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The Real Winning Formula: No RB, and How to Break Your League’s Brain

Now that you’ve seen Shaun’s “load up on running backs” strategy, let’s talk about the actual path to fantasy enlightenment. And to be fair to Shaun, his way works sometimes. He’s had seasons where he’s cashed out, celebrated at Buffalo Wild Wings, and looked smug holding his jalapeño poppers.

But me? Ever since I pivoted to a No RB (punting the position until the late rounds) or Hero RB (one stud muffin like Jahmyr Gibbs and then 47 receivers) approach, my “in the money” finishes have hit nearly 90%. That’s not a fluke — that’s math in a tuxedo drinking an Old Fashioned.

Let me illustrate with a mock draft I ran in real time. I picked 11th in a 12-team PPR league and planned to go WR-heavy in the first four rounds. I wanted the wheel slot, but was a second too late — like walking into a happy hour just as the bartender flips the sign to “Private Event.”

Rounds 1–2: The Foundation

Picks: Brian Thomas, Nico Collins.
Value so good it should’ve come gift-wrapped.
Had I gone RB here, Devon Achane or Derrick Henry were on the board. Defensible picks? Sure. But the point here isn’t “safe.” The point is overwhelm them in one position before they realize what’s happening.

Rounds 3–4: The WR Avalanche

Picks: Garrett Wilson, Marvin Harrison Jr.
Oh. My. God. This WR room is a penthouse suite.
If I’d gone RB, I’d have been looking at Alvin Kamara, Chuba Hubbard, or Kenneth Walker. Fine players. Also fine players to let someone else overpay for.

Way too early for QB, but some folks will panic and take Jayden Daniels here. Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson were already gone. Good. Let them chase names.

Rounds 5–6: The Luxury Pick and the Workhorse

Pick 5: Jaylen Waddle — a luxury, yes, but at this price? Absolute steal.
Pick 6: David Montgomery — as good a bet for double-digit touchdowns as exists in the league. Isaiah Pacheco and Tyrone Tracy were here too, as was Aaron Jones Sr, who will apparently be splitting touches with Jordan Mason in some cruel Shanahan fever dream.

Rounds 7–8: Jackpot Falls to Me

Pick 7: Tyrone Tracy somehow comes back to me. Don’t ask questions, just take the gift.
Pick 8: Kaleb Johnson — figures to get the early-down and goal-line work in Pittsburgh. Would I have loved David Njoku here? Sure. But he got pipped right before my turn. That’s fine. Tight end can wait.

Rounds 9–10: Depth and Disrespect

Pick 9: Keenan Allen — I’ll take a shot on the return to form.
Pick 10: Austin Ekeler — the fantasy equivalent of finding a $50 bill in an old pair of jeans. Is he ancient? Yes. Can he still win me weeks? Also yes.

At this point, my RB room is solid, but my WR corps is filthy.

Rounds 11–12: Gambling on Tight End

Picks: Hunter Henry and Kyle Pitts.
Henry was Drake Maye’s favorite red-zone target, and if a QB change doesn’t finally unlock Pitts’ talent, then he might as well retire and sell Herbalife. But here? This late? You’re buying lottery tickets at half price.

Rounds 13–14: The QB Punt Pays Off

Picks: Trevor Lawrence and Bryce Young.
Yes, Bryce Young. Don’t laugh — he was one of the highest PPG QBs down the stretch last year, largely on the strength of his sneaky rushing ability.

And that’s the point. While my leaguemates were taking QBs in Rounds 4–7, I was stockpiling WRs who will outscore their RB2s and their WR2s all year long.

The Lesson

No, I didn’t draft exactly how I would in a real league — I took liberties to make the point. But the core truth stands:

  • Rounds 2–5: WRs here will vastly outperform the RBs you can get in the same range.
  • Rounds 6–10: That’s where RB value lives.
  • Quarterbacks: Wait. Wait longer. Wait until they start sending you “you still need a QB” notifications.

