Tonight on ship chasing, we put a bow on all of the playoff
contests. We even have the FFPC Playoff
Challenge champ Toyo swinging by.
He's going to tell us how we did it.
We'll breakdown how our portfolio shook out across all
of our playoff contests as well is get a kickoff preview from
Ben Gretch on the Omni Fantasy Contest for 2024.
It's ship chasing. Let's do it.
Pat Fryer helmo this. Is why This is why I'm hot.
Anita Hand. Job.
Fix your sights, Jamar and Alpha Play Chase.
You can't handle the. Heat.
It looks like we're finally fixed for you, right?
All right. Ben Gradge, Pat Curain.
Been a while since we have done a show.
Did you guys have a fun Super Bowl viewing experiences?
Yeah, it was good. I was rooting for the Chiefs.
Glad to see him. Glad to see Mahomes get another
ring. You know, rooting for our buddy
Davis after. After they win, it's inevitable,
you know. Yeah, exactly.
Where did you watch the game, Gretch?
I was at A at a buddy's house. I have, you know, older kids for
for kids of my age. Most of my friends, we're all
similar ages. But most of my friends have kids
that are like in the two to five year old range.
And so there's a lot of two to five year olds running around.
I brought my 8 year old with me, but my 12 year old hung back
with mom and so anyway they were, they had a lot of fun
playing. There was more of a family
atmosphere over there. But I mean, I was kind of, I was
definitely talking ball my, my buddies, they're not like huge
football fans, but they they like to talk football.
But I I mean, I can't help myself.
So I'm just like going way too in the weeds on stuff and
they're like, yeah, definitely. Yeah, for sure.
One of my, one of my closest buddies made a pretty funny joke
at one point where he was like, yeah, no, I totally knew that.
I I made some comment about Nicole Hardman and Richie James
cause how they have the the Jersey numbers and you know
every time Richie James returns a punt in this number 17, you're
for a second you're like oh that's Nicole Hardman.
He's like, Oh yeah, no, totally. I that's what I was thinking too
about Nicole Hardman and Richie James.
Yeah, just like talking myself. I was.
I was watching with Redman, I mean with a lot of people, but I
was right next to Redman and his, you know, he's a massive
Patriots fan. And so his macro rooting
interest was He wanted the Chiefs to lose because he
doesn't want any of the discourse to ever be Mahomes is
better than Brady. Like, that's all Brady has in
the discourse. Let's be honest, It's just
another ring. That's the only thing left you.
Better. That ring, Leap, Brady.
But there was a there was a really funny moment where like
Redmond basically was like it it was one of the the the
game-winning driver or whatever. And he's like look if Mahomes
does it, I'll, I'll tip my cat. But otherwise he's a complete
fraud. It was like, so binary.
I'll tip my cat if he does it but otherwise he's dead.
He did it. Spoiler you did it.
Shout out to everyone. Hey, get in the chat with us
tonight. We got Sacrilegious member for
13 months. Maverick shouting out all the
content on leg up. Definitely got to mention that
you guys had a ton of people using those rankings. 1 contest,
1 tournaments. Pat, what did you win?
The Big mitten. Big mitten.
Nice. Yeah, yeah, That was that was
work. Thanks.
Yeah, it was fun. I got, you know, it was actually
wild because Msos, who's in the discord and everything and is a
very good best ball player, was in second for most of the Super
Bowl in the Big Mitten. He had MVS, though, so he passed
me at one point for first. And then we also had we like,
had so much of the same team that it was possible if Hershey
Rice were to catch that touchdown instead of me, Cole, I
think we would have tied. So, like, I I wanted my pure
rooting interest for that tournament was the game to end
as soon as possible. But I really did want the Chiefs
to win. So I was like, I don't want to
have to sweat this anymore. But I, you know, I'm rooting
for. Overtime I'm rooting for.
So I I got, I got the best of both worlds, where I actually
was still able to get Kelsey to outscore MVS, which is what I
needed. I need him to outscore Rice and
MVS and the Chiefs win, so hit that little parlor.
I wasn't obviously deep in the playoff best ball streets,
'cause I can't do it here. I I drafted a few teams, but did
I catch something? Or like a big part of why leg up
subscribers for crushing was Mikko Hardman.
Were you like were people on Mikko?
No, we. We we were team get additional
like pieces of the offenses that you're betting on, but I don't
think we were pushing Miko specifically.
Oh, Juwan Jennings was. Juwan was.
You guys were pushing. Yes, we pushed a lot of Juwan
Jennings. I started drafting Ronnie Bell
because I was sick of drafting Juwan Jennings.
I told her at that I was like, I can't keep taking Juwan
Jennings. With every goddamn draft.
That's the big. Game for Juwan Jennings.
Yeah, what a game It's it's crazy to see something
theoretical play out like that cleanly.
I know, yeah, I talked about it on My Portfolio review because I
only I had a dead team that made the Gauntlet finals and it had
CMC and JA Juan Jennings. And I still finish middle of the
pack just because of having Jawad Jennings, which is
ridiculous. But yeah, it'll be, it'll be fun
to run it back again next year and to actually see how much
does the field catch up. You know, obviously it's going
to be slightly better, but I wouldn't be surprised if it
isn't like a giant leap forward just because.
I think it might be similar to this year again.
And the reason I'm thinking that is that there were it was really
hard to advance if the Chiefs hadn't won, it would have been
so hard to advance like the teams that you actually wanted
in the Super Bowl. And you can talk yourself into
like, I just need to find Aaron Jones and Jake Ferguson and you
know, like getting those guys to advance you or the Lions guys.
Like just finding the guys to get there.
People always want to have a sweat.
They always want to advance and live to see another day.
The natural bias if you're in these tournaments, you don't
want to get balanced. So I think that the idea of no
draft, like, like my team was all Chiefs and 49ers plus Brandi
Cooks and Ferguson. It advanced by one point in
round three. I mean, in many worlds it's it
doesn't even make the final and I'm just like, oh, that's my
whole sweat. So I I think it's just like it's
tough for people to want to build a team like that because
this was such a bummer when it gets bounced before the final
and it will get bounced before the final because you're you're
keeping it really lean so that when it gets the final it, it
has a huge, it has huge equity to actually take it down.
Yeah, and there ended up being what, like a 36 way chop or
something on that for the gauntlet?
For the gauntlet, yeah. Which still very nice paid.
I think it was like 14.5 K or something for everyone.
So you are you're not turning your nose up at that despite
getting hella duped. Let's see.
So tonight we're gonna have Zach Toyo, who shipped the FFPC
Playoff Challenge and I believe shipped one of the FFPC best
ball contests. Yeah, he did.
He shipped. He he went, he shipped
back-to-back like or FFPC tournaments.
Interesting. Yeah.
So we're gonna have him swing by here probably next 25 minutes or
so. We'll get to hear from him.
Not familiar with him at all. So excited to get to know him a
bit more. We'll talk a little bit about
our FFPC Playoff Challenge portfolio when he comes by, but
I would did want to carve out some time now to talk about Omni
Fantasy Gretch, which I've gotten some of the updates in my
inbox and I know you're gearing up for a big year.
Lots of improvements on the Tech side too.
Yeah, I mean it's it's not. I mean every year we talk about
this, I'm like how do you, how do you start talking about Omni
fantasy. We added some things to the to
the site that needed to be done. We definitely have some feature
upgrades that need to be done. We had a lot.
The the biggest one, the huge one, was to not make Twitter be
the only, the only login source because we've always had it
linked through Twitter for simplicity and so that we're not
like capturing you know, passwords and those types of
things. But obviously, Twitter is not
the healthiest social media site in the world.
This is like Omni fantasy. You play for a full year, so
you'd like your log in to. Right.
A lot of in the last year, a lot of people have been like, hey, I
I deactivated my Twitter and now I can't access Omni Fancy.
It's like, all right, well, we got to find a solution for this.
So we got e-mail links, we got finally have along with that
we'll have e-mail push notifications when you're on the
clock, which in the past we've all had to ping each other,
which has been, you know, a little bit of a headache.
Hang on, you ping me is how that works.
We're not typing Karain. Constantly.
Every time he's. Like 6 times every time he's up.
I've never pinged you. But yeah, no, we have a lot of,
a lot of stuff added. Some new sports.
Me, man. I I should have actually
prepared to talk about this instead of, you know, trying to
to wing it. But we added women's college
basketball this year which is cool.
Caitlin Clark just a few minutes ago became the highest scoring
women's college basketball player of all time.
