In this week's P.O. Box:

If you thought drafting in February was crazy last year, wait until you hear that people started drafting in January this year.

I know—even as someone who has no problem drafting all offseason, I was still not ready for contests to drop weeks before the ink dried on the 2023 NFL season.

For the past couple years, I’ve drafted my first teams of the year at Underdog’s Super Bowl weekend events. I’m always flying totally blind that early in the offseason—I mean, what was I thinking with this Miles Sanders pick—because there’s no ADP or ranks out yet.

But this year is much, much different.

There have already been over 25,000 entries in The Big Board contest, which has a $200,000 top prize. The Little Board contest is absurdly 64% full with over 36,000 entries:

Fantasy Life has already dropped a couple sets of Top 150 ranks. Kerrane and ETR released full Underdog rankings that you can easily upload and use to draft.

There are best ball streams happening on a seemingly hourly basis.

It’s complete and utter madness.

I mean, I wrote a post literally titled "Hot Best Ball Winter” eleven months ago, so I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised, but it’s still wild.

Will we get 2025 drafts in December this year??

I’ll be drafting my first team of the 2024 season tonight with Underdog in Arizona and that was by design. I had to stick to my guns.

I know people wanted me to dive right back into drafting and streaming, but I legitimately needed a break after drafting thousands of teams across both best ball and Battle Royales over the past 11 months.

I’m sick, but not that sick.

I’ve started out the year with a clear goal to establish some new habits and adding early drafting would have made cementing those those much harder.

I'm coming up on one month strong of no phone before bed, which has allowed me to stay on track with my offseason reading goal.

And reading before bed has resulted in not staying up as late and getting more sleep, which has had a bunch of other positive trickle down effects as well.

I’m excited to draft, trust me. But getting these systems in place before I blast off was a must. Even when I do start drafting, I’m likely to set some guardrails that curtail my drafting to streams and cardio clubs only so I can keep the positive momentum going.

If there’s one thing I know I don’t have to worry about, it’s drafts not being in the Underdog lobby when I’m ready for them.

Alright, time to figure out what a “Ladd McConkey” is…

Book #2 for February (50% Done): Chain Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

I’m now over halfway with this book (which was recently applauded by Stephen King) and I’m completely hooked.

Adjei-Brenyah strikes a really nice balance of moving the story along while pummeling you over the head with stats about our broken prison system in the footnotes.

It is sobering to realize how small of a leap it is from the modem day bloodsports we consume to this gladiatorial farce.

"She didn’t know if the heat she felt was her hating herself as the people who paid to watch her imprisonment begged for a chance to touch her."

Book #3 for February (just started): Gambler Secrets from a Life at Risk by Billy Walters

I’ve been engulfed with CGAS so I haven’t spent as much time with this yet, but I did read the intro and am already loving Walters’ braggadocio.

Book #1 (COMPLETE): Clear Thinking: Turning Ordinary Moments into Extraordinary Results by Shane Parris

🌶 Super Bowl Preview: Top Plays & Pick ‘Ems. The Badge Bros join me to preview the Super Bowl on Underdog Fantasy, rip some private drafts, and build out some spicy Pick 'Em entries:

🤑 Rake-Free Deposit Kingdom Showdown Contest. $10 entry, no rake DraftKings contest. I’ll review the top lineups Monday am.

💎 How To Approach Chiefs Pass-Catchers In Pick'em And DFS. For this week’s Hidden Gems piece on Fantasy Life, I did a deep dive on the Chiefs WRs/TE and shared my favorite plays.

💪 The Swolecast: Super Bowl Show. The one where we gave Travis Kelce an idea for the funniest possible TD celebration.

🏆 Fantasy Life roundup. Wrote about Jerick McKinnon’s potential return, the curious case of Kadarius Toney, and awkward moments from Radio Row.

🍾 The Club Builds Super Bowl Pick ‘Ems. We get ready for the Super Bowl by building some Pick 'Ems, dissecting the Chiefs pass catchers, reviewing playoff best ball sweats.

🧊 Bill Belichick Messed Up. C’mon man, it was right there.

With some extra free time, we recently binged all three seasons of Slow Horses on Apple TV after numerous recommendations.

The show is very fun and reminiscent of other pulpy BBC crime dramas like Luther or Sherlock. With only six episodes per season, they never waste your time.

Gary Oldman is incredible as Jackson Lamb, the complicated boss of a group of misfit MI5 agents. Not sure there’s been a character as equally sharp, disgusting and hilarious since Ignatius J. Reilly.

Highly recommend.

I recently stumbled across Mk.gee and have been spinning this track non-stop. He has a new album out today that I’m excited to get my hands on…

I’m in Arizona this weekend with Underdog. I’ll post a bit on X if you want to follow along and we’ll have some Big Board streams on Friday and a Super Bowl preview stream on Sunday on the Underdog YT.

Need more newslettering? Check out the Fantasy Life newsletter I write regularly: