AFFL Podcast #1

The American Fantasy Football League has started a podcast hosted by Commissioner Tyler Matyshuk. The podcast aims to bring more excitement and joy to the league and will analyze the league, talk about news, power rankings, and playoff picture. During the offseason, they will focus on each team, starting with Cole Parrish. The previous season saw Christian Edward Parrish as the champion, going 10-4 in the regular season and winning the playoffs. Spencer Loup was the regular season champion, while other surprises included Ed Rector and Ryland making the playoffs. Taylor, who had a rough previous season, also made the playoffs and had an impressive run before losing to Christian in the Trump Bowl. Good morning everyone. Today is Monday, July 1st, 2024 and you're listening to the American Fantasy Football League podcast. Hello everybody, it's your Commissioner here, Tyler Matyshuk, and I'm sure you guys didn't wake up today expecting to hear my voice in your guys's ears after after League Activation Day. So here we are guys. The AFFL is getting its first podcast. It's been really a dream of mine for a few years now. I think obviously it's a smaller league here, ten people. I think you all know me pretty well, all nine of you. So I think most of you guys understand that I care very deeply for this league and I put a lot of time and effort into this league, not only during the season but during the offseason as well. So I've been thinking about this for a while. I think it will help just bring even more excitement and joy to the league, which is ultimately what I do everything for. So I want all ten of us to just have a great time during the 17 weeks and every day during the offseason that I have set out for the season. So it's really important to me that everyone enjoys this league as much as I do, really. So this podcast serves as two purposes, really. One, to expand and help everyone enjoy the league even more than what already has been in the previous four seasons. Also, just a hobby for me, really. At the end of the day, I love sitting down talking about fantasy football and there's no better fantasy football league in the world to me than the AFFL. So it's really going to be something I look forward to every week, sitting down to just talk AFFL action with all you guys. So yeah, I felt like it was the right time to start this offseason. I'm going to have a bit more time now that I got a consistent job schedule and everything. So like I'm saying, I feel like it's a perfect time to start it. So during the offseason, we're going to be focusing on news and every week it's going to be a weekly podcast. I'm hopefully going to be able to get it out around Monday each week. So this is obviously Monday, July 1st when I'm recording it, as it's my first ever podcast. Not really sure how long it's going to take me to edit and publish it, but you guys will know obviously I'll send it out when that happens. So hopefully it comes out every Monday in the season. It will include basically just once a week analyzing the league and talking about news and what happens in the FFL and talking about playoff picture, power rankings. I'll still be writing those, but we'll be talking about them here as well. During the offseason though, it's going to be mostly we're going to go team by team, one episode per week, deep diving into each owner, each team, looking at their history in the league, a preview for this year, and just talking about one team and just really focusing in on them. So we have that later in today's show. But since today is the first show ever in the AFFL, we're going to talk about a whole bunch of league news and kind of some housecleaning stuff to do, talk about the league, and hopefully I can keep your guys' attention long enough so we can talk about our team later today. And I'll just announce that we're deep diving in Cole Parrish today. So since Cole got 10th place last year in last year's season, we're going to deep dive into him today. We're about 10 weeks from the start of the season, so if we do one team per week, it leads us right nicely up until the start of the season. So that's kind of what this podcast is going to be. Like I said, it's really one, a hobby for me, and two, I really want everyone to enjoy the league and have as much fun as I do during the season. So it's really a blast for me running this league and putting the time I put into it. It is a lot of time, it is a lot of effort, but I do it out of pure joy and fun for myself and just hoping that everyone else in this league, the group of 10 great gentlemen we have in the league, just enjoy it as much as I do. So with that, we're going to start off, actually. We're going to go just dive into last year a bit. Since I never really recorded a podcast last year, I was really busy. As all of you guys know, I was in the Police Academy last year, so I really didn't have much time. I didn't even write my my power rankings, which have become synonymous with the league, unfortunately. So just shout out to Cole, actually, who took over and wrote the power rankings last year, kept the tradition going. But I'm just going to sit here. We're going to speak about last year a bit, kind of get my opinions, and we can't talk about next year without looking back to season four. Looking back into season four, 2023, obviously we get the big congratulations to Christian Edward Parrish, champion of the league, obviously. First season in the league, and he dominated, truly. He went 10-4 in the regular season, and then obviously went 2-0 in the playoffs, got some big wins there throughout. He defeated Taylor, the five-seed, surprisingly, but he defeated Taylor in the championship 178-148, so a 30-point win. Yeah, just a really, really impressive year by Christian. Really solid team he had. There's not much I can really say about it. It was just impressive all around, and for those of you who don't know, Christian obviously got the Donald J. Trump Trophy. Now that has four placards on it, naming the four previous champions of the league. So it's getting filled up, and I'm excited to have the fifth this year. But Christian found possession of that. The league also purchased him a banner, so obviously the trophy gets passed around each year. You don't get to keep the trophy, but he got a personalized banner with his name, his team name, and the year, so he can keep that forever now, because that won't be taken away from him at the end of the year, so that's something to love. And he'll also be receiving a t-shirt that says 2023 Fantasy Football Champion on there as well, so the league budget is doing all right. Obviously the budget just being me, because I just put all my personal money into it, but the league is funding some good rewards for the champion, and yeah, it's just a blast, really. The champion getting what they deserve, so congrats to Christian once again. A 10-4 regular season record. 