagles, it's like, do you even
want a Bill's receiver? Not really.
Like you're gonna pay way more than you probably should for
Khalil Shakur to get him on your team.
Like you're gonna sacrifice A meaningful piece to fit him into
your roster. And so you're just, you're kind
of, we're in this environment where you need to find these
receivers who can get you there because the receivers that are
actually probably gonna end up scoring points in the Super Bowl
stink. And so you're like, I couldn't
actually get there by playing, you know, Keyshawn Booty or, you
know, Keon Coleman or Troy Franklin or all of these guys
who are like, if you have them on your roster and they're live
in the Super Bowl and you're like, yeah, this guy could get a
touchdown. If you have them and it's round
two and you're going against teams that still have like the
majority of their players alive and and they've got a Nico
Collins or a a Christian Watson even, or the Jags receivers I
just mentioned and or the Bucks receivers and you're like, Oh
no, my Troy Franklin is out projected by 6 or uh oh, my
Keyon Coleman is out projected by eight points.
You're just going to find yourself, you know, so far up
shit Creek without a paddle that it's going to be really tough to
advance. And so that's a really long
winded way of saying receivers like Nico Collins where you're
not super excited for Texans to play Texans to the Super Bowl,
but he could make a run like it's, it's, you know, reasonably
possible that they could go to the Super Bowl and at the very
least, like could win a game here or there.
And he projects, well, it's like, OK, Nico Collins a pretty
cool pick even if I'm not playing Texans Super Bowl.
And then I feel the same way about Christian Watson, where
he's not of the same echelon as Nico, but the Packers have
higher Super Bowl probability. And so when you weigh the fact
that Christian Watson's kind of emerging as the alpha there, or
at least like a Co alpha with Jaden Reed, who we'll get to on
the next chart, these these guys are just really important to
sprinkle in in playoff basketball.
The other way that you can play it is through these two guys at
the top of the chart, Puku Nakua, Jackson Smith and Jigba,
where you're using them as like your anchor wide receiver.
And then you just need some loser in the second spot that's
going to like not give you a 0 as you're trying to, you know,
progress your way through the tournament.
And then when you get to the finals, you're just like, cool,
I've got the best projected receiver on the slate and a warm
body in my next one. I'm filling my flex with the
running back. Like we'll call it a day.
So wide receiver dynamic, pretty interesting in playoff
basketball right now. Definitely something I've been
noticing. It can be pretty hard to
navigate. I think there's a lot of people
drafting teams that look good to them on paper that are basically
dead to advance just because of how weak they are at the wide
receiver position because there's just not a lot of
projection to go around. So you kind of got to get those
pieces where you can. This note I kind of touched on
the inshitification of Troy Franklin kind of looks like he
he gave back some of his role. I guess gave back is the wrong
phrasing. It looks like Pat Bryant might
be emerging. My read on this is it's probably
not as sticky as I would like. My initial reaction was like, Oh
my God, the Pat Bryant breakout's here.
It's over for for Troy Franklin. I think what's most likely is
we're getting this Sean Payton offense where it's like, hey, it
could be anybody any week. You know, it could be a Troy
Franklin week. It's kind of like Packers light,
you know, or it's like I think Cortland Sutton's the one who
scores the most points on average.
But Troy Franklin could do it sometimes or, you know,
sometimes it could be Pat Bryant.
So I'm not ready to say Troy Franklin's dead, but I would
just like a couple weeks ago we were like Troy Franklin flipping
has happened. He is now ahead of Cortland
Sutton. And I think that might have been
a little premature. So I don't want to get out over
my skis now and say, oh, no, no, no.
Now it's Pat Bryant and the Pat Bryant era is here.
I think it's more like we're in a Sean Payton offense.
It's it's going to be spread out among these guys.
I think by the time we get to the playoffs, like week one of
the actual NFL playoffs, you probably see the projection
leader for the Broncos as Courtland Sutton, followed very
closely by Troy Franklin and and Pat Bryant.
I, I, I don't think that there will be a big difference between
them. I think it's going to be kind of
a tight cluster there where there's not one guy separating
from the pack. So anyway, last guy I had a note
on Chris Godwin thinking he's back.