How about tonight? We're breaking this News Live on
ship chasing you can pick her Iowa Hawkeyes to win the women's
college basketball championship this year.
They're not even the favorites. So it's pretty wide open.
There's women's college basketball's pretty sweet right
now so it's a really good a really fun addition for Omni
fantasy. We also added, let's see Euro
which is like the World Cup but every two years offset from the
World Cup. That's just European countries.
But for soccer it's a, you know a non annual, a non annual
soccer tournament. Nations, you know, not not club,
but national soccer tournament. And then we had cricket, which
Hassan has asked about in the past.
I have another buddy who has a a wife from Australia and her and
his like. He's played on the fancy since
the first year we've done it. He's one of my college buddies
and her whole family's really into cricket.
It was pretty fun to dig into that a little bit.
We just finished our longest running draft and digging into
cricket, it's like there's like 7 nations that are super into it
that have good odds but it's also pretty open at that point.
But then it it does fall off from that point.
But there's not like a clear favorite is my point.
So it's not like we did F we tried F1 a couple years ago and
we still have on the site but it won't be a part of the Omni
Fantasy Cup because it's too predictable.
That's not an issue with cricket necessarily, but there are only
like 7 legitimate contenders is kind of what it comes down to.
It's like India, Pakistan, you do have England, but a lot of
it's Southeast Asia, India, Pakistan, Australia is in it.
New Zealand is really good. The West Indies which is like
all the Caribbean nations come together and they're really
good. And part of the cool thing about
the cricket and why we he talked me into adding it this year my
buddy is that the US and the West Indies are are Co hosting.
So some of these massive World Cup cricket matchups this year
are going to be like at the Meadowlands I think or not at
the Meadowlands. There's a cricket stadium in in
New York, New Jersey. But yeah, like some of these
cool locations. So anyway, we have the Men's T20
World Cup. I don't know anything about
cricket, but that's also a. Better match one time in
Australia. Did you?
How was it? Yeah, the beer was great.
I had no idea what's happening. And Gretch, for for people who
aren't familiar, they if someone's like, OK, that's nice
that Hassan has cricket. I don't want to do cricket.
You can pick which sports you want if you're spinning up your
own league. Right, right.
There's a few awesome things. If you're spinning up your own
link with other people, you can do that.
You don't have to include cricket if you're playing in the
Omni Fantasy Cup, which is one of the things we want to talk
about here. If you put it in the chat, the
the last ship chasing comment in there has a sign up for that.
That's going to be a whole bunch of 18 leagues, sort of like, you
know, a really mini best ball mania, right?
I've compared to like the Scott Fishbowl before because there's
not like huge prizes or anything.
We're not playing for money because we can't like legally
but we have the the winner from last year was Paul V from the
Deposit Kingdom Chat. We do we do do a prize for the
winner so he's going to get 2 tickets to go see whatever
sporting but he wants to see. Last year was Anthony, another
ship chaser one and he went to the, I think it was the New
Hampshire at the NASCAR race in New Hampshire.
Really. So he said he.
Said it was his first ever NASCAR race, which is kind of
cool, and then he finished third this year out of 128 people.
He almost went back-to-back. He baked it in 2020.
Yeah, so he's the the guy to watch, I think.
Greg, you need to get an Omni Fantasy, you know, merch and
have them. Then he shoots the vlog.
And so he's at the race doing promotion for Omni Fantasy.
How did you end up here? Well, let me tell you a story.
There's a lot of really good things we could do with it.
The problem is, as always, we've never known how to monetize
this. It's just a side project that
takes up way too much of my time right now.
I would love to do a lot of that kind of stuff.
I did have him take pictures and I was like, eventually maybe
we'll have a Hall of Fame and we'll want to have some pictures
from these events. So I had him take pictures of
the first one. I'll I'll have Paul do the same
thing. So we can at least document
these, you know, these first time in a fantasy cup champion
events and trips that they get to go to.
But yeah, anyway, it's it. What I was going to say is if
you do sign up for that, we're going to have a whole bunch of
different leagues, There'll be one overall score board for that
and one overall champion. But if you're in something like
that and we you're just talking about cricket, if you don't like
cricket or whatever, the other thing you can do is you can punt
it like. So.
This is an example of Paul's draft.
These are all the teams he drafted.
There are some flex picks in here.
I don't know. I can't really see him off the
top of my head, but somewhere in there you're going to have two
of the same sports at some at certain points.
NASCAR, he has multiple times down at the bottom there and
then like you know, one of these sports down at the bottom.
He probably only picked one of and fully punted like probably
college basketball. Marquette was his only, his only
team. He picks in the 21st round.
If you don't like cricket, you don't care about it.
You don't want to pick it. You don't have to like other
people will take those picks and you can just pick it at the end
like any other draft but that is another way to to.
I love Paul's note this is the way to do it.
Just draft 16 straight winners so the the colour coding green
is overall champions. He didn't have any runners up
which is interesting that would be blue.
Yellow is semi finalists, orange is quarter finalists.
The top 8 score points in every sport.
He had point scores with each of his first 16 picks which is
incredible. Like for the the bottom picks
that you saw there that weren't any colours those guys didn't
score, but you don't see any on this screenshot right now
because all of his first 16 picks finished top 8.
Yeah, I don't know why, but I'm irrationally mad that he got
both the XFL and USFL team. No, I was pissed about that too.
On the. Line.
Because there's like a lot of parody in those ones too.
It's like get. The There he is, Yeah.
You don't even draft them early because.
Yeah. Yeah, yes, the classic modified
0 cricket strategy, that's. How?
That's right, we. Could employ.
Yeah, that's awesome. He hadn't.
He had that guy Medvedev. Yeah.
Man were we watched him last year.
That's right. So tennis is, is one I want to
talk to you guys about, because Pete was pretty in on on Carlos
Alcaraz too, right? The the young Spaniard.
I think so. I think it was because of Nick
Bird in the chat was one of our tennis grinders and he got me
excited about him. And then the year prior, Pat,
you were in the Medvedev and we watched the Medvedev highlights.
So where we're at right now in tennis, we're kind of in a
transition. Djokovic still won the 80 points
last year, but Alkarez is now has more expected points.
So we have the expected points on the site that tell you like
basically off future odds. Djokovic is favored in three of
the four tournaments but by very slim margins over Alkarez at
Wimbledon, U.S. Open and next year's Australian
Open. And Alkarez is like a pretty
overwhelming favorite at the French.
So when you average out the odds, Alkarez is the slight Omni
Cup favorite over Djokovic, which hasn't happened since I've
done like it's been only Djokovic or Nadal.
And then you have Medvedev had a good year and he's now kind of
the clear number three I think it is and and the other name
that's there and I was looking at that and I was like, I think
these are Pete and and Pat's. Guys, they were on these guys
early. Yeah, hey.
Tennis scouts, That's. Right.
Similar to how we were just early on Leviska, Chanel and.
This guy really early. It's way too early.
What do you For people also who are uninitiated, Gretch, what is
the best way to like Prep or get ready for one of these drafts?
Because I think for a lot of people it might seem daunting
and overwhelming to need to know this many sports.
I mean, part of it is just constantly daunting and I do a
lot of the research during the draft and every time I place one
of these picks, I'm like, yeah, I fucked that up.
I mean, it's just literally like an existential dread.
Clicking, clicking. It's one of the fun things about
on the fantasy. There's so many ways you can go.
It is very difficult to weigh all of the, you know, web of of
what am I trying to push and what am I trying to do.
All the questions that we ask ourselves when we do drafts,
it's hard to do when there's like 13 different sports you're
considering. But in terms of trying to
prepare, I mean the expected points on the site are really
helpful. You are trying to think about
the sports that their playoff structures and their overall
like whether the favourites and odds actually end up winning,
whether there's that overall consistency like year to year,
how the the the scoring is awarded.
Like for men's tennis for example, we do an aggregation of
the four majors and so that is kind of helpful because if you
get upset one time you can still win the overall title.
That's not really the case in a lot of the other sports.
Or like, you know, if the Chiefs would have got upset, they just
don't score any points. You don't, you don't get another
shot at it, right. So I feel like there's a little
less variance in men's tennis that's played out that way over
the years, but women's tennis was a little bit wild this year,
Maybe just more parody in the skill level on that side.
Golf is similar with the four majors.
And also there's a lot of fluctuations just the way any
anyone can kind of win one golf tournament by playing really
well for one weekend. And so you think through the
different sports like that than all the ones that have brackets.