2-0 in the playoffs, obviously. Just did great. Truly, truly dominated the whole year. But well, let's give a shout out to Spencer Loup, though. Regular season champion, although it doesn't mean much being a regular season champion, but I think it means a bit when you're Spencer after getting top his two years in the league. He's been in the league two years, was a new member when we expanded to eight back in 2022, got the one seed in the regular season, and dominated in the playoffs, and ended up winning the 2022 championship. And again, in 2023, Spencer goes 10-4, had a really, really solid team, and gets the one seed in the playoffs again. So congrats to Spencer on a good season. He's perpetually in the playoff hunt, or a championship hunt, I should say, not just playoffs, championship hunt for Spencer. So good for him. And then behind, we had some surprises. First off, we got Mr. Ed Rector in 30, went 9-5. A really solid team for him. He struggled a lot in 2022, had a rough year, bounced back solidly in 2023, and really came alive, made the playoffs. I don't know how many people were expecting him to do it, but he was solid. Unfortunately, he did fall to Christian in the first round of the playoffs. Christian was unbeatable in that first round. Christian scored 210 points in the matchup, the two-versus-three-seed matchup. So Ed had a good regular season, really good regular season. Struggled a bit in the playoffs, but honestly, he was probably never going to beat Christian, let's be real here. So the four-seed, the four-seed that was Ryland, his first ever year in the league, makes the playoffs. So his first year in the league, making the playoffs, 100% playoffs, 100% playoffs record. But he got upset by Taylor in the first round of the playoffs. Obviously, the kind of wildcard matchup, the four-versus-five-seed, he lost by about 35 points to Taylor in that round. So just quickly to speak on Ryland's team, if you guys didn't fall too hard or something, that was the biggest boom-or-bust team I've probably ever seen. There was a couple weeks where Ryland scored about 50 points total. 50 points when the average point total I'd say is around 160. He scored 50 points, but there are other weeks where he scored like 225 points. So a very, I can't even say solid, a very boom-or-bust team for Ryland last year. Ended up giving him the four-seed, going 9-5, and getting the four-seed and losing in the first round of playoffs. So he'll be looking to bounce back, maybe get a more consistent team next year. And then shout-out to Taylor. Taylor barely making the playoffs. He goes 8-6 after a horrid, let's just face it, Taylor had an absolutely horrid 2022. One of the worst fantasy football teams I've ever seen. But he bounces back, makes the playoffs by one game. He didn't blow anyone away. He made the playoffs by one game. He was nip and tuck all year. Gets the five-seed, our first ever year making five teams in the playoffs. So gets the five-seed. Dreaming about a Cinderella run, but no one thinks it can actually happen. Who thinks a five-seed can win a championship in the NFL? Too competitive. No way a five-seed. But he goes on a run here. So Taylor goes 8-6, grabs the five-seed. That means he has to play one extra playoff game. First round against Ryland, we just talked about, the most boom-or-bust team ever. Taylor scores 169 points, makes it to the second round where he plays the one-seed. The seemingly unbeatable Spencer, but Taylor drops nearly a 200-burger. 199.4 points. Just an absolute champion-like performance right there. Putting his best foot forward in the playoffs. So congrats to Taylor. Makes it to the Trump Bowl, Trump Bowl 4, where he ultimately loses to Christian, who at the end of the day, Christian just had the better team. But it was an absolute joy to just see such an underdog, such a Cinderella story come out of there. So congrats to Taylor again on just making the league interesting up until the last week of the season. Then we have myself. I got six plays. Just missed out on the playoffs. Went 500 last year, 7-7. I think my record kind of oversells my team. I had a brutal team last year. Probably the worst running backs in the league. I struggled. Don't know how I got 1-7-7, but yeah, there's not much more to say for my team last year than mid. And then we have Byron, who got seventh place last year. 6-8 his final record. Byron had a solid team last year. He wasn't a walkover or anything, but 6-8, I mean, he was never really in the playoff hunt. 6-8, he started the year off not too strong and just kind of held it there. So a solid year for Byron, but he'll be looking for more when it comes to this year. And then eighth place, we have Jeremy, the Sierra Warriors. Eighth place, 4-10. Let's talk about Jeremy for a bit. So he spent some early picks on some Chiefs and went Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback. And let's be real here, he was the preseason favorite. That Sierra Warriors team looked unbeatable at the beginning of the year. He crushed the draft, really, by all preseason ranking metrics and everything. So it was a surprise to see Jeremy go 4-10. Looking back on the records, I don't even remember him being that bad. I was scared to play Jeremy every time we matched up. And 4-10, I think, really undersells his team. Maybe just unlucky and stuff. But yeah, 4-10, that's rough. Ninth place, we have Levi. Also 4-10, just missed out on the tiebreaker to Jeremy, the on-point scorer. Levi, 4-10. Levi's been in the league, I think, three years now. Yeah, three years now. He's really struggled 2021-2022, made the playoffs, lost his first round though. And then year number three last year in 2023, he goes 4-10, almost last place in the league. So Levi's not had