Welcome to the Auction Brief.

There's a joy in this game, sir.

Not taking you on a journey through fantasy football, the law, and life.

The saw yours thak depends on.

How much you want.

And now you're legal analyst and auction draft expert here to help you dominate your fantasy drafts.

Your host, Drew Davenport, there.

Are full hearts.

Hey, everybody, welcome into the Auction Brief.

As the lady said, I'm your host, Drew Davenport, You're fantasy football lawyer, and thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of the Auction Brief.

I think I say this every week, but we've got a great show for you, and I really believe that every week.

I pour my heart and soul into coming up with topics every week that are going to keep you entertained, that are going to make you better at fantasy football, that are going to make you better at auctions.

And I think this week is going to be one you're really going to enjoy.

We've got Jim Coventry from Rodal Wire.

Jim's a buddy that I met back in twenty nineteen of The King's Classic.

We've grown to be pretty good friends since then, and I've watched Jim grow into one of the best football and fantasy and analysts in the business.

Are none guys, one of the best.

He's going to drop some knowledge on us in discussions with Drew.

But I think I'm going to tease this week's show by saying it might be one of the most consequential episodes of the auction Brief that I've ever put out.

And I say consequential because I started thinking the other day about some of the things that I say that don't get a lot of love from people around the business, around the industry, from casuals, from analysts.

There's some things I say and believe about auction drafts that I believe are absolute max about what we do, and yet I don't get very good reception about those beliefs sometimes.

So that is what the genesis of today's show is.

It's my three unpopular yet unwavering auction beliefs.

So I'm going to tease the show like that because these things are three things that I don't think most people agree with, but I believe are absolute pillars of becoming a better auction drafter.

And look, when you talk about auction drafting, it's hard to get the reps in We know that.

We know that it's difficult to get a bunch of reps under your belt doing auctions.

It's easier than ever to do MOX.

That's great, but max are not the same thing.

People draft differently in getting actual auction experience in a room with money on the line, with people who are drafting to play the whole season, it's hard to get the reps.

I've been doing this twenty five years.

If I can short circuit that for you and to help you get better quickly, that's what we're here for.

I can get rid of some of that learning for you and drag you up with me, even if you've only done five of them, or ten of them or twelve of them in your life.

And that's what we're here for.

My three unpopular yet unwavering auction beliefs, these are non negotiable ideas.

These are things that I'm uncompromising about, and I've been thinking about them for a long time.

So we'll get to that in just a second.

We have a short FF legal update this week about Rashi Rice.

I want to comment on some rumors recently about a jury trial he's got coming up in January and what that means for his twenty twenty five NFL season.

I'm going to get to a mail bag soon.

I know those of you and my Patreon are aware of this, but I don't think I've announced it on the auction briefield.

I'm going to start doing a little bit of a mail bag portion of the show because I get a lot of questions this time of the year about keepers and about strategies for certain things.

I don't love mail bags because sometimes I think it excludes part of the audience.

But I'm going to try to take some of these questions and extrapolate and sort of apply them across the industry, and hopefully that's going to be some helpful We're going to get to that in the next couple of weeks before we get to any more content, though, don't forget.

You can find me on Twitter at Drew Davenport FF, and I'm also the Fantasy Football Lawyer on TikTok and in Patreon of course, you know the Patreon networks.

Just four bucks a month and get in there and get some of my most innermost thoughts of auctions about legal situations and about anything fantasy related.

I'm always putting out content over there, and it's extremely cheap, or at least that's what I believe for the value I'm trying to deliver there.

So that's the Fantasy Football Lawyer.

And of course, the one plug I have every week are the draft boards that I use every year for my home leagues.

That is the draft boards from fjfantasy dot Com.

That's FJA Fantasy Draft Boards.

You can use my code auction twenty twenty five auction two zero two five that'll get you ten percent off your order.

They're a little bit more expensive than regular draft boards, but I believe in them.

I think they're the best in the business.

Works out to about four or five bucks a person.

So you know, if you go join the Patreon and buy an FJA Fantasy Draft board, you're gonna spend fifteen or twenty bucks and you're gonna get tons of fantasy content and amazing fantasy draft boards.

That's what we're here for.

So let's jump into a quick, very quick I want to do this in like one or two minutes.

Let's see how that actually goes.

We're gonna jump right into this short FF legal update and let's get into some auction talk right after that.

We are ready to go.

I don't want to spend any more time delaying one of my favorite topics I've ever put out there on the Auction Brief.

Let's get into the legal update.

Now it's time for your legal update.

The reason I want to do a legal update this week is not that something significant has happened with Rashiet Rice, but I want to caution everybody about something that dropped this week concerning a jury trout date that he has on January twentieth of next year.

And the reason I want to bring it up is because we had a ton of people on Twitter just running with a story and there was some high level fantasy analysts that ran with it as well well, that Rice had a jury trial on January twentieth.

And I'm going to say this to all you Auction Brief listeners, because you're loyal, you've been listening to me for a long time, or you've just found the show and you're listening, you know, to the fifth episode this summer.

That means that you're sticking with me, and so I want you all to have this information.

I want to ask you something if there was a criminal case against Rashiy Rice.

Do you think that the first thing that we would hear about that criminal case is that he has a jury trial coming up?

No, that doesn't make any sense.

You don't have to be a lawyer to know that when Rashi Rice gets indicted, it's going to be big news.

Not only will Adam Schefter have it, but every other person will have it right away that he's indicted.

On top of that, they're going to try to, you know, get him on camera doing the purp walk into the jail to post his bond for whatever.

That's what media outlets do, That's what their job is, to get him walking into the courthouse all that stuff.

We're going to have all of this advanced notice about what's going on with the Rice case before it ever gets a jury trial.

So every time that there's a new jury trial that's scheduled in one of his civil cases, people flip out, like, here comes the jury trial.

What does this mean?

It means nothing, means nothing, like stop man, Like we're just here flipping out about every piece of news that comes out about these civil cases that mean nothing to the NFL.

Now if he suddenly just like doesn't get indicted or something, maybe the NFL looks at the civil cases in some of the discovery decides to suspend him for a few games anyway.

But like, really, in general, civil cases mean nothing.

They met something with Deshaun Watson because there were so many cases and they had to do something and the pattern of conduct was obvious when he didn't get charged criminally, they had to do something.

But in general, the NFL doesn't care about civil cases.

And I've said this before and I'm gonna say it again right here.

Civil cases are extremely pliable with all of their court dates.

What they do is they set deadline after deadline after deadline after deadline.

I think I've said this before, but my wife was involved as an attorney in a case of a young girl who got mauled by a dog.

When after the insurance company that then's like six years old.

Man, that little girl is a different person right now and the case just settled.

So like stopp flipping out about every grand jury date that comes out in a Rashi Rice civil case.

He's got two cases against him right now.

Number one is about to be dismissed for what they call want of prosecution.

That's a civil legal term on July fifteenth.

That case is going to get dismissed for want of prosecution.

The other case penning against him is the one that people are flipping out about.

It does have a jury trial on January twentieth, but it means nothing.

That date is probably gonna get kicked again.

Look, they can't depose a guy who might have criminal charges coming, so they're not going to go try to depose Rashy Rice, and then he's going to be like fifth plea, the fifth play, the fifth thanks for the deposition, Like okay, Like, let's use a little bit of common sense here.

We don't have to be lawyers to understand some of this stuff.

He's not going to incriminate himself.

And if he goes in for a deposition and says anything, it'll be just to say, hey, this wasn't my fault or something, and this jury trial date is going to get pushed again.

So don't worry about that.

Nothing has developed in the criminal case right now.

Let's get that out of our heads.

We're going to move on and look at that.

I didn't come close to one or two minutes, did I maybe sort of close, sort of close, but that's it for right now.

The Rice case is where it was before when I last updated you.

We're waiting on an indictment, and until such time as that happens, we don't have to worry about anything with Rice.

I really don't believe he's going to get suspended this year.

We're in the middle of July.

Even if that indictment were to come down tomorrow, this case is not ending by December, so don't worry about Rashie Rice right now.

We're still in the clear.

That's it for this week's FF.

We loved it all right.

Well, I'm excited to get into the topic because, like I said in the lead up, I do believe this is a big episode for me.

And just like last week when I talked about players, specific players, and I did a whole episode on some of my takes about my auction approach and strategy with specific players, this is a new one for me too.

So we're breaking round here on the auction brief and we're going to do it my three unpopular yet unwavering auction beliefs that I think everyone should take to heart and everyone should use them to get better quickly and to simulate the knowledge that I have, and that I've gotten over hundreds of auction drafts that I can pass along to you and hopefully make you better quickly.

Let's do it.

It's time for some auction talk auction talk, So before I start, I want to just say a quick disclaimer here.

There's a lot of people who are listening to this show for the first time.

I'm continuing to get messages from people like, Hey, I just stumbled upon your podcast, and that's a very real thing.

We're getting new listeners.

So I want the people who have been here for a while to understand that you're probably gonna hear a couple of things that are not going to surprise you, but I think they're really important to talk about, and I'm hopefully going to add another layer for you and add some context for you that maybe we haven't had before.

But this topic, like I said at the beginning of the show and the teaser, I think it might be one of the most consequential episodes of the Auction Brief because I think that for the most part, the fantasy community, and when I say community, it's not just players people who like the game, it's also analysts.

I think they generally line up against me on all three of these things, and I'm not here to say that my way is the only way to do it, that I'm right and they're wrong, except that I am.

I'm just kidding.

I'm totally kidding.

Auctions.

The beauty of auctions is that you can approach them many different ways and still be successful.

So I'm not telling you that my way is right, their way is wrong.

What I'm telling you is that as a person who's done this for twenty five plus years, twenty six, twenty seven, I don't remember how exactly when I started, I think it was ninety eight, but a person who's done this for over a quarter of a century, these are three things that I've picked up, and I've had to really examine my beliefs over the last six years doing this show with you guys.

I've had to really think to myself, do I still believe that?

Is that true?

And one of the things that frustrates me about auction coverage out there is that people say things that they've heard that they think sound good, but when you go into an actual auction room, that's not how things work.

And a lot of times I get people saying, well, if you nominate this person this far ahead of aav and they come in this much below, then you have gotten a bargain.

And I think to myself, that may be true in your brain or in some sort of vacuum with numbers, But when you go into an auction draft room, this is an art form, folks.

I have told you this over and over.

Being good at auction drafts is oftentimes about the art of it.

It's about applying everything you know, your knowledge of fantasy but also your knowledge of the auction game, to create an outcome that is more favorable than anyone else in your draft room.

It's not about I got value on these six players and what even is value?

And that's exactly what we're going to talk about today.

These three unpopular yet unwavering auction beliefs I have are three things that, like I said, I've thought about them so much over the past six years and over the past five summers of doing this.

Four summers of doing this show that I believe them more now than I ever have.

And that's why I'm putting them out today.

Because while I may look a little bit silly to some people who think, well, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about.

I don't care because I'm interested in helping you guys.

And if you are listening to this and you're thinking, hey, maybe that sounds a little bit weird, that's okay.

