Let's get all preachy here on a special edition of Fantasy Football Today in Five. All right, we're talking philosophies, fantasy philosophies. And on the Fantasy Football Today Full-length show, we're going to have Jake Seeley joining us to talk about his philosophies. He's a writer for The Athletic and an old friend of the program. But right now it's me, Adam Azer, and Jamie Eisenberg. What's up, Jamie? Ready for some philosophizing? Yeah, I'm excited to talk to Jake about his philosophy on kickers. He has a strong

stance on kickers. He'll probably go in depth on his favorite kicker and how soon to take one.

He gives him the boot. How, if at all, will your fantasy philosophies, strategies,

whatever you want to call them,

change with a 17-game season?

They probably won't change very much at all.

You know, I really haven't given it too much thought, to be honest to you,

about any philosophy changes in regard to the schedule.

But I do think it's probably a little bit more, a slight more attention. You know, if you add an extra bench spot potentially, you know, like we did last year with all the,

you know, COVID-19 concerns, maybe another IR spot, you know, you keep those things. But you maybe

keep in mind handcuff running backs a little bit more, you know, because of the higher risk of injury, because of the additional game, knowing how volatile that position can be. But that's probably the only thing I'll look at is, you know, maybe paying a little bit more attention to the high-end handcuffs, the priority guys at that position. Okay, so then I'm going to ask you my second question. Then I'm going to tell you why it's related to the first question. Second question is, how will you approach the rookie wide receivers? And I ask that because rookie wide receivers, you know, a good year for rookie wide receiver would be a top 30 finish or something. You do get an occasional top 12 guy, usually get about one top 20 guy, something like that. Last year we had three top 24 guys, and this year's wide receiver class looks loaded.

So how are you going to approach the rookie wide receivers this year?

We probably would have had at least one more if Dak Prescott stayed healthy with CDLand.

No, he actually did finish top 24.

It was Jefferson, Claypool, and Lamb.

Iyuk did not, and Higgins did not. Higgins would have probably finished right up there if Burrow didn't get hurt, though. I would imagine Iyuk if he had played close to 16 games as well and probably points per game. He was close. I'm going to, you know, look at where they land and their situations. and I think there's a chance that there's going to be, you know, three or four guys that, you know, can tend to be top 24 guys as well. You know, you're looking at the high end guys, obviously, with Jamar Chase and DeMonte Smith and Jalen Waddle and know what those guys could potentially do. But there's, you know, a handful of other guys as we saw last year with Higgins and with Ayuk and um you know what uh the hope of you know

something like a Michael Pittman could become, you know, maybe not right away, but down the road, you know, for Dynasty League as well. So I think there's, there's a lot to like about this class. And if they end up in good spots where you can see a clear path to targets, unfortunately, in Jerry Judy's case, hopefully not a clear path to drops, but, you know, a chance for these guys to get significant targets and produce at a high level. So the reason why I think they're related is because rookie wide receivers is, it's not uncommon. In fact, it's practically written in stone. They're going to get off to slow starts, alarmingly slow starts, very silent, then all of a sudden you never know when that flip is going to switch and they just go off. What about switch is going to flip? I said flip is going to switch. I'll make sure I get that right on the full leg show. You never know where they're going to go off. You get an extra week, you know, that's a little bit of a big deal.

It makes a slow start a little bit more palatable, I think.

So maybe that means you could be a little bit more bullish on rookie wide receivers. I've got one more question for it. You want it to be a DST question or a quarterback question? Let's go with the thing that people actually care about, which quarterback? Do you have a philosophy on how many quarterbacks you want on your team, or if I have this guy, then I don't need to back up, that kind of thing? I think it comes down to how many roster spots you have in your league, because if you have the ability to carry two, it doesn't hurt you to pick up one. Again, taking into account with the extra game, you might want to have a little bit more depth at running back or wide receiver. But if you don't have a quarterback that you're sold on, or you're looking at a guy that could blow up in his rookie year, a la, you know, Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, Zach Wilson, one of those guys, or taking a shot on a guy that could be a second year, a sophomore sensation, you know, maybe Tua if the dolphins do what they're supposed to do and add another weapon and, you know, you like what the upside could be for somebody like him. But I think if you take a quarterback that you are, you know, if you're one of the last managers to draft a quarterback and let's say you take Jalen Hertz, or let's say you take, not last, but, you know, in, in the end of the quarterback run, you take a Jalen Hertz, you take a Joe Burrow, you take a guy who is either coming into a situation that's low unsettled or coming off an injury or whatever the case may be.

It's not a bad idea to take a Matthew Stafford who could be still a proven star, to take a Kirk Cousins who could still, you know, put up decent numbers, to take a shot on a Tassam Hill or James Winston, whoever wins that job because of what the upside could be. You know, there's always an angle to approach. We know trading quarterbacks in most of our leagues are tough, and some of your leagues, they're tough, but it could be trade bait. But I don't think it's a bad idea to take a second quarterback if you have the ability to carry one, especially if your starting quarterback isn't the most secure. Yep. You just got to hope they switch the flip. All right, that's it for Fantasy Football today in five. I'm looking forward to having this conversation with Jake. So check that out on Fantasy Football today.

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We'll be back tomorrow on FF2 and 5.

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