the greatest run of it here in the AFSL, but he's a good league member. We all appreciate him. He puts in the effort. So that's really what matters. But he's still yet to win a playoff game after three years in the league. So he'll be looking to reverse that trend here in 2024. And then this is where it really gets unfortunate here. We do have to mention our last place. That's Cole. He did not predict his position with his team name. His team name, obviously, I'm ninth place, but he ends up in tenth place. Really rough season for Cole. If you guys don't remember, in 2022, Cole actually made the playoffs for the first time ever. He was really pumped about it. And then we get into 2023, and I've honestly never seen Cole put in so much effort as he did last year. Put in a ton of effort, drafted really hard, studied every week, and then seemingly every week his team just fell flat on its face. I mean, 3-11, it's only three times out of 14 weeks he was happy. So it's just, it's tough. We'll be diving into his year more later in the episode. Like I said, we're gonna be going deep into one team per episode, and this week is gonna be Cole. But yeah, really tough year. Only 3-11. It's just a brutal year for Cole, and he's really looking for a bounce back when it comes to 2024. So that's kind of how last year went. It was just, once again, just my shout out to the entire league and to everyone. Just letting you all know how thankful I am for all the effort you guys put into it. Last year was just an incredible year, keeping 10 teams in the league. The most competitive year I can remember. So it was just a blast, and I hope you all felt the same way. And before we move on to the next segment, just once again, congratulations to Christian. He dominated last year, and we'll see what we'll see what he has in store for a second year in the league in 2024. I'm excited. Alright, well that's enough about 2023, as we already know what happened then, and we're looking forward to a new year where everyone has new hopes. All 10 of us can finally look forward to hosting that trophy. I know it's really a dream of mine, and I couldn't imagine just having that trophy sit in my living room. So once again, congratulations to Christian. I hope you're enjoying the Donald J. Trump for the year you'll have it. So let's move on, like I said, to 2024. The league year started in May. We had the annual AFFL board meeting. We held it at the Pinocchio's restaurant in the Sonora Crossroads. I'm not really sure what the heck that shopping center is called, but we had it at Pinocchio's. You guys know where Pinocchio's is at. This year, it consisted of myself, obviously, the commissioner, Taylor Rector, the vice commissioner, Cole Parrish, who's the treasurer and the secretary of the league. That's the board, and then we always invite an honorary guest. This year, it was Christian Parrish as a league champion. He was an honorary guest. So he was there, present for all the deliberation, but his vote did not matter on any of these things. So we're going to go into kind of what was discussed and everything. So as usual, at every board meeting of each year, we finalize the league dates for everything AFFL related in 2024. So obviously, the league was reactivated today on July 1st. The next league date on the schedule, the draft lottery. So I'm sure by now, you guys are all familiar with the process, but basically, it's to determine the draft order. I'll place everyone's name in a red ball, then I'll shuffle around and pick it out. And that's going to be the draft order. It'll go 10 to 1. So first person drawn out will get the 10th pick. Last person drawn out will get the first pick. And that's on August 18th. That'll be a Sunday. I'm hoping to do that around 8am, do the actual draw around 8am and have everything published. And I think I post a YouTube video on it around 9am. I'm hoping that everything works out like that. That's the next date on schedule. August 23rd, the week one schedule will be released. Only week one will be released. It'll be published on the website. So everyone knows who they're playing week one. It will be a blast. Honestly, I'll be honest with you guys, as behind the scenes, as a commissioner, schedule weekday is my favorite, my favorite day of the year. It's a lot of work to put the schedule together, to make sure it's fair, randomized, but fits into a formula where everyone plays the right amount of games against the right amount of people and makes interesting matchups on interesting weeks. And it's just, it is a blast. I love making the schedule. So August 23rd, schedule release day. That's a, that's a Friday. I do work that day. So I can't really guys, I can't really give you guys a time that week one schedule will be released, but it will be released that Friday. The following Sunday, August 25th, the entire schedule will be released. Week two through week 14, I think is what we play through, will be released, including week 13 this year, not week 12, week 13 is Thanksgiving. So that's my second favorite week of the year behind week one. So those matchups will be announced. That's like I said, a great day. And then the biggest day of the year, obviously everyone's favorite day of the year, draft day. We've had, we've had this schedule basically since the conclusion of last year, but September 1st, first Sunday of September, day before Labor Day, Sunday before the season starts, September 1st is draft day. If I haven't emphasized it enough already, guys, please, please try your best to be available that day. We've done good the past, the previous two seasons that we've had everyone in attendance, but it takes a lot of effort on my part. The draft is very stressful, trying to make sure everyone's available. So right now we have it scheduled September 1st. That's the plan. It always has been, like I said, since the end of last year. It's scheduled for 10pm online. The time is, the time is more flexible. Could be, could be anywhere in the day, but we have it scheduled for 10pm. And then after that, just the season starts and the fun begins, guys. So that was the first line of order in the board meeting. And then we also went through a lot of things. We had, we started off, I presented the trophy, the official trophy presentation to Christian, gave him his new banner, like I discussed earlier. He