Playoff Primer

Welcome to Fantasy Football Weekly, a production of iHeartRadio.

Time now for Fantasy Football Weekly from iHeartRadio, your weekly source for the nation's best fantasy football advice, speculation, and whatever stupid stuff they decide to drop into the show. Now, here's your host, Paul Chargia.

Welcome to the first of our off season editions, a Fantasy Football Weekly. Yes, Scott Fish, it sounds weird to talk about offseason when you know we've still got a regular season week to go. He's got the regular NFL playoffs. But yeah, but the two hour version is done.

It's done. It's done. I like the short shows. They're fun, They're feeling a little more relaxed. There's a lot more grambling to make sure we get everything every single player covered. Yeah.

Do you think listeners appreciate us that we have to jam the you know, like fifteen games into two hours with plus commercials.

I think they do, just because I think they'd like that we touch on every player, Like how many shows touch on every single player except for ours, Like, it's not a common thing.

It's there's there's a lot of there's a lot of work to it, which I don't mind setting aside. After having done it for this one because the fantasy playoffs are coming and fantasy play a football super fun it is. Yeah, we love fantasy football in the playoffs, I want to talk about some different formats. So by doing that now people have got this next coming whole week to get

And historically we've been there's been two sides to this coin throughout We've had the Tim high Towers and the Ron Daines, but we've also had the Jimmy Grahams and the Arian Fosters that went on to be really good after that. So I'm gonna hit you, Jerry Johnson.

I'm gonna hit you with a few different players, and tell me if you think this is flash in the pan or sustained fantasy value. Begin at the quarterback position, and this one, this one is a little thirty. Joe Flacco elite, so.

So elite, such a franchise quarterback. He's being rested week eighteen.

How about that?

He went from couch to be rested for the playoffs.

Unbelievable, right, you.

Starting to get rest the other night while he was on the bench there, so far ahead.

Okay, So I think he's in the league next year.

I think I think he's not just in the league. I I think his role is likely either a backup for a rookie or starting the season while a rookie prepares underneath him.

That could somewhere, Yeah, that could be a perfect spot, right, Yeah, it probably wouldn't be a rookie that goes at the top of the draft. Now, those guys wanted everything, right, and.

The fan bases, the GMS, they all want him to start right, right, there's not as much projects next year. I feel like the top four or so are not really as project d.

They say that bo Nicks is a project that could still go like late first round.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know.

I don't know, but I haven't started that whole process.

Yeah. Well I'm not a big personally, but well there's a lot of people that aren't.

I know, ye four will be helping himself a lot.

He'll be good.

Yeah, I'm excited to talk to him about that. So Joe Flacco sustained fantasy value. We think next year too.

I think it's more probably start of the season and he might tail off.

He's he'll be thirty nine percentage chance. Joe Flacco is the starter for the Browns.

They have a lot of money investing in that position, and then they don't have outs for like another two years or whatever.

Uh.

I would give it like ten percent fifteen percent. But man, if if he leads a run here, maybe he maybe he wins the super Bowl and retires. Honestly, if he leads a run, I think it's really low. I think it's like ten percent for the Browns.

I'm gonna go forty. Wow, that's I also think the Browns. I think the Browns are gonna make waves in the playoffs a lot of the moment.

I don't think any team wants to play the Browns right now. I want to offense is humming and the defense has been awesome all year. No one wants to play that.

Absolutely. In reality, they should be like the number two seed behind Baltimore. If you're just doing like strength Strengthen Team ANFC, they'd be the two seed.

College Football playoffs style just will rank you and then you seeded there all.

Right, flash in the pan for the fantasy playoffs or sustained value for Jordan.

Love, sustained value. His entire team is young. You saw them gel better and better together as the season went on, like they started the season rough his first season starting, and there were flashes of good. Now those flashes are becoming more and more frequent each game instead of just here and there. And the whole team is just young, so much, so much athletic young wide receiver talent on that team. I like the future of where that's going.

