📌 10 Nuggets To Read Before Your Draft

Imagine Gronk in Vegas....

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter:

A lot has happened since we last dropped a newsletter in your inbox. Here are ten things you should know from preseason Week 2 before you do your next draft...

💼 Tom Brady is back. After a bizarrely communicated leave of absence and some incredible conspiracy theories (including an inspired one from our very own Kendall Valenzuela), Tom Brady is back and expected to practice today. You may now return to your regularly scheduled drafting of Bucs players.

📈 Rachaad White could be a 1b. Speaking of drafting Bucs, things continue to trend up for the third-round rookie RB. After opening up the preseason fourth on the depth chart, he was the second RB to see snaps this week (ahead of Ke'Shawn Vaughn) and played very well. On top of that, Leonard Fournette played multiple drives while the rest of the starters rested, a small hint that he might not have a full bellcow role this year.

❌ It might be over for Antonio Gibson. We've been tracking this closely over the past week and it somehow continues to get worse for Gibson. The Commanders started rookie Brian Robinson on the first drive, while giving Gibson return duties on special teams. Robinson looks like the clear lead back in this offense after dominating Gibson in carries (8-2) and yards (31-3). I still don't mind Gibson in best ball, but I'd wait for the massive discount to settle in.

✂️ Same for Ronald Jones. Jones didn't play a single snap with Patrick Mahomes in the Chiefs second preseason game and looks buried behind Isiah Pacheco, Clyde Edwards-Helaire, and Jerick McKinnon. Jones could potentially get cut or traded, but his paths to relevance on the Chiefs get thinner by the day.

🏅 Dameon Pierce is the guy. As if we needed any more confirmation, the Texans held the rookie out of their most recent game. It seems like Pierce has the RB1 role locked up in Houston. He's going to continue to push up draft boards.

🚑 Rookie injuries shake up depth charts. Some promising rookies got banged up over the weekend. Patriots WR Tyquan Thornton, who has been the talk of Patriots camp, suffered a collarbone injury and will miss around 8 weeks. Kendrick Bourne should move up boards in light of this... Chargers RB Isaiah Spiller left the game with an ankle injury after playing behind both Joshua Kelley and Larry Rountree.

👎 Albert O is in trouble. We've heard rumblings about the rookie TE Greg Dulcich, who is currently hurt, potentially being the TE1 in Denver and now we have Okwuegbunam playing into the 4th quarter of the Broncos second preseason game and rotating with pass blocking TEs Eric Saubert and Eric Tomlinson. He still has immense upside, but it's likely going to take another injury in front of him to realize it.

🎯 Chase Edmonds is a priority target. Edmonds, who sometimes slips into the double digit rounds of drafts, started for the Dolphins and played each of the first ten snaps. We knew he'd catch passes in this offense, but there's upside for even more if he gets some early down work.

⚡ Joshua Palmer looks legit. It seems very likely that there's a sleeper league winner on the Chargers, likely Palmer or TE Gerald Everett. Palmer had 75 yards and a TD on Saturday night, including this nifty play, and people are starting to take notice.

✨ The 49ers backfield is wide open. Eli Mitchell is dealing with a soft tissue injury and Jeff Wilson Jr. was out for personal reasons and hasn't played in either preseason game. This left Trey Sermon, JaMycal Hasty, and the rookie Tyrion Davis-Price to play in their Saturday game against the Vikings. Wilson, Sermon and TDP are all really solid late-round selections right now.

We’ve been talking about Best Ball all summer long, but as September draws near, we need to get prepped for our season-long drafts. Each day this week, Pete will share some tips and tricks on how to swap out your best ball brain with the season-long mindset.

There is certainly lots of overlap with both best ball and managed league strategy, but there are also some key differences we need to pay attention to as we make the transition.

As opposed to best ball, in managed leagues we set our lineups and have access to both a waiver wire and trade partners to improve our teams after the draft. This meaningfully changes how we approach our drafts.

The most important thing you can do to get ready for your managed league drafts is to know your league settings & exploit potential loopholes...

This might sounds obvious, but you’d be amazed at how few people take the time to seriously understand their league settings and scoring.

On Underdog Fantasy we are used to .5 PPR scoring, but many leagues are full point PPR or even standard scoring.

How I approach a PPR site like FFPC where you can start up to 4 WRs vs. how I approach a standard ESPN league with only 2 WR slots, and a flex is wildly different.

Make sure you know these settings inside and out so you can spot undervalued players relative to the settings (i.e. pass-catching backs like JD McKissic in full point PPR).

This extends beyond scoring and roster settings as well. Understand how your league’s waivers work as well.

🎮 A preseason cheat code

If you have a set of waivers running before the start of the season and your league does not force you to draft a defense and kicker, use those spots on lottery ticket RB selections instead.

It’s extremely unlikely that a kicker or defense will increase in value between your draft and the start of the season, so there’s no need to waste spots on kickers and defenses weeks before the season starts.

Every year we see backup RBs (think Darrell Henderson last year after Cam Akers got hurt) get vaulted into relevance because of an injury to their teammate, so we should be throwing darts at hitting one of these big value risers.

I recently drafted in the Sleeper Bowl with AJ Dillon, Tyler Allgeier, and our very own Cooterdoodle, and used my final two selections on Jerick McKinnon and Jeff Wilson Jr. instead of a kicker or defense.