really liked the banner as well. So he's now in possession of the trophy, the banner, and he will be getting, like I said, a t-shirt, a championship t-shirt as well. And I'm thinking about next year, too, getting the champion a second trophy, too. So like I was saying, we have a perpetual trophy where we pass along to league winner each year. We got a plaque to it and you get memorialized forever. I'm thinking about getting the league winner also a trophy they get to keep for themselves after the year is over. So they'll get two trophies, one to pass on the year next, and one to keep. We'll discuss budgeting and stuff in a few minutes. But that's kind of a vision I have for the league. Like this podcast was a vision. And now we're here. So I'm making visions happen, guys. I love this league. So we've been expanding. If you guys haven't noticed, we started in 2020 with four teams. Every year we've been expanding, adding two new teams. If we kept that trend, we'd be going into 12 teams this year. The board voted no to that. We were very happy last year with all 10 members. We've got a great group of humans here. Great group of gentlemen, excuse me. Just a great group of people here and we're really enjoying it. So we did some analysis, too, and if we went to 12 people of rosters, which just goes so thin, people would be drafted like, I don't know, people would be drafted like Joe Montana for like a third-string quarterback and stuff. It just wasn't working. Obviously, Montana's been out of the league here for a while. You didn't catch what I'm picking down there. So yeah, we're sticking with 10 teams. We're having a great time with it. So that's going to keep the playoffs at also five teams as well. Also, for you guys who aren't familiar, the NFL is changing their kickoff rules this year, which will make kickoff returns more prevalent. Previously, we had kick returns. You got one-tenth of a point per yard on a kickoff return for the team defenses. Because there's going to be a lot more returns this year, that essentially was going to be overpowering and defenses would score more points than the quarterbacks, I think, if that were the case. So we're moving it back. We're adding an extra decimal point. It's 0.01 point per one yard of a kickoff return. So now you need 10 points to get the same, you need 10 yards to get the same amount of points as you would get one yard last year, if that makes any sense. Any questions, you guys can always go up to the ESPN website and look at the scoring settings. It's available to all you guys. And then another quick league setting. This one's probably really simple, won't really affect many people. But because we have 10 people in the league, we really need to make sure, I think it's always important that people have quarterbacks on their teams, because they score a lot of points. So it's important to have a quarterback starting for each team. Because of that, we max the QBs per team at three. So no team can roster more than three quarterbacks at once. That means if every team uses all their max roster spots, that's 30 quarterbacks, we'd still have two starting quarterbacks available. So I think that's a very fair decision that the board made. And then here's two big ones, like the overall league in general. The league did vote. It's obviously been a free league for the first five years. The league did vote to implement a $25 buy-in fee for the first year. So all 10 teams will owe $25 to get into the league. This will be due by draft lottery day, August 18th. We're gonna pay it out purely to the winner. So the winner will get $200. Pretty big payout for a first-ever buy-in for the league. Winner gets $200, that leaves $50 left. I know Levi's saying, what the heck's doing with the 50 extra dollars? The 50 extra dollars is gonna go to the league. Like I said, Cole is now the league's treasurer and secretary. But essentially for the past four years, I've been spending a lot of money out-of-pocket buying the trophy, buying the plaques, buying the banner, buying the shirt, buying a lot of things for the champion. And the board was kind enough. It was really Taylor and Cole were kind enough to, I don't even know the word, to throw this idea out there, to kind of nominate this idea that the league gets $50 back to reinvest it into great things. So the $50 will go to the league, $200 to the winner. I will add this note in though, if I were to win the league, I know you guys are laughing like, Tyler win the league, haha. But if I were to magically win the league, I would take $200 for the winner, but I wouldn't also take the $50 that's supposed to go to the league. I would just reinvest the $200. I would give $50 to whoever I beat in the championship. But other than that, the second place won't get any money unless it's me who gets first place, but we all know that's not gonna happen. And then last but not least, we also, we're just trying to make the league as fun as possible, so we also discuss punishment and adding punishment to the league. And we couldn't, this was probably our discussion that took the longest during the board meeting. Obviously Cole was just scarfing down his meatball sandwich, so he was having a good time. But we were talking about the punishment. Should it be monetary? Should it be embarrassment? Should it be kicked out of the league for a whole year? No, because we want to keep the league all ten of these guys. We love all of you guys. But we really couldn't decide what it should be, so we settled on a mild punishment. It shouldn't be too bad. First off, whoever gets last place is gonna pay the entry fee for the champion for next year. So let's say, we'll just use this year. Okay, Cole got last place. Christian won the championship. So that means if we had this implemented last year, Cole would be paying 25 extra dollars, paying Christian's entry fee, and Christian would owe zero dollars. So that's kind of like our monetary punishment. And second, we have a embarrassment punishment. We will be ordering a... it's type of a suit. I don't know, like a, like a swimmer suit. It's a body-tight suit. You guys will see it. It says, like, loser on it. It's neon green. It's a, it's an embarrassment suit. Trust me, you don't want to wear it. But, uh, and then you also have to take a picture and suit. So, uh, that's signed off on by