The comfort level comes with the reps, and I have an extremely high comfort level that these three things I'm going to tell you are correct.

They're the best way to approach an auction, and they're going to help ninety nine point five percent of you out there, and the point five percent that this doesn't help, you're probably good enough that you don't need my help anymore.

So maybe you like listening because the show is entertaining, or you like getting you know, your auction fixed or whatever, but you're good enough on your own.

If you're in that point five percent, I ain't talking to you.

The same for you.

Man, Oh my fat wet mouth is off and running hashtag FWN.

I haven't done a lot of screwing around this year.

Maybe we need to screw around more.

Maybe I need to like have a couple of drinks before I get on the air.

Who votes for drinks before I get on the air?

Next week, we have had almost no duke mean, whereas Duke Man brah, I mean, go on, man, I don't know Duke and Ranch guy, they're all hanging out with the plane settler.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I don't want to force it though, I don't want to force it.

So maybe a couple drinks next week, who knows.

But what do you say we get into this?

The first two I think are going to be familiar to some of you, but the third one I think might surprise you a little bit.

So I'm going to pull you through with the teaser.

On that third one, it's gonna be a little bit different.

But the first two are things you've heard me say before.

But like I said, stick around for how I'm breaking it down, because I really think that these two things, while unpopular, are massively important to your game.

The first one of my three unpopular but unwavering auction beliefs is that average auction values are almost most worthless.

They are almost worthless.

One of the things I went off on last summer was about how we are constantly fighting the urge to prepare for our auction drafts like we would our regular serpentine snake style drafts, and that the fact is we can't apply a snake or serpentine style preparation and just kind of brute force it with our options.

There are some things that we can pay attention to.

And I you know, I talked last week and I got an interesting comment, and I want to come to it about talking about specifica AAV and the guy who asked it, he made a good point, and I'm going to address that here in just a second, but let's talk about what AAV is real quick so that everyone's on the same page before I get to that.

AAV is simply this average auction values.

It's the equivalent of ADP in serpentine drafts, which is average draft position.

So average draft position is where a player is selected on average Average auction value is price for a player in an auction.

And I want to talk about the comment I got last week about how the person was asking, hey, would you reference AAV, and he was talking about some high stake stuff LIKEFC auctions and their AAV.

The reason I don't do that is because I think there's a very specific set of AAV that you get from each different type of draft.

One of the criticisms I got on last week's show was that, well, you were using ADP.

Well, I sort of was, And I think that I was sloppy last week with the lexicon that I used, because I would say, well, his ADPs AREB twenty three, and that's interested in that I didn't really mean ADP so much as I mean that he's the twenty third player coming off the board.

So what that is is that's a relational comment.

I'm relating that player's value to the other players around him.

I'm not saying that he's pick number twenty three, Okay, because there's a huge difference.

When you say somebody's ADP is it's wide receiver twelve.

That's not really accurate.

So I probably was sloppy last week about calling it ADP.

All I mean is that the values that I gave you last week were a product of hundreds of thousands of drafts that have already taken place and compiled by football guys to give you an idea about what people's opinions are about players.

So when we talk about ADP, if you're strictly defining it as average draft position, you're saying that player's ADP is twenty two, which means they're on average coming off the board at the end of round two.

But if I say they're wide receiver thirteen and their ADP is twenty two, that's more precise, and I probably should have been better about that.

Not probably, I definitely should have.

What I don't care about is, hey, this guy's a mid round three player.

What I do care about is he's RB nineteen, and that tells me if I'm talking about an RB two, there's five behind him and six ahead of him.

So I don't really like talking about AAV specifically because the values themselves I don't believe are what helps us.

In fact, we're going to talk about that in point number three here about value and sort of stripping away the biases to get to the value itself.

So AAV is just average auction values.

But what it tends to set up as, unfortunately, is a bunch of values from drafts that are not necessarily going to be like yours.

The AAV that you see is almost never going to be the same value that you see in your draft.

I'll tell you what I did custom par sheets last summer, and folks, I gotta be honest.

I thought i'd come up with a couple, you know, different builds I like, and I kind of like apply them across a couple of different you know, hey, this guy wants this, this girl wants this, and then I would sort of apply them and make a few tweaks here and there.

That did not happen.

I thought I could automate the process to a certain degree and not like saying hey, here's your robot response, but just saying, hey, this is three wide receivers and a flex, and I can sort of build it like this.

I thought about that, but you know what, it was impossible.

And why was that Because there's too many different settings out there.

Everyone has a different setting.

It's like, oh, my home league does this, but it's ten dollars extra per keeper.

Okay, well that's completely different than a regular keeper league.

Oh well, my league does this, except you can start three wide receivers, but then you can't start one in your flex.

My league does this, but it's six point per passing touchdown and only one point for an interception.

It's four points per passing touchdown, only you know, it's two for an interception.

Folks, you would not believe how many different settings there are and the different variables in putting them together.

Almost no league is the same.

So why the hell would we want to take some generic average auction values and apply them to our own league, because they're almost never going to be the same.

I think there is one little slice of preparation that AAV can help with, and that's a super duper beginner, somebody who doesn't do a lot of auctions.

And if that's you and you haven't done them before, then I think you need to spend some time with AAV.

I would say that's important for you because you need to get a general idea of what these players are going to go for.

But Folks, I've been doing this too long.

In a two hundred dollars draft, I know what a guy should go for Jamar.

I don't want to pay sixty dollars for Jamar Chase.

If he's at fifty one, I'm gonna think about bidding.

I know, I don't want to pay sixty dollars for b Jon Robinson, but if he's at forty nine, I'm sure is all gonna say fifty.

I don't want to pay twenty bucks for Trey McBride, but if he's at thirteen, you bet I'm saying fourteen.

Why do I know that?

Because I've done a ton of them.

It has nothing to do with AAV.

I haven't looked at AAV in years, years.

It does nothing for you.

I'm not even sure that good drafters should with it.

You know, I've said before, like you can get it, you can prep with it.

But AAV all it's doing is relating the position, just like a list of players would.

So rather than using AAV, just go and look at how players are being drafted.

Right now.

Where's David Montgomery?

He's RB twenty three right now?

Do I think that's, you know, too high or too low?

You don't need to be like he is.

Fourteen dollars?

What does that do for you?

Fourteen dollars?

Where for?

Who?

For what league?

What tyl are we doing?

And I see so many people talking about get a hold of some AAV, folks.

I'm not here to bang on anybody that's come on my show and said that.

So if that has happened, that is not the purpose of today's conversation.

The purpose of talking about this is to make you where if you're a super duper beginner, you need to go find You need to find some AAV because you need to familiarize yourself with what you should be looking for, but everyone else stop stop.

Okay, you only should be looking at it to get a general neighborhood guess when you're starting out.

But after that, just stop because the only thing that you can do is screw yourself up and start thinking to yourself, oh that's a value.

You know what ends up happening.

Here's the major problem if you use it and you see a value for somebody.

Let's say that you see a value on devon a chan of forty one dollars and you go into a draft room and a chan stops at thirty one, and you're like, oh my god, I got a bid.

You say thirty two.

Somebody says thirty three.

You're like, well it's still the aav was forty one.

We're at thirty three.

I'm gonna say thirty four.

So you say thirty four.

Everybody stops.

You land a chan for thirty four bucks, and you're like, hell, yeah, what a great start to the draft.

Now in a vacuum, I would consider that a great start.

I would consider that a really nice buy for devon a chan.

But what if this is a league who just doesn't give a crap about running back?

What if this is a league that hates Dolphins players.

I'm giving extreme examples, but you understand my point.

What if this is a league that just doesn't pay up for running back.

What if you turn around in a little while and Christian McCaffrey goes for thirty six, or what if you turn around in a little while and you get some other insane deal on a running back and you're like, oh my god, thirty four was too much for eight Chan.

Whoops, I made a mistake in paying thirty four for eight Chan.

Now again, I'm not don't fixate on the number, thirty six or thirty eight whatever.

Don't fixate on the number.

Fixate on the fact that sometimes you're gonna spend money based off of that AAV and you're gonna think you got a good deal, and your draft room is gonna be like, eh, sorry, crappy deal.

I've been in so many draft rooms before where that's happened.

Hell, I bitched about it for three years when I went in the Fantasy Index auction draft and I thought I got great deals.

This is back when Hopkins and Digs were elite, and I got them both for less than thirty bucks.

I was like, ahha, suckers.

And then I realized that's because all these guys had done it before, and they knew they needed to build these super deep rosters because it's the best ball league.

Idiot.

I was the idiot in that room.

I was the one in there bidding, and if I was looking at AAV, they would have told me I should have spent twelve more dollars.

AAV does nothing but steer you wrong.

It's just it's crap when you're inside of a draft, and I think it's crap when you're preparing because it just gives you unreasonable expectations and you go on there using those numbers and it's just almost never applicable.

Here's a couple good examples, and I use my home leagues because that's something that I'm intimately familiar with, but I think these are really good examples.

I got two examples that I think are going to ram this point home and we can move on.

The first is I have a home keeper league.

We have twenty two man rosters.

It's a best ball I've talked about it before, but we use a superflex format that means that you're not just starting two quarterbacks every week.

Well you are starting two, but you need to have three or four active every week so that you can get that massive quarterback advantage in the super flex spot.

So most people go into a draft and they want to land three or four quarterbacks.

But there are some people in the league who have been doing auctions for a while.

Actually, most of the people in the league now have been in the league a while, or I've done them for a while.

They just don't like spending a lot of money sometimes.

And what's interesting is I've had a lot of success in that league, specifically because of my quarterback situation.

I've had Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes and like Dak Prescotten, some nice keepers and some nice years from those quarterbacks, and I've won a lot of titles.

But for some reason, this league just doesn't pay up for quarterback.

Now, we can debate until we're blowing the face why that is.

The point is you would expect the league to see quarterback is really key in this league, and that's how people are winning, That's how I've been winning.

But I gotta be honest with you, it's not happened.

And in fact, in the last two or three years, quarterback prices are actually down in that league.

That's wild right down.

Why is that?

I don't know.

But quarterbacks are too cheap in that league.

I don't understand it, but it's been, as it's been one of the enduring mysteries, and I've had to really stop myself from going after like seven quarterbacks every year because they are too cheap.

There's just always a couple guys at the end of the draft that are way too cheap.

I know Baker Mayfield went a couple of years ago for like single digits.

That guy's love and life right now happens to me and my brother in law.

But I don't know what we're doing if we're in a draft where it's a super flex and quarterbacks are too cheap.

But this is one of those situations where if you were looking at superflex, AAV with a three hundred dollars cap and the bidding stopped at twenty eight bucks on Dak Prescott, you'd be like, hell, yeah, I'm bidding on that.

In fact, you'd probably bid up to like fifty bucks of a three hundred dollars cap or sixty bucks to get a guy like Dak Prescott.

That doesn't happen in this league.

So what the hell is your AAV doing for this league.

It's doing nothing.

It's confusing you, it's screwing you up because you're going in there and paying like, oh yeah, I'm gonna snap up these quarterbacks.