You know, like college football to me is a little bit harder to
predict than and college basketball too, because there's
a lot. Of basketball, like the ultimate
variant sport. Really is compared to like NBA,
where I mean NBA is pretty open now too, but it used to be every
year if you drafted LeBron James team, you're probably getting to
the Finals, right? If you draft the Golden State
Warriors, you're probably getting, you know, some points
out of them. So yeah, you're just trying to
think through the different sports like that.
I I I've written up strategy guides before, you were just
showing some of the posts from the Omni fantasy.substack.com
newsletter. There's some stuff there from
from old posts where I tried to look at some of the strategy.
And in doing that, in the past, I've just tried to look at
whether the top drafted teams in Omni Fantasy actually go on to
win. And then those are the teams
that I want to take in the early rounds and the ones that don't
usually have the top drafted teams win.
I want to try to take a long shot and try to hit those points
late. Well yeah, we keep an eye out
for more from Gretch. I do recommend just subscribing
to that sub stack. It's a free sub stack so you'll
just get the kind of updates in your inbox as Gretch fires them
off. There's also the sign up sheet
as well and also recommend just getting in even with a smaller
group of people and whipping up your own leagues with your
friends. What is the minimum amount to
Max amount for people in a league Gretch?
There's really no number. I've done leagues as small as
like four people before in the past year, So just try out some
different stuff. It gets really concentrated like
your your team. You're picking favorites in
every sport throughout your draft.
I think the optimal is closer to about like 8.
After having done this for a lot of years.
We had as many as my mainly was a 16 team draft last year but we
added more people so we split it into two this year.
Two we have 20 now so we decided to do 210 team leagues and we're
crown one overall winner from that.
I think the like the 8 to 10 ranges is good, 12 plus you're
starting to get a little thin where you run out of good picks
by like the middle of the draft. And it's I mean it's it's just a
different type of draft but it is a little torturous.
You're like, I don't I don't enjoy picking any of these
teams. By like I mean the 16 team dream
draft we used to have like round five you're like I don't want my
5th pick to be someone that I like, think is terrible but
that's what that's what it ends up being.
You know it gets tricky when you get that big but theoretically
you can go as big as you want. You just can't include sports
that don't have enough teams in them.
And so part of the thing about doing like an 8 team league, you
can include the XFLUSFL. Now the UFL, because they only
have eight teams. There is one rule, you have to
draft at least one team from every sport.
And so if you have 10 teams, you can't play with the UFL because
there's only eight options. You can't.
You know not everyone can get one.
So once you get bigger you are limited a little bit in what
you're able to do in terms of the leagues you're able to
include. But there's still plenty.
Obviously most of the leagues have 30, most professional
leagues have 30 ish teams and the college leagues all have,
you know, 100, right? And and and tennis and and golf
have so many options. All the individual sports we
have, the NASCAR and F1, there's so many on the site now,
different different ways to play, so you can play a really
large league if you wanted to. Yeah, yeah, I love the 88 from
the ones I've done with you, 'cause I feel like I've done
like eight 10s and twelves and I definitely like the the eight
person ones there. So that would be my
recommendation if you're trying to spin up your leagues, and if
you guys want to in the within the ship chasing channel.
I'd be happy to set up a thread for people too if you wanted to
organize one in there and kind of.
There's an Honor Fantasy channel in the Deposit Kingdom as well,
so I would I would recommend if any of the ship chasers want to
get their own little side leagues going like chat, chat it
up in there. Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, that's a good point. Down in the it's just a public
channel within the deposit Kingdom, there's the Omni.
All right, let's talk some playoff fantasy and Les Gretsch,
Are there any other admin or housekeeping items with with
Omni that people should know about?
I'll drop the the link to sign up in the show notes.
There's there's there's really one more minor thing but also
with cricket I just sent you a a Twitter thing that one of my
friends sent about a cricket board you should pull this up.
I this got sent to me just like a few hours to go ago today all
the terminology in cricket is is wild but the other thing that I
forgot that we should mention is we we had a ship chasing cup as
well last year with the Omni cup we had the ship chasing cup.
I was telling you guys, I'm trying to find it, who the
winner was, but the winner absolutely crushed.
It was Lex Pace. Yes, Lex pace, yeah.
He crushed everyone. So there was a a Gretsch League,
a Pat league, a Pete League. We all had 14 teams.
It got a little bit big and overwhelming.
I don't know if we're going to run this one back this year, but
shout out to Lex for crushing that.
He cleared every other drafter by more than 100 by 160 points.
Even in a 14 team draft he had four champions and four runners
up. No one else in any of the three
drafts had more than five combined champions plus runners
up. He had eight.
So he had like, I mean his his team was was sick.
So shout out to him for a great team in the ship chasing cup,
but this is hilarious. I don't this that cricket thing.
It I this like the the terminology here is out of
control. Fly slips, Gullies.
Silly points. Mid off.
Leg mid. Off good, off deep mid off.
That's wide log off. Deep mid off is what the Chiefs
call their wide receiver drills. Exactly.
I wish. I wish it was deep.
It's all shallow shit. All right, so we're going to
bring Zach on in a second. Just got a monster super chat
here from Colon. Hopefully I'm saying your name
right there. Got first and second in the $35
FFPC Playoff Challenge. Second in the $200 FFPC Playoff
Challenge. Also finished sixth in the Best
Ball Contest on there for 260,000 this year.
I really appreciate the content. Content you boys do.
Just wanted to say thank you. Have a drink on me.
Cheers. Holy shit, Colin.
Congratulations. Congrats, there's there's AI
Mean Pete, you and I are going to enjoy the drink, but there's
a real irony And the 260 K winner sending a drink on him to
Karang. Hey, I mean that is and I I
assume Colin tell me was the team that got second, I assume
it was one of the teams in the 35 like you had.
Did you have the same teams in both contests?
What I'm guessing? So yeah, that's probably.
I want to go pull up this that is.
Insane. And Speaking of insane, the only
person that can say hold my beer to that might be the FFPC
Playoff Challenge winner himself.
For 500K, we got Zach Toyo on the program.
Welcome, Toyo. Hey, thanks, Pete.
What's up, Pat? What's up, Gretch?
What's up? How you doing?
I'm. I'm already getting like, major
I I went to your Twitter profile.
I saw you mentioning stuff about Zen.
I see a wave. You got the hair.
Are are you a surfer? I'm getting big time surfer
vibes. We we do a little surfing down
here, so we need to get pat in the water and down in San Diego.
You're in San Diego, too. Nope.
I split time between Hawaii and the West Coast, so my home base
is Hawaii right here. There you go.
I saw that you you won the playoff challenge and you
shouted us out and I was checking out.
I was like, Oh my God, so Bulky's already got an interview
up with you. That's that was quick that.
That's really cool though and realized Oh no, you also took
down the best ball tournament on FFPC, turned it around and just
quickly repeated with the playoff challenge.
Yeah, it was a fruitful 2023 season.
Took the best ball challenge out and rolled everything back into
this beautiful playoff tournament.
So how many teams did you roll into the playoff tournament?
So best ball I tried to Max the FFPC out, which is obviously a
different animal for let's say underdog.
So I had 115 best ball. FFPC teams advanced 25 and I
ended up with five and the last man standing was the best ball
champion and I ended up doing 90 FFPFFPC Playoff Challenge entry.
That is what, like getting so Max entering a best ball contest
is. I mean, yes, it requires more
time than getting a bunch of entries into the playoff
challenge, but just from our own personal experience, from an
organizational level like we had 75, and we always all want to
kill each other by the end of it. 5-6 people working on it.
How did you do that? I.
Wanted to Max the FFPC but I just ran out of time obviously.
Literally literally like run out of time.
I'm entering it on the site like it's not it's not streamline.
How did you, how did you organize all that?
I mean, so we have like spreadsheets galore and five
people do cross checking. I can't imagine Solo entering 90
lineups and and not feeling there's like a lot of overlap.
And so, like Pete, to your point, when you're maxing best
ball, you're drafting these on like different days.
You can check your portfolio threw at it.
All of this locks at once and you're just tweaking 90
different line UPS. Like that's a whole different
animal. It's a very different thing.
Yeah, especially this year. I thought was unique because
some of the information was coming in so late.
You had the Eagles holding the A.J.
Brown designation tight to the vest and then and the Marc
Andrews news came out late. And then the biggest wrinkle to
me was the weather in Kansas City and then the Pittsburgh,
the Pittsburgh game. And so yeah, I didn't start this
exercise really till Friday. And in years past, I like to
kind of meditate and then do the spreadsheets and really settle
in. I mean this.