And by back I mean he went like 5 for 55.
So it wasn't like some spectacular performance or
anything. But he seems healthy, seems
back. I think he is on the menu for
playoff basketball. Bucks got a little less
appealing after their loss. But yeah, Godwin.
I'm like low key excited for Chris Godwin on my basketball
rosters heading into the playoffs.
I think he could, especially in PPRI, think he could be a guy
that is pretty fun to have on some rosters.
So all right, last chart, last chart.
We're doing it only one note here and that's for the best
wide receiver on the Green Bay Packers.
That's Jayden MF and Reed because this guy comes back,
he's immediately very involved. You know, they're doing end
rounds and stuff to him. He, he is the most dynamic
player on the field for them. It's not particularly close.
My, I'm like a, in case you haven't heard me talk about
Jaden Reed before, I am like a dyed in the wool Jaden Reed
truther. I loved him coming out of
college. He's really dynamic, like had
good, you know, return profile in college.
Like I, I, I'm just a sucker for the guys that can do the
receiver things, but also are very good in the return game.
Like there's pretty good signal there that you're just like good
at the game and good with the ball in your hand, which does
matter. The player that I comped into
coming out is actually his closest neighbor on this chart
and that's Steph Diggs. The problem with Jaden Reed is
he's kind of slot trapped. He's in slot jail on the
Packers. And so you just don't get a full
complement of routes, which is partially why he is here on this
chart. Maybe you see an increase in
routes as he's back and and more healthy.
And I think I think I think as the Packers, like get into
situations where they have to pass more, they're pushed.
That's where we could see really fun Jayden Reid games.
So he is one of my favorite playoff basketball picks.
I loved him in the way too early stuff because he's going
undrafted. And like, if you told me, hey,
you know, you got to pick a Packers wide receiver who scored
the most points in week one of the playoffs.
Like I'm pretty sure I'm taking Jayden Reid or Christian Watson,
like even money and Christian Watson was drafted almost every
draft and Jaden Reed was going undrafted.
So he's one I really like a lot. He's basically I I kind of flip
him and Romeo Dobbs where Dobbs, he's just so much more likely to
if it's a Packers final, Packers make the Super Bowl, right?
The cards turn over. You're just a lot more likely to
see Romeo Dobbs on teams than you are Jaden Reed, at least the
way the market currently has it. That might change over the next
couple weeks, but if it holds and Romeo Dobbs is more
represented on Packers teams than Jayden Reid is, Gimme
Jayden Reid man. Like Gimme the guy who I I know
we've gotten Romeo Dobbs spike weeks.
Like believe me, I drafted a ton of Romeo Dobbs in regular season
basketball. He was woefully underpriced.
Really really helped my advance rates.
Big Romeo Dobbs fan, huge huge fan of his work.
But Jayden Reid is just like a different caliber wide receiver
than him in, in real life. And I'm hopeful that that can
translate to more fantasy points.
And I, I think that it can. And when you give that to me at
discounted ownership, I'm, I'm very excited about that.
So that's, that's pretty much everything I had on receivers.
So yeah, you just got pure stream of consciousness sack
word vomit for the last 45 minutes.
Shows a lot tighter when there's not someone actually providing
valuable context and and insight to my, you know, off the cuff,
like kind of brain synthesis of stats and game film that I've
watched. Yeah, definitely missing Draco.
This show feel like it is not the same show without him.
But I do think it would be fun to go ahead and RIP a playoff
basketball draft. So that feels like the only
right way to end sack chasing. Hopefully the only the inaugural
and only episode of of sack chasing.
We're jumping in a gauntlet. We got the sidekick up.
We're just letting it RIP. Sorry I didn't give Chad a
warning. I I don't want to draft with any
of you. All right, we do have some
friends and family here. I do see player Q.
It's Neil Orfield in the in the lobby with us.
I'm a pretty big fan of the six spot, by the way, really like
the six. Think I like it a little bit
more on DraftKings than underdog.