And if you were new to the league, you'd walk in there with the AAV and you'd be like, I'm crushing it on these quarterbacks and then you'd have four of them on your roster, and then an hour later you'd realize you overpaid on all four of them.

This league has an identity.

I preach about it all the time, but that's a concrete example of something that you have to know that you have to be all over.

AAV just screws that up.

Another example is my other home league.

We're going for our twenty fifth anniversary draft this year.

It's a league with a lot of conservative players, but guys who have done auctions for a long time, so they're not going to go out there and get crazy.

And we have what's called a full flex.

Now we're not super flex.

We're one QB, but you only need to start one of every position, and then you can start four of anything else, not quarterback.

So if you only have to start one running back And what does that do to the draft?

Everyone answer out loud.

It tanks the running back market.

Right, You're going to have a couple guys that are gonna be worth a ton of money, and then nobody's going to care about anything else because once you get past those first eight, ten, twelve guys, nobody cares because you don't have to start them.

They're just depth.

At that point, are you really that excited to be like, go out there and draft Joe Mixon in that format?

No, because you don't have to.

You don't have to force the running back position like you do in other leagues.

And same thing with wide receiver.

You don't have to force it because you don't have to start three of them.

You only have to start one of them.

That drastically changes the values.

And once again, how are we adjusting AAV for that?

You're not.

You're not.

You can't go out there and click full flex give me the AAV.

That's not a thing.

So what you have to do is you have to go in your room, you have to breathe, and you have to watch what's unfolding.

And this is something that I'm going to talk about on the Patreon this week.

Really watching your draft at the beginning and letting it breathe is the way to handle this issue of figuring out value in your room, because oftentimes I see people say, hey, great deal on that guy.

Was it though?

Was it a great deal?

Do we know that we're not in the room.

We don't know the settings, starting lineups, bench spots, flexes.

Everything revolves around your settings, and that is what drives value.

And we can't sit there and say, yeah, great value based on this price I saw of this.

No, no, that's not what we're doing.

Just turn that part of your brain off.

AAV is almost worthless.

Put away the average auction values, and let's move on point number two.

You need to have exact prices for what you want to pay for every position on your roster.

This is something that I simply have not been able to move the ball an inch in the last five years about this.

I will tell you one thing.

Though analysts they don't believe in it.

But regular players play that come to me for help, that are following me for fantasy advice, they love this idea.

And that should tell you something.

I just had a conversation last week with Dave Richard.

So I'm sure you heard me talk to Dave Richard last week and he talked about Heath Cummings.

And when he talked to Heath, Heath said, I don't have any thoughts or intentions about any particular position when I go into an auction draft.

I think that's awesome, that's admirable, that's great.

Having said that, let me tear into that idea a little bit.

Not that I think that Heath's idea by itself is bad.

I think it gives everyone perhaps a poor perspective, because I love the idea that Heath doesn't have an intention on a particular position or whatever.

But how many of us out there are Heath Cummings.

How many of us are as good as him?

How many of us have as much experience analyzing fantasy football for his, by the way, full time job.

Former football Guy started at Football Guys, moved on to CBS.

He's been doing hundreds of auction drafts, just like I have over the last quarter century, maybe more.

The guy talks about it, it's his daily job.

How many of us have that level of knowledge, experience, reps in an auction draft room, and confidence to pull it off.

How many.

How many do you think listening to the show, the fifteen hundred to two thousand people every week that listen, how many of you think one, two, five, I don't know.

There's some of you out there, but not many, all right.

And if you are that confident, then hey, you don't have to listen to all this.

Maybe you can listen to it for fun.

But I think most of us are not Heath Cummings, right, So when he says, hey, I don't have any particular intention, that's great for Heath, but I think that does everyone else a disservice.

And I'm going to actually have Heath on either on the show or in the Patreon because I want to talk to him about that particular comment, not because again that I think he's wrong, but I think it does a disservice to people who don't have as much experience or knowledge or ability.

So I believe you should have exact prices on your sheet.

And that brings me to the par sheet.

I don't want to go into it because if you've been here, you've heard about them ad nauseam.

But for those who don't know what a par sheet is, very quickly, if your draft has a two hundred dollars cap and sixteen roster spots.

That those are pretty standard numbers.

I want you to write down a dollar amount that you're going to spend on every single position and have it add up to two hundred dollars.

Write an exact dollar amount.

Okay, follow me through this because I know the first thing everyone thinks is well, that means you're too rigid.

Nope, it means the opposite.

It helps you be more flexible.

So the par sheet is simply this, you're trying to shoot par.

Well, what does that mean?

Well, in golf, being under par is a great thing.

In auction drafting not so much.

You can't be over because you're not allowed to bid over two hundred.

But you don't want to be under because that means you didn't spend money where you could have spent money to get a better player.

So your goal is to hit two hundred dollars exactly or whatever your cap is exactly, and that's what putting exact dollar amounts on your paper helps you do.

There's a lot of times where I there's the two different things I hear all the time that I think are not good for people who aren't in that top one percent of auction drafters.

I hear one thing that I hear all the time is you want to allocate forty to fifty percent of your cap for your running backs.

I hate this, folks.

I hate it.

And the reason I hate it is because that sounds great when you're preparing and when you're ahead of time or when your heath comings And I'm not saying that he says that, Okay, So don't don't.

Don't send him a message like you're just trashing you.

I love Heath.

I think Heath is a great mind in the auction community, and I have him to thank for pushing this whole auction format forward.

Okay, So don't think that what I'm saying is if you say, hey, I'm going to put forty percent, first of all, put a number on that, okay, Because you can't get in a draft and be like, oh, well, I'm spending eleven percent.

Unless you're really gifted at math, you're not going to be able to figure that out on the fly, and oftentimes you don't have time for that, especially if you're in a online draft where it's ten seconds and it's nine eight seven and the thing's beeping at you and you're trying to convert like, well, am I spending twelve or fourteen percent?

No, that's just making it harder on you, okay, And oftentimes what you're going to do is then you're going to end up overspending.

You're going to be like, well, I only spent twenty two on this guy, and then I turned around and got a deal for thirty one on this guy.

And it's like, well, two problems there.

Number one is that if you spent thirty one and twenty two, you probably didn't get a top talent.

And then what if you spent thirty one and twenty two and then that was most of your budget.

Well, I only spent thirty five percent and I had forty five percent allocated.

Okay, Well what does that mean in dollar amount?

Because how much can you spend after you've spent that money already?

I think you're going to realize that the amount that you've spent is more than you wanted to spend.

And that's why having the exact dollar amounts matters, because in the heat of the moment, we want to take away the most variables we possibly can to avoid making silly mistakes based on just a math thing in the moment, and the percentages I think, I just think that that's asking for trouble.

The other thing I hear a lot of is well, I want a top five wide receiver.

Okay, that's great, and that's your approach, and that's what you're going to use to make your par sheet.

But you can't just say I want a top five wide receiver.

You have to envision how that looks and how much it'll cost, and don't say it's going to cost me this percent of my cap.

Say okay, well, as my wide receiver won a top five wide receiver is going to cost me an excess of forty five dollars and I won't spend more than fifty eight something like that.

But then you want to come up with an exact amount after you go through your whole roster and think about what you want to spend on each one of those positions, and everyone says, well that, why would you do an exact dollar amount?

Then you have to stick to that.

Well, no, why do you have to stick to that?

You don't have to stick to that.

Flexibility is absolutely the name of the game.

But this makes you more flexible because it tells you exactly what you can spend, and if you overspend to grab a guy, that's totally cool, but you know exactly how much you overspent.

You're not in there going I overspent by this percent.

You're saying to yourself, I overspent by six bucks on that guy.

I need to pull six dollars from somewhere else.

It's so much easier that way.

It's like training wheels, but you never have to take them off.

You don't ever have to take the training wheels off because you can always use a par sheet.

I think getting together two or three par sheets before you walk in your draft.

I don't think you need any more than that is exactly what you want to be doing.

It always keeps you on track.

You're never out of control, you're never overspending, and if you do overspend a little bit, you know how to pull it back.

That's the nature of flexibility while also not ruining your draft.

A perfect example of this that I always use is something that people do all the time when they're trying to play the game of well, I'm going to spend this percentage of my cap on wide receivers, so they go out and they get a wide receiver one and they say, hey, I got I'm on Ross Brown and I got a nice deal.

I got him for forty two bucks.

That's a nice price.

I'm happy about it.

Little did they know that wide receiver market was going to be depressed in that room.

And then AJ Brown comes up and he stops in the low thirties, and you're like, holy cow, this is a great deal.

So you bid thirty one.

They say thirty two and you're like, it's still really cheap, and say a J.

Brown, So you say thirty three.

Eventually you end up landing him for thirty seven bucks.

Good deal, right, But look at what you already did.

You already spent the forty one dollars and I'm on Ross A.

Brown.

And even if AJ Brown is a deal, you've now spent a large percentage of your cap, almost eighty dollars on two receivers.

Now, if you had a par sheet in front of you, you would know.

Let's say I was going to spend fifty one for my top receiver.

Well, I save ten dollars on one where I say Brown.

But on my second wide receiver, I was only going to spend twenty two.

And then I end up spending thirty seven because I got so excited about the AJ Brown deal.

That's okay, you can do that.

But if you do that in a normal draft, and you keep going, oh, here's the deal, here's a deal, pretty soon you're out of money because of all your sweet deals, and you're done and the draft's over for you.

You got four guys.

The way the par sheet helps is the twenty two bucks that you thought you were going to spend.

You overspent by fifteen, but you underspent on Brown.

I say Brown for ten.

You're still five dollars behind, but at least you know I got to pull five dollars from somewhere.

You can't do that without exact prices.

If you don't have the exact prices in front of you, you will struggle more than you need to.

I'm not saying you can't do it, and I'm not saying you can't have a good team.

Here's the final say on this point before I move on to the last one and I get you out of here.

The reason I know this works, and the reason I have the conviction of this being a hill I'll die on when it comes to auction drafting, is that the times I've tried other methods, my results have always been worse.

They've always been worse.

The times I show up to a mock and I don't have a par sheet, I do worse.

The times that I show up to a draft and I start thinking, ooh, that's a good value, and that's a good value before I let everything breathe, and before I looked at my par sheet and said, what am I doing?

Where am I going?

How am I breaking down this draft?

What's my path to success in this draft?

The times I don't prepare with those exact numbers, I get worse results.

I did a mock draft the other night, and my whole goal in this mock draft was to say, I think there's going to be a little bit of a value pocket at RB two.

I've talked about this before.

I want to go a little bit heavier on running back in this draft because that's not what I do.

So I wanted to do it different, and I wanted to be comfortable going into a draft and taking receivers who weren't as highly ranked as I normally would take receivers because that's what I do.

You guys know that I love hammer and receivers with my cap dollars.

So I said, I'm going to go into this mock and I'm going to go out the running backs a little bit harder and see what happens.

Well, you know what happened.

The receivers were cheaper than they should have been.

And here I am and one of the only drafts I've been in with a group of auction drafters who are fairly skilled.

This is a pretty skilled group.

They know what they're doing because they listen to the show and they follow me, and they love auctions, so they do them a lot and they're good at them.

