Football Advice From A Baseball Guy
It’s bad practice to comment on things you don’t know about. But we aren’t here to talk about practice (not a game, not a game), we’re here for me to demand more attention that I don’t deserve.
I too have been playing fantasy football for more than a decade now, and I do tend to get pretty into it after baseball is over. I am also a globally known and well-respected Master of Science™ , which means I can comment on nearly anything I want with significant authority.
Plus, if I come out here and give everybody horrible fantasy football advice, we can look back on it around Christmas time and make fun of me for it - and that has the potential to make the Waterloo’s of the world really happy.
The pages of this blog written by me (Jonny A, the founder of the feast) through the football season will be dedicated to raw data and projections and stuff like that - not much advice. It’s $7/month for everything, but you’re getting this bad boy for free because it is completely useless, and I would never charge money for something that’s useless.
In all seriousness, there is very little seriousness. I am very much overconfident and full of myself (although not narcissistic, I won’t be called that!), but the best part is that I’m also very persuasive. This means I have a keen ability to give bad advice while making it sound like good advice. It’s the perfect combination. I won most persuasive speaker in tenth-grade public speaking class. In fact, I remember the teacher after my final speech saying something about how I’m destined for sports blogging greatness on the Internet someday. I think he was making fun of me at the time. The good news in all of this is that I’m… extremely overconfident and full of myself, which makes my everyday life just a joy to partake in.
I have a fantasy football league with my high school friends and it’s been going on since 2007, so we take it pretty seriously. The draft is next Wednesday (the night before the first game), so it’s been about time for me to do some studying. In the dozens of seconds that I’ve spent thinking about fantasy football 2022, there have been no shortage of overconfident takes coming into my head. I understand that it’s selfish to keep them to myself, especially when I have hundreds of you already biting my line here. I mean you probably don’t even want to be reading this, but here you are.
And let’s be honest for a quick second, most fantasy football analysts are trash, right? I mean, it’s a really simple game - there’s just not that much to it. That lends itself to most of the stuff being said being super surface level and almost plagiaristic. What I can offer is a different tone and maybe even some giggles while giving you useless advice. Let’s hop to it.
#1 Draft Christian McCaffrey
Let’s say I come to you and lay out this game for you to play if you want.
You risk $100
I write down a number between 1-5
You try to guess the number
If you get it right, I give you $1000. If you get it wrong, I keep the $100
Would you play that game? Now, it depends on how much loose cash you have, I suppose, but saying that’s not that much of an issue - probability says you should absolutely play the game. Your 20% chance to win gives you a 10x payout. Yes, you’ll probably lose the $100, but the potential reward outweighs the risk by double. If you could play that game over and over again, you would be certain to make a ton of money just given the setup, so it would be foolish to not play it even once.
It’s the same idea as pot odds in poker. If you’re considering calling a bet, the best way is to weigh the chances you have at having the best hand against the potential payout. If you have a 33% (1:3) chance of winning the hand, but the pot is five times (1:5) bigger than what it will cost to call the bet, you do it.
That’s Christian McCaffrey. Injury risk is overblown, it just is, and McCaffrey is a guy who can lap the field. If you take him and you hit on a healthy season, you have a huge advantage and will almost surely make the playoffs and probably lead your league in points scored. I don’t really envy the people picking first or second that have to do that, because it is also somewhat likely to end your season almost immediately - but the upside to me wayyyy outweighs the risk and you should just be a rational man and take it. Do it, you little wussies.
#2 Don’t Draft Davante Adams
Mmmmmmmk so you want me to believe that an NFL Wide Receiver can
Turn 29
Leave Aaron Rodgers
Still return top 12 fantasy value
Give me a break, man - not going to happen. There’s no such thing as a good wide receiver, they’re all the same. Literally, I’m just as good as Cooper Kupp at running and catching footballs - he’s just lucky enough to have been picked by the Rams and gotten himself into a really profitable situation with the coaches and quarterback.
Now Adams completely changes situations and we’re still supposed to take him in the first round? You’re out of mind.
This isn’t even one where I’m gonna be lame and go WElL It CoUld PosSibLY WorK oUt BuT I THinK thE smARteR deCiSIoN iS jUSt tO leT soMeoNe elSe taKe hIm. If you take him in the first 30 picks you’re a stooge and you should be barred from the Internet for at least 3 months.
#3 Buy Low, Sell High
I can promise you I won’t be drafting Ja’Marr Chase in the one draft I do. Ignoring all of the important information we shouldn’t ignore, we can say this about Chase: he’s had one year in the league and did a ton of damage on a handful of huge plays - and now he’s a top-five pick. Has this ever happened before in fantasy football?
Now I tweeted about this and got plenty of responses. A few of them would have changed my mind about him if I had any interest in changing my mind about this (I’ll change my mind about important things in life like fantasy baseball - but not fantasy football):
So those are good responses and you should listen to those guys instead of me (although I don’t think either of them are Masters of Science™ ). But we also got some bologna responses like this one:
I’m about to change the tagline of this blog from “hot isn’t real” to “connection isn’t real”.
But look, we’re throwing all of this out. Taking Chase in the top-five is a buy-high, it just is. I suppose you could say taking anybody in the top five is a buy-high, but then I would just tell you to shut the hell up, this is my blog.
Another guy I think is buying high would be Josh Allen. I think quite often we see Quarterbacks being like stud baseball hitters, where they run a ton early in their careers but then they have to slow that down, not only due to them getting slower and more beat up - but probably just because they become more valuable to their teams and the management doesn’t want to risk injury as much.
It’s perfectly freaking possible that Allen runs just as much this year, and it’s also perfectly possible that he doesn’t even need to run as much to be the QB1 - but taking him where he’s going is definitionally buying him at the top of his value, and the more you do stuff like that in life the more you’ll lose.
Look at how good he looks in shorts, by the way:
It’s regression to the mean in action. Again, this is true for most players since they have to be drafted somewhere and the biggest predictor of that is what they did last year, but with guys like Allen, I just think it’s more true.
And read Thinking, Fast and Slow, it’s long. But if you read this blog I guarantee you’ll love that book, and in fact, I would venture to say it will change your life.
So who are the buy lows? I actually don’t even know, but I’ve heard the Chiefs offense is cheaper now without Tyreek Hill, and that guy is the worst. You can probably get Kelce in the second and Mahomes in the sixth, I’d imagine that would work pretty well.
#4 Don’t Draft Players I’ve Never Heard Of
Here is where I go into the top 150 and list to you all of the names I’ve never heard of before. You should not draft these names under any circumstance (I had never heard of Ja’Marr Chase at this point a year ago):
Travis Etienne
Breece Hall
Dameon Pierce
Garrett Wilson
Jahan Dotson
Romeo Doubs (obviously a big pot smoker)
Rachaad White
I’m guessing these guys are all rookies. Shout out to me for having heard of Skyy Moore though, he grew up really close to me. In fact, there’s a real possibility I played basketball with him at the local YMCA because I used to watch kids there for my first job and he was about in the age range I watched. I wonder if he remembers me?
Etienne I think I actually have heard of, he was a rookie last year but got hurt and missed the season or something. But whatever, rookies usually suck a twanger so don’t risk it.
The point of fantasy football is to be in the race all year. The only way to lose is to be 0-6, so just take the sure points and stay in the hunt, stay in the Kareem.
DFS is the real man’s game anyways, and I swear I’ll be able to actually help with that if you follow along with these notes all season.
Thanks for humoring me here, I hope I humored you back.