Granted, I've only done less than 10 drafts on this new slate
of underdog and I've been done drafting there in the way too
early stuff for, you know, over a week now.
So a lot of stuff changes with the, you know, with the new
information that we get. But yeah, I like the sixth spot
quite a bit. It is a spot where I feel like
reading the room and kind of having a lay of the land allows
you to flex your your muscles a little bit and get the most out
of I KB S. We'll see how this draft shakes
out and if it's one where I need to IKB or not, a lot of the time
I'm pretty happy just doing top guy on the sidekick.
I will tell you it's very different drafting in a one out
of six advance versus 2 out of 6 advance.
And so for people who haven't been, you know, if you're not
very, very unwell and you haven't, you know, been all over
the new contest that dropped, I realize that probably should
zoom in a little here if you're in chat.
And if this is still too small, please let me know.
But all right, well, I think we get a really easy spot here.
I think we're going to end up with a Devante Adams, Kyron
Williams double tap. This is 1 out of 6.
As I was saying, one out of six. A lot harder to advance the BI
teams. So we're going to go ahead and
queue up Devante Adams here. I'd expect to get Kyron Williams
at the top some of the time. I would also expect James Cook
to come to the top. I'd expect Josh Jacobs some
amount of the time as well. And basically playing it for an
AFC quarterback. We do get James Cook and that is
a like help me advance a little bit easier kind of thing that
you'd see more often in one out of 6, less often in two out of
six. So like the smaller contests
like the the mitten and the little mitten on underdog.
I haven't checked the high stakes structures yet, but I
assume those are also 2 of 6, maybe even 3 of 6.
But on those you'll see more of this like let's try and and go
for the kill. Let's go all Rams all the time,
baby. The reason that I think that the
sidekick and The Sims still like this where, hey, I'm going to
take a bi player in a one of six advance, which is it's a little
dicey. You know, you're you're setting
yourself up for a hard road to get out of round one is that
phenomenon I talked about earlier where wide receiver is
at a premium, right? It's not quite as bad on
underdog as it is on DraftKings, but like there's still a pretty
significant tier break. And so by doing Adams first,
it's like, all right, if I make it to these future rounds, I'm
really strong a receiver. Let me get James Cook because
Kyron is good, but I don't need to pigeonhole myself into Rams
Super Bowl here. I I more prefer doing the like,
let me just slam Rams Super Bowl like I'll go puka plus Stafford
plus if any of them make it back to me with puka in a one of six
where it's like if this makes the finals, I'm just winning all
the money. It's going to be so hard to get
a three player Rams combo through.
And so I think I'm more inclined to do it on that side of the
board where here, I'll mix it in The Sims will do it at the
frequency that, you know, that it pops up basically is very
good in The Sims. And since we're sampling from,
you know, a larger set of Sims, we're taking a subset.
You'll get some natural variation in your drafts.
Now, Neil is going to take my Drake May here, which is going
to make me very sad. Yannick might take Drake May,
too. That'd be a a decent spot for
him. Yeah.
Where he starts with the Barclay, A.J.
Brown. I also like what Yannick did
there where he tries to push Jalen Hertz.
That's how you can get some really strong stuff.
Yeah, no, I, I thought it might do this where it's going to have
me do Bonex. There's a couple different ways
you could take this. You could do Devonta Smith and
Bonex and just like make sure that you have really strong
receiver production because like I said, the receiver stuff is
tough to come by. I think because the running back
that we have is an AFC running back and it's going to be hard
for me. I, I can't get a Rams running
back right? So to keep Rams Super Bowl
alive, which is the highest probability on the NFC side, I
kind of need RJ Harvey, right? Otherwise I'm basically forgoing
Rams Super Bowl. I'm saying like, hey, Devante
Adams gets me to the finals. He might be alive for all the
rounds, but the but the finals. But for this, we're going to
take Harvey. I agree with The Sims.
Shocker that the guy who helped with The Sims agrees with The
Sims that are based on his inputs.
But yeah, I think this is the best path where now I basically
am set up for bills go far, but I don't really I didn't need to
spend the premium capital on Josh Allen.