I think that industry adores this contest just because it's
such a dynamic game theory puzzle piece.
It's like. The ultimate game theory.
Yeah, it is. So it was a final exam cram from
Friday to Saturday actually. Dave Gurzak from the FFPC gave
me a call. I missed his call.
I had 30 lineups that were incomplete, 45 minutes to lock.
So I was how many? It's from my 30. 45 minutes.
Did you have left? I had 45 minutes left, the input
35. You're just mashing buttons at
that point. No, no, it was it.
I I had it. I had it all in my Excel
spreadsheets and I was essentially inputting it.
So it was down to and. For people who don't know
inputting it is not like it takes about a minute 13 like
it's or. Maybe a little.
More I had two minutes to spare. Wow.
And then, you know, do you know which lineup?
The winner? Yeah, so this was my it was my
71st. Oh my God, you.
Put it into the last 45 minute crane.
It it was one of the last ones and I got to get props in the
legendary upside. When did it lock in Hawaii?
What? What time is it?
First game on Saturday was 11:30 AM, Yeah.
OK. So when you were.
Building these out in your spreadsheet, like, what angle
were you taking? Were you like, locking your
quarterbacks and, like filling out?
Were you like putting like a set exposure target you reference
Pat's ownership ranks? Like what was kind of your
process? Yeah, I thought the best play in
the tournament was Lamar. So I sort of settled that I was
going to do 40% builds from Lamar at the top and I think I
started pushing some of that percentage towards Josh once the
Buffalo game got moved till Monday.
But I just, I took my stand, started with Lamar, I think I
had 25% Josh and just sort of worked from there.
The, the key to me of this contest when I participated last
year, I finished top 20 and I had DK Metcalf and that skill
position piece that gets eliminated in the first week.
You you need to get that right. And you had all these Rams
pieces, which I couldn't figure out the Browns pieces, so I just
went shopping for exposure. Mixing and matching essentially.
And who did you, did you end up overweight on any of the winners
or was like did your portfolio on the whole do well or did you
just have the one perfect line up?
I finished my second best line, finished 40.
But it it was an imperfect process.
I I wish I had more time. But I mean this.
This is the one that stuck. Yeah, I should pull this.
Up. Yeah, I'm looking at the team
now. One of the things you did well,
there's a couple things you did incredibly well, but you, you
full fade in Miami. You talked about the weather
thing, I assume across your portfolio.
You did a lot of picking a winner in case you're Miami,
which is something that that we definitely talked about on the
show. You also played both sides of
Green Bay Dallas, which ended up being huge because you have
Aaron Jones in this line up. You played both sides of Philly,
Tampa, which people didn't necessarily want to do, which
made Devonta Smith a really nice play in a loss that like you
were talking about. And then you also had Evans
advancing. You have Kukanakua in a loss
here, which was a really key. And then and Joku, you also
mentioned that one was wild because he loses.
But you have Houston's defense on this team, but Houston's
defense winds up being optimal for them in two games because
they scored three touchdowns in two games.
So really you're probably playing that more like a Brown's
win, but it ends up working. And then also you played Tucker,
you faded the the Ravens and he was optimal in two games as well
when Allen beat Lamar and there was no other Ravens that were
huge so that. I mean, it was a fact.
The kicker and defense thing was really fascinating this year,
but it's why you played the right games both ways there.
Green Bay and Dallas and and Tampa and Philly are the two
that really stand out. Yeah, actually out of the 90, it
it was a frightening fade of Miami, specifically with Tyreke.
But I took a hard stand on a hard fade on Miami and that
really sort of worked out in my favor.
I had success in the main event this year.
I advanced seven teams to the playoffs, and I think around
Week 12 I was picking up Houston defense.
It might have been week 13. I Stingley was coming on,
Anderson was coming on and then you had that D'amico blitz
package it it it sort of bled into this tournament where I
sort settled on Houston as a defense.
So I had a bunch of Houston Tucker combinations and if you
notice at the top that that was key, the Houston Tucker
combination. When you were doing that were
you thinking like maybe Browns to the AFC championship cause
the the the whole thought was Houston.
Cleveland winner probably goes to the Ravens and it did and
usually you want your kick and your D to play one game.
So when I saw line UPS like this, my thought was, well, they
were probably playing in Joku to beat Houston and then to also
beat Baltimore and you have a Browns AFC Championship run and
instead you wind up with a, you know, a Houston, Baltimore match
up where actually both the the specialists end up being
optimal. Yep, that was the strategy.
It's just a a a soft fade on on Houston and get that Njoku
passed and hopefully they beat Baltimore and just it worked out
with Tucker where he stayed even with the field and it kind of
gave you a little extension on your timeline.
It and it's funny you say you said you're you thought the best
play of the tournament was Lamar Jackson and then it's a Justin
Tucker team that takes it down for you.
Yep. And that was the other reason I
sort of in in the 11th hours started getting on to Tucker and
it was somewhat of a hedge. I had like 35 Lamar.
Teams. So yeah, it's, you know, it's
such a funny tournament because like, it is so much game theory
and and kind of playing it to pick the bracket and everything.
But it's also like, it's wild that like this team didn't have
Jake Ferguson, you know, like you didn't actually.
And we were sweating. We were like, man, look like at
this point, let's just look at our Ferguson teams and we didn't
have the right kind of combos with the Ferguson teams is very
frustrating. But it's just it's wild to see
that. It's like, no, there's actually
so many things that you have to get right in this tournament
over the course of all the rounds that you didn't even need
Ferguson. Yeah, I was.
I was really tilted because I had a bunch of Aaron Jones
Ferguson line UPS, sort of guessing if Dallas lost it'd be
Ferguson and rubbish time and it would be Aaron Jones as the key
component. And I was just tilted because I
just had the combinations wrong. And I almost had that Lamar
Ferguson, Aaron Jones, which would have kind of had me
covered with this team if Baltimore had beat KC.
But I mean this tournament means means a lot.
It's it's I've been participating it.
I think it's just it's special. And I think maybe two years from
now, if this were to run, you would need the optimal Dallas
Ferguson lineup with all the sin Sims coming, getting
incorporated. So yeah, I was actually
surprised that a Ferguson lineup did not take this down.
I know I was too, just 'cause he scored so many points.
But you know, the CD ownership I think did come in, you know,
around 90% or something. I forget off top my head.
We were kind of bummed that we didn't wind up with a little
more of him, 'cause I think we had two or three line UPS and
that I looked at the percentages and we we we were double the
field with like you know, two line UPS of him or whatever,
whatever we had. I mean it maybe we we ended up
with a Ferguson Nakua team that had Jayden Reid instead of Aaron
Jones, but it was a Josh Allen. It had had Baltimore's DST, but
it, you know, it didn't play Baltimore heavy.
It was a pretty strong roster. But I had Jayden Reid and and
Leonie was tilting that one the whole time.
You guys finished relatively well in this contest, right?
We had a couple top 20s. Yeah, we had this team in 16th,
team in 19th. We haven't run the full
accounting on it. I think we're pretty close to
breaking even on our 75 entries, which you know, the friends you
made along the way, I guess. But you know, trying to climb up
there at least into the top five, like like you and Colin.
I did want to take a peek at Colin's team here in the chat.
Very similar team. I hate how this fades away.
Difference is obviously Chase McLaughlin and Zay Flowers and
Amari Cooper. So I believe those were the kind
of the three main differences there.
Yeah, that looks. Right, that's I was looking at
his team. I thought my biggest risk had it
end to the KC game was was obviously it was essentially a
$500,000 payout for a two leg parlay and the first one was the
KC money line. And I thought the Lamar teams
were going to start steaming up but this Zay team started
bubbling up and that a touchdown where the the ball gets knocked
out well. Really, Man, That.
So that's the other thing. We only tilted on our team.
We were both of our top. 20 teams have Zay and would have, I
think, both been top ten if. We were team calling on that
one. We we wanted to say the score.
Of that DD. Yeah, yeah, this one our team
that finished. 16th was a. Nico Zay And then.
That's when we we're no longer live, was when Zay didn't catch
that TDA. And I don't know if we were
actually live at that point either.
But I think we have like some slim maybe.
Maybe we're live to finish like third is what it was.
Yeah, but we needed Zay to go on to have a big Super Bowl as
well. And yeah, him not scoring that
touchdown was brutal for us, too.
Yeah, that's incredible, man. So what else?