Because in a game where the only objective is to score more points than the other guy? You don’t win by following the crowd. You win by making them look up from their draft board, stare at your roster, and mutter, “Oh… crap.”

2025 F1 Weekend Recap: Hungary

2025 F1 Weekend Recap: Hungary

The final race weekend before the summer break brought plenty of drama on the track across all three levels, and some news broke off the track, as Max Verstappen put rumors to rest and confirmed he will be back with Red Bull in 2026. 

Rafael Camara came into the weekend with a shot at becoming the first ever F3 driver to wrap up the championship before the final weekend. He went out in qualifying and secured pole by a miniscule 0.008 seconds over championship rival Mari Boya. Knowing a win on Sunday would secure the title, Camara played the sprint race safe. A number of cars found themselves out in the race, but there was a good race at the front, as Ugo Ugochukwu gave it a good run, but Tasanopol Inthraphuvasak held him off and took the checkered flag. Charlie Wurtz finished third in the sprint.

The featured race started in the wet with it a rolling start, and the track was slippery all race. Brad Benavides found himself in the wall after making contact with Roman Belinski bringing out the first safety car of the day on lap 4. Later on in the race Gerrard Xie was off the track on the inside before rejoining and sliding up the track, taking out Ugochukwu to bring out the second safety car. There was another incident on track later on that saw several cars make contact with each other but somehow all were able to continue down the road and avoided a safety car. 

Ultimately Tuukka Taponen finished third behind Boya, but it was Camara woh crossed the line first, securing the championship with one race weekend to go. That final race weekend on the F3 calendar is Monza September 5-7, where Camara will be able to drive without any championship pressure on him individually, but his Trident team has just a 19 point lead over Campos Racing, who have racers ranked two and three in the championship in Boya and Nikola Tsolov.

The F2 weekend sprint started with Arvid Lindblad and Campos Racing teammate Pepe Marti battling right from lap one. This ultimately led to trouble for Lindblad, as he took far too much out of his tires and started moving back after doing a really good job holding other racers off, but ultimately finished tenth. On the final lap, and the penultimate turn, Marti just did have his wheels ahead of Alex Dunne which allowed him to essentially force him off track without penalty to hold on and take the checkered flag, with Dunne finishing second and Jak Crawford third. 

In the feature race, it was an all Invicta front row with Roman Stanek on poll looking of his third F2 win, but first in which he would hear his country’s national anthem played as he inherited both previous wins after post race penalties. Armoury Cordeel retired due to an engine issue as he began lap 6, the first lap that pit stops are permitted, but a full safety car never came out, instead only a VSC meaning the pit road was closed and those on the softer tire could not get a cheap early stop. Then, on lap 10 another VSC came out as Victor Martins had to retire, but again no pit stops allowed. Ultimately pit stops had to come at full racing speed, and Leonardo Fornaroli, who had gotten by Stanek early on, was given a five second penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Despite that penalty, Fornaroli wound up extending his lead out front and securing the victory. Stanek finished second and Crawford got his second third place finish on the weekend. Lindblad again found himself one of the slower cars on the track in the final laps, but put on a masterclass of defending and held off a stack of cars to hold on to sixth place.

There are four race weekend left in the F2 season, with the next coming at Monza starting September 5th, Fornaroli has an 18 point lead over Crawford who is two points ahead of Richard Verschoor who is ten ahead of Luke Browning, a point clear of Dunne. Meanwhile Invicta holds a pretty healthy lead ahead of Campos in the team championship.

F1 looked like it was going to be a McLaren runaway weekend again during the three practices, but qualifying kept things interesting. Yuki Tsunoda found himself out in Q1 while Kimi Antonelli and Lewis Hamilton were both eliminated in Q2. While Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri both put in solid laps in qualifying, Charles Leclerc put together a special lap and took a somewhat surprising pole position. On race day, Norris looked to make a move on teammate Piastri in turn one, but was unable to get the move done and wound up sliding form third to fifth and George Russell and Fernando Alonso both got by Norris in the first lap. Norris was able to get by Alonso within a few laps, but couldn’t catch Russell.

