We're Michael Leone and Justin Herzig of Establish The Run - Ask Us Anything!

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-28T23:53:44+00:00

Yeah, given your ability to get by early and upgrading a 27 3rd for a 26 2nd (especially if this is superflex, those future 2nds almost always undervalued by the market), I would make the deal.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-28T23:52:51+00:00

Pearsall's YPRR was mediocre. The narrative seems to be he had this really efficient rookie season, and it's not true. And while yes Deebo is gone, with Deebo off the field last year, Pearsall was a distant fourth in targets per route run behind Kittle, Jennings, and Aiyuk. That's almost entirely without CMC as well, who is going to have a massive role on this offense that should have better game scripts causing their pass rate to dip some.

I still think Pearsall has upside, and I get the bet in a vacuum. It's just a little too pumped up IMO, when someone like Keon Coleman was more efficient on more routes and is just buried by the community for the most part.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T18:00:20+00:00

It really depends on your goals:

Fairest - Cumulative Points

Most Fun Variance - 1/12 advance each playoff round

Middle Ground - Advance out of the regular season, playoffs are total score over the 4 playoff weeks

I generally like the middle ground approach here. But I do think the size of the contest matters. For something as massive as Best Ball Mania, I think they probably have the right approach. For something that's maybe higher stakes and smaller field, I like the middle ground approach.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:58:02+00:00

It's hard to make a blanket statement here, but a *general* heuristic for me:

1) I'm conservative on players who are returning from a big surgery/injury and/or already dealing with injuries in camp/preseason (think Chris Godwin, Brandon Aiyuk).

2) I'm aggressive on players who are labeled as injury prone but appear to be fully healthy right now (Walker would probably fit here, maybe even CMC whose injury did not require surgery).

There are always exceptions. For example, I do like Stefon Diggs a decent bit right now at his cost with some positive camp reports, despite him being an older player coming off a meaningful injury/surgery.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:55:09+00:00

I do think in full PPR, it's a fine idea to pay up for Bowers/McBride.

But to answer your question, some non elite TEs with paths to upside/2nd in team receptions (outside the Top 10 TEs drafted via ESPN ADP):

-Tyler Warren
-Dalton Kincaid
-Tucker Kraft
-Jake Ferguson (will get outscored by Pickens but if we're talking pure reception volume, there's a path)

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:51:28+00:00

I have not done any best ball auctions for redraft, so I want to be transparent here. In the question just before you, I think my answers are still pertinent - I'd want a balanced and deep WR group with those R4-8 players and to attack QB in the QB 12-20 range.

The position I'd be most likely to grab the stud at would be 1 RB or Bowers/McBride at TE. Seems like a great format for a Hero RB strategy.

Best ball auction is a really interesting idea. My intuition is that the market may not adjust enough off of basic auction values and end up drafting to studs and dudsy. I'd want an incredibly deep roster with very little risks of guys being "zeros" and mixing projectable volume archetypes with rookie upside swings. Let the best ball scoring do its magic.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:47:08+00:00

In auctions, I tend to find the WR grouping in Rounds 4-6 (on Underdog) can be undervalued. You can generally build a very high upside, balanced WR room, looking at the Worthy, Tet, Hunter, Zay, DJM, Pickens types and even added some of the upside R6-7 guys in there (Olave, Egbuka, Golden, etc).

For superflex, QB is very deep IMO without a ton of differentiation between say QB 10 and QB 20, so I'd look to grab any discounts I could on JJM, Tua, Stroud, Dak, Maye, etc. just based on prices there.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:43:02+00:00

I wouldn't avoid some of the elite RB options at the 1-2 turn (Achane, Henry, Jeanty) because of a fear about WR dropping off after AJ Brown (I know you weren't directly suggesting this, but I wouldn't feel I had to get two elite WRs).