the league. So that will be implemented as well. So we have a monetary and an embarrassing punishment. So last place will definitely want to be avoided this year. And just to clarify, that's not gonna be last place overall in the regular season. That's going to be last place after the consolation bracket. So you're, we're gonna go through the regular season, have the five playoff teams, have the five non-playoff teams. The bottom five non-playoff teams will play in a mini-bracket, and whoever gets last place in that bracket will be the loser and have to face this punishment. So it's, it's something I'm really looking forward to. I think it's just gonna add an extra trash talk to our league. And, uh, like I've mentioned a million times before, everything I do for this league is just to help everyone else have, have a better time. So I'm truly having a blast coming up with these ideas and hoping, hoping everyone really enjoys the league as much as I do. It's just a, it's a dream of mine being commissioner for, for all of you fine gentlemen. All right, well that kind of wraps it up for, for what happened on our board meeting. Well, my thanks to Taylor and Cole. It was a great board meeting. We really made progress for the league and set our vision for kind of what, what this year and beyond will be for the league. So my thanks again to those two and their, their great board members as well. I trust, trust these guys at the league if I were to be unable to run it for any reason. And a big thanks to Christian as well. Like I said, he wasn't really privy to, to many of these discussions, but we had a good time with him there as well and to present the trophy to him. And so just to hit back on the first point, today is league reactivation day. The league is reactivated. You can now go in, look at all the league pages and obviously because we haven't drafted because the season's off for about two months, there's not much on there, but importantly the league, league reactivation day is just a huge day for the league really. It kind of shows how close we are to the season starting. This year, just because the way the dates worked out and stuff, it's exactly two months before the draft as well. So it's a, and it's one month before preseason football starts. Obviously the Hall of Fame game between the Texans and Bears is August 1st. So you kind of have a marker each, each first of the month for the next two months. We have league reactivation day July 1st, NFL preseason starts August 1st, our draft September 1st, and then obviously kicks off from there. So today's kind of just an important marker day and you can just go in and just view everything. It's just a really important day for the league, I'd say. It's maybe not the most fun day of the offseason, but it's a important day for the league and it's a milestone that we're hitting, starting our fifth season as well. Today kind of starts the year for the SFL and season five, man, it's been a journey. Like I said, we started this in 2020, the COVID year, and we've had some, we've just had some great times. So we'll go over the champions quickly. 2020, Taylor Rector won the first ever NFL season. 2021, it stayed in the Rector family, went to Ed. He had a, probably one of the most dominant teams the FFL's ever seen. Who I forget, oh, it was Derek, Henry, Jonathan, Taylor combo that just destroyed everyone. Just insane. 2022, we let Spencer Loop in. Was that a good choice? I don't know, but he dominated. 2022, Spencer Loop champion. It was a good choice, I'm kidding. I'm just saying it's not because he's been so good. Someone get on his level, you know what I mean? But Spencer Loop dominates 2022. We thought he was going to dominate 2023. No, another new winner, Christian Paris, comes in the league, wins his first year, first try. So Spencer and Christian are both shown, newcomers, kind of. Well, actually, Ed was newest year he won, too. So we've had three years, we haven't had an old member win the league championship. So this year will actually be the first year that the champion played in the previous season, actually. So that's a cool fact that I literally just discovered while doing this podcast. So, well, that's cool to find out. So, yeah, we've had four years, four different champions. We'll see if anyone can repeat this time or something magical can happen. See if I can win, see if Cole can win. Levi, can you make the playoffs, dude? We'll see. That's kind of the stuff. League activation day, it just gives everyone hope, you know, the league is back open. There's not much more to say other than it's just back open. So, but with the league being open now, all the team names reset to default. So if you guys want to go in there and change your team names back to whatever you'd like, obviously, everyone, most everyone will probably have a new team name this year. So if you want to go in there, feel free to do that. You guys do not have to. I'm gonna keep my team name default for a while before I decide on mine. But as of this recording right now, it seems Taylor's the only person who changed his team name. He looks like he's going with Abe Lincoln's hat this year. So I really like the American team names there. So Abe Lincoln's hat, that's a good one. Shout out to you, buddy. But like I said, it's not mandatory or anything, but you do have the option. But I am looking to do some logos for the teams this year. I'm looking, I'm really going deep. I'm trying to do the whole website. I got some big plans. I'm not gonna go into it all here. But like I said, I have some big plans for the league. I want to make everyone enjoy it as much as possible. I want to create a whole media circle around this league. And so I'm thinking about getting professional logos done for all 10 of our teams. And to do that, we have to do that before the season. So I am making a hard due date, August 18th. This is the same day as Draft Lottery Day. Whatever your team name is on August 18th, I'm going to send that in to the logo maker and hopefully have a professional logo maker make it 10 logos for our league. So if your team name, say my team name is sold Team Tyler Matyshok on August 18th, I'm getting a logo that says Team Tyler Matyshok. But obviously that's a month and a half away. So you have plenty of time. But there is a deadline just a while away. So and