Yeah, he's progressed incredibly well. I don't think any of us saw he could have predicted that he'd be way better in the second half than he was in the first half. It looks like a different guy. Yeah, the first half guy was so inconsistent. He's so scattered, shot, bad decision making.

He led the league for a while in off target throws and not so much of it. He's gonna be like a four thousand plus thirty touchdown guy.

This year's amazing. Yeah, it's amazing. Baker Mayfield. Yes, what do you think of him as a playoff flash in the pan or sustained fantasy value?

Do I know Dave Canallis is not going to get a head coaching job. He probably He was the OC for Gino Smith winning Comeback Player of the Year last year, and then Gino Smith tailed off and then yes, there were injuries. This year goes down to Tampa Mayfield.

It's the best year of his career, absolutelistically.

Yeah. I don't know what they have to invest in the quarterback position, so I could see him being a starter next year, probably more of a super flex guy. I don't I don't know that it's a flash in the pan. He'll be serviceable. I don't think he's going to be, you know, a superstart, though. I think this plus Mike Evans and Chris Godwin are both three agents. If he's saying that's.

That's a huge vest, just a huge factor. Yeah, I'd reup Evans before I would Godwin. Yep, that's just me. Uh, this one's pretty straightforward. Brize Hall powered teams through the fantasy playoffs. Obviously, he's headed for a first round draft pick next year.

Yeah, he's RB. Probably probably RB one or two, depending on who you ask. I've seen people talk, yeah, one, two or three, but probably one or two.

Christian McCaffrey's gonna be going.

Yep. People, people are gonna hamper on. Oh he got hurt again at the end of the year and he's, you know, twenty eight years old. People are gonna do that, which is fair. They're gonna, you know fair. There will be people who have haul one.

Kyron Williams also obvious. I think he will also be a first rounder.

He's still twenty three, like he's young.

Yeah, he's And the way the utilization by the RAMS was so absurdly high, I.

Mean, exactly unbelievable. When he finds his guy, he's he goes.

James Connor has been fantastic down the shis, including the one handed catch for the touchdown last week.

It doesn't either matchup proof like he put last last week was not a good.

Matchup the Eagles.

I mean the Eagles have tailed off defensively lately. But like he's he's busted two really good, really tough matchups in the last five weeks.

Yeah, San Francisco, I think as well. Yeah, wide receiver George Pickens out of the blue helped him part because Mason rudolph'sid yeah flash in the pan or sustained fantasy value.

Well, I believe Deontay Johnson's a free agent after the year, which that could make a make a factor. I'm not one hundred percent positive I think he is, though, Uh, I think that he will still be something, but he's going to be tricky to predict sometimes. They really need to fortify that quarterback position to make me feel better about George Pickens. But you know me, like it's insane talent. I love the talent.

The talent is there. I believe they. I believe the Steelers who are gonna pick it right roughly, like as it stands right now, they're sitting a pick like seventeen eighteen something like that, So they're not going to be in a spot to go get a young rookie.

This is a landing.

This is no, it is. This is a landing spot well for Joe Flacco, Russell Wilson, Kirk Cousins, potentially as a dark horse Baker Mayfield. Look if they just put if they just put NFL average quarterbacking on that team, suddenly the Steelers are very playoff relevant yep, which they're not right now with Mason Rudolph.

In my opinion, Tomlin refuses to lose more than a games.

I love it.

I love it.

It's so good for him. I think this one's obvious too. But as a fantasy playoff factor. DeMarcus Robinson out of the blue, Yeah, touchdowns and I believe four five games.

Actually I think it was five year old.

Then he missed one, right, Okay, maybe that was it. Four to the last five, five to last something like that. DeMarcus Robinson sustained fantasy value for twenty twenty four.

Yeah, Well, he's going to be open a lot with Pooka and Cooper around.

There, assuming he's back with the Rams.

I think it's gonna be I think it's going to be sustained value. He should be on rosters. But also it's gonna be pretty hid and miss. He's always had decent, decent like games, even back to Kansas City and what like Bears or whatever. It was like he has he has his moments.

