2024 Fantasy Football Thread

I wanted Jonnu but I took Levis in the round he went. Likely fell 16 spots so I was happy to get him.

I hope Likely has more stand-alone value this year. I mainly only take him with Lamar or Hou, but there is a decent chance he’s their third best pass catcher.

Yeah I think the problem with Likely, specifically with Bowers, is that Bowers is usually not going to score a lot early (obv sometimes he will), so when you have him with Likely, you have 2 guys that are going to be unlikely to get pts early, so you’re going to be relying on mostly just fant. That seems tough to me for advancing purposes

It can obviously work if bowers smashes way quicker than you’d expect with a rookie or fant passes Lockett or jsn as the 3rd target

It’s definitely possible, but I think it’d be something that they pivot to rather than start the year off doing. Maybe they figure it out in the preseason though

They might have to considering Bateman is already getting banged up.

I may be over estimating what Bowers will do early on. He seems different to me than other rookies. Things seem to be aligned for Fant to have his best year. Just speeding up this offense will be a big boost. Likely has shown too much not to get more playing time.

I think this has a chance to be a very good TE room. It may get off to a slow start as you stated. I think grabbing a more solid second TE with Bowers makes sense.

One more thing I'll say about drafting TEs too early. Over the last 3 years, there's usually 2-3 TEs drafted within the first 6 rounds that actually finish as TE5 or better. The issue is there are always pivots that score more points and have a higher weekly output/ceiling.

Take Kelce for example. He was the first TE off the board and he ended up with 219 fpt (PPR). AJB was an easy pivot who ended up with 236 fpts, and Lamb was available as well who scored 336 fpts. Now if you waited on TE, you could have had Hockenson who scored as many fpts as Kelce but had no immediate pivots that outscored him.

So I guess just be aware of your surrounding and make sure to consider how often it is your TE can outscore those drafted around him.

butchered QB. didn't actually want Fields in this one, and then decided to grab JJ since I don't have any JJ+JJ stacks.

QB - Caleb, Bryce, Fields, JJ

RB - Jacobs, Mixon, Moss, Javonte, Mattison

WR - JJ, Waddle, DJM, Odunze, Lockett, Thielen, M. Wilson, Malik

TE - Andrews, Kmet, Sanders

Right, it's all about opportunity cost. You use Kelce as an example from last season, but he was a mid 1st round pick. Andrews was taken in the mid 3rd. Hock in the early 5th as the TE3, which you use as the alternative, and he went in the range where most elite TEs are going this season.

Using UD, which is a little cheaper than DK:

This season, the opportunity cost certainly isn't WR, as the TE1 goes right after WR25.

The opportunity cost could be RB, as the TE1and TE2 go between RB9 and RB10, which sounds expensive. But then you keep going. The TE3, TE4, and TE5 go between RB11 and RB12. The TE6 goes between RB13 and RB14. The TE7 goes between RB15 and RB16. And so on. You see that the cost of the top guys really isn't that high, relative to the ADPs of the other top RBs. I.e., I can take TE1 instead of TE5 and only lose one to two spots of RB positional value.

The biggest opportunity cost is elite QB. And then you look a little closer. Well, the optimal strategy may actually be to take both together. The QB1 and TE5 stack. The QB2 and TE12 stack. The QB3 and TE2 stack. The QB4 and TE4 stack. The QB7 and TE3 stack.

Ultimately, I think the above furthers the notion of zero or hero RB in focusing on the other 3 positions in the first 7-8 rounds.

One other note is that last year had strong rookies in Kincaid and LaPorta who had cheap ADPs. Last year had second year breakouts McBride and Ferg with cheap ADPs. Last year had Juwan who came through when it mattered in w17, but he actually had a pretty shitty season overall. Last year had Likely who benefitted from injury.

This year, the best late round bets are:

Muth, who should be the 2nd target on his team in a TE friendly scheme with potentially questionable QB play.

Henry who could be a top 2-3 target (TBD) on his team with either a journeyman or a rookie QB, that we all think has a bunch of upside, but we don't actually know.

Fant who has underperformed his entire career, now has a path to a full-time role in a strong offensive scheme, but still will likely be at best the fourth target on his team without injury.

Jonnu who has shown flashes and has moved to a strong offensive scheme, but we've never seen that offensive scheme utilize TE, and he's competing against some really strong target earners.

Juwan is back there again and hopefully will be the 2nd or 3rd target on his team.

And then other than that, it's really a bunch of projection and hope from guys like Conklin, Likely, Otton, Gesicki, etc.

There are no cheap high pedigree upside rookies. Sinnott is a FB turned TE who may play behind Ertz all season. JT Sanders missed where it matters most at TE in athletic measurables. Theo Johnson may get in the mix simply out of need, but he's still catching passes from Dimes and competing with Nabers, Slayton, etc. and had pretty terrible college production. The cheap upside 2nd year bets in Musgrave and Mayer have a **** ton of target competition.

The more you look at it, the more it makes sense to hammer the elite TEs and spread exposures among them all.

You nailed it!

I think Greg Dulcich could smash his ADP if he stays healthy.