Why? The Chiefs and 49ers represent two high-powered offenses with ambiguous backfields and I’ll get the luxury of seeing how things play out over the next couple weeks. McKinnon or Wilson could emerge with a role or an injury could also pave the way.

If nothing happens, I’ll simply cut them for a kicker and defense before the season starts. No harm, no foul. There is essentially no difference between the 9th and 10th ranked kicker and defense and a 13th or 14th ranked one, so might as well try to get an information edge at the more important position.

Some extremely cheap backup RBs I like to stash right now are D’Onta Foreman, Samaje Perine, D’Ernest Johnson, Eno Benjamin, Jaylen Warren, Tyler Badie and Matt Breida. All of these backs would jump massively in ADP if an injury hit the starter in their backfield.

One other important note: we’ve spent a lot of this summer talking about how to win large-field best ball tournaments with strategies like stacking and correlation. I still like to stack a little in season-long leagues, but it’s nowhere near mandatory. It’s a lot easier to finish first out of twelve teams than it is first out of 470,000, so we don’t need to chase as much variance in the former as we do in the latter.

Tomorrow we'll discuss why you should be willing to be even more aggressive chasing upside in your managed leagues than in best ball. See ya then..

🍺 The Fantasy Football Happy Hour w/Matthew Berry

🎰 The team Brady & Gronk almost ended up on. This would have been crazy.

🚑 This WR can't catch a break. Death, taxes, and hamstring injuries.

🍿 The best play from preseason Week 2. The USFL stud making a splash for the Cowboys.

💪 The rookie TE dominating the preseason. Steady drumbeat guy right here.

🚑 Is the Bucs o-line in trouble? This doesn't seem good.

🛹 Now, this is how you arrive to the stadium. Kicker Rodrigo Blankenship has some swag.

🤔 Should we be worried about Treylon Burks? Mike Vrabel shares some thoughts.

🔻 The elite TE playing less this year. It's fair to be concerned.

In this series, our contributors will share the sleepers that they're targeting in drafts. Today, Cooterdoodle hypes up two cheap WRs available in the late rounds of drafts...

💤 Jarvis Landry (WR70)

• Round 13 ADP

• Improved offense

• TD potential

In 2021, Jameis Winston laid the spooky “interception narrative” to rest after throwing only 3 INTs in seven weeks. Not only was Winston not bad, but he was good. Before his injury in Week 8, Winston managed 1,170 yards and 14 TDs all without WR1 Michael Thomas on the field. Pretty impressive. Looking to 2022, the Saints WR core has completely changed:

So let’s talk about Landry. While Chris Olave is the shiny new toy, Landry is a veteran who managed more than 950 yards for five years straight before heading to Cleveland. With a 13th round ADP and an upgrade at QB, Landry is worth picking up as a late round play.

Think about it: there will be games where Landry benefits from Winston’s ability to throw five TDs a week. Coaches have praised Landry in training camp and in-game he won’t attract any opposing teams’ top cornerbacks. Take a flier on the vet with me.

💤 KJ Osborn (WR66)

• WR2 potential at WR3 price

• High scoring offense

• Hidden gem

All off-season analysts have touted Justin Jefferson as the WR1 to go off of the board. Makes sense. Minnesota QB Kirk Cousins can make that happen; he throws a lot of TDs. Makes sense.

What leaves me bewildered is how WR3 K.J. Osborn is being drafted in the 15th round. Last season during his rookie year, he scored seven times. That’s more TDs in 2022 than Brandin Cooks, Keenan Allen, Gabe Davis, Tee Higgins… should I go on? Because the list does.

Listen, Adam Thielen has missed games every season for the last three years. In 2021 Osborn directly benefited from Thielen’s absence. If Thielen misses any time in 2022, Osborn would move seamlessly into his role and catch TDs.

You can get Osborn at the end of your drafts and sleep fine at night. There’s no risk at his current ADP and it comes with the potential for some juicy red zone rewards. Draft Osborn. It makes sense.

Season long drafts are just around the corner. In this series, our contributors will get you prepared from all twelve of the first round draft slots. Today, Geoff shares how to attack a draft from the third pick...

Drafting from the three: it’s the third pick on the board but should be the first in your heart. Here's why...

When we draft at the three spot, we’re not likely to get a shot at either of the top running backs. However, there will be cases when Christian McCaffery or Jonathan Taylor fall to us and make life simple. That’s almost never going to happen at four or five so we have a significant advantage over the positions directly behind us already.

Additionally, if the elite RBs don’t fall (they often won’t) then we’ll still get the first pick from the elite trio of wide receivers. Everyone will have their opinion on Cooper Kupp, Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase but when you draft from the three, you’ll get to dictate the order. Personally, I favor Justin Jefferson who is going to be working with an offensive-minded head coach for the first time in his NFL career. Everytime I draft from the three my worst case scenario is that I’ll get a shot at drafting my favorite WR and that makes me happy.

When we start from the three, the second round and third round is also a dream. We have our choice at 23, and 27 of either starting a hyper-fragile RB or Anchor RB build by taking whichever top-tier running back is out of favor – and has fallen into the end of the 2nd round (last month it was Alvin Kamara, and now it's Nick Chubb). However, we can also double down on a true zero RB build by taking a couple more elite WRs (AJ Brown, Michael Pittman, or one of the Charger ADP twins) instead.

Long story short, the three spot in 2022 NFL fantasy drafts puts you in control of your destiny, early on, while also placing you in a prime position to benefit from mistakes by others. It’s the clear power position for 2022.