When he first popped up getting reps with the rams A, I was like, is it that DeMarcus Robinson exactly? Still talking about the same DeMarcus Robinson. Yeah, unbelievable. There's a late late career resurgence. What is it like year nine or something?

Yeah, I think I think he's put himself into the conversation. He'll be drafted, you know, late rounds of drafts and hope it works out.

Again, there's a chance, Cooper Cup maybe this is the beginning of the end for a player who's whatever seven years in the league.

Yep, for him, it's possible.

Yeah, it's possible.

He's the good thing he is is they're oute running, but he probably doesn't have the quick titch twitch is probably going away.

It might be it might be David and Joku surging with Joe Flacco.

Yeah, what do you think?

Did he finally turn the corner? We've been waiting because he's had he's been the athletic specimen all this time, but he could never give you consistent, reliable production until Joe Blacco showed up.

I will I will say he had three or four good weeks before Flacco got there. He just went nuclear when Flakka got there. Yeah, this this might be the resurgence. This might be one of those classic He couldn't do it in the schemes, their systems, their quarterbacks, and then in the past and they he finally got a got a you know, a situation that could feed him. I think there are a lot of question marks for that offense for for next year. You know, is Nick Chubb

I'm with you on that. And you know, we don't know that Stefanski had always been sort of a run first guy. He was in Minnesota with Adrian Peterson, you know, when they was there. Then he rolls into Cleveland. He's got Nick Chubb.

YEP.

I kind of think that Stefanski might not be as run heavy now that we've seen what we've done with Flacco. He's throwing Flacco's arm out of personnel right Yeah, where he just goes to where his personnel leads him.

Which is a mark of a good coach.

Juwan Johnson flashed in the pan or has he turned the corner? Saints tight end man.

He's had a lot going for him in in in terms of uh injuries on the field and playing from behind. And yeah, I don't know. I will say every year the beat reporters are like this, Juwan Johnson kid is great in camp and stuff, and it's never really panned out. Maybe he has. I mean, he's gonna probably be rang to tight end sixteen again, and you know, he probably won't get drafted, but it's possible.

Let's go to playoffs some of the playoff formats. First of all, I want to give a shout out to my friends at my fantasy league. We know the people there, We love the people at my fantasy league. It is a little bit like guillotine leagues. It's a kind of a family run family business, right, and they are free to use in the playoffs. So if you want to, and they can because my fantasy league is so flexible,

I like that idea.

So if you're going to give people one and you you know, like the scott Fishbowls, you've always got unique scoring tweaks and roster tweaks. If you're going to give people one playoff tweak to make, so it's just sample see if you like it. And you know you've got all of this fish Bowl experience with all the different scoring systems. What do you think?

I think the most obvious one is probably something that's really becoming common, but we have a pretty you know, general audience, pretty wide audience. I think the most the most obvious one is just super flex. Yeah, I think the most obviously if you're not playing super flex in the regular season because you're worried about the quarterback depth or you've played one QB for so long. In the playoffs, playoff leagues are generally smaller. They're generally like six teams

To me speaking of is just quick aside when we get to do that on this format of the show, which I love. Yes, the Texans play too bad real quick. That's right, you've worked that matchup. This is going to be the first time all year most of the US has had a chance to see c J. Stroud. The Texans have played nothing but noon starts the higher year.

I didn't realize until now, I've seen a lot of strouds.

You know, if you didn't have NFL ticket, you all you were seeing were highlights. He's so good. And most of the country they know he's good because the stats are good whatever, But they they don't know, and they don't see it firsthand. They're not seeing him play in and playout. CJ. Stroud's great.

Yeah, I wish they got to see him with Tank Dell too, and No Brown is you know, we'll see if he's healthy enough for the playoffs.

But he's not playing this week. But they need him. If I think the Texans are going to win here, they're going to get into the playoffs. I think they're gonna be a sneaky, tough team.

