2024 Fantasy Football Thread

Yep! I remember thinking that this guy quietly has some nice takes.

I almost always want at least 2 QBs before I get to Darnold, even when 1 is an elite.

The elites are still tough for me due to opportunity cost, but I've been living in the QB range from Mahomes to Ward. If you don't land an elite QB, I think having 3 QBs in this range could be the nuts. If not 3, then 2 + one of Darnold, Rodgers, Shough, Dimes/AR, and Dart can work. Late round Nix last year was a cheat code that I didn't take enough advantage of. I don't think that opportunity is there this season.

I'll probably be something like 4-6% Josh, 6% Lamar, 8% Jayden, and 8-10% Hurts, just tiering up exposure from most expensive to least. Burrow is kind of in no man's land. I'd like to be around 6%, if I can make the stacking work. For Mahomes to Ward, I'll be 8-12% of all of them. Then Ill be somewhere between 4-8% of the guys at the end of the draft.

Last year when I drafted an elite QB I just waited for Nix as the back up and was done. He did start to move up as we got closer to the season. I didn't expect Nix to be great but I figured under Payton he would be an easy no brainer cheap back up.

I have no idea how things will shake out. I just know I feel the same exact way about the mid to late QB's this year as I did about the mid to late RB's last year. On paper it looks fantastic. I also felt it was too good to be true.

Even though there is opportunity cost taking an elite, I don't think it's overly difficult building a solid squad around them. They are so consistent and have the ability to go nuclear at any time. When I get to the playoffs or hopefully the finals with one of these guy's I feel really good about my chances. It's kind of like having Kelce in his prime.

I'm probably a little more down on the mid tier QB's. That being said, I wouldn't be shocked if Mahomes has a "Remember me" season or Lawrence and Caleb have big break out years. Stroud seems way too low.

I agree about getting a second QB before Darnold. This feels very Case Keenumy to me. Maybe playing under Mcvay and KOC has turned his career around. That being said, I doubt the Vikes would have let him go if they truly loved him.

The middle round guys could be overrated at cost, relative to the elites. But the difference between the mid to late QBs compared to the mid to late RBs is that those RBs were all drafted off of contingency, hopes, and dreams. We are confident in the majority of the mid to late QBs starting and the upside they can provide. They may not reach that upside. The elites could certainly still lap the field, but I'm not sure the comparison sticks.

I think this chart illustrates it pretty well. You can see the negative linear slope for QB projection until we get to Ward, and then it just drops off of a cliff, so I do think most of these QBs are probably close to correctly priced.

On another note, somehow Jaylen Warren has only 6 TDs on 473 NFL touches. 127 of those touches are receptions. He has 0 career receiving TDs.

Pretty wild stat on Warren. He’ll get 225 more touches this year to try to regress his tds back up haha

Haha, I've been pretty out on Warren the whole time this off-season, especially for .5 PPR. But I didn't realize his TD rate was that bad, until I was looking at his UD stat log in a slow draft thinking about picking him.

Kaleb as a 3rd round rookie could certainly not be good, but I really don't think the Steelers want to give Warren a big workload, efficiency be damned. And for fantasy, efficiency between the 20s doesn't really score us many points. Even Kerrane has cooled a lot after being burned last year at his 30% exposure.

Good point regarding the contingency hopes of the RB's last year.

This might just be the year to have a very balanced portfolio.

Jacobs got his receiving TD last year.

I was super heavy on J Brooks last year because of Kerrane. This year I'm going to try to not get player takes from Best Ball guy's. They are in tune with how the drafts go but I'm not confident in their player takes. Brooks was not the only bad take. I need to focus on actual football guy's analysis regarding players. I think Best Ball guy's try to stake their claim to a player or team too much.

You seem to know what you are talking about so I'll listen to you.

If you didn't catch Liam's latest stream, he brought up some points about the 2 vs 3 QB debate that I found interesting.

Basically he said that the data showing the advantages of 3 QB was based on the averages, but we're not playing to be average in top heavy contests. Which is why he leans towards 2 QB builds.

Most QBs will be pretty close to each other in average scoring. So when it comes to a 1v1 in the later rounds between Slayton and Shough. A 20pt game from Slayton in the playoffs could be huge, but a 20pt game from Shough probably wouldn't mean as much.

I still think context matters, but I've definitely found myself being more okay with stopping at 2 even if I don't have an elite. Overall, I think I'm like 55/45 in favor of 3 QB teams though.

I don’t think Liam is correct about that. Leonne’s stuff and Shaidy’s stuff both show better advance rate and playoff performance on 3qb. It sounds like he is more arguing with Hayden’s analysis

I don’t necessarily think you have to go 3qb by any means, but I do think that it is an edge so prefer to be heavier towards it than lighter

SF

Allen, Tua, Wilson

Achane, Walker, Kamara, Pacheco, White, Shipley, Brooks

Nico, Reek, Godwin, Shakir, Golden, Hollywood, Thielen, Wicks

Kincaid, Otton

Kirk + Noel is probably bad and I don’t love stacking w17 QBs, but Tua fell a rd so figured why not

Baker, Stroud, Tua

JT, Hampton, Monty, White, Shipley

JJ, Tee, Jamo, Godwin, Kirk, Noel, Pop, Coker

Hock, Jonnu

Re: the 2 v 3 QB debate, there is so much variance, that even with the sims it's probably tough to know what is exactly right since we are only playing a single slate. Overall, I do think that the sims showing that, on average, 3 is probably better than 2 means you should do 3 more often than 2. But that doesn't mean a 2 QB team can't win.