So in a room like that, I typically will see that the wide receiver prices are too high.

Well this particular night, they weren't that high.

And here I am trying to shoehorn a running back heavy strategy into a room that wasn't pay very much for wide receivers.

Well, why did that happen?

I didn't have a par sheet in front of me.

I could have flipped things and said, okay, I need to be spending on this wide receiver.

But I really just tried to force this strategy, and it really came down to I wasn't flexible enough.

I didn't have exact prices in front of me, and I didn't let the room breathe and think about it.

The draft didn't go as well as it could have.

My team's fine.

I like my team.

It's not that big a deal, but it could have been way better.

And I should have been paying attention to that.

And I didn't have a par shoot in front of me, and I didn't have those exact numbers to guide me along the way.

All right, let's get on to number three because number three is one of my favorite things that's ever popped into my head about auction drafting period, and that is that beating your auction draft room has nothing to do with fantasy football.

Let me say that again, beating your auction draft room has nothing to do with fantasy football.

Whoa whoa, whoa whoa?

Why is that?

Well, there's a lot of different reasons, but it really boils down to one thing.

We all have a lot of ego about how good we are at fantasy football.

I knew this guy was gonna break out or that guy was gonna break out.

And what this point requires is people to swallow their ego.

And that's particularly hard to do for analysts.

Out there who are good at their job and they know what they're doing.

And I'm not saying they should walk around being like I am humble, I humbly except that I don't know as much as I think I do.

Okay, I don't require that I get cocky about stuff all the time.

But my point is this whole thing requires you to swallow your ego a little bit, to the extent that you're gonna be wrong about players a lot.

I was big on James Cook last year.

I got a lot of touchdowns from James Cook.

That's fortunate, right.

I didn't think he was gonna score sixteen touchdowns or eighteen or whatever that he scored.

You have to get used to the idea that you're gonna miss all the time, and that you're gonna miss wildly on players that you haven't even thought twice about having.

I mean, I didn't really think twice about having Elik Neighbors really at all last summer, just because I can't stand Daniel Jones.

It's probably why I have know Michael Pittman right now, but I just I couldn't get over it.

And the thing is, that's a huge mistake.

And just like I bitched about Stefan Diggs for a couple of years after he moved to Buffalo, and he had such a big year.

I should have been open to the idea that it should take some value and take some shots along the way, because I don't know it all.

And that's what this point is all about, swallowing your ego.

But it's not really totally like, hey, just swallow your ego.

The point is this that if you took the names off of all the players that you were bidding on and just had to blindly bid on players named after their position in the draft order, you could still beat the room.

So somebody nominates a player and instead of his name being David Montgomery when he nominates him, it's RB twenty three.

RB twenty three is up for bid.

Now you paid attention all along, and you know that the RB twenty five went for twenty six bucks and David Montgomery gets up, so excuse me, not, David Montgomery.

RB twenty three gets up to thirty one dollars.

You know that RB twenty five already went for twenty six Like, you don't want to bid on the thirty one, plus you don't want to take RB twenty three as you as your second running back on your team and pay thirty one bucks form right, because you have your exact numbers in front of you.

Refer to point number two.

You've got exact numbers in front of it.

You can't pay thirty one for an RB two, so you're just not bidding on this player.

But if the players at seventeen dollars, you should strongly consider bidding eighteen because that's quite a deal from the twenty six dollars that was paid for the RB twenty five.

You don't need David Montgomery's name on that jersey for you to bid.

Seeing a nice deal.

And I think what often happens is we have implicit biases that we don't realize are there, and they will screw up our draft.

And if we're doing things the right way, we should be taking the bargains on players that pop up out of nowhere, even if we don't like that player.

A great example of this is last year in my home league, Chris Godwin went for way too few dollars.

I mean, he was like six or eight bucks.

It was super cheap to get Chris Cobbin last year.

And the only reason that happened is he went near the end of the draft.

Everybody was focused on their guys that they wanted to get, and there wasn't a lot of cap dollars left in the room.

He went way too cheap.

But if we had seen a big sign that said WR twenty seven this amount, and you didn't know his name and you weren't focusing on other names that you're trying to get, you would have just bid because that's the last best player up there, and you're saying, hey, I want I want wide receiver twenty seven.

The next best guy is wide receiver forty five.

That's left.

But we focus so much on names we passed stuff up like that, And being player agnostic is something I talked about last week.

Most of your nominations are going to be on players that you don't care one way or no, because you're just checking their price tag and if they're good prices, you'll take them.

But this requires you to understand that we're wrong a lot, and our biases cause us to make poor choices when it comes to value in an auction draft.

So how do we beat the room when we don't know who the players are?

Well, I have a couple concrete examples of how this works.

But the one thing that you have to lean into are all the edges that we've talked about over past summers.

I can't get into all that stuff right now, but if you want to go back and listen, the episodes aren't hard to find.

You know, nomination strategies, bidding strategies, inflection points, how to prepare for your auction.

All that stuff gives you an edge.

But we're chiefly talking about nomination strategies, bidding strategies, and picking up tells on other people in your draft room.

Some of that stuff is way easier than you think it is.

This guy nominates somebody and he always goes after them.

This guy nominates somebody and never bids.

This guy bids only when he wants a player.

This guy bids only on chiefs like there's Sometimes it's not difficult, it can be easy.

You're picking up these things.

That's part of your edge, and part of the way that you beat the room is pushing those edges and being player agnostic because you're accepting that all of your opinions aren't one hundred percent ironcloud guaranteed to be correct in a phrase that I want to repeat over and over from now until my last episode of the summer is that you must always understand the value in the room you're in.

And that sounds simple, but it's something that people gloss over.

They come out of a draft and they say, I got ex Player for X dollar.

What a great deal, right, And everyone says, yes, oh, great deal by ill Ow price.

What if that's not a great deal.

What if you paid thirty five dollars for Drake London And everybody says great deal, rap ba.

But Justin Jefferson went for twenty eight.

Okay, I realize he's not realistic.

Don't get hung up on the numbers.

But Jefferson went for seven less dollars than Drake London.

Now maybe you think, hey, Drake London can finish higher, blah blah blah.

It doesn't matter.

It's seven bucks for Justin Jefferson less than Drake London.

Did you get a good deal?

Well, yeah, you got a good raw dollar deal.

And we talk about that before the raw dollar fallacy that just saying a number out loud means you got a good deal.

No, it doesn't.

It has to relate to the other prices.

That were paid in the room, and if it doesn't relate, well, then it's not a deal.

It's only a deal if you understand the value in your room.

I liken it too someone who says that they could see their whole life and then they got hit in their middle ages or late in their life with blindness, and then they say that their other senses developed when they lost their sight or they lost their hearing, and their other senses developed.

I liken it to that, because when you lose the player names, the game actually gets a little bit easier.

And I'm not telling you that you're going to lose the player names when you go in there.

I want to leave you with this example, and I think it's the perfect way to leave our discussion today.

When I used to play golf a lot, I used to be a fairly decent golfer back in high school and early in college.

I you know, shoot mid to low eighties pretty regularly, and one of the things I wanted to get better at was putting.

And I always knew that Jack Nicholas was one of the best putters maybe to ever play the game.

Just an incredible, incredible putter, and he had a warm up tactic that I freaking loved, and when he said it, I thought, well, that sounds weird, but I'm going to try it, and old man did it work.

His warm up tactic was to go onto the green and he would place five balls, you know, a couple feet, two, three, four feet from the hole, and then he would get down in his regular putting stands with both hands on the club, and then he would pull one hand away from the club and then he would force his other hand to make the five balls in a row from three feet, let's say.

And then once he did that, he would get the balls back out, put him in the same spot, put both hands on the club like he was about to swing with both hands, and then he would pull the other hand away, and then he would force his other hand to make the putts on their own.

He didn't move his hands around or adjust so that he could make the putts.

He left him in the same spot.

He just pulled the other hand away and then made the putts.

Well.

Then he would pull the balls out and do it at five feet, and then do it at eight feet, and then do it at ten feet, and then once he got done, he would go each individual spot in one hand, then the other hand, and then he got the balls out and started back at three feet and he put both hands on the club, both hands on the putter, and then he used both hands to finish out his warm up.

And I thought, well, that sounds interesting.

I'm going to try it.

And I tried it, and oh my gosh, it was incredible because you don't realize that your hands are fighting each other.

One hand wants to do one thing, the other hand wants to do another.

They're not in sync, and it causes you to push or pull the ball or hit at the incorrect distance.

You don't realize your hands are fighting each other.

When you force one hand to do the whole job and the other hand to do the whole job, and then you put them back together, they're in concert.

They do what they're supposed to do together.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is what I'm going to submit to you, is the best thing you can learn about auction drafting.

Beating an auction draft has nothing to do with fantasy football and has everything to do with combining your knowledge and your instincts with your edges at auction drafting.

And the reason I tell the putting story is because when you're able to blend those things and you stop those two things from fighting in your head, that's when you become an elite auction drafter.

When you do your job at isolating missed priced players, players that are wild off of the value, players that you never thought that you would bid on, that you end up having on your team because of the value and because of the price, and because of the way it worked for your build.

Things begin to blend together.

When you're pushing all of your edges, your auctionabilities with your fantasy knowledge, You're putting them together like you put two hands together on a putter and you're sinking all your putts.

Because the combination of those two things is how you crush the room.

I still think you can beat an auction drafter room with knowing nothing about fantasy football, knowing only about market inequities.

But once you layer the two together, oh baby, you're an elite auction drafter.

All right, Well that's going to do it.

This deserve the treatment today.

These are my three unpopular yet unwavering auction beliefs.

Number one, that AAV is essentially worthless.

Number two that you should go into a draft with exact prices on your piece of paper about what you want to pay for each player, and then adjust as you go.

And number three, beating an auction draft room has nothing to do with fantasy football.

And the ultimate point of this discussion that we've had about number three is not that you shouldn't use your fantasy knowledge, but that you should strip it all away and figure out how you're going to beat your room as you're in the room, and then layer your fantasy knowledge over the top of it.

And that's how things explode, and that's how you become a champion.

So that's it for auction talk today.

I want you to hear from Jim Coventry.

He's got a lot of great things to say, situations to break down.

So let's get you out of here.

I hope you enjoyed my three unpopular yet unwavering auction beliefs.

Let's get on to discussions with Drew and Jim Coventry from Road to Wire.

Time for Discussions with Drew in depth conversations with the brightest minds in the fantasy industry.

Welcome into this week's Discussions with Drew.

Our guest for this this week is mister Jim Coventry from Rotal Wire.

Jim happens to be one of the best analysts in the business.

Also has turned into a good friend of mine.

We were just reminiscing off the air about twenty nineteen King's Classic, and that's when we first chatted about our auction results and became buddies that day six years ago.

So a lot of time since then.

But hey, I am happy to see you every year in Canton, and I'm even happier to have you on the show because, like I said, you're one of the best analysts in the business.

Thank you for being here.

I appreciate being here.

Thank you, due you.

Bet I left some stuff off the introduction though, that's pretty important.