then just a couple things on the website. The schedule right now is completely blank. Like I said, that's not going to be filled out until Schedule Relief Day. And a draft order right now in ESPN, there's no way to like delete the draft order. So the draft order on ESPN right now is the reversal of last year's standings. But that will not be the draft order. Like I said, we'll have the Draft Lottery, which will determine the draft order. And then quickly I kind of wrote on my outline what I want to speak about. Kind of already touched on most of them. But speak about the rest of league dates. So Draft Lottery Day, like I said before, just reiterating this. Today I kind of stand in front of the camera, get dressed up all nice for the league, act like Roger Goodell, get booed a couple times. And then I'll just, there's red balls, stick my hand in there, pick out one. Whoever I pick out will get the 10th pick. So that's kind of how that will go. That's August 18th. I'm aiming for 8 a.m. for that to happen. Schedule Relief Day. Obviously this happens over two dates. Week 1 gets released on Friday. Full Schedule gets released on Sunday. Like I said earlier, my absolute favorite day of the offseason. As a commissioner, I love it. I try to make it as random as possible so there's no like feelings involved or specialties involved or just human errors involved. So I try to make it really random. But it does have to fit a sort of formula so everyone gets a fair schedule and stuff. So there is a lot of work to be done to make sure it fits in there. But it's just an absolute blast. I love it. Can't wait for it. And then Draft Day, obviously September 1st. Again, please, please, I'm giving you two months notice. I've given you, most people, a notice since the end of last year. I've said, hey, we'll probably have the draft September 1st. It's finalized now. Two months notice should still be plenty of time. So please, please try and be available September 1st. But that kind of does it, guys, for what I had planned on this news portion of the episode. I know this obviously took up a lot of it, the portion. But we're going to dive in now to our deep dive for our team of the week, team of the day, team of the episode. And like I said, we're kind of going to go reversal of the standings of last year. And as you all know, unfortunately, there has to be a loser every year. And last year that loser was Cole Parrish. So we're going to dive right in here and see what made Cole tick last year. How did he get three wins? Why didn't he go in alone 14? I don't know. We're going to dive in and kind of see, talk about Cole's season from last year and see what he needs to do better looking ahead to 2024 and beyond to become a better, better fancy footballer. All right, so we're going to start this deep dive of Cole's season last year. We're going to start with his draft, obviously. Where else can we start off with? So in the draft lottery last year, Cole was picked third, meaning he got the eighth pick in the in the 2023 draft. And this kind of shows kind of where his season just started, really. He took Travis Kelsey with his first round pick and number eight overall. Obviously, at that point in time, seemed like a really solid pick. Travis Kelsey obviously miles above any other tight end in the league in 2022. But at the end of the day, ultimately, he didn't repeat that success in 2023. So when you take a tight end with your first round pick, it's always a risk. But I think most people were willing to take that risk in 2023, Cole being one of them. But it really just didn't work out. So you got Travis Kelsey in round one. Round two, pick number 13 overall. He went with Barkley. Solid pick. I mean, you can't, I mean, it's not a bad pick at all. Barkley was solid for him last year. Round three, 28th overall, went with Najee Harris. Solid, not great. He's not that explosive, but he's Najee Harris. You know, you get what you get from him. It's not just that disappointing. But it just is, he's a solid third round pick. You know, maybe it may be a slight reach, but again, I don't even remember where he was ranked. He was probably ranked around there last year. Fourth round, he took his first receiver. 33th overall, he went with Devonta Smith. So his number one receiver wasn't even the number one receiver on the real-life team. Obviously, Devonta Smith is number two to AJ Brown on the Eagles. So maybe this is where he can really begin, I don't know, going against Cole's draft here when he takes his number one receivers, not even number one on his own team. Fifth round, he went and grabbed his quarterback, Kirk Cousins. Obviously, we all know what happened to Kirkie last year. Got injured, missed most of the year. Got to be on the Falcons this year, so it'll be interesting to see. But yeah, took fifth round QB, gets injured. This was 48th overall, by the way. So not Cole's fault, just the way fantasy football works. In the sixth round, at 53rd overall, took a defender, went with linebacker Fosaid Oluwokun, if I'm even saying that right, really. But yeah, kind of early for a linebacker in my opinion, but not bad. Oluwokun, probably the best linebacker in fantasy football. So if Cole wanted him, feel free to go grab him. Obviously, that's what Cole did. Round seven, pick number 68 overall, went with another defender, defensive end Max Crosby. I mean, can't complain there. If you're gonna grab a defensive end, you're gonna grab Crosby there. Seventh round. Eighth round, 73rd overall, his number two rod receiver was Tyler Lockett. Again, Tyler Lockett, not even number one in his own team, ended up being nearly number three last year. Last year, he was battling with DJ Metcalf, Jackson Smith, and Jigba, and really struggled last year. Tyler Lockett, you know, he's the ultimate boomer bust guy at the end of the day. He'll grab you 31-week and two the next, but unfortunately for Cole last year, just too many twos. I think Cole ended up dropping him in the middle of the year anyways. Now, round number nine, he routed out his receiving core here. Pick 88 overall, went with Christian Kirk from the Jags. The Jags just struggled overall offensively last year. Here's probably his best pick of the draft last year. Tenth round, 93rd overall, David Montgomery of the Running Backs of the Lions. Obviously, shared time with