Norris being somewhat stuck in fourth forced McLaren to rethink strategy and left him out for a long stint to give a one stop race a try. Meanwhile, Piastri boxed before Leclerc to attempt to get the undercut, but was not able to catch him after the first stop. Leclerc was clearly not happy with something on his Ferrari or the strategy as he was regularly on the radio complaining and, after stop two, found himself moving backwards and going from a guy with control out in front of the race to missing the podium all together on lap 62. 

Norris managed to make his tires hold on, but Piastri made a real run and attempted a move late in the race, nearly making contact with Norris, but both managed to avoid contact and Norris stayed out front and took the checkered flag. Pastry came in second with Russell rounding out the podium. F1 now goes into their summer break, with their next race coming in Zandvoort the final weekend of August, as McLaren extend their lead in the constructor’s title even more, but the driver championship now has just nine points separating Piastri at the top from his teammate Norris. 

2025 F1 Weekend Recap: Belgium

2025 F1 Weekend Recap: Belgium

Reports are that Oscar Piastri set a new track record in SQ3 at Spa, but most fans in the United States had no visual evidence of that happening. See, with about 4 minutes to go in the final qualifying session for the sprint race, ESPN went to commercial. Those who were watching via the stream didn’t get to see the finish. Those watching live on TV got to watch the final lap, but the commentary swapped to the Spanish language stream. 

The big stories coming out of spring qualifying though were the spin from Lewis Hamilton that saw him eliminated in SQ1, and a rough session from Kimi Antonelli that also saw him out in the first session. Once the sprint race started, Max Verstappen immediately took advantage of the low downforce wing he has on his car and jumped ahead of Piastri. Vertappen never looked back as he dominated sectors one and three, making his lead insurmountable despite the McLaren’s being faster in sector two. Ultimately, it was Vertappen on top of the podium in the country of his birth, followed by Piastri and Lando Norris. 

Earlier in the day, F3 had a rather straight forward race that saw Noah Stromsted win the sprint with Ugo Ugochukwu and Charlie Wurtz also making the podium. Straight forward is never used to describe a F2 race, and Saturday was no different. Multiple incidents on the first lap brought out the first safety car, but it was the one that was brought out by Amaury Cordeel making contact and then rolling through the gravel into the barrier on lap 12 that really made it interesting. Much of the midfield boxed for soft tires during the one lap safety car, and their pace was immediately felt. That group made quick work of multiple runners still on medium tires, but Leonardo Fornaroli looked in command of the lead, but Victor Martins and Gabriele Mini were certainly at risk. That risk came to an end though when Sami Meguetounif’s car stopped on track and was unable to get it going again, making the top three Fornaroli-Martins-Mini. 

After the sprint race fun, the F1 qualifying began for the featured race. With rain forecasted for Sunday and the struggles in the wet weather in Silverstone, Verstappen swapped to a rear wing that provided more downforce, which came as a bit of a surprise after the lower downforce wing is what helped lead him to victory in the sprint. Antonelli again found himself out in Q1, making it an incredibly frustrating weekend for the rookie. Meanwhile, Hamilton got himself out of Q1 on his final lap that moved him up to seventh on the timing sheet. When the broadcast got back from commercial though, that had changed. Despite there not being a great angle for it on the broadcast, the stewards determined Hamilton exceeded track limits on turn four and fell to 16th, meaning he did not get out of either Q1 on the weekend. 

Once we reached Q3, the track temperature rose throughout the session leading to the track negatively evolving and few drivers improved on their final lap. This allowed Norris to hold onto pole and Piastri making it a front row lockout for McLaren. One driver who did improve on the final lap was Alex Albon who put together a fantastic final lap and jumped to fifth on the grid.