Twenty twenty two Fantasy Sports Writers Association Football Writer of the Year finalist, as well as a twenty twenty one Kings Classic champ.

That is not an easy lead to win?

And which which one was it?

Auction or snake?

That shit I always do better at Yes, I must have learned from Drew Davenport somewhere along the line.

I don't know about all that, but yes, you we both.

You know.

What's funny is some we've gone a couple of times and compared notes about our strategies after and they were very similar, even though we didn't talk beforehand.

So I think we're on the right path.

I like that confirmation bias.

So you'll be back this.

Year one hundred percent.

Cannot wait for last year.

I made the championship game in the auction.

Oh man, I hit a freight train with Patrick Doherty's team, you know, a little bucky irving, little Jonathan Taylor.

Yeah, I thought I had a really good shot at pulling another title out of that, but hey, Patrick deserved it.

That's that's tough to hit the Jonathan Taylor that week?

What did he do that week?

Forty points or I don't even remember.

I'm sure you know what.

I'm still a shell shock, can't quite remember, don't remember.

Yeah, let's put that in the past.

Hey, finals is still pretty good because since my last title four years ago, I have been getting kicked all over the yard.

I have a renewed vigor to come back and do something this year.

But uh yeah, looking forward to that.

We're about a month away.

But you know, let me get your socials out there so people know where to find you.

Like I said, every time I turn around, Jim's on a show somewhere.

That's because he's in demand because he knows what he's talking about.

I watched you with JJ Winner and Doug Orth breaking down some changes in offenses.

That was an awesome show.

But like I said, you're out there on shows all the time because you really bring it.

And what I always say is you bring a great hybrid of actual football analysis with the fantasy analysis, and that's what we all love.

So what are your socials?

What are you working on right now?

You want to get some eyes on.

At Jim Coventry NFL.

Everything I do gets on there at some point in time, whether it's my videos, whether it's articles that are behind a paywall, which they don't want to I never guide you to those, but yeah, threads of the day, stats of the day pretty much have something for you every day I'm writing, Drew, There's probably the best article I've ever written is coming out next week on Rhode Oh.

I run fortunes behind a paywall, but I have a theory on the defensive injury, I mean the running back injuries.

I sure the day it was not a one year anomaly.

It's going to be a long term tracked players still get hurt, and I'll give you a ten second.

Basically, linebackers are lighter than ever.

Only two of them are usually on the field used to be three and four, and so A they can all get blocked, and B they're much smaller players hitting their running backs.

So last year's injuries not an anomaly?

Interesting?

Yeah, because I just had that conversation with Scott Pianowski a couple of weeks ago that one of the things that happened with the running backs.

And we're seeing a little bit of a shift in drafts.

There was a lot of health last year for the running backs.

I hope it's not an anomaly.

Well, we're going to get into all that, So check out Jim at Jim Coventry NFL and check out all of his work.

Like I said, anytime you see Jim on a show, you want to stop and listen.

He's always got something good to say.

I'm excited about the show sheet that we have lined up for you today.

We're going to start off with something I like to call coach worship.

I do believe that the NFL is a coach's league, but sometimes I think we get a little bit ahead of ourselves.

With some of the worship.

Sometimes it's warranted, and that's why we have Jim here.

He's gonna tell us which is which.

So I've got five situations.

I sprung one on him right before we came on the air, so we'll see how good he is.

But let's start with that one because down in New Orleans it looks like it could be a rough season for that offense.

We don't really know what's going to shake out with the quarterback situation.

We think we know, but they hired Kellen Moore, And my question to you off the air was, I'm gonna put it right here because it's super important.

Did they hire him to run the offense?

Is he going to be the play caller?

Whatever you want, name you want to put on it.

And then the secondary question is do we care about you know, Rashid Shiheed had a nice season last year lining up before he got hurt.

And then of course we've got Alvin Kamara kind of hanging out there.

Half the people saying he's a value, half the people saying nat this is a trap.

What do you think about New Orleans this year?

Kellen Moore and all the pieces surrounding that.

Offense, Yeah, So Kellen Moore gets hired, and there's only one reason you hire Kellen Moore.

You want him to work on your offense.

Whether he calls the plays, it doesn't matter.

It's his offense.

He'll craft it.

If he has somebody else calling plays, he will talk about it during the week, So it's his offense.

But here's the.

Thing, Kellen Moore is hamstrung by his roster if he wants to go three receivers.

Okay, let's assume Olave can take concussion free, and let's say Shaheed reports are true and he's one hundred percent.

Who's your three?

Brandon Cooks thirty two, the shallow Brandon Cooks Bob means Kevin Austin.

You don't have a number three receiver.

You do not have one.

And at tight end they did sign Juwan Johnson disappointingly in my mind, to a three year deal.

We should have gone somewhere, but he didn't.

He went there and then Taysom Hill towards ACL late last season, so he's probably not a factor.

He's thirty five years old.

Did you know that old old player?

Yeah, like thirty five, right, Where did that come from?

Their second tit ends Foster Moro so morol block and basically have three receivers with no depth.

There's no depth, So basically Tyler Shuck's gonna be the quarterback here and they're gonna have to run two tight end sets, which is good for him because they're gonna give him little extrac protection, possibly an extra more ole block that'll help because the line's not great.

Kamara volumes King and Fantasy football.

His efficiency has been horrible the last two years.

But if he's on the field, he's going to get the ball and he's going to catch screen passes because Tyler Shuck, the game's going to be moving really fast for him and Rashi chahit is.

He really gonna have time to get.

Downfield when Shuck's trying to figure out how to read defenses navigate a rough line.

So look, Chris o'labe, as long as he can stay healthy, he is going to get fed.

When he gets six targets a game over his career, eighty yards almost every time health related, you gotta worry about that.

But he's great.

Other than that, played a volume for Kamara, but that's it.

It's gonna be rough.

Yeah, the Olave thing Hopefully the rookie doesn't throw him into concussions like Derek Carr did so, but we still are fairly confident that Kamara is going to be heavily involved in the receiving game.

Under more, he has to be.

They don't have an option because they're gonna need an escape patch because shah Shaheed proved as a rookie.

You remember he like signed like like October of that rookie season, and they used him in a hybrid role.

He wasn't just a deep threat guy.

But I don't think that's a steady diet thing that you want to make him a regular guy taking hits in the middle of the field.

So I think that's kind of out.

And you can only throw so many times to a lot of that defense is gonna be bad this year.

Dennis Allen's gone, They've been losing hemorrhaging talent for years.

They're gonna have to score points.

But ye means teams are gonna pin their ears back because there's not gonna be game script to run the ball.

So, like you said, the hot reads gonna be Kamara.

So Kamara's gonna catch sixty five passes.

Yeah, it sure seems like he's a value where he's been going.

Right now, would you agree at his current price tag?

Yes?

I tell you what.

Now, he's missed some time in each of the last few years.

One of those years that could have been a suspension.

I can't remember if he missed a game or two with that, but he's he's missed some time, and he's getting older and last year miss time.

At the end of the season, nobody's talking about him.

Cam Acres.

Everybody's drecting Devin Neil in basketball leagues.

People are even thinking Kendre Miller.

Nobody's touching cam Akers.

Cam Akers is back from two achilles injuries.

He was good for the Vikings last year, not just borderline ninetieth percentile broken tackle rate, eighty something percentile yards after contact.

It wasn't a heavy workload.

He was good and Sean McVay did him dirty.

I still say that back to this time, he could play there.

So if you have a super deep league and you want to take a late shot in case Kamara miss's time and you could stash him, cam Akers is a stash.

All right, interesting stuff there, and hey, like I said, this wasn't on the show sheet.

I threw it at him, and look how he look, how he does.

This is why you're here.

I appreciate that.

Let's move on to another situation that I think is really interesting.

I believe that a lot of us are already chalking up the JJ mccon arthy situation as knowing what we're going to see with him.

I think there's a lot of assumptions being made about exactly how good he's going to be.

I think that's a dangerous assumption.

But at the same time, I'm also a Kevin O'Connell disciple.

I'm a big fan.

Ever since I watched him on the Netflix show.

I started really getting into just how he talks to people and how he coaches.

I love that stuff.

But then when you watch his quarterbacks play, they just produce.

So how do we feel about JJ McCarthy.

He's stepping onto a fourteen win team, and this offense has some big fantasy pieces.

You know, obviously we've got Justin Jefferson at wide receiver two.

We've got TJ.

Hockinson tight end five.

Right now, that feels a little rich, but that's a different story.

Jordan Aison wide receiver thirty seven.

I think that's building in a little bit of suspension time.

Somebody told me that he might get suspended, and then.

That talks about him.

I can't remember really good though.

He says, yeah, yeah, so h Then you know you've got Aaron Jones hanging around the bottom RB two territory.

But we're all assuming this offense is going to be just as good.

Can we assume that?

Do we have that much faith in Kevin O'Connell or have we jumped the shark a little bit with the support of what we think he can do.

You're very correct and speaking the praises of the great coach Kevin O'Connell.

Schemes, receivers opened very quickly, understands how to sequence the stack plays up.

But here's the thing.

Their off season in Minnesota tells us a lot.

They've continued to shore up the defense and that defense.

Brian Flores coaches that defense, and he's done a lot with little They're getting more and more talent.

This defense could be good.

And then you go to the other side.

What did they do.

Well last year?

The interior offensive line was a major problem.

So they bring in both Ryan Kelly will Fries from the Indianapolis a free agency.

They spent a first round draft pick on another guard, and then they bring in Jordan Mason for the running game, and they spend like twenty million on Josh Oliver the tight end.

So Drew Davenport.

I'm not really good at math, but I'm thinking to myself, they're investing in a running game here.

This team wants to bolster the line.

They want another powerful running back, they want another tight end because you're paying them good money and you want to play defense.

To me, that's their recipe.

McCarthy, I trust Greg Cosl.

Greg Cosell said last year McCarthy is a project.

He is going to develop amount of time.

He didn't develop last year.

He had an ACL injury, didn't develop.

So if Greg co Sell is right and he's wrong at times, we're gonna need some development time.

Will he have good games?

Sure, there'll be games where it works out and they have to throw buying into fantasy.

I'm worried about Addison and Hockinson because when they throw, look, Justin Jeffers is not losing his targets.

That's not happening.

He is getting the ball because that's best for the quarterback, that's best for the team.

And it's gonna be Hockinson and Addison fighting for scraps.

That's my mind.

Now, if they're getting a shootout on occasion those like you said, you have those spike games.

But that's my call on that.

Michael is gonna be a run and play defense even until they don't.

Have to be.

That's a great point.

You know, you've got to put all those pieces together about what they've been doing this offseason.

You're absolutely right.

Jim Harbaugh is doing the same thing in Los Angeles, signaling that that's what they want to do.

And again just reinforces what a smart coach Kevin O'Connell is.

He knows it's going to take some time here, and I just think it's dangerous to assume that he's going to come out of the gates running.

He's a rookie, you know, he's he has the benefit of sitting in the quarterback room all year.

That's great, but boy, he's still a rookie.

And it makes me a little nervous, especially with Justin Jefferson wide receiver too.