What else was your your process? You said you had Pat's ownership
projection. Someone in the chat said you
were just doing it based on vibes.
Is this true? How much what?
What kind of vibes base you? A little meditation.
That's all it takes. Pat's ranks Meditation.
A little meditation. It was an all nighter.
So I mean it. It was a a flawed process.
But I'm. I'm just glad this one stuck.
The Tucker you, the legendary Upside Discourse and with ship
chasing sort of brought me towards this Tucker build and
with the fact that I had 35 Lamar teams, I was pretty
shocked. I think Pat had the projected at
12% for Tucker, maybe 13 and he ended up being at 5% and when I
saw that, I mean, I mean I was stoked, I.
Had the the defense steamed up is what it was.
I thought the defense was going to be like the sneaky leverage
play on Tucker, end up being the other way around.
Yeah. Pat Kornacki needed to take.
From That was an all time. That was a MIS for Pat Kornacki,
for sure. It sounds like you play a ton of
volume on FFPC across a ton of you know contest, main event,
playoff contest, obviously. How how long have you been
playing on the platform I? Think I've been playing about
eight years on the FFPC. I've had the top five finish and
main event. This was my first big stab at
the best ball tournament. I think it's probably relatively
rare for someone to fire off over 100 in this specific term
tournament, but had fun on underdog too.
I I was actually fortunate enough to make the finals in BBM
4, so that was a nice. Sweat.
What a year, man. Yeah, fruitful.
Did you have a sweat at all in BBM or did it Peter out?
Yeah, I just had the CD on Monroe.
I came to the party with everyone's favorite correlation.
I had the LaPorte at Terry Week 15 Piece had Amari 16 and I
think finished 300. But it was a good time.
Well, when you have the other sweat, what what?
What was your FFPC best ball team like?
Yeah, so the FFPC had the CD piece, but it had Devante.
So in a full point PPR, Devante had 37 points as opposed to
Alman Rod 22, naked Lamar had a DJ Moore piece, and I had the
jump on the field with the Breeze and Njoku correlation.
Nice. That's nuts.
And So what? What was your like if you're
drafting that many, you know, best ball teams?
What kind of process did you have?
Were you approaching it from a portfolio standpoint?
Were you just trying to draft the best possible team in every,
every room? Were you trying to draft them
across the drafting spectrum as far as, like at what time of the
year you were you were entering these?
Yeah, I thought I was. The the draft cycle just seemed
perfect to me. I took player stands.
I had great closing line ADP value throughout my portfolios.
That's something I always focus on.
The player stands, worked out for me, the fades worked out and
so yeah, I kind of hit 20 around 22% advance rate and I was
slightly disappointed that I only had one bullet.
I was my goal was sort of two to three, but this team just sort
of sort of worked out. Yeah.
What was the final size on on FFPC this year?
Yeah. So best ball is 10,006. 100 Does
that sound right? Entries.
Total entries. Yeah, of total.
For the 125, right, that price. 125 Two 100K purse FFPC is
10,600, top two advanced to week 15 and it's top 2 to 16 and top
three to week 17. Because when you said you were
disappointed again, you had, did you say 110 entries?
Yeah, 115. So I went 20% on the advance
rate at 25 teams, advance at five teams in Week 16, and I was
hoping that I had two or three advance to the week 17.
Cause yours your, I mean you almost had at that kind of
volume 125 a pop at 1:15 I I don't remember the price
structure, but you almost have to get at least one team to the
finals to not be really underwater right?
You do. I was sweating this.
I mean, there's a lot of invested time and 115 drafts on
FFPC. So very fortunate this one
worked out. And it's a 72 team final, so I
mean that's do you have work to do in the final that was that's
a nice some you know a nice result.
Take That's really. Many FFPC best ball teams Did
you guys do? I didn't really fire at it,
'cause I was honestly like with as much drafting as I was doing
on Underdog and DraftKings, I was like trying to figure out
like the timing of it. I didn't want to do slow drafts,
so trying to get fast drafts to fill, I was, I kind of, just
kind of gave up on on trying to get in there.
I had one fill on me while I was at the dog park and auto drafted
and that kind of stabbed me a little bit.
What it what? What's your what's your
background Zach? Do you are you a professional
fantasy football drafter? You mentioned getting in some
surfing, splitting your your time.
What's your your day-to-day like?
Yeah, I was doing some day trading.
I've sort of shifted my focus as a sports wagering markets and
fantasy and hopefully these wins can give me a little powder to
continue. Nice.
That's awesome. Sacrilegious wants to know, did
you do a ton of slow drafts? Yeah.
What was the ratio on slow to fast?
Yeah, I I mean in order to fire off 115 in FFPC you needed to do
some slows. I prefer the the live draft.
I think it was 703070 live 30 slow.
Gotcha. It's amazing to do the type of
volume where you couldn't literally mean 70 teams and 30.
Yeah, I was like, no, that's up to 100.
Oh, that's like, you mean Percenter.
Actually, it doesn't matter. Yeah.
Do you, did you find, like to Pat's point?
Did you find drafting across multiple platforms to be like an
edge and kind of sharpen, you know, across various markets?
Or was it hard to reorient yourself to the pretty massive
scoring differences? I thought it was an edge sort of
going back and forth from underdog to FFPC, sort of
comparing the different markets. For example, underdog had Raheem
Mostert over Jeff Wilson and an FFPC Best ball.
It was the other way around and sort of settled on Raheem just
respecting the underdog market and and the lean on that.
And even now and I haven't really dived into the big board
an underdog. I've fired off a couple never
too early drafts and just say I do think there is an edge of,
you know, firing off drafts in different platforms and
diagnosing the different markets.
I I felt that even across like game types, I mean even this
year doing weekly DFS contests, like seeing what the Battle
Royale ADPS were like. There would be the week where
like it was Kenneth Walker against the Cardinals and he
just like steamed up the Battle Royale ADP.
And it was like you knew that Steam was going to carry over to
DraftKings. Even though it's different
pricing, different, you know, structure, but like those kind
of having that extra data point, especially at large volume when
there's so much data baked into those, ADPSI think it's
incredibly valuable. Absolutely.
Even just from a portfolio management thing of like, you
know, hearing that you're getting Mostert behind Wilson,
it really that's stung because I didn't take that much Mostert on
underdog partly 'cause I was like I can always just get
Wilson. But if you know, you could go
over on the other side and it's it's flipped, you kind of
naturally end up on the cheapest guy.
If your whole thing is, I'll just take the cheapest guy on
FFPC. The cheapest guy is the one who
wins it. For sure, who ended up being
like some of your big stands in season long across either
underdog or FFPC. So yeah, I mentioned Raheem,
yeah was a was a big player. I had a lot of tank.
Dell I did take a big stand on on CDI mean at point I was
taking them above digs. Oh, nice.
So I had him on my board at around 8th.
He was kind of going on. The turn took a big, big stand
on him, which worked out. Yeah, it's cool. 400 point PPR
seasons. You said on your board, do you
set your own ranks? Are you tweaking other ranks or
just tweaking ADP? How do you go about that?
I am tweaking my ranks off of legends like Pat, Gretch, you
and. You don't have to butter me up.
I don't have any ranks to take. I'm AADP hound at the end of the
day looking, looking for some margins on that and sort of
going through the draft cycle and trying to find some edges in
that and. So it does sound like you
approach all of this. It's, you know if you do day
trading that it is like a very market based game for you and if
you're putting that kind of volume in, it almost has to be.
Yeah, I think that's fair to say.
Like I said, this was my first big stab specifically at the
FFPC, so I kind of took that approach.
Do you, I mean, do you mind sharing any kind of like like
what was a big stand for you? Like if, if most are like what
kind of percent of the FFPC teams?
I gotta. I gotta pull up my exposures.
I haven't checked in in a moment, OK.
'Cause, I mean there's some, I mean it's it's sort of a a risk
tolerance thing I think where you know, I tend to get a little
bit more consistently carried away than like Pete does for
example, I'll get up to 30% on a couple guys usually.
Yeah. What was funny is one of my
highly exposed tight ends was actually Tucker Craft.
Adam had like. Really.
Nice big. Stand because he was going on
well, I guess in. FFP, He's going undrafted.
Even on FFPC. Yes, I think I had, I mean 20%
on 115 FFPC teams. Is was that like a film guy
take, like you didn't buy Luke Musgrave?
It was. I just kind of went down this
wormhole and I was like, Sucker Craft is going to beat out
Musgrave. He's Dallas Goader 2 point O
I've read this. He might.