Come Sunday, the rain did arrive, so much in fact the F3 feature race never officially got started, leaving Rafael Camara 28 points clear at the top of the standings with a race weekend around Hungaroring next weekend and a trip to Monza at the start of September as the only racing left in the F3 calendar for this year. F2 did get going and was relatively straight forward race, at least for a while. Sebastian Montoya spun and stalled on lap 18, bringing out the first and only safety car in the race. Just as we thought the safety car might come in, Oliver Goethe had his engine catch fire, red flagging the race and giving Alex Dunne the win, for a bit. Ultimately Dunne was given a 10 second penalty for failing to engage the start-up procedure, making Arvid Lindblad the winner, for a short time. Lindblad was ultimately found to have issues with tire pressure and was disqualified from the race, making Roman Stanek the official winner. F2 will also be racing next weekend in Budapest, and have four more races after that with Fornaroli holding just a three point lead over Richard Verschoor and only 12 points clear of fifth place. 

The F1 race went for a formation lap behind the safety car before being red flagged and postponed for quite some time. Eventually they got back on the road, but spend the first four laps behind a safety car before a rolling start. There were four cars scheduled to start from pit lane, but it was the McLaren’s up front that everyone was watching. At almost the same spot Verstappen passed Piastri on the first lap of the sprint race, Piastri got by Norris in the feature race. Despite starting in the wet before moving to dry tires not too deep into the race, there weren’t any significant incidents in the race, and McLaren dominated again, with Piastri taking the checkered flag, Norris finished second, and Charles Leclerc rounding out the podium. Piastri now has a 16 point lead in the driver’s standings over Norris while McLaren holds more than double their closest competitor, 516 points to Ferrari’s 248 (both Norris and Piastri alone have more points than Ferrari or any other team).

F1 will be back at it next weekend before the summer break that will see three consecutive weekends without racing.

2025 IFSC Boulder World Cup – Keqiao

2025 IFSC Boulder World Cup – Keqiao

The IFSC World Cup season has officially arrived as the boulder event in Keqiao, China took place over the weekend. This comes on the heels of a winter that saw the official announcement from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) that the three disciplines, Boulder, Lead, and Speed, will all have their own medals, allowing for specialization.

In the Tokyo Olympics the three disciplines were merged together, which created an odd look of elite boulder and lead climbers like Brooke Raboutou (fall) and Chaehyuon Seo (10.64) struggle. In 2024, the IOC separated Speed from Boulder and Lead, making for a more representative competition, but still had some athletes, Natalia Grossman, who specialize in Boulder really struggle on Lead, and vice versa.

The separation of the three disciplines will allow for those who do specialize to have a chance at a medal where they would otherwise struggle in the combined event, but this will also likely have us seeing much more specialization across the World Cups. There are also a couple fundamental changes to the competitions this year, with eight athletes making the finals rather than six, and the scoring now being a point system with 10 points for a zone, and 25 for a top with a 0.1 deduction for each attempt after the first.

The women’s qualification and semi finals went rather chalk in terms of those making it through to the next round, with Nekaia Sanders being the last one out in the qualification round, while Mashiro Kuzuu finished ninth in the semifinals and just missed the finals. The final boulders no the women’s side were really tough. Only one climber scored on all three boulders, as Annie Sanders got the zone in boulders one, two, and four, and topped boulder three. Oriane Bertone had the highest score in the semifinals, so she was the last on the mat and came out to boulder four needing a top to take home the title. She flashed the zone but, like every climber before her, failed to top the difficult boulder and Sanders won her second consecutive Boulder World cup. Erin McNeice took home the bronze.