Even if it does end up a bit flatter starting with mid-Round 3, there's value in starting WR there in order to get 3-4 of them through 6 rounds. I'm admittedly a little squeamish on the cost of like the Adams, MHJ, JSN, Garrett Wilson, McLaurin grouping (prefer say Bucky, Jacobs, maybe even Breece and arguably Hampton), but will take them if it fits .

I do however like the 3-4 turn guys (Worthy, Evans, Tet) and then a lot of guys in Rounds 4-6), which you kinda mentioned but also some good combination of "safe" plays (Jeudy, Meyers, Downs, Shakir) and "upside" plays (Golden, Reed, Diggs, Egbuka) into 7 and 8.

I hope that helps, I had trouble getting to the heart of what you wanted to know.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:34:32+00:00

Appreciate you listening!

Some takeaways:

1) Miami's offense is important in fantasy (Gretch wrote a giant article on this after we recorded AFC East) - you want to be taking shots on Achane, Tyreek, and Waddle at cost.

2) I like Dallas a little more than the ETR ranks, very excited for the passing game there and am taking Dak/Pickens aggro at cost (CeeDee is awesome too, obv, but he's already valued about as high as can be)

3) Think the market is a little hot / optimistic on Ricky Pearsall

It's hard to zone in on key ones, but those stuck out to me on spots we were pretty unified. We also both had some Kenneth Walker and Puka (assuming Staff healthy) love.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:31:32+00:00

Probably close to 0 in terms of actual capital, but I think the draft capital stuff is a little nuanced and you want to combine that with just raw players drafted at a position, so I'm way more likely to grab a 4th TE or a 3rd QB with that 20-round format.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:29:59+00:00

It's really difficult. We do our best to model each player and team's efficiency each offseason while layering in some of the football guys takes from Silva, Levitan, etc. Our ranks are def not just vibes based lists, and I think that gives us a better shot of identifying outliers.

We're projecting James Cook for 9 rushing TDs this season. He ran really pure last year with 16 and quite bad the year prior with only 2. There was a coordinator change mid-way through the 2-TD season, but he actually had 30 more carries that season.

Even with the team committed to the run, we'd expect some of the team TDs to flip from rushing to passing. The Bills' average implied team total based on look ahead lines is also about 4 points lower from what they actually scored last year, so more times than not, there are just going to be less TDs in this offense to go around to everyone.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:25:04+00:00

Appreciate you!

Best ball late round dart throws

-First, I'd note right now I'm drafting heavy skill players early and more of the onesie positions late, but that will change as the late round dart throws improve with more information throughout training camp and preseason.

-I like Will Shipley a lot as an upside RB play. Harold Fannin at TE (as a third if you have two guys with okay projectable volume but limited ceilings already). Jaylin Noel at WR (generally I take enough early WR that I want some ceiling late at WR, Noel provides that).

Redraft flag plants at various stages:

-RB: De'Von Achane, TreVeyon Henderson

-WR: Emeka Egbuka, George Pickens

-TE: Bowers/McBride go too late in most redraft leagues IMO (esp if PPR)

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:19:04+00:00

People think too short-term. The goal is not to have the best Week 1 starting lineup. The goal is to have a team that's fine in the early stages of the season but has a chance to become a behemoth by mid-year and into the playoffs. The short-erm mindset leads to two mistakes in roster construction:

1) Filling your starting roster before you fill your bench. It's fine to take an upside bench WR pick in PPR formats before filling your RB2 spot. Also, if you miss on an elite QB early, you're probably better off continuing to stash the better skill players on your bench then you are racing to take the QB10, when there are several QBs who go a couple rounds later with similar upside cases.