Maybe he might be right. I read the The Bruegler's Beast
Guide and it was just he. Was.
A slalom ski master at 12 years old or something, and I just
took a weird stand on Tucker Craft.
I can't pull up my exposures. Everything's sort of.
It's all good. It's all locked.
So I love that though because you were talking about I mean
following ADP to a degree in some of those things, but also
your stand on Lamb. I I mean I I think the further
along just like stepping way back, the further along I get in
this and do this year after year after year.
The the best years I have is when I have respect for the
market but also have some stands and those stands hit right.
Like, I mean I think you still have to have your conviction.
You got to have your guys. You can't just be completely
market based. And so it's funny you're you're
you said it was like a weird stand you took on this solemn
skier guy that you learn. But that same mentality is what
landed you on a high exposure to see Lamp being willing to say
he's better than than Diggs and he's my 8th overall player and
he outscores every receiver but two by at least 100 points.
I mean so you you when you hit that stand it elevates the whole
portfolio. You know, it's huge.
I think that's interesting. I mean, I think that's in the
it's a feature, not a bug. Even though Tucker Craft sucked,
right? Like.
Yeah, so Laporta was a key to my season.
I had 20% Laporta. I had him sprinkled into A lot
of main event teams took us down on Rashid.
I had 20% Rashid Rice JSN. 25 The skeleton guy I feel I feel
you there if the hits. Outweigh the misses, though.
You're going to how? Devastating is it that like
Jason's in the Eno Benjamin range.
Remember Eno Benjamin, advance rate player, where he did
nothing a couple years ago but was on all the wedding teams
because the sharp drafters liked him.
Hey, he had that touchdown of Week 16, OK, You.
Can't. That's not, yeah, it seems like
you have a nice blend like Gretch was saying of, you know,
respecting the market but also not being afraid to have your
takes. And it's like if you're reading,
you know, deep scouting reports on this, it sounds like you
enjoy some of that. You know, I know ball aspect as
well. I mean, that's how I got into
fantasy. I just was infatuated with the
draft since high school and genuinely enjoy following it.
NFL Draft is somewhat of my Super Bowl.
I'll watch the combine. I'll do all three days at the
draft. So sort of develops like an
intimate knowledge of players in the pool and I think it gives
you the ability to take these players stands if you're
genuinely excited about the business side and the NFL draft.
What would be your advice to people who are sitting here
watching? They're like this guy just lives
the dream, splits his time between Hawaii and the West
Coast, ships best ball tournaments, meditates during
the day. What do they have to do to be
getting interviewed here? On there's this line up
two-minute before. Yeah.
Man, I think they got a legendary.
Upside's been a valuable resource.
I have to give you props back for shipping BBM and then
turning this around and does such a great resource on.
But yeah, I would, I would advise everyone to sort of dive
as deep as you can into into Pat's leg up and Rotoviz has
been a great resource for me also.
And then Pete Ship chasing, you're the man.
Well, we we we appreciate that. Yeah.
And it sounds like you know as someone who deals with markets
too, you understand variants. I mean I assume this is your
your best fantasy year by a by a big margin.
Yeah, of course, Yeah. This is very gratifying.
That one finally hit after winning Bestball.
I sort of tried to capture that momentum and I rolled 10% over
into the playoff basketball challenge.
And yeah, I'm just grateful it worked out.
Like I said, this count test means a lot.
I think everyone in the industry loves the playoff challenges.
And yeah, it was it was a great year.
I can't wait for 2024. Yeah, man, you talk about
momentum. You got, you got a lot heading
into this offseason. What a how many teams.
I mean you you got the bankroll ready to go.
What kind of volume do you think you're going to get down this
summer? What's the speculation on
Underdog? What's the What's the prize?
Is it 3.5 or five for BBM 5? I think they're going to go for
five. I'll, I'll take the under on
that. You take the under, OK?
I think, I think we're going to see a ton of even different
offerings this year, as opposed to just like making the flagship
as big as possible. I also think we're gonna see a
ton more eliminator tweaks to like weekly winners.
I think there's gonna be like a ton of different places to park
your money depending on. That seems like the smart way to
do it and they always make smart decisions.
So that the one you're saying that that we we don't want it to
be 5, right, Like we want it to be flatter payout structures,
all that. So that's what we talk about.
I mean, I think what you just said, Pete, sounds like the way
to manage it and that's. Awesome.
Also to make it a little bit easier to make the final would
be nice. And you can't.
That's the way to get it to be 5 it.
One way is to make it really hard to make the final.
And you think, you know, for most people, like even people
who D Gen. and who get a ton of entries down it there's normally
the mantra of like, let me just get one finals team.
Like let me just have that one sweat.
And so the more kind of possibilities in tournaments
there are to realize that like as much as we joke about the the
chasing crane like it's like does it really matter if it's 2
million or 3 million or 1 1/2 like at at that point like it's
just like it, it doesn't really change it.
And I know underdog now they are not concerned about that number
from a marketing standpoint which used to be the reason for
we have to be the biggest the what.
I know that that is no longer a consideration.
All right. Yeah.
I'll. Probably be Max.
I'll probably be maxing BBM 5 S Oh yeah, first across some
paths. Pat and San Diego.
I'll be multi tabling over some coffee but.
San Diego's turning into quite the the the little best ball hub
we got. You know TJS down there?
Is there someone else I'm forgetting?
Just just just Toyo and Karain holding it down.
Christian, who was in Vegas with us, is is out here.
OK, there you go. There you go.
Have you done any of? The Big Board Drafts yet, Pat,
have you been? Where's?
I think I've got like 25 in yeah, I've got.
I'm trying to test the rankings and, you know, make sure I'm.
I'm like, 'cause I it's just such a actually drafting is just
such a easy way to to dial stuff in.
Like I can get kind of the blocks of where everything
should go, and then it's like, why is this guy at the top?
That's I don't want. I don't want him.
But Pat, admit you got bullied into drafting because people
wanted rankings and so that you had to get the rankings out.
And then to get the rankings out, you had to do drafting to
help inform. Those I got bullied by.
Underdog. Underdog did this.
They released the tournament earlier than last year and then
I had to dive into my rookie research a a few weeks early.
I do. I actually like now, you know,
being where I am on the rookies, like I feel ahead of schedule
and that's a nice feeling. But yeah, I had AI had a week or
so that I thought was going to be chill.
And it wasn't chill at all. I will.
I'll give you another plug Pat I I consumed my first bit of like
rookie prospect content and it was your pod with Connor Rogers
and that was really good. It was like both informative but
just like high level, like I felt I wasn't like drowning in
stats and I'm like I don't even remember which guy you're
talking about kind of thing. So if you're like me and would
like a quick little primer, I enjoyed that, but Gretch and I
holding out strong. That's right.
No drafts yet. I I refuse to start the the bias
train. I don't want to get, you know
any. I don't want any stances on
anything. Right now I'm I'm putting it off
as long as I can. Davis was already on the swole
cast on Wednesday, trying to tell me like, oh, I know who's
going to be your guys's Sky Moore.
Over at Chippy. I was like stop, get, get.
Stop. Get out of here.
I don't want to. Hear that?
You think this, the early involvement might confuse you
when the real games begin. Is that your stance or because
I'm looking at this as an exciting warm up?
I mean, I I wouldn't mind doing some drafting.
I don't. I I it wasn't like a really firm
stance. I would say that, you know, I've
done this for eight years. The years that I've been really
engaged in the offseason, I've found it harder to come off some
of my stances because you have to argue them when you're making
content, when you're when you're creating, you know, pieces of
content, you're talking about it on pods.
You're writing stuff. You're making big analytical
arguments supporting this player or that player.
You tend to dig your heels in a little bit.
It makes it a lot harder over the six months of, you know,
from February to August to then get off that in August.
I've enjoyed the years where I've put it off as much as
possible and left myself what I've told myself is analytically
flexible so that when I get later into the year I'm I'm able
to come off some of these things.
I don't feel like I'm like putting myself on a certain path
or biasing my because I think that's the way to play.
It's something that Pat does really, really well.
I don't do it as well. I I get like sort of obsessive
on guys. But Pat, throughout the year
we'll be on one guy and then be off him for a stretch and and
he's able to like play it like a stock market thing.
You mentioned that you've done that type of stuff with your
background it might be something that you are you know it's
easier for you to navigate. It's tougher for me to navigate.
When I start to do my, I'm a very much an.
An an an analyst. And when I start to do my
analysis really deep, I start to formulate opinions that I have a
hard time coming off of. So I wanna I want more
information before I get that deep into it.