Now they'll be. They'll be a tougher out. They've they've fought hard with and you know, late last second beat some good teams.

Yeah, their run defense has gotten way way better, and that's their pass defense has got all kinds of injury issues.

But yeah, it's.

Here's how I play fantasy in the playoffs. Okay, this is this is the charge league. Because there are seven of sorry, because there are fourteen teams in the NFL playoffs. I play with a league of seven.

Okay.

That means everybody gets two team quarterbacks yep, two team kickers, two team defense, and I do play with the kicker and defense in the playoffs. I think most people do.

Most people do.

Yeah, yeah, I want it here. Then we have exactly fourteen roster spots. We have the two team quarterback, kicker and defense that I mentioned for running backs, for receivers, two tight ends. No bench. Everybody starts every week. That you know, everybody starts every week, you know, to make any bench starts, which I love, I just draft my team and don't have to worry about one bench and who I'm starting. I like the no maintenance part of it after I've been doing maintenance for all year long.

Yep, that's pretty straightforward. Yep, that's yeah. That's one of the more common ones.

Do you, I think it force?

Do you just do a draft for a fourteen round draft? Yep?

Fourteen round drafts?

Okay, there's there's two versions of that very thing. The one is the just draft fourteen you know, seven players each, fourteen players each. The second version is you have to pick one player from each team.

Yeah. A lot of the you have to pick one player from each team.

It's it's a little more stressful, either you know, on the draft or the selecting or if you're yeah or whatever, But yeah, I like yours better.

So for the leagues where you have you can pick one player per team, yes, how chalky do you go? As an example, it's the Ravens. Yeah, just taking Lamar Jackson? Or do you try to pivot to somebody that gives you some upside right, but not everybody else is going to have right, because if you go nothing but chalk, yeah right, Christian McCaffrey, right, then you go Eagles, Jalen Hurts. Right.

Mind you, the type of league we're talking about does isn't capped at seven people? Yours sounds like a draft, and it's a little This is more. You can have multiple people because you can all have the same players.

You could have one hundred. You could have one hundred people in that league.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I don't I I don't. I don't know. It depends on how many teams are in it. But I I feel like I just go with what I feel is best. Honestly. I think the first thing you do with a situation like that is you do out the bracket and you see how many games you think each team is gonna play, which is huge, and the probabilities of that, yes, and then and then you take players according to that.

So I do I I don't think. I don't think I'm giving anything away here. I do two brackets for the I do two brackets for the NFC, two for the AFC. One is a probability one like if this plays mostly to form, here's how it's gonna show. And then I like che exactly ch and charts and then so then I and then I average that. And so if I think the Texans could win a game, right,

Perfect example is like probably a lot of people, a lot of people and probably analysts think Eagles are going to win a couple of games, but the way they're playing are now.

Who knows, like even they still could though. That's the fun thing. So here's I'll tell you a little bit about how I for again, when you can just when you can pick a player from every team, which many leagues do, I start a tight end because I need I want Sam Laporta, and I'm willing to give up David Montgomery, Jamiir Gibbs, Jared Goff. I'm on Rossaint Brown because if I don't take Sam Laporta, my drop off.

Ye yeah, I think. I think that's right. And on the on the flip side of it, in fantasy playoffs, it's so easy to keep a quarterback.

It is, isn't it.

It feels like the teams that make the playoffs they're mostly good quarterback teams.

I agree. You and I have talked about this on many past Fantasy football weeklies. Don't neglect the kicker in the team defense we do in regular fantasy football because especially kickers, because all the kickers score points. But when you don't have yours, when you get knocked out, you take the Houston kicker and they get knocked out in Week one, you got a problem because your opponents are all scoring points. Their kickers are scoring points, and you don't have one.

Absolutely, and kickers more than defenses and SFB the last two years is have had kickers, and you will see this when you look at the best ball scoring versus the non best ball scoring of those same teams. The floor on kickers is wonderful. So you want as many games for that kicker as you can get.