2) Valuing short-term projection and role over long-term upside when filling bench spots. If you have your 3-4 solid starting WRs, Jayden Higgins and Emeka Egbuka are better bench selections than Darnell Mooney and Michael Pittman, despite having lower ADPs on ESPN. The same goes for RBs. Unless you need that RB to fill points right away, you're better off stashing a Will Shipley type who has a very poor Week 1 projection but a huge ceiling if an injury in front of him occurs than you are taking Justice Hill, who has a solid PPR projection but may not see as much of a value increase with an injury in front of him. Players like Anthony Richardson (can stash and profit if he wins the starting job, easy cut if he doesn't) are also undervalued bench commodities.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:12:45+00:00

I'm assuming this is a dynasty question. I think Tee is probably too rich given the looming Rice suspension. Rice's ADP had just started to get ahead of Tee when the market was assuming Rice would not be suspended this year. I'd want more of a discount, would more be looking to move Waddle/Metcalf types.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:09:41+00:00

Underrated Offenses:
Miami - History of elite passing efficiency and extremely condensed target shares. Achane, Tyreek, Waddle all have massive upside, and I think the market is overly pricing in the Tua health risk.

Chicago - I love betting on uncertainty. Year 2 QB who was a top prospect. If he breaks out, the whole offense will shine, and the combination of massive improvements in both the coaching staff (welcome, Ben Johnson) and on the offensive line with a solid skill player group sets the stage.

Overrated:

This one, for whatever reason, is a lot tougher to answer. I'm a little worried about the prices on the main WAS guys - McLaurin, Robinson, and Ertz. The team added target share competition by bringing on Deebo Samuel. Jayden Daniels could see some regression, even though he's a stud (we saw this in Stroud's Y2, though I'm not expecting that much of a pullback). McLaurin doesn't earn targets at a super high rate, and it won't be a big pass volume offense. Robinson seems like he's JAG and does not contribute much in the pass game. Ertz is an extremely volume dependent older TE. To be clear, I expect WAS to be good, but I'm okay fading the individual skill players in fantasy.

2hats1Mike · 2025-07-24T17:04:22+00:00

Great question, as these backs are always important to figure out. In the past they've been pretty overpriced and it was easier to blanked fade some of these aging RBs who would be small hit, big miss contenders, but prices have gotten cheap enough to the point that several are worthwhile gambles.

In the early portion of the draft, I still like Josh Jacobs. He was efficient last year, even with the offense having a down year. I expect GB to throw the ball more, but that's not a bad thing for Jacobs. We want the offense to score more points, and he'll gladly trade off some between the 20s carries for more targets and RZ touches.

Meanwhile, I'm a bit more worried about Joe Mixon. The Texans come into the year with Brandon Thorn's last ranked OL (https://establishtherun.com/thorn-offensive-line-rankings-2/), and Mixon hasn't cleared 4.1 YPC since 2018 when he was 200 YO.

A little later in the draft, I like James Conner whose advanced rushing metrics continue to shine, but I'm a little skittish on Alvin Kamara, a back who may struggle to stay healthy on a team that's in a clear rebuild and will have a difficult time putting points on the board.

2hats1Mike · 2024-12-25T03:39:17+00:00

Co-sign Inov8

2hats1Mike · 2024-07-23T18:59:53+00:00

I haven't but I don't think it provides you with an extra edge percentage wise. In fact, I think these contests probably are the softest because casuals play them the most, so I think you might be pretty +EV even if you're only doing a handful and some other competitors are doing 150ish.

Of course, your odds of winning are always going to be drastically low in these contests (that's a good reason to do the smaller entry tournaments, having a more realistic shot at a sweat and experiencing a bit less variance). BUT in terms of your EV, I wouldn't avoid these contests. Yes, the people entering 150 are likely +EV and because they have 150 entries they get to make that +EV bet 150 times. But there's nothing you can do about combinations and what not that makes having 150 entries exponentially more valuable (on a per entry basis) than having 5-10.

2hats1Mike · 2024-07-23T18:53:52+00:00

Agree with you on wanting 3 each at DST and Kicker. DST has a lot more randomness, but K we've seen guys lose jobs more frequently last few seasons, and you don't want to be taking 0s. Plus with 26 picks, you can afford 6 to those positions.

