The best 15 fantasy football podcasts of 2018
Everything you need to listen to for NFL, fantasy football, gambling, and more in the podcast world
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Let’s face it, life is busy. Fantasy football season is here, and you just haven’t had time to prepare. Maybe you need a quick podcast for your commute and your draft is tomorrow night. Or perhaps you’ve done your homework but are looking for a few new insights and opinions. Luckily, there are a wealth of great NFL and fantasy football podcasts in 2018 for anyone and everyone.
I didn’t listen to them all. But I listened to a bunch, at least 2 or 3 episodes from about 25 good ol’ American football podcasts. I’m a team #2xNation (shouts Rachel Nichols) and needed to get ready for the season anyway, so I took everything in. Some podcasts are full of numbers, others opinions. Some are guys that played for decades. Others are from nerds like me who’ve spent years watching and calculating Excel databases. But they all love football.
Below are the 15 best football podcasts I found. Not all of them are fantasy-focused. There’s a few that are just awesome NFL talk and a couple with great gambling insights too. Take a look. Promise you’ll find something new you like or your money back guaranteed…
The Action Network NFL Podcast
My prize discovery. These three guys have each has done their own work and bring their own informed opinions to the mix. That often leads to thoughtful disagreements full of great nuggets, like a long A.J. Green vs Keenan Allen argument. These guys just think about fantasy football the right way. They talk about range of outcomes and consider floors and ceilings, and they really hit the numbers, which is what this is all about. They also mix in gambling talk, some over/unders, etc, and this just feels like a podcast attuned to the modern football conversation. I listened to one podcast and immediately downloaded the last 15 or so including everything on their rankings. My only critique is I wish they’d dig one step further sometimes on numbers, but this one’s a keeper and moves to the top of my list.
Grade: A
The Bill Barnwell Show
Bill Barnwell is a longtime football guy, someone I used to play in fantasy when names like Daunte Culpepper and Edgerrin James ruled the day. Barnwell wrote formerly with Football Outsiders and Grantland (RIP) and really knows his stuff. The typical format is Barnwell with a guest, and he gets great guests since he works at ESPN. This is not fantasy, just great NFL talk that will add to your depth and understanding of the game. Barnwell has a nice congeniality and a good rapport with guests, so it’s an easy listen. This is a go-to during the season with a pair of pods each week, one recapping takeaways from each game and the other previewing the next week. Both are great. And as an added bonus, Barnwell has an inspirational weight-loss journey. Give him a listen — you’ll understand and enjoy football more.
Grade: A-
ESPN Fantasy Focus
I couldn’t make it through either podcast I tried. I immediately went to 2x, found myself skipping ahead, and it just didn’t interest me. If you like listening to Matthew Berry ramble on with his usual drivel, maybe you’ll be more interested. These podcasts are like his articles. He talks almost 10 minutes before even getting to football. Just not for me and never has been. There are others on this pod that are better, and I swear by my guy Mike Clay, but I’ll just read Clay’s articles and skip this podcast. The conversation is long, meandering, and nondescript without timestamps. Pass.
Grade: D
Fantasy Feast Podcast
A little of this, a little of that. The Tiers of Evan series was interesting as fantasy stalwart Evan Silva walked through the tiers of his positional rankings. But this just felt all over the map, with a lot of different guests from other podcasts, and the information came across generic. I listened on 2x and it still felt slow. Not one I’ll be checking back on.
Grade: C-
Fantasy Footballers
Easily the most entertaining fantasy podcast I found. Just a delight, really. It felt like sitting down to talk fantasy with a bunch of your buddies. It’s a handful of guys, and you can immediately hear the great rapport between them. They remind me of The Starters, one of my favorite NBA podcasts, and that’s quite the compliment. I just had fun with these guys. I didn’t find the podcasts particularly chock-full of fantasy insights, but that’s because I’m already in pretty deep. This is the perfect fantasy podcast for a casual to intermediate fan or player. This podcast has apparently won a ton of awards, and it’s easy to see why. A good listen for any football fan.
Grade: A
Fantasy Forensics
This podcast only comes out once a week, and that probably works in-season, but it’s just not enough this time of year and that left a lot of the information quickly outdated. They had an interesting foray into Zero RB and Zero WR strategies but didn’t give me a ton of information I didn’t already know. I could take or leave this one.
Grade: C
Fantasy Pros Fantasy Football Podcast
This was a good solid “B” podcast. These guys do their homework and had some interesting numbers. They have nice rapport and decent insights. There are a ton of ads but good timestamps and description make things easy to navigate. But there are a few too many cliches for me. I heard “they drafted him for a reason” about a rookie three times in one pod, and not every rookie gets to play right away. On another pod, they ranked WR2s from each team but compared them as though WR2 is equal on every team when some teams give the RB or TE more attention and leave the “WR2” more like the fourth target. This podcast was just fine.
