00:00You know, on the waiver wire this week in particular, you said it.
00:04And the other thing, Field, is that I just don't think there's many options because people are watching people like
00:09you break it all down.
00:11Like there's no secret information anymore.
00:14And 20 years ago when I did this, I had people in my room in the draft going, who, who,
00:18who?
00:19Now I wake up at 4 o'clock in the morning and I see that all the guys that if
00:23I don't use my waiver, I'm not getting anybody anymore.
00:27Craig, I tell people every, every summer, you know, late August, who's your favorite sleeper?
00:32And I say, don't ask me for my favorite sleepers.
00:35I'll drop a sleeper.
00:36People are like, oh, I drafted that guy three times already.
00:38Right.
00:38The NFL is so popular and every player is so well known that sleepers.
00:43I mean, I do have sleepers every year, but what we have had to redefine what a sleeper is in
00:48fantasy football, a sleeper is no longer a name you'd never heard of.
00:50A sleeper is a name that performs above expectation.
00:54And that's something that has changed over the years because there's just so much coverage of the NFL, which is
00:58great.
00:59It's great for the business that you and I are in.
01:01But it makes finding those complete under the radar names a lot more difficult compared to where he were just
01:07a few years ago.
01:08Yeah.
01:09And so I guess the bigger question that I would have is how do we stay competitive when competing against
01:16basically, you know, 12 team leagues, 14 team leagues, you know, for that extra edge is almost impossible.
01:23Like you said, everybody knows everything and everybody's picking guys up.
01:26So in this day and age, 2026, 2027, moving forward, just generally in fantasy, is there anything that you advise
01:33that people can do any differently?
01:37A couple of small things that I think are important is I think we have to be comfortable trimming the
01:42fat in our roster.
01:43I see a lot of players that are still on benches and you're saying to yourself, like, really, you don't
01:47need that player on your roster right now.
01:50But there is somebody who might not present you any value at this moment, but if an injury takes place
01:57or something breaks right for that player with this role, might present some value for you going forward.
02:02So it's being a little bit of a look-ahead manager is important.
02:06On top of that, I think that trades are kind of the thing that opens up everything for a team
02:12and a roster and potential.
02:13So trades where you can say, okay, I have the best player in this trade, and I'm willing to turn
02:23the best player in this trade into two or three pieces, which in real life sports, and this comes up
02:30all the time in the NBA, right, we don't think of, you know, $1 being able to be split up
02:37into, you know, four quarters.
02:38It can happen in fantasy football, right?
02:40You can take the best player in your deal.
02:42If you have a, you know, it's hard to trade away Bijan Robinson and Jameer Gibbs, but if you can
02:48turn those guys into three starters, that's pretty tantalizing because the surplus value that you can get at two spots
02:55might overtake what you are sacrificing at just one spot.
02:59So if you're one in three, we are far enough along in the fantasy football season that you should have
03:04a general idea of the tenor of your team, and it hurts, really hurts to hit that accept button, but
03:10you got to do so to give yourself a chance to get back into the race.