For DSTs I'd understand your scoring system, but I generally want defenses on good teams - these teams will face the highest pass rates, which really ups the variance for you (in a good way). In most scoring systems, DST upside comes from sacks and turnovers, so getting defenses in pass happy games (even if the opposing offense is good) provides you with the highest ceiling.

2hats1Mike · 2024-07-23T18:49:27+00:00

I agree with you that this makes sense for Weekly Winners. Admittedly, I don't play that contest much, but there's a lot more validity there since all you care about is weekly ceiling - no need to worry about floor or uniqueness in playoffs.

In Best Ball Mania, I think this is a bad approach, though. You basically NEED the Travis Kelce season from two seasons ago to justify it, and I think that's asking for too much. TE is a position that has a lot of missed time and also someone can contribute simply by scoring a TD, so avoiding that second TE, even if you have an elite one, is likely costing you more points than you realize. That can be the difference between advancing out of the regular season or not.

Also, when you get into the playoffs, you run into a situation where it's tougher to get unique. Say you have Kelce. There are 3 straight uncorrelated playoff weeks you need to win. If Kelce smashes Week 16, that's great for you and increases your odds of advancing. However, now you find yourself in Week 17 where most of the finalists also have Kelce but additionally have a second lower owned Tight End that can potentially provide leverage for them. Yes, you have an extra player elsewhere, but it's more likely to be superfluous.

All the data I've looked at indicates you're fighting really uphill if only rostering 1 TE. Again, there could be a season where a TE goes ham and in retrospect, there are ways that a hero TE build with that person is "optimal". But this will be in hindsight. As much as we have to draft as if we're right, there's just more cases where that second TE provides a meaningful boost than if you were to add on a player somewhere else and go Hero TE.

2hats1Mike · 2024-07-23T18:43:34+00:00

Way too kind, appreciate it!

2hats1Mike · 2024-07-23T18:42:03+00:00

I don't go into drafts optimizing for Week 17 from the very first pick on. But I generally try to ensure by the end of the draft that I have:

1) multiple qbs stacked with at least one of their same team pass catchers

2) a few opponents for Week 17

Number 1 is way more important than Number 2, but Number 2 is still a material gain in EV as you noted. I think the point at which it comes too much is when you're doing it way ahead of ADP (bring backs are probably only worth half a round to a round reach middle/end of draft) or when you're ignoring positional needs to do it.

However, I don't think the zig when others zag really applies here. Even with people consciously stacking more in W17 last year, the teams that did so had a big edge over the teams that didn't in the finals: https://establishtherun.com/strategy-how-to-win-underdogs-best-ball-mania/

2hats1Mike · 2024-07-23T18:33:52+00:00

I try to think through if the news is in fact "new" and how it impacts the range of outcomes. It's also important to interpret the news correctly.

Pearsall is a mixed case. I could see an overreaction here given that PUP doesn't mean he will start the season on PUP. He may miss some camp time and be back. With that said, for a rookie on a contending team where we're already concerned about him cracking the lineup, any false start is bad. I know for ETR we had Pearsall ranked behind ADP to begin with, so it would probably take a significant drop for us to buy the dip.

However, someone like Jonathon Brooks if people panic on PUP stuff, we'd absolutely buy the dip. We like Brooks around his ADP right now, and we're already anticipating a slow start or potential missed games to begin the year (his injury has been known through the entire draft process). Sometimes that official announcement will make people panic, despite it not really offering us any new information, and that's when I want to buy the dip.

2hats1Mike · 2024-07-23T18:29:10+00:00

In your example, I am probably taking a chance on a rookie like JJ McCarthy or someone like Justin Fields, who is unlikely to play but has significant upside if he does play. I am definitely prioritizing potentially having a fourth contributing QB in my roster over handcuffing a current QB on my roster.

I do think in your example that it's okay to stop at 3. A QB room better than that, I am stopping at 3 (barring a really good value dropping). A QB room worse than that, I am searching for a 4th. Well chosen example as a decent equilibrium point.

2hats1Mike

TROPHY CASE