We actually like Josh Allen a little bit more now than we did
if you were drafting with a sidekick earlier.
It's partially the one of six stuff like, hey, it's it's a lot
easier to advance out of round one if you have Josh Allen, you
know, like if you have the quarterback that projects for
the most points that do be helpful.
But yeah, I I like this setup that we have here.
We'll see if my my thesis that I posited earlier about Broncos
kind of going uncontested after you take a piece holds.
I'm hopeful that it does. It would be very good for me.
It does not tricky 8181 takes Cortland Sutton.
But we talked about, you know, being being fairly price
sensitive on Broncos pieces, especially their pass catchers
and underdog. Again, I'm not so down bad for
receiver as I would be on DraftKings because I have that
WT position. So this Blake Quorum flipping.
This is a great spot to kind of explain what's going on with The
Sims here. Blake Quorum pops to the top
because he's the Most Valuable Player for me because I'll get a
Broncos pass catcher. I really only need one to pair
with Adams. But this quorum thing really
helps me in the Super Bowl because that's basically like
last call for the Rams, right? I could try to push quorum.
I'm probably not getting Franklin through.
I don't honestly don't know what the fuck this guy's doing.
So it's a little concerning for me.
I don't care about Bucky so much.
I think there's other running backs that can help me advance.
I'm just worried about losing the receivers.
So let's go ahead and queue Quorum because if I lose Quorum,
I'm pretty sad. He is the most valuable.
I think I'm going to end up doing Quorum and Franklin
because I don't need to do these other advance rate guys.
And wow, it's like the sensor in my head because these guys, like
they're just not a huge difference between them for me.
It's like Swift and Bucky can be oppo my Broncos in the Super
Bowl, and that's why they're higher than ETN and Hampton.
I mean, that's one of the many factors that makes them higher.
But yeah, I do think I want to take Franklin because otherwise
I risk kind of getting pretty thin at receiver at Broncos.
But I'm I'm pretty happy with this.
The Jordan Whittington thing. I I don't really know about this
one. Yeah.
I I would expect him to not not stay on the top as we get
further. I'm I'm pretty into the idea of
like the Nico Collins, you know, I'm not as into IGBUCA.
We we've lowered his sin inputs recently.
I think that with Evans coming back and Godwin, you know,
starting to get to full strength and the the dip in Igbuca's
efficiency, I I do think it's like meaningful, you know, I
still think he's a pretty good player And and a lot of it is
just variance right now. It's not that IGBUCA all of a
sudden became bad, but I think that previously it was really
easy to, you know, look at his trajectory as a young rookie and
be like, Oh my gosh, this guy is going to the moon.
And I think we just want to take a little bit more of a measured
approach on IGBUCA here. Pat Bryant.
I'm pretty, pretty into. There's one thing that you'll
probably notice here is The Sims are basically playing this like
one of either the Rams or the Broncos do not get the buy
because right now I have 5 pieces between those.
And so I think the way that it's going to play it is that Broncos
do not get the buy. And so we're going to take Pat
Bryant here. There's there's just I can get a
Jacoby Myers or Brian Thomas or whatever.
Did this guy end up taking a maybe I can maybe I can push Pat
Bryant. Let's let's do the Jordan love
thing because I do need a quarterback and I could actually
open up some Packer stuff. I saw Jaden Reed go and Watson,
but I could do a Dobbs. Igbuka is here deciding if I
want to IKB this. I don't think I'd get Iguca
back, probably get Pat Bryant back, but he is a really
important piece to me. I think I'm just going to let
the room dictate what my advance rate stuff is going to be.
You know what helps me get this through and and we'll just go
from there because there's there's a couple things I could
do. But yeah, the the Julio
McLaughlin. So if you look at the Bronc
right now for Broncos, I have 1234.
So the reason a player like Julio McLaughlin pops up is
because he is a player that would project for points in a
Broncos Super Bowl. And in the outcomes where you
get a Broncos Super Bowl, having five Broncos is an enormous EV
boost where I'm no longer constrained to the conditional
probability of Broncos and Rams, right?