But you know we were nervous about Justin Jefferson last year.

With Sam Darnold.

I think he's going to produce.

He's going to be just fine.

I guess your point is the perfect one.

The ancillary pieces are the ones that tend to take the hit there, not necessarily you know your top guy.

But all right, excellent breakdown in the Minnesota situation.

My love for Kevin O'Connell knows no bounds.

I hope I see some JJ mccarr the progress this year.

All right, let me talk about Liam Cohen because we've got two sides of the coin with Liam Cohen here, and maybe it won't be two sides of the coin, but we've got two different offenses that are impacted.

Number One, of course, Baker Mayfield had a fantastic year last year.

We know what he did, forty one touchdown passes.

Now Baker loses two big offensive minds in a row, with Canalis and Cohen leaving back to back seasons.

That's the first question up here.

How much does Liam Cohen leaving affect Baker or do we just simply say, hey, that's seven point two percent.

That gaudy touchdown rate is going to come down regardless of who he loses.

How concerned are you about Baker Mayfield?

And then on the other side of the coin.

Do we feel that optimistic about Trevor Lawrence because he gains an offensive mind like Liam Cohen?

Is this what Lawrence has been missing?

Or is he just what he is now at this point in his career.

How do you feel about those two situations with him without Cohen?

It is a question that will make and break fantasy football seasons for people.

The forty one touchdowns, that's likely not happening again no matter what, because think about how many forty touchdown seasons are there.

They are very uncommon.

So let's get that out.

I want to point this out.

Drew the fantasy community and even the NFL community.

They have misjudged Baker Mayfield as a rookie.

He was very good.

The second year, Freddie Kitchens was completely overmatched, run out of town, the offense fell apart.

Baker Mayfield the year after, another very good season, but they were a run based team.

He didn't throw a ton, but he was very good.

Then the fourth year he tears both shoulders and plays through it all season, and of course he's stunk because he didn't have a shoulder.

Then he has that year between the Rams and the Panthers.

That was just you know, get a couple of reps as soon as he went to Tampa Bay clear of the injury.

First time he played really since clear of that injury.

Twenty six touchdowns that year, last year, runs for three hundred plus yards.

Baker Mayfield is a good quarterback.

He's not a star.

He's a top fifteen NFL quarterback.

And he has a very good offensive line.

Two tackles that will protect him all day long.

Interior lines getting better.

He has a Hall of Famer on one side, Mike Evans.

He has Chris Godwin, who is an insane talent as a BUCA, as Jalen McMillan.

They have a running game.

I think Baker Mayfield again not repeating last year.

Cohen called all the right place, all the right motions.

Mayfield's gonna be fine.

Not last year, but he is gonna be fine.

That answers that question.

So Trevor Lawrence, Yes, So Liam Cohen comes over and the fantasy community is thinking, Oh, he fixed Mayfield, Now he's gonna fix Lawrence.

It's not the same thing.

My whole setup for Baker Mayfield is important because Mayfield has been good.

Trevor Lawrence had a half a good season, it was a few years ago, half a good season.

He makes horrible decisions.

Brian Thomas Junior, When did he go off?

Last year?

Every game that mac Jones played, Mac Jones got Brian Thomas ten more PPR points per game than Trevor Lawrence.

Thirteen point two points per game between Lawrence and Brian Thomas twenty three with mac Jones.

Why.

Because Trevor Lawrence sees a play he doesn't like and he's not going to throw the ball to that receiver.

Reason to check down somewhere else, or throw an interception, or throw the ball into the stands.

That's what he's gonna do.

Liam Cohen might be able to fix a lot of things, but Trevor Lawrence doesn't have the offensive line that Baker Mayfield had.

They also don't have the running game that developed in Tampa Bay.

All the ingredients they're not there.

It is not the same thing.

Trevor Lawrence has a lot to fix, and I think he's a million miles from being a good quarterback.

We love the name, we love the draft pedigree.

Outside of that, they'll have some flashes.

I don't trust Lawrence at all.

That's that's good for me to hear because I've been running a little bit downhill on Lawrence this offseason, just trying to think about you know, now they draft Hunter, now they get an offensive mine.

I've been feeling pretty good about him, So I'm glad to hear that.

As far as Baker Mayfield goes, you know, you mentioned Greg Cosell earlier in the show.

I think it was him recently who said that he is really widely respected around the league, that they're yeah, yeah, a lot of NFL coaches and gms now are watching him and saying, boy, this is a really good quarterback, where maybe that wasn't the case three four years ago.

But yeah, that's that's interesting because I did a little bit of looking into that seven point two percent.

I took it down to his career average, which was high four as low fives, like four point nine to five percent.

He still would throw about thirty touchdowns if he was at five percent.

I don't think that defense is going to be very good.

You know, maybe maybe he still can throw for thirty run for three hundred yards and two touchdowns and that's still a nice fantasy season.

He doesn't have to that forty one and still be a producer.

Okay, well that's Liam Cohen.

Let me talk about another guy that gets the hero treatment, and that is Ben Johnson, and of course that's even more pronounced with Ben Johnson.

I'm on record as saying that I'm a little bit concerned about the Lions pass offense this year as far as some of their pieces go, because of where they're being drafted.

We've got I'm on Rosse Brown at wide receiver six.

Who've got Jamison Williams adp of wide receiver twenty four right now?

You know Sam Laporte.

I believe this wide receiver or excuse me, tight end four maybe if not, he's you know, four to six somewhere in that range.

And of course we've got Jamira gibsonting there at RB three.

This is an offense that everyone is drafting heavily for good reason, because they are talented and they've got a good thing going.

But boy, they had so many injuries on defense last year, and Goff really had a monster season that he's never had before.

Again, a high touchdown rate that's probably gonna regress.

I'm a little bit concerned about the Lions offense pulling back because of the loss of Ben Johnson and the shuffling of the deck chairs here with the retirement of their center and all that stuff.

It makes me a little bit nervous.

I'm not saying I'm out on the Lions offense.

I just feel like they're gonna pull back a little bit.

What do you think about them?

Sans Ben Johnson?

And you should be nervous now.

They had defense is playing at a top six level, and preseason last year year I was all over it saying, don't tuch Sam Laporta, don't touch Jamison Williams.

They're not going to get the ball because they're not going to pass.

And through week seven that was true.

Sam Laporta averaged two point eight targets.

Through week seven he averaged seven point seven PPR parts.

He was a bust through week seven, and Jamison Williams week three through seven he averaged two targets.

Now, fortunately had two big plays in there to get him a few fantasy points, but he didn't do anything.

And then all of a sudden, the defense fell apart.

Goff was throwing twenty five times a game.

Now all of a sudden, it's thirty five to forty.

Goff averaged nineteen point nine PPR are not fantasy points through week nine.

The rest of the way when they had to air it out, it was great because the defense was banged up.

So you're you're on this.

That's the same formula this year.

They're gonna play defense.

They're to try to run the ball.

Now, the interior offensive line is gonna be a problem because their sixth round, second year guy Mahogany playing one guard a second round guard.

And then Ragnow is getting replaced at center by Graham Glasgow, who's really long in the twoth and not nearly the player Ragnell was.

And here's the problem.

Ben Johnson played golf like a fiddle, made everything work.

Well, golf's gonna be under interior pressure now because that interior line is a massive hit.

And now people like Jamison Williams, well, how can he get deep when golf is under pressured.

He's throwing the ball in the dirt.

That's not going to work.

So Saint Brown's fine, he's going to have a high floor.

You're gonna have that ceilings not two years ago.

We're not getting that fifteen hundred yard season.

That's not happening again.

That's twelve hundred yard season is fine running backs.

Look, Gibbs is probably a little better off to Montgomery because the tackles are fine and Gibbs is probably better getting outside Montgomer's gonna get works well.

He's a hurt and soul of the team.

So Montgomery's not going away.

And that's the problem for fantasy.

If I think that Gibbs was kinmonly getting like fifteen Fantasy points in game, he averaged eighteen eighteen PPR points when Montgomery played thirteen games.

If you're taking the running back three, are you good at eighteen PPR points a game?

My answer is probably not.

You probably win in the twenties, right if you could get it, and you're probably not going to get that now.

Can he steals some work back from Montgomery?

Maybe, So that's the bet you're making.

Montgomery's gonna score his touchdowns because that's what he does.

So, but you're right, you're right to be very nervous.

Golf completely out on him.

Yeah, gof's price.

I thought we would see the community be a little bit more nervous about golf considering what he did last year, realizing what he did last year, But it hasn't really happened.

He's still QB ten right now, and I'm just totally out at a QB ten price.

But you know, again proving that we've got some of the smartest analysts in the business on this show.

We had Rich reebar On a couple weeks ago, and Rich said the exact same thing about Gibbs.

You really have to for where you're taking him.

You really have to be prepared for the fact that if you don't get some missed time from Montgomery, he's not going to hit that ceiling of where you're drafting him.

You have to hope for the injury.

Otherwise they're going to continue to do their thing.

And that's really a Dan Campbell thing, don't we I mean, doesn't Dan Campbell want to run the ball, but he wants to have these two guys right.

And paid Montgomery last year.

Is like they paid him, you know what, Knuckles and Sonic, that's their thing.

I mean, they bought into that philosophy.

I remember a few years ago, before Monty was there, it was Jamal Williams.

Scoring is like eighteen touchdowns or whatever.

It's a thing there.

Yeah, yeah, it's not a mirage.

It's also why I don't understand Montgomery low end RB two, high end RB three right now, because when he was scoring touchdowns, I mean, the guy was top eight.

So I'm not saying he's gonna do that again, but I'm just saying it feels like an overcorrection there for Montgomery.

But okay, well, let's talk about the other Ben Johnson piece here, which is the Chicago Bears.

How important is it?

Because I hear you talking about the play sequencing and things like that, and that was something that you talked about with JJ and Doug, And I want to know how important do you think that is for Caleb Williams this year because he gets this smart offensive mind.

They do have some pieces around him, and I also want to talk a little bit about DeAndre Swift.

But I guess tell me your overall impression of how you feel like Johnson's gonna be able to help the Bears and kayleb Williams well.

The Bears offseason's moves tell us a lot.

They trade for Joe Toney, the left guards who playing an elite level.

They signed Drew Dollman, the center who does zone blocking, which is what we have Ben Johnson once out of his lineman, so he came from Atlanta, but he does that.

And then they signed right guard Jonah Jackson, who had played under Ben Johnson.

A little injury history there, but that was the first thing he did, is they shored up the line.

They knew it wouldn't be the Lions line, but this would be at least a line that would be competitive, and that's a big starting block.

And then of course you bring Colston Lovelan and ten pick in the draft Luther Burden, so you could tell what this offense is about.

But it's gonna be different than Detroit because the Bears are not designed to run the ball.

Deandres it's gonna be a volume guy, and you asked about him, volume is king, and fantasy football, you take him at ADP because he has a floor every week.

Roshan Johnson less than fifth percentile broken tackle in the yards.

If you contact, he's terrible.

It's a special teamer.

It's all he should probably ever be.

You take Swift as a volume as king guy.

