👀 Two WRs to keep an eye on

The Arizona Cardinals have secured their Maserati…

In today’s Fantasy Life Newsletter presented by BetMGM:

There are 104 days until the 2024 NFL season kicks off, and most training camps don’t start until mid-July, so what are we fantasy football sickos supposed to do?

Overreact to quotes from Organized Team Activities, of course.

With the offseason really hitting that “dead” period, there really is no better time to overanalyze information and quotes to support our biases (I mean, seriously, it is May, after all). Below are the biggest reports rounded up for our enjoyment.

Should we believe everything? Absolutely not, but damn, it’s fun!

🚀 Jameson Williams SZN?!

If you are a Jameson Williams apologist, then you are going to love this.

During Thursday’s practice, Lions Head Coach Dan Campbell said Williams is the most improved player and a “man on a mission” since the start of spring workouts.

It’s been an up-and-down two seasons for Williams — he played in six games in 2022 and then faced a gambling suspension before the 2023 season, where he played in 12 games and finished with 24 catches for 354 yards and two touchdowns.

He’s currently going off the board on Underdog drafts at pick 97.3 (WR48), so there is a world where we can convince ourselves that he will outperform that current ADP, especially since the Lions didn’t add any wide receivers in this year’s draft. Fantasy Life’s projections have Williams finishing the 2024 season with 77 targets, 43 receptions, 647 receiving yards and four touchdowns.

COME ON JAMESON, WE ARE ALL ROOTING FOR YOU.

🤔 A tremendous year ahead for Rashod Bateman…

I’ll take “Things we’ve heard that a million times for $500, please.”

LOL, alright, I’m kidding (kind of). Ravens Offensive Coordinator Todd Monken told reporters on Thursday that he has seen “tremendous growth” out of Rashod Bateman. The team gave the wide receiver a two-year contract extension in April, which keeps him with the team through 2026.

Look, if you like pain and suffering, then you will keep drafting Bateman in fantasy football. To keep things positive, he is the No. 2 receiver behind Zay Flowers and is the WR52 in the Fantasy Life consensus rankings. The Ravens didn’t add much to the room either, only selecting Devontez Walker out of North Carolina in the fourth round.

I will admit that we saw progress from Bateman in 2023 and it isn’t out of the question that he reaches our projected 513 yards and four touchdowns. Just please don’t go crazy here…

💪 Treylon Burks: best shape of his life?!

LMAO I’m kidding, no one said that. We weren't lucky enough to hit that trifecta.

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📚 The ultimate guide to 2024 best ball stacks. Chris and Dwain have you covered.

🏎 The Cardinals have officially signed MHJ. Anyone else want a $22.5 million signing bonus?

🦬 The fantasy QB1 gets a new-look group of wideouts. What to expect in 2024.

🤯 John Ross is Back? JOHN ROSS IS BACK!

👴 Anthony Richardson is making everyone feel old. Try not to shed a tear.

👀 It’s time for Daniel Jones’ revenge tour. Are you not HYPED after watching this? lol

📈 PSA: Don’t forget to draft Terry McLaurin. No, really, don’t forget. 

🦎 Living in Florida is not for the weak. There’s a WHAT in the toilet?! 

♟️ The Chiefs literally can’t stop winning. That’s Grand Master Justin Reid to you.

The NFL schedule is finally here, which means we can start optimizing our best ball tournament teams for the top prizes. Today, Pete shares how to actually correlate in your drafts…

The NFL schedule is a valuable piece of the puzzle for best ball drafters who want to take down tournaments.

There are two main reasons why the schedule release is so important:

1. We now know who is playing against each other in the most important weeks of the season (Weeks 16 and 17), which allows us to set up game stacks on our rosters

2. We also now know the bye weeks for each and can avoid taking a zero at the QB or TE position in a given week

In last week's Best Ball Mania V guide, we explained the importance of the playoff weeks. 

And today, we are going to share how to correctly leverage the NFL schedule to build teams that are live to take down the $1.5 million top prize in BBMV.

If you need a refresher on why correlation (stacks and game stacks) is important in these tournaments, check out this piece before reading the rest of this article.

👀 Week 16 is now very important

For the first time in its history, Best Ball Mania features an extremely smooth payout structure, which we explained in detail last week. 

And because more finalists will win life-changing money this year (The Top 20 teams in the 539-person final will all take home 6-figure prizes), it makes getting to the finals even more important than in previous years. 

I am not going to go deep into the weeds on the math in this piece, but if you do want to explore the concept of "EV" and "win rates," then I highly recommend this piece by Rotoviz's Michael Dubner, where he crunched the numbers and watching this video I put together on the subject.

In the best ball nerd streets, there are lots of debates right now on which week is technically more important, but I don't think they have to be mutually exclusive. 

The main takeaway is that we want to consider stacking up games in both Week 16 (so we can finish first out of 16 in the Week 16 pod) and Week 17 (so we can finish in the Top 20 for those big prizes).

I recommend keeping the playoff schedule pulled up as you draft and looking at the Week 16 and 17 opponents for your main team-level bets you've made (i.e. if you have a Ravens stack, consider adding a Steelers piece for Week 16 and a Texans piece for Week 17.