Yeah, for sure? For sure. What do you think about regular season leagues where they continue they continue it into the playoffs. I got a few of these on Twitter, including from a semi witty band who says that that's how they resolve their regular season league. And you just need to figure out, Scott Fish. You got to build a roster around which teams you think you're going to make the NFL playoffs?

Yep, I have, I have, I know people that play in this. There's actually and I wish I could remember who it is. There's a there's an analyst in our industry that's specially well known and that's the only way he likes to play. That's what his homely does. That he loves that, And I can't do it. I want my season to be done and then this is my relax and just to enjoy a little bit last ditch of fantasy. Honestly, but it's fine.

But what I do, what you like about it is only fourteen of thirty two teams get in.

Yeah, and you can't know. I mean you want to, you may you have a three percent chance of having Justin Jefferson.

You do right now? Yeah. I just I feel like it's adding adding a lot of variables in some luck into an already difficult.

Fan and already yeah, exactly my opinion. I'm not into it. But if you enjoy it, I don't. I say this all the time. I don't. I'm team no league shaming. If it's for you and your people, good.

I agree, I don't. I'm not gonna say you're doing it wrong because I just want you to go have fun.

Yeah exactly.

Ted Phillips from Twitter says that NFL dot COM's got a good system where you can pick a new roster every week, but your points double, triple, quadruple if you keep the same player from your previous week.

Yep. There are a couple of those that have fun multipliers where you can replace your players or you just keep them. Those are definitely fun. There are a couple sites that you can set those up for free or for money or whatever.

On Twitter, Doug Keating and Maris Sullivan uh said, create a roster then once you've selected those players, you can't use those players in any following week yep. So you gotta fire out when you're gonna use them, and you have to. Then you have to create a new roster every subsequent round of the playoffs yep, not using any of the players you've used a per previous yep.

So we'll talk about this one for a second, because this is one of the more common ones. This is my favorite one. It's cold. It's called a one and done. It's generally a shorter roster, like it's a five person five for six player rosters.

Super short.

Okay, Yeah, it's usually it's usually a shorter roster because you know, you can't use a player twice in there, right four rounds?

So is it all flex? Is it every position flex?

You can do it however you want. I will start off by my Scott Fish Playoff League. The SFPL is gonna go into its ninth year this year, and we do six players. It's quarterback, running back, wide receiver, tight end, two flex. Okay, so it's pretty it's pretty simple that way. Uh, this is I'm just gonna plug this, but this this year and last year we're doing it for Fantasy Cares. We're gonna have like Scott fish Bowl spots. We're gonna

Sorry. So wait, I can play playoff fantasy through the Scott fish Bowl and Fantasy Care.

Yeah.

So I did not know that I need to know these things. Yeah, So where where would I go if I want to do that?

Yeah, I'll have it on my Twitter at Scott fish twenty four. I'll have it on the fantasycares dot org site, probably the fish Bowl site as well. But I'll launch that this weekend start taking sign ups. But each year we get you know, three to between three hundred and six hundred people playing. Wow, but it's just gonna be all for charity. But yeah, what it is is it's a one and done. You You you pick a five or six player lineup each week, but you can't use

That's very interesting. All right? Does it cost anything to play this? You are here for We're here for charity, right, all right? So I don't think you should have any qualms about asking people to pay to play.

No, I honestly don't know what the I can't remember if it's a suggested donation or if it's a thank you where like the first five hundred people to donate get in or something. I'll have to check off to check what our rules are on that. But yes, there is a donation, you know, a donation to be made and you play in the league, and all right, we'll give away jerseys SFB spots.

Should I go to Fantasycars dot org as my launching point for this or just follow you on Twitter and see where you link me on Twitter?

Definitely will do it. I will try to get it up on Fantasy or cares dot org as quick as I can when it launches this weekend.

Got it? Okay, let's see Twitter at Adam Eberhart. Thank you, Adam. Ten participants each drafts one player from each of the playoff teams, so a roster of fourteen no position limits. A person could draft fourteen kickers if they wanted to.