But Caleb Williams had never had no chance last year.

The offensive line was not coaches to pick up like simulated pressures when you know the player is coming from a snap of the ball.

Defense is knew they were getting in the backfield.

That means they crept all their defensive backs up.

It was terrible.

Williams never had a chance.

Bubble screens of DJ Moore was the only answer they had.

So Caleb Williams, I give him a complete pass on last year, even the players where people say on film, oh look at he passed this up.

Yeah, because he figured he wasn't get creamed.

So of course he was because he you know, it's like, well the old Eric Dickerson line, you're playing Russian Roulette with five bullets in the chamber.

Well, all right, the bullet wasn't in the chamber in his time, but I thought I was going to catch the bullet.

So yeah, No, Caleb Williams, whatever you thought of him last year projected to him this year because he has a real like grown up coach.

Now, yeah, and those besides the line which should I guess I shouldn't say, besides the line that's bearing the lead, that's a huge deal.

But besides that fact, having a coach who knows how to ha that kind of stuff, it's just so underrated.

And somebody who can step in and say Okay, we're gonna run X, Y and Z.

We're gonna run from the same look so the defense can't figure it out exactly what we're doing.

And one of the guys I talked to, I'm tangentially I know Sean McVay.

Threw a guy a friend of mine around here, and he said that Sean told him one time the best thing that he did when he got into the NFL was making all of his plays look similar and running him out of the same formation.

And then I really started to pay attention that that's what he loved about Cooper Cup was how many different things he could do with Cup from the same spot on the field.

And of course that's what he's doing with Pukinakua now.

So yeah, so that's so huge.

And I think I don't want to be over involved with the Bears just because I have like some fantasy PTSD as a fifty year old fantasy player, never seeing a good passing game in Chicago, but gosh, I really want to be in on them with what they've got going on there.

So hey, we're ahead of time.

I love it.

We're doing great.

We got we're twenty seven minutes in.

I've got three important situations that I feel like are being a little bit under sold.

I know that we talk about the New York Jets a lot with respect to Garrett Wilson, but I don't know that anybody's really talking about justin fields as much as they should be.

So that's one of the ones I want to hit.

But all three of these situations, it's a new day for quarterbacks in these offenses, and I think that rightfully so fantasy managers don't know what to do with some of these offenses.

The first one is Tennessee.

You know, they get the number one pick in there, and I feel like it's the quietest number one pick fanfare that we've had in a long time.

Nobody's talking about the Tennessee offense.

In fact, people seem to be more scared now than they were last year when they didn't have a whole lot going on.

Tony Pollard's RB twenty nine coming off the board, Ridley's wide receiver thirty one coming off the board.

I mean, I don't expect a lot out of this guy his first year, but gosh, those seemed like really low prices for a number one pick who could feasibly make this offense quite a bit better than it was last year.

What's your impression of the Titans and those prices on those players.

So when you look at the Titans, the offense, the wide receiver room besides Calvin really is terrible, Tyler Locket is washed, Trerylon Burk's good luck seeing him on the field.

Van Jefferson please, you know.

And then he got the rookies they drafted, and they drafted him late fourth round, so you know what, good luck with that working out.

I honestly think the number two receiver could be Chigakonquoa, the tight end, and he's been like he's never had a chance.

He's had like five hundred yard seasons, but they've never been able to have a quarterback or a situation to use him.

That could be your steal of your late drafted you get a second tight end.

But Ward's in a decent spot because Dan Moore, the left tackle, may not have been great from Pittsburgh, but he's serviceable.

He does a decent job.

Last year they brought in center Lloyd Cushenberry.

He underperformed, but he you know, he should easily bounce back.

And then they have the young guys Peter Skronski, JC Latham.

They drafted, they have a chance to emerge and step up, and then they pick up Kevin Zeitler to garden free agency.

This could be a good line.

It might not a great line, but if cam Morden is an average line, Tony Pollard ran behind a garbage line and he was great last year.

And I know they're talking.

You know, they wanted a time share between Spears and Pollard, but Spears got hurt multiple times.

So fine, but Pollard's still going to lead this backfield, although they say not.

He's gonna be a value pick.

And Ridley two straight thousand yard seasons.

I want to say he was.

He was getting about seven sixty yards a game after the week eight.

You know, at the week eight he was fine.

And now they're a grown up quarterback.

Maybe it's a little bit better than this revolving door of Mason Rudolph and Will Levis.

So yeah, I think Calvin really is a steal.

I think Tony Pollard's a steal.

And then again, late Ta could take a dart throw on a conquo.

It is a second tight night.

It doesn't pay up by week three, dump them, but it should be all.

Right, I think so, I think that I'm not sitting here trying to sell anybody on the Titans being a powerhouse.

But gosh, I shure think it's weird that Pollard's going so that really's going so low.

These guys really have volume written all over them.

And if it's just competent quarterback play, like you said, the Rudolph Levis combination, even saying it now just makes me laugh.

It's just terrible.

And we've got a number one pick back there now, and somehow people are less interested.

I'm not that's not computing for me.

But okay, well, how about the Cleveland Browns.

I mean, this is another mess of a quarterback situation.

We have no clue who's coming out of there, although I have my suspicions, and I hope they're wrong, but I hope Kenny Pickett's not the day one starter.

But you won't, okay A good So, yeah, I keep hearing that and I'm like, please, no, please no, But you know, it's a it's weird because nobody's expecting a whole lot from that quarterback room in general.

But we still got Judkins up at RB twenty six.

We got a Joku at tight end ten.

You know Jerry Judy wide receiver thirty four.

Those aren't crazy prices, but boy, people just do not have any confidence in this offense either.

What's your confidence level in that quarterback room and that offense in these fantasy pieces.

Look, I expect Joe Flacco to be the quarterback.

And Joe Flacco's played sixteen games over the last three seasons between the Jets, Cleveland and Indianapolis.

One point six touchdowns.

That's good.

One point six touchdouns a game is good.

He throws picks, I get it.

His yardage has been good.

Joe Flacco commonly puts him at least fifteen fantasy points, but in the majority of his games, no sixteen games, it's been over twenty.

He has been a good fantasy producer.

Not a good NFL quarterback, but a good fantasy producer.

And Flacco at least knows what to do with the football.

Yeah, besides hero to the other team on occasion.

But all that said, here's the deal in Cleveland, and everybody needs to get their mind around us.

When Deshaun Watson went there, Kevin O'Connell had to scrap the offense that he was a mastermind at He had to go because Deshaun Watson wasn't comfortable under center, so they had to move in a shotgun and they had to go from two tight ends to their base offense to three receivers.

It was a spread off.

Well, the offensive linemen have been hurt a lot the last few years, but they've also had to go to a run blocking system they weren't picked for.

They struggled in that spread offense.

So Beotonio, Poe, Sik Wyatt, Tyler, Jack Cocklin.

They've all been there through this time.

They're getting older, but they go back.

Now, Troy Harrison, the full back, they put him on the team.

They're gonna use him.

They drafted another tight end, Harold Fannin.

This team is going back to their roots.

They're going two tight ends or full back.

They are going to run the football because that's what Kevin Stefanski wants to do.

That's what he's coached to do.

He has the offensive line.

You know, though they're older, they have the ability to do this.

They're going to pass off of that play action smart passes.

This offense will be surprisingly good.

Quinn, Shawn Judkins and I know they drafted Sampson in the fourth round.

Judkins has a three down skill set, two hundred and twenty pounds.

He is going to be very productive in this offense right away.

And Joku, if flat goes to start, remember that last five weeks they've played together in twenty twenty three and Joko is the overall tight end one average about ninety three yards a game, incredible target share.

Jerry Judy, Look, he.

May have drop issues, he was getting ten point three targets a game from like week ten on last year.

He proved he could produce.

This offense can be fun.

They're not gonna be lk Ough scoreboards for NFL, but for fantasy.

Yeah, they're gonna be scoring points.

That's really interesting to hear you say that because Jerry Judy has been a guy that I've not been really interested in, and the price reflects the fact that I'm not alone there.

A lot of people are all feeling that.

But if it's Joe Flacco, I'm interested in Jerry Judy, but I'm worried that I get the rug pulled out from under me in week nine or something like that.

When they want to start Gabriel or Sanders, do you have any fear about that.

So I'm going to try to look up this game log real quick, because I remember the one bad game that Judy had was when Dorian Thompson Robinson was in and I believe it was Week sixteen.

It was two for twenty and I'm three targets, and I knew going into that game that Judy was in trouble.

Then the next week, I believe, against Miami with Thompson Robinson, that two for twenty became a twelve for ninety four and eighteen targets.

So it was one bad week.

Other than that, you were double digit fantasy points pretty much every week without without any like high end double digit points.

The worst game was twelve.

Aside from that one game, he did it with horrible quarterback play.

They had terrible quarterback play last year, revolving doors of nobody's.

So what's the worst case scenario.

It's last year.

But Jerry Judy was really the second half of a season.

He was he was a wide receiver fifteen ish.

I'm not I'm not saying he was exactly that.

He may have been a little better than that, but he was in like a wide receiver fifteen range.

Now I know you that nine for two to thirty five game in there, but regardless, you had ninety four yards one hundred yards eighty five one two two thirty five.

That's he did it.

And you can't take that away from him.

And he's not a great NFL receiver, but he doesn't have to be ecentric.

Tillman's a real nice compliment to him, but they do different things.

Judy's gonna be more of the possession guy.

I like Tilman too.

If they've got competent quarterback play, I'm all over Tillman as my last wide receiver in every draft this year.

He is going as high as a ninth round in high stakes drafts.

I was in a I was in the NFFC draft last week last Wednesday, and he went in the ninth I was live streaming the draft, and then one of the guys that's a high stakes player told me, well, he went in the tenth the night before.

So if you're in a sharp group of people, he ain't getting Tudrick Tilman in the end of your draft anymore.

He was doing his wide receiver sixty five.

If you're in a casual league, you can still get him a wide receiver sixty two.

If you're in any type of competitive league, go get him if you want to.

Stilman average seven catches, eighty five yards in a touchdown in the three games once he took over when Amari Cooper was traded.

Then he had a like a forty yard game, then the concussion.

At the end of the season, he was on a very good track.

I watched him in those couple of games.

I had picked him up in a couple different leagues and thought, what where have they been hiding this guy?

And then yeah, the concussion just ended what we thought looked like a breakout.

And then everyone seems to just be forgetting about him.

But you're telling me everyone isn't.

The casuals are forgetting about it, but the share players are on Cedric Tillman.

So that tells me I need to adjust my expectations for the King's Classic.

He's not going to be an auction bargain there.

But okay, well, hey, this is really good for me because I've been pretty much off Jerry Judy and this has given me a lot to think about.

I want to end the Cleveland conversation because I want to get to justin Fields and I teased this earlier, but I feel like, even though it's the New York Jets and everybody kind of wants to laugh at the New York Jets, and I understand that, but we've got some important fantasy pieces here, one of whom is Justin Fields that's being drafted as the twelfth quarterback off the board.

It sort of feels like the community's fence sitting there taking him at the bottom of QB one territory.

