🙏 The Only RB Who Matters

In this week's P.O. Box:

Occasionally someone will ask me, “How did you get to know Patrick Laird” or a guy fixing an AC unit in my basement will question, “Why do you have a framed jersey of Patrick Laird in your office?”

In those moments I realize that it is a fairly involved story and also that the details have started to get foggy over the almost 4 years since it took place.

It began like so many things in my life seem to do…as a bit.

I had transitioned to making “real” DFS content in the Fall of 2019, as opposed to the “bit” DFS content that I initially started out doing. I was also getting my ass handed to me on DraftKings, so finding a more comedic angle to mask my horrendous play seemed like a good idea.

Laird was on my radar as a rookie fantasy sleeper thanks to some pieces by Shawn Siegele and Blair Andrews on Rotoviz. He then started to make some super deep waiver wire buzz when Dolphins RB Kallen Ballage struggled to get anything going deep into Laird’s rookie year.

Laird started to see the field down the stretch and caught a couple balls in Week 11 against the Colts, then six more for 51 yards a week later against the Bills. His growing pass-catching role put him firmly in play as a cheap DFS option thanks to the full point per reception scoring on DK.

I don’t remember what exactly compelled me to do it around this time—maybe it was all of the potential puns and religious imagery associated with the name “Laird”—but I started a bit championing him as the MUST PLAY GOLD STAR DFS PLAY OF THE WEEK on Twitter dot com.

And I did not stop…

The more pushback I got, the more I leaned into it…

It spiraled out of control and by the end of the week I had:

• Posted 113 tweets about Laird

• Earned a very confused follow from Laird

• Pissed off a large portion of the very serious DFS community

• Bought a cake with Laird’s name on it

With all eyes on Laird In Week 13, he out-rushed Ballage on only 3 carries, but the Dolphins got smoked and he finished with a paltry 2 fantasy points.

I capped off the day with a sad, drunken Periscope live stream where I sloppily ate the Laird cake.

But the damage was done and the mission was complete. We were on Laird’s radar. Even ESPN was forced to acknowledge Laird’s newfound fantasy fame.

Laird promised myself and Davis Mattek—who naturally came along for the bit ride—that he’d do a podcast with us once the Dolphins got their next win.

Luckily, that didn’t take long. The next week I was on vacation with my in-laws in Costa Rica watching the Dolphins upset the Eagles on a laptop by the pool. Oh, and Laird scored a TD. Twitter spit out my notifications like a broken slot machine. We scheduled the interview for Tuesday.

I kid you not, I rushed back from a rainforest hike and peeping sloths to interview Laird from our hotel (the fact that I’m still married is a miracle).

We ended up exchanging numbers after the show. I got roasted for not having an iPhone and hundreds of people proceeded to harass me about changing phone platforms.

The next week, a fan of my DFS content (Joel Burrall) got a “Laird Willin’ tattoo after making an ill-advised bet. Things were officially off the rails:

We also continued to play Laird in DFS, and I finished 51st in the Spy with Laird holding down my FLEX spot. The bit was still going strong.

The week after that, Laird invited Davis and I to New York to watch the Dolphins play the Giants and there was no way we were passing on that.

The Dolphins lost, but we met up with Laird after the game. A friendship was formed. And now we get together every six months or so to catch up about his career in the NFL, draft fantasy teams, and discuss our favorite books.

We synced up again yesterday for another show before Laird heads off to Bucs camp to begin his fifth year in the NFL. We discussed:

• The wide open RB depth chart in Miami

• His thoughts on the RB holdout drama across the league

• Why some attributes are tough to quantify for NFL players

• Our numbers for the 5-10-25 challenge

• Our favorite books we’ve read recently

If you want the audio, you can find it on The Taekcast.

Praise the Laird, go Bucs.

📺 BBM4 Drafts: #87 Best Ball After Dark w/ Jen, #88 & #89 Best Ball Breakfast, #90 & #91 Splash Play, #92 w/ Kerrane, #93 w/ Siegele, #94 Swolecast (w/ mission), #95 Ship Chasing (w/ crew)

💡 Best Ball Tips. #31: Balance Your Portfolio.

🏫 How To Construct A Best Ball Roster. Put together a roster construction 101 piece for Fantasy Life. A good place to start if you are new to best ball.

⚠️ The Round 3 RBs are now riskier bets. Wrote about how news is shaking up one of our favorite value pockets on the draft board. Also: I’m perplexed why Nuk chose the Titans, but it’s a sneaky decent fantasy spot.

🎡 The Sexual Jumanji Randomizer. One of the funniest dudes on the internet—Sexual Jumanji (Trill Withers Show)—finds himself drinking Pepsi/Milk concoctions, going full Bruce Buffer, doing a ventriloquist act, and singing Mariah Carey karaoke on this week’s episode:

☣️ The end of DFS as we know it? This week on LOLZ we discuss No House Advantage going belly up, debrief on last week’s JMac interview, and explain why the Sim Wars are the beginning of the end for DFS.

🥂 The 7/18 Draftiversary Mega Stream. Tuesday marked the one year anniversary since Kerrane drafted his winning Best Ball Mania III team. I joined the party for one brutal draft to celebrate the occasion.

🥣 Intriguing Best Ball Data Bowl submissions. Submissions are trickling in for the inaugural Best Ball Data Bowl, including one about which late RBs to take and another about using EPA to improve your playoff odds.

🏈 Fantasy Football Unlimited. Hopped on Kevin Murray’s show to talk about #content.

The log-awaited “piss boys” merch has dropped with a very tasteful “I Love WRs” tank top and bucket hat that proves you don’t leave a draft without the board dripping yellow. I celebrated the drop by drafting three straight RBs.

I’ve gotten a lot of questions about how I’m possibly going to round up all of the comments for my $1500 giveaway when I hit 15k subs on my channel.

Well, fear not because Deposit Kingdom member & Youtube viewer “K H” reached out and whipped me up a legit scraping tool to capture all of the unique entries. Absolutely incredible stuff, ty again KH:

If you want your comments scraped for the giveaway, you can find all the eligible videos to comment on in this playlist.

Tonight at 9pm ET the Best Ball After Dark streams roll on with Ron Stewart. Join us for an evening of talkin’ ball, pizza, basements, Youtube, and hot best ball summer. Become a YouTube member here for access:

I’ll also be joining Ron for a draft on his channel before BBAD (8pm ET) if you’d like to join for the double header.

Another reminder that I’m hosting a live Underdog Cardio Club event in Brooklyn in a few weeks. Fill out the form in the UCC channel in the Underdog Discord if you are interested in attending. People are coming from all over.

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