Part of Liam's argument is that he wants as many shots at spike weeks from his non-QB players, which is why he likes to draft more 2 than 3 QB teams. It's a valid argument. A 20 point game from Slayton probably adds more value over replacement than a 20 point game from Shough. I'd also argue that Slayton is way less likely to have a 20 point game than Shough. Slayton is way more likely to be a zero in the money weeks than Shough.

And then here comes the power of stacking. If you draft Shough with Olave, Shaheed, Juwan, etc. and he does have a 20 point game, well, then you've made it easier. You don't need the 20 point game from Slayton because your QB's pass catchers are probably scoring pretty well, if the QB is scoring well. I think this is likely the primary result of the sim. A stacked QB scoring well means that your correlated players are more likely to score well.

Additionally, the QBs we are drafting in rounds 17 and 18 are there because of uncertainty. But those QBs have more asymmetrical upside than the non-QB positions in those ranges, because if we get 17 starts out of Shough, he's worth more than his current price, regardless of performance. We know at least some weeks he should score pretty well. The vast majority of the non-QBs being drafted in these ranges will be close to zeros.

It's about opportunity cost, it's about stackings, it's about correlating, etc.

I think Liam is biased on this debate, partly because of his BBM win with basically a solo Josh, which he brings up a lot. But the best ball game is also way different than when he won. I also don't agree with him that the 2 vs 3 QB strategy is about averages. It's about giving yourself more shots at a QB scoring well, which is also means some of their correlated pieces are probably also scoring well. When properly executed a 3 QB team adds a higher floor and a higher ceiling than a 2 QB team.

I try not to be too into player takes for best ball, which is why I'm relatively flat on exposures (4-16%). I don't think Brooks was a bad bet last year. I would make it again. I think he was unlucky that his knee didn't heal as quickly or efficiently as hoped, which is evidenced by him retearing the same knee. But it's all about how much exposure you want to have to certain bets and what you win when those bets pay off. I focus more on fades than players I want to be heavy on.

But ultimately, I draft best ball as a strategy game where player scoring stats are used to determine the winner, rather than trying to be right on certain players. Obviously, there will be some players with insane advance rates, like Saquon and Henry last season. Even though I was roughly 4% on both, my advance rates were only slightly less than expected. I had 5 finals teams when my expectation was 3.5, which is the barometer I ultimately use to gauge whether I drafted well or not. I still lost money overall, because my finals teams didn't do that well.

My goal is to beat drafters by constructing good rosters, allocating draft capital efficiently, fitting the correct profiles together, and then leaning into correlation/stacking. Much like tournament poker, my opinion is that the number one most important thing for playing best ball is volume. That's why I grind so hard, particularly with slows. I have 494 teams so far. Based on the expected finals rate for those contests, I'm currently expected to have 1.3 teams in the finals over that sample. I think that's hard for a lot of people to conceptualize.

It cracks me up when I see people posting on X with 50%+ exposures to certain players. They care more about bragging about being right about high exposure players than actually winning the tournament. I couldn't care less what people think of my player takes. My goal is to build the best teams possible within the construct of ADP, regardless of which players are on those teams.

I'm convinced these people are either really low volume or just come from a DFS background. In DFS, it's totally reasonable to have such high exposures because if they bust/get injured, there's always the next slate. In BestBall, the next slate can be 8 to 12 months away depending on when your player(s) get injured or bust.

The other thing I've come to realize is that individual ADP isn't as important as the overall ADP of a team. Which makes it easier to rationalize reaching for certain players whether for stacking or to create a unique combo.

There are still times when I think it can be really bad to reach on a player:

1. If they can fall to you naturally. Reaching for AJB at pick 7.

2. If it doesn't fall in line with good or logical roster construction. Starting with RB/RB/RB and then reaching for a 4th RB.

What is important, is to find value in spots that make it okay to reach in others.

The unthinkable just happened.

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Nix, Goff, Love (fell to 148)

Bijan, Bucky, Tuten, Spears, Keaton

Rashee, Jamo, DK, Godwin, Golden, Bryant, Wicks

Hock, Ertz, Otton

Lmao, that's a lot to unpack, given your Burrow troubles so far. The fantasy gods are really ****ing with you.

That's another thing about QB on UD. You just have no idea when they are going to fall a lot and when they aren't. It's nice when they fall and you already have pieces. It's another reason I like to lock up one or two QBs in the middle rounds at ADP like you did here, then maybe get nice value on my 3rd QB. I like it.

Not the strongest RB room

Hurts, Herbert, Love (146)

Bucky, Swift, Ford, Corum, Brooks, Eli, Woody

Chase, AJB, Worthy, Shakir, Egbuka, Tre, Doubs, Palmer

Engram, Kraft

Lamar, Stafford, Dimes

Chuba, Conner, ETN, Roschon, Hill, Giddens

Puka, London, Evans, Golden, Downs, Kirk, Atwell

Andrews, Njoku

Tried something different… I absolutely hate it haha

Fields, Love, Young

Jacobs, Brown, Cook, Monty

Chase, Smith, Golden, Kupp, Williams, Legette, Wicks

Henry, Gesicki, Sanders, T Ferguson

I kind of like it haha. I’d go 5 RB over 4 TE, but that’s just a slight preference. I think it can work.

Damn, I guess their careers are over.

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Some other good value elsewhere. Love 26 picks past. Pitts 23 picks past.

This one isn't as good, but I think it turned out alright. I lost focus and handcuffed Bucky/Rachaad, but I don't hate it on this team since I just need points to start the season.

I had to keep drafting WRs early because they all kept falling past ADP.

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