I feel like the Jets brought in a player that they know who he is, and they want to try to make it work lean into what he does.

That's my opinion about the goal they had in mind.

Does that mean he gets a bit of a longer leash, like they're not gonna yank him so quick or should we be worried about that?

And then what does that do to the whole Jets offense for fantasy.

Look, I think that they had a real intent offseason.

It was the point of bringing Fields and sign him a two year deal.

Their goal is to make this work this year.

Now, Fields has big turnover issues.

He throws interceptions, he fumbles the ball routinely.

Now they all get recovered by the other team, but he has fumble issues too.

But that said, you go to Chicago twenty twenty two eleven hundred and forty three rushing yards.

I think that was the most by a quarterback bumber correctly.

And then the next year he played thirteen games and it was his pace was like eight to sixty.

So he is an elite runner.

Like realistically, it's right there with Lamar, with Jayden Daniels, he's right there for running.

Now, as a passer, we get all concerned, but at twenty twenty three with the Bears, it was not a horrific passing season.

Remember Dj Moore at thirteen hundred sixty yards and any touchdowns.

Cole committed a career here seven hundred and ten ish yards and six touchdowns.

So he was able to operate in the middle of field of a tight end and operate with an alpha receiver.

Well, justin fields he's going to be unleashed a run here.

So you're right, people are hedging in rightfully, so because we're worried he loses his job.

But what are they gonna do with Tyrod Taylor in I mean, he can play, he's okay, but they really don't want to go that direction.

No, there's not some hotshot rookie sitting on the bench that's waiting to take the spot, So it makes me feel better about taking him.

But hey, what I've been saying all along is it doesn't hurt you to take Fields where he's being drafted that much, and then you can just back him up really late.

There's so many quarterbacks late you can just back them up.

Especially in an auction.

You can get a one dollar Matt Stafford, a two dollars Dak Prescott, something like that.

I think that's the way to go.

I just don't understand why we wouldn't be going after Fields at this point.

And let's say let's say they do yank him after week eight, So what we had fun for him eight weeks and those eight weeks matter, just like the end of the season matters.

You'll find that guy if the waiver wire, the bow knicks, the whatever that that will come on this year anyway.

So okay, Well, let's let's leave the people with their favorite part of every discussions with Drew, and that's asking my analysts that I have on here, who are your favorite players that you're drafting, And so it becomes kind of a thing where you know, just like when you're doing your drafts, who are you clicking on?

Who are you unable to click on?

So give me a couple from each side.

Who are you fading?

Who are you targeting right now?

Who are the Jim Coventry specials?

In the first second round turn area?

I have Drake London and Headed Nakua head of Mom and ros Saint Brown head of Brian Thomas.

It was thirteen targets a game with Pennix, it was eleven targets game in the last sixty average ninety four yards With Pennix, it was one hundred and seventeen.

Drake London's gonna see a hundred sixty targets and he's better than all those guys.

He's like a legit first round draft pick.

So love him.

DJ Moore two years yars Ago wide receiver six.

Last year was a train wreck wide receiver fourteen.

He's getting drafted as wide receiver twenty.

What am I missing?

Everything's better in Chicago?

I dumb.

I do not get that.

Jake Ferguson Now he's no longer the number two option because George Pickens there.

But this team can't run the ball.

What are you gonna do?

Javonte Williams jade On Blue, good luck with that.

Was talking to the Cowboys beat reporter around XM.

He's saying the same thing.

They're not gonna a real to run the ball here.

And their defense, they have a lot of players coming back from serious injuries.

They're not for these players might have him back on the field.

Dallas have to throw, throw, throw, So with Ferguson, I also wanted Dak Prescott.

Ferguson, remember he did nothing last year.

He missed three games.

He had a bunch of Cooper rush.

In the seven games of Prescott, Ferguson had three seventy yard games out of seven.

A tight end three seventy yard games.

And Pickens is only gonna help.

Pickens is gonna open up the field underneath.

And Prescott's always loved this tight end.

And with Prescott, remember this injuries.

Sure, he had a thumb, he had a hamstring, he had a broken ankle, disocated ankle.

That's not an injury prone guy.

These are three weird injuries, very weirder.

So in his three full seasons, quarterback two, quarterback, three, quarterback seven and you're getting the quarterback twelve all day long.

I love the quarter of the calls and the Cowboys.

I was in a mock the other night where I got Brock Purdy for two bucks Dak Prescott for a dollar.

It was perfect.

Loved it.

Those two guys for three bucks all day long.

Sign me up.

And then the Jake Ferguson thing is funny to me because we know what he was the previous year with a lot of Dak, and then last year he has Cooper Rush and everybody says, e who cares anymore?

I don't get that either.

Prescott loves the middle of the field, loves his tight ends they throw to him near the goal line.

I just don't get the Jake Ferguson thing.

Maybe that climbs as we get into August and people realize, but hey, if not, right now, I'm snapping up a lot of Jake Ferguson.

All right, what about the other side?

Who are some guys you're fading?

Three?

For sure?

Bonix great second half of the season, right, twenty five.

Points in three of his last seven games.

Well, last year, Bonnicks had to carry the team because again back to that Javonte Williams of Dallas thing.

Well, he couldn't run in Denver.

Julia McLaughlin's terrible audreck estimate didn't do his job.

So basically Denver had no choice but to put the team on Nick's shoulder.

Well, their offensive line is great, and they bring in Dobbins, they bring in Harvey.

Running game's gonna be fine.

The defense was really good last year.

Well, first round pick corners Jade barn they get Dre Greenlaw telling Ou Hufanga from San Francisco.

This defense could be elite.

Oh wait a minute, let me think this through Sean Payton.

He might have an elite defense.

He might have a really high end running him with a great offensive line.

How much is bo Nick's passing?

And the other thing is this boon Nicks ran because he had to run last year for four hundred plus yards.

But if he's got these running backs, does he really need to run that much?

Probably not.

So.

All those great things not Nick's fault doesn't put a knock on him.

His role is gonna be way different this year.

T Higgins is next Nicks right out of the gate.

I love it all right, Higgins, Oh no, don't do it.

He's going as the tight end twelve.

I mean, I'm saying the wide receiver twelve.

Yeah, he does not have an eleven hundred yard season.

He does not have one hundred and ten targets in a season.

He's played five years in the league.

He missed five games in each of the last two years.

He's had injury issues before that.

Last year I faded him because I said I can't trust him to be on the field, and he missed five more games.

He has never been anything close to the wide receiver twelve.

So we're extrap ladings out saying, all of a sudden, he's been a borrow five years, but now all of a sudden year six because he got paid.

Oh, now he's going to be the wide receiver twelve.

If he was wide receiver fifteen or sixteen, great, well, even then I'm probably the injury.

I would probably fade him a little bit there, but it'd be more palatable.

But wide receiver twelve in five years, he hasn't come close to that.

That's a tough sell.

Drew.

Last one is Tyreek Hill.

Tyreek Hill.

We could blame the risk injury last year, right, but you can't blame a risk injury on thirty eight percent of yards after to catch.

This guy's been in the nineties his whole career.

His quarterback is limited, and defenses know it.

They know you can just compress the field because he can't throw it down field.

He can't really push the ball the primer to a can't.

Tyreek Kill has said three times this offseason that I know of, he's unhappy there.

This is all a recipe for disaster.

I think he lost a nano second off the speed, and that's huge.

He lost at one.

I think last year he lost the gear that made him faster than every other person on the planet.

And I think, now he's this really fast guy, but he's not that tyreek Hill supernova.

So at a wide receiver fifteen can't do it.

I'm with you on Tyreek Hill.

I'm worried enough about the Dolphins situation in general that I just think it could completely implode and we could have just just a complete mess.

The only thing keeping me away from devon a Chan at this point is the risk of implosion there in Miami.

But yeah, you know, I am not surprised at your t Higgins call because when I looked at his price.

This is funny because I just got done having a conversation with somebody the other day and I tweeted this out.

T Higgins actually ended up being wide receiver three in Fantasy points per game in the games that he played.

That's insane.

But you pointed out that he missed five games.

He missed five last year.

That is a concern.

And I'll tell you what you think to yourself.

Okay, well, twelve games of T Higgins is still pretty good.

But you know, as a T Higgins manager last year, I didn't make the playoffs in a couple of leagues because of him and because I didn't have anybody there when I needed him.

He did win me a league with that forty points in one of the weeks at the end of the year.

But you know, that's what it comes down to, is how much tolerance do you have for that?

Because when he's on the field, he can be a monster.

The boy.

I'm just I'm shocked at the wide receiver price, the wide receivers twelve price.

That's weird, right, It's assuming no risk.

Why it is like this is a risk free player.

Yeah, that's not the case.

I know, and when I was I've complained about this multiple times so everybody get ready to hear it again.

But I said this about Chris Jim McAffrey a couple of years ago when he was still going at the top of drafts, when he had missed a bunch of time, and I thought, where's my discount?

And this I've said the same thing about Patrick Mahomes this summer.

He's still going as QB six and I think the guy hasn't been good for fantasy now for a year and a half.

What the hell are we doing with him at QB six.

I thought this year was finally the year I could snap up some Mahomes at the bottom of QB one territory.

It ain't happening.

And same thing with T Higgins.

Why is he pushed up into wide receiver one territory after the season he had just because of the big games?

I mean, maybe that's.

That's what we remember Week seventeen, which.

Is why they don't like Jake Ferguson.

So all right, well that's why you're getting smarter here on the auction Brief with with Jim Coventry.

So Jim, thank you again for coming on.

Don't forget to follow him on Twitter at Jim Coventry, NFL, and folks, you can't miss him over these draft pre months because he's everywhere and he's doing fantastic work.

Check out his threads too.

I enjoy his threads that he does about specific players or situations, so look at those.

But you can find a ton of Jim's content out there.

He's always pushing content and that's why he's such a value to us here on the Auction Brief.

Thank you again for coming by.

Thank you, Drew, keep crushing it.

Thanks buddy, appreciate you.

All Right, Well that is it for this week and another week of discussions Withdrew.

All Right, Jim, nice job boy.

I love hearing his analysis.

He just has so much to say about every situation because let's face it, he's been breaking it down all summer long already, and the guy is just all over it.

So I hope you enjoyed this week's discussions with Drew.

I thought he really brought it and I thought we learned a lot today.

So thank you again for joining me for another episode of the Auction Brief.

It's been another banger of an episode.

I hope you enjoyed it.

Don't forget to use my code Auction twenty twenty five at fjafantasysports dot com to get your draft boards when you're ready to order them.

You get ten percent off your order.

You can find me on Twitter at Drew Davenport FF.

I'm also the Fantasy Football Lawyer on TikTok and Patreon.

Just four bucks a month.

Get in there and let's talk auction the rest of the summer.

We're gonna be doing all kinds of things from now until the end of August that you are gonna love.

All right, folks, Well, thank you so much for joining me.

It's been another fun episode.

I love getting on the mic every week and I can't wait till next week.

The Auction Brief is adjourned and I am out.

The Auction Brief is adjourn that'll do it for this week's episode.

See you next time on the Auction Brief.