I'm just chasing ADPI think in these early contests, which is a
good time. Yeah.
I mean, the combine's a market moving event.
Like, I mean, Pat's boy Troy Franklin, like, if he's weighing
in at 187 as opposed to 197 and you accumulated some Troy,
you're like, oh. Toyo, I think we're rooting for
187 at this point. I'm worried he's going to be
like 177. That's 63.
Yeah, dude, he's he. Dane Bruegler has enlisted sub
180 in his ranks. I was like, Oh no.
You guys are so sick like your tagline for drafting big board
teams right now, so you have a weigh in sweat at the combine
like. Dude, I.
Didn't cheer on roadies for the weigh in.
I did a pod with Davis today and he he was touting this dude Sion
Vaki out of Utah and he he's like a deep running back sleeper
and we're like, dude, I haven't heard of this guy.
He's like well, he's converting from safety.
It's unclear if he's going to enter the draft as a safety or
as a running back, but like if it's as a running back, wheels
up well. You know, you know who has no
problem adjusting their priors on the fly?
One Mr. Davis Fucking bad. That's that's not a concern.
He will discard this guy on the trash heap for a week.
Drafting a dude and then he's a safety.
Davis is looking for this year's Puka Nukua and he went straight
to the Utah schools and he was like, all right, I got this
safety from from Utah, that's that's this year's.
He might be a running back. We'll take him.
That is the other and I'm I'm not discrediting the value in
diving in now but it's it's crazy to think of like you know
Toyo mentions the combine being like a market moving event and
obviously the draft and even training camp and think like how
long it took to even get tank Dell like firmly on the fantasy
drafting radar and then even Puka obviously even later than
that. It's like these Uber smashes and
they weren't even coming into focus like in May, you know,
after multiple market moving events.
And Puke was a great example of where by the time he came on I
had decided that he wasn't good. I didn't do a lot of research on
him. I wrote about him all
extensively after stealing signals or after Week 1 and
signals and and had him as the top waiver pick up and was
really high on him Because I went back and looked at the
stuff that I like to look at and saw how good he was at Target's
Pride run. It really was just a routes run
issue and that the the routes were there for him immediately.
With the Rams it's like this is going to stick.
His huge first week was going to stick.
It's pretty clear. But I was.
So I've heard a lot about him, even in my recap stuff this
offseason. He's one that for me is a good
example of where I I mean, I feel like I was too confident
that he couldn't play before, you know, when he came onto the
scene late as opposed to being flexible enough to like go back
and look at it while we're still drafting.
Because I didn't really want to even draft him while we're still
drafting. I didn't go back and look at it
after week one. Well, then it's a little late,
you know? So those are those are examples.
I was so annoyed with myself. I was like team, rookie wide
receiver team, draft Rams wide receivers.
Got really into Kyren, was drafting Stafford in Tutu and
then it's like puka Nah you. Idiot.
I took a little stand on the Cincinnati wide receiver in
these early drafts. Andre Yossi.
Voss's, yeah. Yeah.
Maybe the next puka, but maybe not at that extreme.
Level. Sean loved him last year out of
Princeton. I remember talking to him a lot
about Yoshi Vosh I. Just saw the IT looks like T
Higgins is gonna get tagged though, so.
What's Boyd's contract? He's a free agent.
Free agent 'cause he could, he could slide into that Boyd role.
What's Boyd's value? Right, Right.
Yeah. Yeah.
That's an interesting. Pat, does your big board
rankings at all reflect potential landing spots,
specifically in the top ten? Well, so basically last year I I
was in these early drafts, I drafted a lot of Zay thinking
that the Chargers were going to draft them.
I was like, Zay is going to be drafted by the Chargers, which
was sort of a. They they wanted him.
That was the whole thing about there being a disconnect I heard
between right, yeah, the the GM and the coaching.
I forget maybe it was Brett Coleman when I was hanging out
with him this week and he was telling me that that the the
coaches wanted zay. Anyway, sorry.
No, I just think it's it might be a viable strategy in this in
these early tournaments to sort of project landing spots
specifically in the top 10. So I was just, I'm looking at
your rankings. I'm just wondering if there's
any landing spot projections. Not really.
I would. If Harrison goes to the
Cardinals, I think I'll even have him a little higher.
If he goes to the Patriots, though, I think he's got to come
down a little bit. So I'm sort of, I'm not
projecting that. I guess I'm lean.
He's probably more Cardinals baked in there than not And then
I think the other Patriots part of that is you know do they end
up with Jaden Daniels or Drake May and I think there's a little
bit of risk to the May pick. You know if he goes to the
Patriots it's just such a such a bummer that weapons they can't
protect him very well. But he's so cheap and I think
he's such a value that I'm like I'm kind of drafting through it,
you know, and at the rank reflects that.
But not really. I mean I think the like
Neighbors is pretty well set up in the top ten.
Like he he could go to the Cardinals if if Harrison were to
go to the Patriots, he could go to the charges, he could go to
the Giants. I think all those are pretty
decent spots and I'm not super worried about a doomsday because
a doomsday could end up like with the Bears or something.
And that's pretty, pretty sweet if they've just got Caleb
Williams. So I would say that they aren't
really baked in, but partly because I'm not that like
concerned in terms of the downside and I'm above market on
all those guys by at least a little bit.
Because I'm go ahead, I'm concerned.
On the downside, when I'm drafting these teams, I think
the draft starts at 5. I'm my lien.
Caleb goes one. I'm taking Drake with Terry and
John I'm. I like that, yeah.
That's how I try to. Get it too that the commanders
are taking Drake. Although that seems like there's
a lot of steam coming. Jayden in the three spot is a
sacrificial lamb spot. I just think Patriots take
Jayden or is Marvin Harrison junior.
If the Cardinals don't take them, someone else is going to
come up. Then the real NFL draft begins
at 5:00. Mylene is Harbaugh takes the
tackle from Notre Dame or Bowers, and that's when the
other sacrificial lamb spot comes in at six.
Which is why I haven't been taking much Neighbors on the
basis that I think Neighbors is just going to separate from a
doomsday, and I just think the Giants are going to take him at
six. Here when you guys say neighbors
I for the first time, I'm realizing that it's like the
person that lives next to you because I've always seen it
written. I think I haven't like listened
to it like it sounds just like neighbors.
I was like, wait, neighbors NEIGH like, oh, that's who
you're talking about. Is it neighbors or?
Yeah, it's neighbors. No, it's neighbors.
It sounds exactly like that, Yeah.
I mean, someone's getting in the lab on, yeah, we got some.
Stuff to work on here. My neighbors.
I think the Giants could cut Waller.
And so I just think the targets available in New York could be
huge. And I just think neighbors so
good that I, I hear what you're saying.
But he's he's the type of prospect who we would be so, so
excited about if Harrison wasn't in this class.
I I think it's sharp though, Zach.
The in something even when I was doing the big board stuff last
year, I wasn't doing enough of, which is taking a stand on the
stack because unless it's unless.
It's like the only downside scenario would be if it was like
a 5050 spot where 50% of the market was stacking in one way
and then you were wrong stacking of the other.
But like, that's not the case. Most people aren't stacking, and
so even if you're wrong, you just have him unstacked.
Like, what, 95% of the field? Does most likely and you have a
little bit of a stack on their passing game if you have both
you know McLaren and and Dotson you still have like a little bit
of the receiver thing going on or or however you're playing
that I I wonder about may like I I know that they're they're not
gonna put all the weight on. I'm a little concerned about
Washington's new ownership. And then you have the basically
the point I'm trying to make is you have Howell from UNC, you
have May from UNC. It's right up the road from
Washington. There's a lot of people that
live in DC that are front like that went to UNC and stuff.
It's not, it's like right below Virginia geographically, North
Carolina is. So anyway, I I wonder a little
bit if it's like a a little push to be like we can't take another
UNC quarterback and that's going to actually sway them.
It shouldn't. I'm I'm vaguely worried about
that. Yeah the the downside right.
Like even like let's say you take McLaren Dotson maybe when
you go like Brian Robinson you're really building out the
stack. You grab Drake May and then they
take Jayden Daniels. Like, I mean Jayden Daniels is
still going to throw the ball like a fair amount I think like
he's and he's got you know he's AI like May a lot better as a
passer. But I don't know that you're
devastated that you have the Washington guys, like I think
they can probably still get there.
So it's a build I think worth like the downside isn't that bad
even if it doesn't come together.