All of a sudden I get the entire set of outcomes where Broncos
Super Bowl happens. So that's why 1/5 Bronco is kind
of sick. This is 1 where I might just,
I'm going to read the room and see how likely I think I am to
advance. There's not a lot of dead stuff
happening, like people aren't drafting, you know, Bengals or
anything really silly. I mean, there's some silly
tricky tricky's being a little bit silly here.
Like probs dead, probs dead. Unlikely to play if my Rams get
a bye. He's still he still has AI mean
like he has a probably the same probability that I do to
advance, you know, so he's far from not a threat to me and like
this is this is scary to me in the one hole.
So I think this is a spot where I probably IKB the sidekick and
say hey, I I need help advancing sidekick.
I need to I need to do the gross thing.
I probably need to do the the DK Metcalf and I could do the Brian
Thomas man, The someone had to take Romeo Dobbs for me, huh?
Yeah. And he takes Jacoby Meyers.
That's a good pick. All right, I'll take my
medicine. Take my DK Metcalf medicine.
I wonder if Jalen Warren shoots up here.
You probably yeah. And then to hit my starting
running back spot. Is that easier than wide
receiver? So I'm looking at God, I mean,
so I have to have Broncos not buy.
So if it's Broncos not buy I'm I'm Harvey Cook.
So yeah, it's Brian Thomas here. It's the better, better one for
me. And and the reason that the the
sidekick is not, you know, particularly carrying there is
it's it's probably thinking. Hey, dude, you're dead.
What it's actually telling me here is, buddy, you're dead.
If the Rams get a bye too. And I'm telling it no, no, no.
I think, I think I'm willing to do the thing where just the
Broncos don't get the bye and the Rams get the bye and I make
it through. It's it's a little thin.
And So what it was trying to have me do and be like, dude,
just play it. Play it like neither these
suckers get to buy. And and you know, when you, when
you hit that outcome, which by the way, not that crazy 52% of
the time or 48% of the time, the Rams are active. 62% of the time
the Broncos are active. So these are two mostly
uncorrelated outcomes, right? There's probably some
correlation between who they play and their schedules or
whatever. Could be some some small stuff
there, but that's like 30% of the time that I just have like
the monster nuts when I go. Julie McLaughlin, Jordan
Whittington. I bet you that when I take Julie
McLaughlin, if I were to Jordan Whittington goes away because he
becomes much less valuable then for me.
Where it's like this is just one more hurdle for Jordan
Whittington to clear to crack my starting line up there.
Anyway, reasonably happy with this one.
There were definitely some things that could have gone
better for us. Like getting back Romeo Dobbs
would have been good also like this guy getting multiple
quarterbacks and Purdy going right before us was less than
ideal like this. I mean, Neil is probably using
the sidekick because this Purdy Jennings double tap is something
that would have been pretty cool for me, although it's not great
because I I don't have CMC and so I'm not not like really live
for a 49ers in Broncos Super Bowl.
So I do think that the best thing was this Jordan Love and
then pray for Romeo Dobbs to come back.
I could have also I KB D and said I'm going to get Pat Bryant
back because no one drafts Pat Bryant except the really sick
people and I'll just take Romeo Dobbs here and then that gives
me an additional Super Bowl out. The other reason Jaleel is
really cool here is it makes it so I have this headless or
rather like naked Jordan love Super Bowl where it's all
Broncos plus love and you basically are adding some equity
to your to your team when you end up with a Packers and
Broncos Super Bowl anyway. All right, I think think that is
going to do it here for this solo edition of Stat chasing AKA
Stack chasing. Thank you to everyone who tuned
in. Wishing my Co host a speedy
recovery. Good luck to everybody in your
best fall playoffs. I will be pulling for you unless
you are in the pod with me and then I will be wishing you a
very happy 2nd place finish. And it's, you know, great, great
news if we're in, you know, a pod where, you know, tournament
structure where two people advance.
But yeah. And and if you do want to draft
some playoff best ball with sidekick, head over legendary
upside and check out the sidekick there.
We've got lots of playoff basketball content coming.
And yeah, that'll do it. I will see you all next week.
Same time, same place. Good luck everybody.