On the men’s side, there were some big names that missed the finals, as Colin Duffy of the United States finished 18th, only scoring on two of the four boulders in the round, and British superstar Toby Roberts failed to top any of the boulders and finished in 15th. In the final, Oren Prihed of Israel failed to top any of the boulders, while Frenchman Paul Jenft only topped one and failed to score on the third. Everyone else topped at least two boulders in the final and scored on every boulder. Maichi Narasaki had an excellent final, topping three of the four and flashing the zone on the fourth, scoring 83.9 points, but ultimately ended up in a distant third place. Sorato Anraku finished second in the semis, so he was second to last on the wall, he entered the final boulder with a 0.2-point lead over Korean Dohyun Lee, meaning a top in two or fewer attempts would guarantee him a gold, and a top on third would land him with tied for first as the worst-case scenario. In typical Anraku fashion, he flashed the boulder and secured gold and finished just 0.3 points shy of a perfect score. Lee wound up topping the problem on his third attempt, scoring 99.3 points in the event, losing by 0.4.

The next World Cup event comes this weekend as the IFSC heads to Wujiang for both Lead and Speed competitions. The Lead competition does have two big names not in the registrant list, as Raboutou and Slovenian superstar and two-time Olympic gold medalist, Janja Garnbret are not among those who will compete. That said, many of the other top female Lead climbers are expected to compete, and could make for an incredibly tight competition.

Andrew Friedman and The Trail of Injuries

Los Angeles Dodgers President of Baseball Operations, Andrew Friedman is one of the more respected executives in the game of baseball. Forging his reputation as a genius during his time with Tampa Bay, consistently turning a team with a shoestring budget into a postseason mainstay, there was a mystique that followed him around. When he joined the Dodgers in 2015, big things were expected. After all, how could they not be, considering he was moving from a franchise that pulled change out of the couch cushions to one that essentially prints money?

It’s a strange thing, fealty. For the perfect example, you can look no further than former President Donald Trump. No matter how vile the rhetoric he spews, his followers will adhere to it as gospel. No matter how many affairs or credible rape allegations he’s hit with, the Christian right will anoint him the second coming of Jesus. No matter how catastrophically he botches the domestic response to a global pandemic, it’s his word that’s taken as scientific truth over the consensus of the virtual unanimity of the world’s credible scientific and medical communities. It defies logic. It defies reason. It defies observable reality. Surely, people cannot be so easily brainwashed.

This is the comparison that suddenly struck me when it came to Friedman. Not to the extent of politics, but sports too, especially in the social media era, is hotly debated. And in far more cases than not, the debate gets personal, and saturated with direct pejoratives. There is no better way to show this than ambling into the lawless shitshow that is the Dodgers Twitter (I refuse to call it X) community and suggest that Friedman isn’t great at his job. I recommend wearing a kevlar vest before doing so.

But let’s start objectively. Is Friedman actually good at his job? Well, the Dodgers, despite being a perennial contender and having not had a high draft pick since… God only knows when, consistently have one of the top rated farm systems in all of baseball. This is due to astute drafting, terrific scouting, and of course significant investment in the international market. All of these things are rightly considered feathers in Friedman’s cap. There are more people who deserve credit than just him, but if you’re the man in charge and it goes right, you get to take that credit.

The star-studded roster is also dotted with guys acquired from other franchises. Mookie Betts via trade. Freddie Freeman via free agency. There was also the Trevor Bauer signing, but without getting into the accusations against him and subsequent fallout, he was the best available free agent pitcher that season and Friedman went out and got him. This is what you want from your front office, right? To go after the biggest fish? There’s a curious asterisk here though, as well. The Dodgers were never seriously engaged on retaining star shortstop Corey Seager, he of the very recent World Series MVP award. Nor were they ever seriously in the Bryce Harper sweepstakes. Neither should really be considered too dark of a blotch on the record for Friedman. Seager was always going to go to the highest bidder. The Dodgers could have offered a billion dollars and if another franchise offered a penny more, that’s where he was going. And there is no alternate universe where Friedman offered a comparable deal for Harper to the 13-year pact he got from the Phillies.

And how about those results!? Playoffs every season. Three World Series appearances… but only one title – the Covid shortened season of 2020. This is where you really start to see the increasingly strange behavior. A title is the pinnacle of achievements for sports franchises and their fans. But mention that Friedman has only one title in his tenure despite the resources at his disposal and you’ll get a smile, a shrug, and some variation of “what can ya do? The playoffs are a crapshoot!”