Yep.

Total points, that's it. You can no positional restrictions whatsoever.

Yep, yep. And it's best ball. Well, it's obviously best all times. But I love My favorite thing about those is because you pick them, you know, you just pick them or draft them whatever, and you're done. You can just enjoy it. Just like there are versions of that very same thing where if your player gets knocked out, you can pick up a new player the next week to fill that spot. Those are fun too, They're just

Do you have any other styles of play that we should talk about.

No, Honestly, I think we get on I think we actually hit on all of the big ones, like just in our natural fluid conversation. Yes, yes, I think we got about a minute left if we want to work in another quick matchup. I'm just kidding. That's the second time I made that joke that too many.

Is the teams that play in Week eighteen. We already said earlier we we're not here to shame your league.

Yeah, but I just are they doing it wrong? And the idea, because so look at the starting quarterbacks playing this week.

No kidding, there are six teams, six good teams that aren't playing their starters that we know of, and maybe more like the Lions could tap out, you know, they might play their starters only briefly. I just feel like.

That that's that's the biggest that's honestly the worst bugaboo of it is. It's not the teams that are benching, like we see a lot of teams benching their quarterbacks. Lacko, a lot of teams benching their quarterbacks. We're going to see a crazy amount of backup quarterbacks. It's the teams that will start out and then be like it's not worth it anymore, that's right, So you start their player.

Because they're starting Jared Goff starting. Yeah, but little did you know it was going to be for two series, just to you know, stay warm.

Yeah, Aman Ross slightly tweaks his ankle exactly, taking no chances. Yes, you get no points out of him. Yeah, that's the worst part about playing Week eight.

I just feel like, you know, you've worked for seventeen weeks and you're not crowning the right team because just too many good players aren't playing in Week eighteen.

The fantasy already has a very large element of luck you don't want to add. Yeah, like this is a large amount of luck added to week eighteen.

It really is which players are in and out and you can't know, No, you can't know.

You can't prepare for it either because most leagues and trading, you know, even most I mean.

Yeah, like the leagues or whatever.

Yeah, but most leagues you can't trade and fix for that, right, so.

Right, Yeah, I'll just note this as we're at the at the bitter end of this episode. One of my Empire leagues, yes, the Oritten. In fact, not only that, this is the first Empire league in the world.

Yep.

The pot now, it's like a decade old pot now is sitting at like twelve thousand dollars Jesus, as we've been pouring into it waiting for one team to win it in back to back years.

Yep.

Well we had a guy who'ld won it last year, got into the championship for boy playing against our mutual friend Christian Peterson for the twelve thousand dollars. Because if he goes back to back, it's gonna pay it out it came down to like a four point game and he lost.

Did Christian say, hey, let's chop the pot.

Can't. Fortunately, can't do that because he didn't get the pot. But it, uh, it's saved. I had banked, I had, I had bottomed out. I had four first round picks coming into this draft. If the Umpire league had lost as them, send it four first round picks.

To pull my hair out, man, I can't. I can't wait till the day that.

Ends the Empire League.

Yeah, it's just gonna be a fun Holy crap. I can't believe this. This league just paid out one hundred and fourteen.

Dollars in yeah, in your twenty forty.

I know how much it goes up per year, but that that would be a lot of this.

I've heard of variations of Empire leagues where they've set it up that like, af ten years, if nobody's gone back to back, it's the first team to win two. Okay, but you could you know, I could see that just it doesn't have to be consecutive. It's just give us your second win.

Yep. I used to do not Empire but progressive pots, where it was win two within three years and two within five years.

So yeah, there you go.

That's the easy way to try.

Way to do it, and all right, thanks Scott. Yes, it's fun getting to our off season shows. Yes, we'll get to just be so much more.

Free and do whatever we It's fun, just great, it's fun.

Yeah, thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back next week. We'll be previewing playoff games next week. Yes, unbelievable that it's already there.

It's awesome.

Yeah, I can't wait. Talk to you late everybody.

Bye bye.

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