Jameer Gibbs, but David Montgomery had himself a really solid year last year. Round 11, pick 108, Michael Pittman Jr., Colts wide receiver, had a solid year. Obviously, missed Anthony Richardson, but Gardner Minshew helped him out a lot. They had a really solid year. Round number 12, pick 113 overall, he went with Gabe Davis, a Bills wide receiver. Didn't have a great year. Obviously, left to go to the Jaguars this year. Cole was really trying to finish off his roster here, so he went defense in round 13. Pick 128 overall, went with the Patriots defense in the special teams. I can't even tell you how they did last year overall. They weren't a very good team. I don't know how their defense was though. Round 14, pick 133 overall, went with the kicker from the Seahawks, Jason Myers. Don't really follow kickers that much. Can't really give you much analysis of that. Don't have much to say about that. Round 15, pick 148 overall, took his last defender, safety Mika Fitzpatrick. I believe he had a solid year. I'm not following the deep of the players too much, but if my memory serves me correctly, I think Fitzpatrick had a good year. Round 16, we're going into backup territory here, but he took Geno Smith, 153rd overall. The quarterback, obviously, this was just a backup pick. 2022 Geno had a solid year, not as much so in 2023. Round 17 here, 168 overall, Devin Singletary. Had himself a really good year in Texas last year, or in Houston, I should say, for the Texans. Started the year off really slow behind Damian Pierce. Ended up grabbing the starting role, so that was a solid pick in round 17. That's kind of like a flyer that he took and a hit, really. Round 18, pick 173, going for another flyer here. Tyler Algier, the backup to Bijan Robinson out there in Atlanta. Didn't really hit last year, but neither did Bijan. Thousands of offenses was terrible last year. Round 19, pick 188, Leonard Fournette. When Cole drafted him last year, excuse me, when Cole drafted Fournette last year, he didn't even have a team. Right now, he's listed on the Bills. Haven't heard much news on him, but I think Cole drafted him before week one, so really took a late flyer there with Fournette. Obviously, didn't work out. Last pick of the draft, he's 193rd overall. He went with the wide receiver, Curtis Samuel. Don't remember much from him last year. Obviously, he struggled on that Washington offense. He went to Buffalo this year. So, that's kind of Cole's draft analysis from last year. I mean, it wasn't awful, but you can kind of see where the holes lied, and obviously, he made some transactions throughout the year, but at the end of the day, when you when he didn't miss on his first round pick, it's just, Travis Kelsey wasn't that, Travis Kelsey didn't produce like a first round pick. He probably produced like a third or fourth round pick, so when you miss, when you miss out on two rounds of value there, it's really hard to make up for, and when we go through all these teams, you'll see the playoff teams had solid first round picks, and the non-playoff teams didn't really, and you can't win your league with the first round pick, but you can lose it, and unfortunately for Cole, I think he lost it there just a couple rounds in last year. So, now let's look kind of through his year and kind of how it went. I mean, I know Cole's not really gonna want to hear much of it, but I guess the word dissects me. So, he started off the year, week one, he was playing Ryland. It was a close game. He lost 136 to 136, point difference. At this point in time, you still didn't know much from Cole. You thought he was gonna have a good year. I mean, everyone can lose week one, it's no big deal. Christian actually lost week one and didn't end up winning the championship, so it's not really a bad omen or anything, just didn't start off the year as he'd like, but a serious bounce back in week two, played against Byron, scored 187 points and just dominated Byron, and at this point, you're like, all right, Cole's, you're looking, he's one-on-one after two weeks. If I remember correctly, most of the league was one-on-one after two weeks, but you're looking at this, you're like, okay, he just dropped 187 points, he's one-on-one, tied with basically the whole league. Cole's a real contender here is what you're looking at, but then you roll into week three, he's playing Taylor, and it's just heartbreak central. Cole scores 158.2 points, Taylor scores 158.6 points, .4 Cole loses by, and this, I think it just gets into his head here, because after this, he goes on a run, he loses one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, eight straight games Cole loses. Cole's one-and-nine at this point, guys. He's one-and-nine after eight straight losses. Brutal, it's brutal. He loses that return game, he plays Byron again, and in week 10, he loses that game, too. Only puts up 154 points, and he's, at this point, he's out of it. Like, you're in week, you're finishing week up, you're finishing up week 10, you're one-and-nine, and you, obviously, you have no shot at making the playoffs. It's tough for Cole, ultimately, it is. He struggled last year, there's not much to say. He struggled. He ended the year off, though, with some momentum. He beat Levi in week 11, dropped 162 points. He lost again to Spencer week 12, Thanksgiving week, so unfortunately, lost on Thanksgiving. Played Taylor, or no, played Ed, sorry, week 13, dropped 176 points, and got his final win of the year, his final and third win of the year, so. Then, last week of the season, he, really, bismal performance. Week 14, playing Taylor, scored 134 points, so. Yeah, tough, tough year for Cole, and it, yeah, it showed with that final record, you know. If you look in the total points scored, let's pull it up here. Cole, actually, he wasn't terrible, total points scored, so maybe a little unlucky. Let's see. Six, so Cole, sixth place in total points scored, so still, if you're just going off points scored, still should have not made the playoffs, but maybe a bit, bit more unlucky than others. Let's see, points allowed, points allowed. Cole had the third most, third most points allowed in the, in the whole league, so obviously, in baseball, you can't really control it, but allowed the third most in the league, and ended up going 3-11, so tough, tough year for Cole. I just want