I’m sorry, what? Sure, a 162 game season is a much larger sample size that gives you a more accurate picture of how good teams are when compared to one another. And yes, weird things can happen in a short series. Mistakes are amplified. Iconic performances are amplified. The best team does not always win. But to reduce it to a coin flip is a jaw-dropping outlook. I always wondered why there were warning labels on paste. Don’t eat this! Well, now I know why, I guess.

If your argument is that the playoffs are a crapshoot, doesn’t your probability of winning that crapshoot get better when you don’t have to run out guys like Billy McKinney, the corpse of Albert Pujols, a seriously injured David Peralta (in the literary world we call this foreshadowing), and more?

Apparently not, because his online legion of sycophants have bestowed nicknames on him like Fleeceman and FriedGOD. Seriously. FriedGOD. Some people were really high on Sheldon Neuse, I guess.

But ok, we’ve established that people at large at prone to cult-like behavior and false idol worship. I guess that baseball fans shouldn’t be expected to be any different.

But there’s something that can’t be explained away. Well, let me hedge that. The delusionals who think it’s Friedman that rises on Easter can probably find a way, but this is a question for the powers that be in baseball. Why are the Dodgers permitted to continually run out clearly injured players in the postseason?

In 2022, the Dodgers elected to keep a clearly injured Blake Treinen on the postseason roster over a clearly healthy Craig Kimbrel. Yes, Treinen is one of the most dominant relievers in baseball when healthy, and Kimbrel is a bit of a roller coaster. But for all his struggles as closer in 2022, Kimbrel pitched fairly well down the stretch in a non closing role. And for all his dominance, what with his 100 mph fastball with video game movement, Treinen had pitched all of six innings in 2022 due to a serious shoulder injury. That didn’t matter to Friedman and company though. They would take him on the roster over Kimbrel – itself a tacit acknowledgement that his acquisition was a failure. It turned out to be a disaster. Treinen was sitting at about 91, threw one horrid inning, and the Dodgers were expelled from the playoffs in humiliating fashion by the Padres.

That was last year. In 2023, Clayton Kershaw pitched the worst postseason start in recorded history. The greatest pitcher of this generation managed to get all of one out, and gave up six earned runs. A month or so later, Kershaw announced that he underwent major shoulder surgery, and had some hope of pitching again in 2024. That he was struggling with shoulder soreness down the stretch was not a secret. But it turned out to be a serious injury. Which they absolutely had to have known about, and threw him out there anyway. Meanwhile, deadline acquisition Ryan Yarbrough who pitched mostly well after joining up from Kansas City was left off the roster.

It was also announced that veteran Dodgers outfielder David Peralta had ligament repair surgery on his left arm after the season. Peralta had played well most of the season and been a positive clubhouse presence with his veteran leadership and amiable personality. But he struggled badly down the stretch and did nothing in the playoffs. Now we know why. Meanwhile, capable young hitters like Jonny DeLuca and Mike Busch were nowhere to be seen.

Two guys with serious injuries, trotted out in the season’s biggest games. The front office absolutely knew the extent of those injuries and did it anyway, same as they did with Treinen in 2022. How this isn’t a bigger scandal is beyond me. It’s borderline criminal. And nobody is even asking the question. I get it. They’re probably afraid of offending the slack-jawed legions of hangerson and having to deal with a bunch of “how dare you”s on Twitter.

I get that too. On the off chance they see this, I might have to move and change my name.

But seriously, isn’t this fireable? Can you imagine a football team in 2023 running out a middle linebacker with a known and diagnosed concussion? Why is it ok for a baseball team to run out a pitcher whose shoulder is known to be confetti? There should be an investigation, and subsequently a reckoning. But there won’t be, because it’s apparently not only the unwashed of Twitter who feel like he can do no wrong.