Grade: B
Get Paid
A pretty straight forward sports gambling pod with occasional DFS insights as well. It’s two guys breaking down any and every gambling line in the sports world. I found myself interested in the topics available but didn’t feel like they added much value to the conversation. It felt like a lot of surface-level analysis, and anyone can have an opinion about a line. There are terrific timestamps, so that helps find something quickly. It’s a good idea but the execution left me wanting. I may check back in-season.
Grade: B
Harris Fantasy Football Podcast
This is from Christopher Harris, a longtime fantasy analyst from ESPN. I’ve known Harris’s work a long time and respect it a lot. He does all of his own work, his own research and projections and everything else before ever consulting ADP tools or other things. Because Harris produces a ton of fantasy content on his own, most of it is behind a paywall, and he toots his horn a lot on the podcast. I get it, but it gets a little old.
The best thing about Harris is he sticks to football and has unique opinions since he does his own work, but I didn’t hear any super unique insights. Nothing in particular made me rush back for another listen. His recent Flag Players series was interesting, a list of ten “his guys” that he’s planting his flag on for the year.
Grade: B+
In This League Fantasy Football
The “In This League” team does a handful of different podcasts, some for each spots, but not much stood out to me. This is just guys talking football, and I didn’t get the sense they really knew their stuff or did much homework going in. They did little guessing games that showed they didn’t even know simple numbers like which players had double-digit TDs last year or 100+ receptions, staple things for any fantasy analyst to know. These are really long meandering pods with vague descriptions and no timestamps.
Grade: C-
NFL Talking Heads
This was the most unique fantasy podcast I found, in a great way. These guys released a 12-part draft special series on August 12, and the best thing about Talking Heads is that they take interesting angles and give you something different. They had one podcast analyzing early-season schedule to see which players will have increased trade value early. They looked at second- and third-year breakout candidates and considered guys age 30+ that might be due to drop off. Their “Same Player Different Round” was especially unique as they noted similar players like Sammy Watkins and Kenny Stills with wildly varying ADPs. They did start repeating player analysis a bit, but this one’s definitely added to the rotation.
Grade: A-
PFF Fantasy Football Podcast with Jeff Ratcliffe
Like anything Pro Football Focus (PFF) does, these are top notch. It’s just Ratcliffe, which admittedly gets a bit monotonous, but the podcast is meant to inform, not entertain, and it does so brilliantly. I found myself jotting down interesting stats and notes every podcast, great little morsels told in a direct, succinct way. These are smart, well-informed takes. Each podcast is around a half hour and jam-packed (though timestamps would be nice). It’s hard to come up with something new and interesting every day but Ratcliffe does it, and at 2x-speed, you can knock one out in 10 or 15 minutes. There are season-long and DFS nuggets here. I listened to three right off the bat and immediately downloaded eight more, and this one is now in the rotation.
Grade: A-
Rotoworld Football Podcast
I saw a few people talking about one of the Rotoworld pods on Twitter, calling it one of the best of the year. I’ve followed Evan Silva’s work a long time and he’s one of the big names in fantasy, and he and his team go through each preseason game and talk about key players and takeaways. They know their football. But I didn’t always feel the fantasy analysis matched the same level. Silva admitted several times that if he saw something he liked in a player preseason, he would jump them 10 or 15 spots in his rankings. That’s just too reactionary for me in a game predicated on numbers, and that’s just not my style of fantasy football. I’d be happy to listen to these guys talk football, but this is not how I process or think about fantasy football.
Grade: B
The Simms and Lefkoe Podcast
The good news is this isn’t Phil Simms … it’s his son Chris, another former NFL quarterback. This is just two guys who know their stuff talking football. They’re interesting enough and have good radio voices, if you’re into that sort of thing. They reminded me of a Chris Vernon show. This is just football talk, not fantasy. Watch the language, if you’re at work or with kids. High production value here, but it wasn’t particularly insightful.
Grade: C-
The Ringer NFL Show (Robert Mays and Kevin Clark)
The one football podcast I listen to first every time. You won’t find two guys who know the game better or love it more. Mays and Clark just LOVE football. You can hear it in their voices. They bring the game to life and add so much insight and knowledge. I’d love to hear them do an NFL game sometime. I’ve learned so much about football from this pod. Very highly recommended. Note that I am specifically recommending Mays and Clark, as there’s also a few others on the same podcast name. I won’t touch any of the Michael Lombardi cliches, but the recent “Dantasy” pods show some promise.
Grade: A+
What other podcasts did I miss, or what are your favorites? NFL, fantasy football, gambling, or all of the above, leave a comment below!
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