OK so Dave Morgan is gonna have opinions about this one. He's gonna pull up some efficiency matrix or whatever and tell me why expected points added matters more than vibes. And sure. Fine. But fantasy football is about FEELING something when you check your phone at 1pm on a Sunday. It's about believing in a guy.

And the 2025 season gave us a LOT of guys to believe in.

Yahoo Sports just dropped a piece breaking down what we learned from last season and how it should shape your 2026 draft strategy. I read the whole thing twice because I'm that person who starts prepping in July and you can judge me for it I do not care.

Jaxson Dart is a name you need to know if you don't already. The guy just... plays with something. You watch him and you can tell he actually wants it, like really wants it, and that sounds dumb until you realize how many quarterbacks out there are just collecting checks. Dart makes plays that make you jump off your couch and spill your drink.

Then there's Ashton Jeanty. I mean... this dude ran like every carry was the last play of his life. You couldn't watch him and not feel something. Rookie running backs are always a gamble but Jeanty played like someone who understood the assignment on a molecular level. Every time he touched the ball something good happened. That's not analysis, that's just what I saw with my eyes watching every snap like a lunatic.

Dalton Kincaid is the interesting one for me. Tight end is fantasy football's most heartbreaking position. You draft a guy in the fifth round and he gives you six points and you just sit there staring at your lineup like... why do I do this to myself. But Kincaid showed flashes last season where you saw the ceiling. You saw what he could be when everything clicks. And the lesson from 2025 is pretty simple: trust the talent, but temper the timeline.

Ray Delgado told me last week that fantasy football is the one area where fans and analysts actually care about the same thing, which is production. I think Ray's wrong about that. Fans care about the story. We care about the undrafted guy who becomes a league winner. We care about the rookie who texts his mom after every touchdown.

The Yahoo article gets into specifics about draft positioning and sleepers and all that. Go read it. But the biggest thing I took away from 2025? Don't overthink it. Trust your gut. Draft the guy who makes you excited to watch football on Sunday.

Because that's the whole point. We do this for fun. We do this because sports make us feel alive. And if your fantasy team helps you care about a random Thursday night game between two teams you don't even like, that's pretty great.

(no relation to the guy who writes about numbers stations. as far as I know.)