An Open Letter to Readers

Hello everyone! How was your weekend? A good one I hope!

It was quite the weekend for me, one of the highlights being I participated in a Scott Fish Bowl 🐠 live draft down in Charlotte, NC! 🏙️ 

With the Scott Fish Bowl being so kick/punt returner and tight end heavy, I went with Christian McCaffrey at pick 1.03 and decided to go with a QB later. I didn’t draft another running back until Round 11, where I then drafted three consecutive RBs.

Instead, I invested two of my first five picks in tight ends, with Mark Andrews and David Njoku as my two selections there. Taysom Hill in the 8th round as my third tight end will be interesting since he can play quite literally any and all positions in a given week. I hope it pays off!

If you want to see the rest of my team, I’ll be posting it when the draft is over on Discord, so head over there!

But you’re not here to listen to me talk about my Scott Fish Bowl draft. You’re here for football! However, I won’t be talking about football in the usual way. Don’t worry, I do have some stuff for you, but first…

Open Letter to Readers

Right off the bat, I will say I will be doing what I can to prepare you for your fantasy football drafts this summer. Be it here in written form, or my podcast, or with short-form videos on TikTok.

And while I don’t want to disappoint you all by not getting content out and I do want to show consistency, sometimes it might not be possible to publish things on time. Last week life hit me, and the rest of this summer looks to be much of the same.

I’m involved in three weddings this summer, one of which is out of town and I will not be able to get a newsletter out during that time. I might be able to fit in a short podcast, but sitting down to write, which does take more time, is likely not in the cards. My wife and I will celebrate our 5️⃣th anniversary this year as well! 🎆 So yeah, a lot is going on.

As far as the actual content goes, I’ll fully admit I’ve been struggling with direction over the last few weeks. Creators, even small ones like myself, struggle with all the outside noise of “do this, not that”, “it’s better if you post (x)”, “if you’re not doing (this), you’re failing” and it’s easy to be overwhelmed, feel small, and discouraged.

You, the reader, are part of a small group of people who like what I do enough to subscribe to this newsletter, and it means a lot to me. Even so, being small can come with a feeling of insignificance. And it’s hard to break out of that feeling, especially if you’re struggling with direction. This can easily lead to burnout, and I was close to being burnt.

Eventually, you have to come to grips with yourself. Why did you start writing/creating in the first place❓️ Because it was fun. Make things fun again. Very few in the space will ever build up to having big names like the ones we all know and respect. That’s ok. Have fun. Yes, I want to grow the newsletter and podcast, but I don’t want to burn myself out doing so. I decided to take things step by step, share more of the newsletter on social media, experiment with TikTok videos, and just start getting back into podcasting. I get it sounds like a lot for someone who nearly got burnt, but it’s the motive behind it that makes the difference. I’m not looking to make hour-long podcasts, three TikToks a day, and two newsletters a week. I’m molding my content to make it manageable and make it fun again. 😊 

But what about direction? That’s where friend and reader of this newsletter, Justin Baurele, comes in:

It struck a chord and got me thinking, “what am I doing?” Who am I writing and podcasting for? Who do I want to create for? Justin’s post hit me hard and I’m happy I found his post.

There is a lot of good content on X but a lot of it can be misunderstood if you’re not careful. It’s easy to be overwhelmed and think “If I’m not doing advanced stuff, then I’m behind everyone else”. And while there is a time and a place for that kind of content, it’s just not true. Those guys just have a different objective than you do. And that’s ok.

It helped me realize that I’m geared more toward the “general audience” side of fantasy football. My recent podcasts have somewhat reflected that, as have my newsletters. I’m trying to give people who don’t live and breathe this stuff quick and actionable advice for their leagues.

Those of you who read this newsletter likely know more about fantasy football than most people, and the last thing I want to do is shut you out. My hope is to act as a bridge. Simple and actionable for the casual fan, but intriguing enough for those who want to take the next step (or even for those who have!). It’ll be a tough line to walk and it’s something I haven’t fully figured out, but it’s one that has given me an objective.

I hope that all that makes sense and that it helps someone, now or in the future, who might be dealing with the same sort of things I went through.

Summer Plans

I already mentioned it above, but basically, I’m busy this summer. With that, comes the unfortunate fact that I may not be able to get out everything I want to get out to you during draft season. I promise I will do my best though.

My podcasts will continue to be around 15 minutes in length, giving you fantasy advice in a nice timely manner. The newsletter is more than likely remaining at once a week, even in season. The good news (or bad news maybe) is that it just might be longer, so even more football talk all in one place. 😎 😎 

Mid-Round Sleeper and an Apology

Why not take action on what I said above and give you a fantasy take for this season? One of my favorite targets right now in drafts is Rhamondre Stevenson, who’s RB18 in ADP in half-PPR formats according to FantasyPros consensus ADP. He had a bit of a stinker last year for sure after a breakout 2022, but it’s not all bad for the running back.

PFF ranked New England’s offensive line in the bottom half of the league in 2023. He was also out for the final five games and missed most of a sixth.

His new QB out of UNC 🐏, Drake Maye, has some rushing upside. That’s usually a bad sign for running backs. However, in college Maye’s running backs had a 10% and 14% reception share in his two years as a starter. Stevenson averaged 3.2 receptions per game in 2023, putting him at a healthy 57-reception pace over an 18-game season. 📈 Even with new teammate Antonio Gibson in town, he should still see a healthy target share with the Patriots’ wide receiver room currently in flux.

That, and he averaged a career-high 13 rush attempts per game last year with a decent success rate. He then received an extension this offseason even with a new coaching staff at the helm, giving me confidence they have plans for him in 2024.

One final thing, last week I talked about touchdown regression for offenses, both positive and negative, but forgot to mention the baseline for teams despite mentioning how far they were above and below average. NFL teams passed for an average of 23.6 touchdowns and ran for an additional 14.7. It’s my fault for giving you these numbers a week late!

That’s all for now, thanks for reading and for your understanding over these next few hectic weeks!