So I like I've been doing that too, trying to trying to do the
Washington stack. The more I hear people talk
about this draft class, I'm starting to get the vibes that
has the potential to be like one of the best, like fantasy rookie
drafting experiences. Yet just if you think about it
this way, ton of wide receiver talent that we're going to be
able to draft. Ton of quarterback, viable
quarterbacks that you're going to be able to take in drafts
for. Sometimes you're just like, do I
really want to take these guys? And then you're going to have so
much ambiguity at running back, right, where you're just going
to have this flood of guys who are probably going to be like
past 100 you know, picks or double digit plus round picks
because we're not going to get a ton of studs with like really
early. It's last year's class without
Robinson and Gibbs. Right, And so that not having
the certainty there is probably going to just create a shit ton
of like viable options like rounds 10 through 16.
Totally, yeah. There's a bunch of like.
A great recipe for fun fantasy drafting.
It is. It does seem really fun.
Pat, where did you where have you fallen on On a Doons I early
in your research? I'm I have like the most boring
take ever. Like I I'm like he what's I
thought? You're gonna hate him.
No, I don't hate him. I was kind of, like,
disappointed. I didn't hate him, 'cause I
think, 'cause you were like, Pat, you're gonna hate him.
And I was like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna let me make my own take.
And then I then I came in, I was like, he's a traditional outside
wide receiver. He's you know, generally seen as
like very scheme proof. He's going to kind of fit into
whatever. He was productive, broke out as
a 19 year old. He was productive throughout his
career. He was efficient as an
underclassman in yards per outrun.
He did not have a lot of contested deep, deep targets,
which I generally like is like a sign of being able to separate
deep. But he has a really good
contested catch rate. So it's like you can win jump
balls but you can also separate. That's good.
I'd like to see him test well. Like if he doesn't test well,
that would be like a minor concern.
But generally, I'm like, yeah, cool.
Like, he seems good. He checks a lot of boxes.
Right. He's like a all.
Around like Solid Receiver. I always felt like totally film,
film take, 'cause I haven't dug into the numbers really at all,
and then like compare him to other prospects and stuff.
But I always felt like he was reliable.
He did everything you wanted out of a receiver, those types of
things. But I'm biased as hell, so I'm
interested to hear you talk about him that way where it
feels like he does every, like you said, he can separate deep
but also wink and test he catches.
That's the kind of thing that like when you watched him every
week you're like, yeah, you could go to him and he would win
or he would out physical somebody at the catch point if
he didn't win, like he could do. Either and that's my stats based
take like so it's kind of it's it's always fun when it marries
with you know the film evaluations and then you feel
like you can feel more confident but right.
The other thing is the framing of it right is that like in best
ball drafts it's Harrison one he's going in like the second
round. Neighbors is around pick 36,
Doomsday is around like pick 55 and then Brian Thomas is like in
the mid 70s or something so or late 70s.
So you're every one of those guys are in their own tier.
You have to go past pick 100 to get to the next group of wide
receivers. And if that feels right to me
like if Odunze was challenging neighbors, I'd be like this is
nuts. We're looking at like this
really high end early declare declare prospect believe he led
the SEC in receiving yards two years in a row as an
underclassmen like come on why is it why are we talking about
Odunze next to this guy but we're not.
You're getting like you know a 20 pick discount went before you
have to even think about Odunze. So it seems like efficiently
priced to me. And he might get a much better
quarterback right if he's going later.
Potentially, Yeah. Yeah.
So so I'm I'm taking more. Of Dunesay than I like Neighbors
more, but I'm taking more of Dunesay.
Just 'cause I'm scared that Neighbors is landing with the
Giants. And let's just say a Dunesay,
let's say Chicago goes Caleb and then at 9 takes a Dunesay.
Doesn't a Dunesay come up around?
Yeah, neighbors come down around and aren't they right next to
each other? Yeah, and then I'm just
hammering neighbors for the rest of the rest of the draft season.
Well, is it? Is it that kind of not not to
put this on Ben's guy, but is it that kind of like the Addison
Quinton Johnston dynamic last year where then like the Quinton
Johnson moved up Because don't you put.
That evil. That's what I'm saying.
No, but I think the the. I can't wait to make it a Doons
egg clip. That's that's what we're going
to have in a Doons egg clip. Don't put that.
Yeah, don't put that. On here, come on.
No, it's not going to be a Doons egg clip.
Come on. I need a Ave.
Maria clip. I prior to that Kansas City.
That's how we got to close, yeah.
Yeah. The Justin Tucker.
That's the one clip that came through.
Justin Tucker is such the goat kicker that even the ship
chasing clip couldn't ruin it. Yeah.
Sure, all the ship chasers know. But does the general public know
that's actually Justin Tucker singing opera?
It's it's such a beautiful. Part of it, I think they I think
they do. We we, yeah, I don't know.
We've commented on it at times. It's so.
I played that YouTube clip before the Kansas City game for
the Sweat. Did you really?
I did. With.
Some sage. I like it.
You, man. Well, hey man, you know, you
said it was a flawed process, but that worked out pretty well.
Guys, I think what we need to do, because Zach's saying, you
know, listens to the show, reads the stuff, looks at the
ownership projections, but then he's doing all of this stuff,
the meditation, the sage. I think we need to meet him
halfway and that's what's going to really ignite our process and
take it to the next level. You boys better call me if you
ever come to the islands. We'll put you in a ice bath
sauna. Open those shockers up.
All right, dude, Where? Where?
Which island did you say you you're at?
I'm on the North Shore of Oahu. OK, very nice.
Pete's already scheduled this trip.
That's opening the Shockers up. You You had it with the
Shockers. Oh yeah, you had them at Sauna
for sure. I'd be like, sorry honey, I need
to go do this fantasy football spiritual journey.
Where I need to? Zach is going to give me some
crystals to be back to the mainland and help me win a
tournament sounds. Like a pretty good man's video
if you want to bring him back. Yeah, I know, Zach, we got you,
I got you linked down in the show, notes your your Twitter.
Anywhere else the people can follow around your chill ass
vibes. Yeah, at Zach Toyo, I think
that's where you can find me and I'll be in the underdog streets
with that, probably the FFPC. So yeah, thanks for having me
guys are. You going to make a content turn
like everyone else who wins a tournament?
You going to launch your own zenupside.com?
So I I I have to say for the weekly walkthrough Pat is I
can't imagine how much time that takes.
It takes like the amount. Of time because when it's not
out, we got to wait another 12 hours, so.
It's been habitual for the past three years for me to read Silva
Silva's match up and I started week one with the weekly
walkthrough and it's become habitual for me too, so that
it's just a unbelievable resource.
But I love to come on and do some drafts.
Yeah, this is actually a good question.
I'm curious this too. What it What is your handle on
the I I know it on on Toyo on FFPC, but what about underdog?
Yeah, it's for some reason sub fo three.
It was SU BF0 3AS in sub 4/3 AS in the combine.
So I like. That for some reason that was
taken, so I used the Japanese sub fo Stan So SUBFOSAN.
Sort of an odd name, but. Dude, I like it.
I like it. Gretch, Pat, anything else from
from you guys? I want to say real quick, last
thing to wrap up the Omni Cup for anyone who was interested in
that we dropped the link earlier.
We're going to start those drafts next Wednesday before
you're going to see us again. I got a lot of people last year.
They were like, ah, I missed out.
I didn't get signed up in time. If you're interested, go put
your name on the list. If you're not interested at that
point, you can you can drop out later, but wanted to let
everyone know. That's five more days to sign up
for that. There you go, Pat.
Did a pod with Davis and Jacob Sanderson today on the rookie
class. Talked kind of more in depth it
as Pete mentioned, I did a pod yesterday with Connor Rogers
also talking about the rookie class and getting some kind of
additional context. Probably better to start there.
It's a little more high level. And then tomorrow doing
legendary sickos episode with Eric Vine four.
Also talking rookie. So lots of rookie talk on the
legendary Upside Podcast network.
Beautiful. Yeah.
As you mentioned, no show next week.
I'm taking next week completely off.
We'll get back in the lab. Touch base, See what we got for
you guys later in the month. After that, probably some
drafts, probably some more Omni check ins, all of that good
stuff we can dig into the prospects more, all of that.
But appreciate you and shout out again to all of the winners in
the playoff contest. Saw so many screenshots across
underdog FFPC, all of that good stuff.
So appreciate all of you guys for hanging with us and
congratulations on all of the scores.
Thank you again to Zach. We'll see you guys in a couple
of weeks. The.