It's tough to overcome having two QB's who will probably be zero's for the start of the season. I don't hate having Fields here since this room needs some upside and he probably will get in there at some point. Caleb could turn out to be as advertised and you have him nicely stacked.

Sanders is another guy who may not do much early.

I'm taking Joe Burrow off my draft board until he fixes his hair situation.

Big if haha, but yeah, he's probably worth a theoretical upside shot as your third TE in the 18th round. Since we have actual reports he's healthy, I think I'm going to mix in a few shares on Nix teams or as a Cincy bring back.

Lmao. It looks like a midlife crisis. At least he'll be wearing a helmet during the games.

I listen to the DNVR Bronco podcast and they said Dulcich looks great and very fast. He seems to be a consistent target so far in camp. It is a "big if" for him to stay healthy but the Broncos need him badly.

Good point regarding Burrow wearing the helmet. I'll take him if he falls to the 15/16 turn.

I think that's the crux of the argument in how you define an elite TE.

Jimmy said he considers Pitts, Kittle, and Engram to be elite. Which if that's the agreed upon definition of elite, then absolutely hammer away.

But when I'm looking at ADP values (on DK), the elite TEs in my eyes are Kelce, LaPorta, McBride, Kincaid, and Andrews.

Those are the guys where having exposure is fine, but I think you give up too much of an opportunity cost by going super heavy on them as a whole.

If you want to have an ADP cutoff for defining elite, you won't find any arguments here, as that's pretty subjective. But it's not like Pitts, Kittle or Engram are that much cheaper than the cut off at Andrews. We're talking a range of half a round to a round and a half.

Pitts is still projection. But Engram was the TE2 by scoring and TE4 by average in PPR last year. Kittle was the TE5 by scoring and TE6 by average in PPR last year.

I doubt I'll have much, if any, Kelce on DK and probably not much LaPorta, since I can just get cheaper exposure for each on UD, where I'll likely be close to even with the field on both. But starting with McBride at an ADP of 47, it seems like such an easy hammer all the way down to Goedert.

I simply want exposure to them all, which also has a nice byproduct of not being super heavy on any of them. Sometimes I'll pass on McBride/Andrews/Kincaid at the 4/5 turn, because I want to target Bowers/Njoku at the 8/9 turn. Sometimes I'll pass on LaPorta/Kelce at the 3/4 or Pitts/Kittle at the 5/6, because I want to target Ferg/Bowers at the 7/8 turn or maybe capture a falling Engram.

ETA: I do think the typical definition of "elite" TE is more muddied this season. Last year it was pretty clear it was Kelce in the 1st, Andrews in the 3rd, and then Hock in the early 5th. I'd also include Kittle in the late 5th. Then Pitts was late 6th. And then we were into Goedert, Waller (although he had a huge rise from beginning to end of draft season), Engram, Njoku, Muth, etc.

This year, the top options are being drafted multiple rounds later and the position arguably has more "confidence" depth than it has had in quite a long time with the rise of LaPorta, McBride, and Kincaid, combined with the upside of guys like Ferg, Bowers, and Njoku.

Madden giving no love to Breece (84) or Bijan (82) this year.

Madden hates young players. I saw Puka and Gabe Davis had the same ratings at 84.

Just like real life RBs, I don’t think Madden RB ratings matter 😉

Not to cherry pick - but CMC is 99 this year, but he was 99 in previous years on Carolina.

One place where I don’t mind grabbing a mid/early TE this year is when they’re available at an obvious WR tier break.

For QBs, last year R3 had Josh/Mahomes/Hurts clumped together, and there was a clear “well i want these WRs before the top 3 QBs” tier that was after the round 1-2 guys. This year I see McBride/Kincaid/Andrews being located between 2 WR tiers (eg between the Flowers/Higgins tier and the Keenan/Xavier tier).

I don't hear anybody talking about who are the best back up QB's based on bye week matchup. It seems this would be a micro edge spot. Have you guy's looked into this? If you take Josh Allen for instance, who has the best matchup during his bye week. This could determine if it's better to wait or get somebody earlier.

If this were to matter I would think it would be more applicable to guys with the week 14 bye.

But if you're looking at Allen specifically then I don't think you can go wrong with Mahomes (v Carolina), Lamar (v Chargers), Dak (v Washington), or AR (v Detroit)

Problem of course is getting those guys as well as Allen lol

Who is the favorite in our our league? If Daniels hits, I'll be pretty good I think.

Fired my $5 DK single entry since it's getting close to filling. Patented Maye stack. I kind of dig it, even though I went RB heavy early.

Caleb, Trevor, Maye

Gibbs, Etienne, Rachaad, Khalil, Braelon, Estime

London, DJM, Diontae, Odunze, Curtis, Gabe, Polk, Baker

Pitts, Henry, Mayer

Also fired a $3 play action. Not a big fan. RB is kind of ugly lol.

Mahomes, Love

Achane, C Brown, Dowdle, Jaleel, Tracy, Shipley, Laube

AJB, Kirk, Hollywood, Watson, Keon, Wicks, AD Mitchell, Roman Wilson

Kelce, Musgrave, Juwan

I was planning to add an 8th RB, but Roman fell to the 20th off of his injury news today. So it was either him or Keaton.