to go back to 2022, because Cole, we're not going to talk all bad about Cole. Cole's not a bad manager, just had a bad year last year, so let's go back to 2022. Remember, we had eight teams in our league this year, but Cole ended up getting fourth in the regular season, goes eight and seven, beats out Byron. They're both tied at eight and seven for the last playoff spot, beats out Byron based on points scored, but he ended up losing in the first round of playoffs. He ended up losing to Spencer in the first round of playoffs, 170 to 155, so didn't, didn't end up making this first championship game ever, but we're not going to sit here and act like Cole's just a bad manager. He just had a really tough year the previous season, in 2023, so yeah, that's, that's Cole Pearson's last, last year outlook. There's a new feature on the ESPN app, and it lets you look at your, each team's best and worst opponent of all time, so let's pull it up for Cole. I'm really interested to see, kind of, what, what Cole's history has been, so let's pull up on ninth place. Well, we'll just go over his stats. So his average finishing position in the league is fifth place, obviously fourth place, and then tenth place last year. I don't even know how that ends up being fifth place, but that says his average finishing position. No championships won, one playoff appearance, one top three finish. His all-time record is 11 wins, 18 losses, 29 total games played. He's been in the league for two years, and let's see, his, he has a, his win percentage is 379. He averages 153 points per game. The highest he's ever scored was week four of 2022. He dropped 202 points. The lowest he ever scored was that same year, week one of 2022. He scored 91 points, so Cole's had a taste of everything. He's done the best against Ed. Him and Ed have matched up four times. Cole has taken three wins. The last time they played was week 13 of last year. Cole got the win 176 to 138, so out of four, four games against Ed, Cole has gone three and one, so I think Cole's looking to play Ed week one. And then he's, and then on the flip side of that, the other rector, Cole's really struggled against. Cole's, Cole's played Taylor four times, and he is one and three against Taylor. So their last matchup was week 14 of last year. Taylor ended up winning that one 138 to 134. So I, I think if, if you had to choose between the rectors, Cole would like to play Ed. He has a pretty good track record against Ed and not so much against Taylor. So with that, we'll kind of move into looking forward to 2024 for Cole. We obviously don't know what position he's gonna get in the draft, where he's gonna be or, or much about. Like, we don't really know much at this point, but for Cole, he's really got to focus on, I think, looking at his mistakes from last year, learning. First off, you gotta nail that first-round pick. I mean, I can say that about everyone here. I can say it about myself, so I'm not trying to critique Cole too much, but it shows, I think, doing that analysis, just how, how much missing your first-round pick. And it's not like Cole missed by that much. It's not like his first-round pick was a 20th-round value, but his first-round pick was about third or fourth-round value, and he just, it just, it just curtailed the season just right off the bat. So you have to be really smart with your first-round pick, and with Cole, I, we can't dive too deep into these, obviously, but we need to look and see his, his waiver management, his, his lineup decisions, and see, this is something he needs to personally reflect on to see how, how he can better manage throughout the year. Maybe studying a bit more, maybe, I don't know. He also had a lot of his play last year, obviously. For those of you who don't know, Cole got married about a year ago now, at the start of last, at the start of last season as well. So, uh, or at the, yeah, around the preseason time of last year. So Cole had a lot on his plate. Newly married Cole, so, uh, yeah, maybe, maybe this year with less on his plate, and he was also right in the power rankings last year as well, too. So unfortunately for him, he kind of always had to put himself last. But with Cole, I know he has that kind of attitude that I can do it no matter what anyone says. No, I'm just kidding. We all know Cole doesn't have that attitude. But, uh, no, I think at the end of the day, Cole's gonna put in a lot of effort this year, and we should not be surprised if Cole really transforms, and he was 3-11 last year. If he goes 11-3 this year, has the best ever season in AFFL history, I wouldn't be surprised. So I know, I know Cole posting the effort, it's just about getting the results that he deserves. So it's fantasy football, too, at the end of the day. Anything can happen. It would be a really good story to see our last-placed person from last year win a championship this year. So that's kind of gonna conclude our talk about Cole's team, our deep dive into Cole Parrish. I hope you guys enjoyed it. And that kind of wraps up the entire episode of the podcast. We're about 45 minutes here. I've enjoyed it, guys. Like I said, this has kind of just been a dream of mine. I'm just sitting on my couch talking about AFFL football, guys, and it's just, I love it. Like, it's just, it's really just a hobby for me, guys, and I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I do. Like I said, I'm gonna be trying to get these out, like, around every Monday each week. It's been a blast, guys. I've loved this. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Maybe if you guys listen to this on your drive to work or something, just gives you something to do, gives you something to smile about throughout the day. To Cole, man, just breaking down your team, hope you're able to listen to this, man. I got all the faith in the world in you next year. You're gonna have a great year. 3-11, I don't think it's gonna happen to you twice in a row. So just keep plugging along, man. I know you're studying. I know you're getting the work done. So next year will really bring the best out of you, and I know it. So I think that's gonna wrap it up, guys. The first ever episode of the AFFL podcast. Good luck to everyone. Keep studying. We got it. We got two months exactly until the draft. So good luck to everyone, and see you guys on the next one.