What to expect from Stealing Signals in 2024
Info on subscription plans, content, and more
Every year around this time I naturally start to get a lot of questions about the different subscription plans and the content that is coming. So every year around this time I’ve written a post like this detailing what to expect.
The first offseason of the newsletter was in 2021, and on August 2 of that year I listed all the premium content I intended to write, including the team-by-team Offseason Stealing Signals series, my full rankings, projections, and five strategy/macro features. Between that post and a separate “in-season preview” I sent out on September 11 that year, I wrote 34 different newsletters, nearly one per day, covering everything I’d said I would but adding tiers content, several reviews of my own drafts (both high stakes and home leagues), rankings updates based on minor news, reactions to major news like a J.K. Dobbins August injury, a couple of my very best evergreen posts on “tacit knowledge” and “antifragility” (which were both unplanned and more spontaneously conceived through inspiration), etc.
All of that came after I’d already been writing in the offseason and had content up through July, and in addition to all of that content I updated my rankings if not daily than every other day, so people drafting at any point during August or early September had fresh, usable cheat sheets, which incorporated all of the latest news through preseason.
On August 3, 2022, I wrote a similar post, and this time I noted my Offseason Stealing Signals columns, rankings, projections, “tiers and targets,” draft reviews, a thing I called “Mailbag Mondays” that I did for a bit, and then said “some one-off features” and explained I wanted to sort of let inspiration dictate those, but that I had some ideas. I’d already written “All roads lead to A.J. Brown” (subtitled: “How to evaluate WRs and fantasy football in general”) that summer, as well as several other offseason pieces, but from that point until my in-season plans post on September 7, I wrote only 24 pieces. Slacker, I know.
Part of that was I did the Offseason Stealing Signals posts two divisions at a time, so they were massive and only accounted for four posts, and part of it was the “Mailbag Mondays” also turned into truly massive posts where I broke down unique league types for hours on end (some of the longest pieces I’ve written, but I’d asked for you guys to submit unique league types, and so I took the time to get to every single one I could, and offer individualized strategy for each, which was probably the most tedious project I’ve ever done here and yet I will always remember the overwhelming appreciation that came of those; I did however have to drop that from the itinerary in future years).
During August, 2022, I also wrote about how “The draft doesn’t care what your needs are,” another evergreen article about how to actually make decisions on draft day, almost trying to approach those key decisions from a psychological perspective. And then that was the August where I sat down and wrote the most read post in the history of this newsletter, “The definitive discussion of how to approach RBs in fantasy football” (subtitled: “Buckle up, because I mean to back up that title”). I’m not sure if I did live up to that boastful title, but I was happy to hear that piece was valuable to a lot of subscribers.
I think you’re understanding where I’m going with this. I’ve been told repeatedly I need to write a book on fantasy football, but your subscription to Stealing Signals gets you access to essentially that. You can go to bengretch.substack.com, search the archive for any topic you might be interested in, and likely find a whole lot of words that detail my thought process around that. If you want info on a really obscure league, search “Mailbag Mondays” and scan those 2022 articles (there are a few of them) and see if some of what I wrote then is applicable today (I tend to try to approach things both for that one year and also from an evergreen angle, so hopefully that would be the case).
As we got into 2023, I almost didn’t even know what to write about. But of course, I’m never at a loss for new ideas.
I got my “Stealing Signals August Plans” post out on August 3 last year, but I’d gotten ahead in July, and had already released 6 of 8 Offseason Stealing Signals posts and my full projections. In that post about what to expect, I listed the final two Offseason Signals posts, tiered rankings, targets and fades articles, draft reviews, and then a couple specific posts but mostly just a generic note about additional posts because I knew I’d add beyond what I was promising (and you knew it, too).
In addition to being ahead on some of the tentpole stuff, I’d already written some more fun posts that offseason like how RPOs change target shares for No. 1 WRs (2023 subsequently saw an extreme uptick in No. 1 WR target shares, as predicted), and how to think about the uncertainty in season-long projections. So you’d be forgiven for thinking with only a couple more Offseason Stealing Signals posts to write in August, I would have written even fewer posts between that “August plans” post and Week 1. You’d of course be wrong.
I wrote a new high 36 posts in that timeframe, taking the extra time I’d afforded myself to put together more nuanced analysis than ever. I wrote about how “Fantasy analysis keeps getting better… and worse,” a look at how to consume content to increase your win rate, I revisited the “7 pillars of good fantasy drafting,” one of my better 2022 pieces that I didn’t mention above, wrote about why the term “regression” is frequently misunderstood in fantasy (subtitle: “We’re looking for outliers”), approached the fantasy football player’s psyche again with “Get comfortable assuming rookies will be stars,” and spent more time focused on helping those of you in home leagues, writing probably the two most clearly accurate pieces I ever have: First, identifying “The most important range of 2023 drafts,” and then the next day leveraging that to clearly state “The best way to play home leagues in 2023,” a strategy I caveated for home leagues because they are looser drafts, but which was so dynamic it crushed for me in high stakes contests on the way to my best season ever (in addition to helping a ton of you win those home leagues, which was incredible to hear about at the end of last season and made 2023 the most rewarding for me yet).
A quick pitch
One of the major advantages I’d argue exists to getting your fantasy content from me, is it’s all in one voice. You have someone working their tail off to make you the best fantasy player you can be, and while I can’t compete with the sites that hire a whole staff of great analysts who are going to uncover more nuggets about different teams across the league — and I’ve always said you should subscribe to both Stealing Signals and at least one other source for more traditional and better updated content — where I can differentiate is I can offer a way more unified approach since I’m covering all these topics myself.
I’ve been at bigger sites, and while many do a great job of helping subscribers get a clear picture of what to do, the simple fact is when you have a team of people with even slightly different opinions on some of the players — which is of course inevitable — they are going to have to come to agreements sometimes, and in some cases the consensus opinion can actually lead you a bit astray. Sometimes you need to commit to something pretty aggressive for it to work; sometimes middling it is the worst approach.
I don’t actually think this is a major issue for most sites, to be clear. But I do think it’s an advantage to Stealing Signals. Whatever your draft goals or approach, I do think you want to be aggressive about pursuing that in a situation where you’re trying to finish first and not seeking to be slightly above average.
What Stealing Signals has always offered is a ton of content that all moves the same direction, with the same opinions and approach. I do also spend a lot of time explaining potential counterarguments to my specific player takes, or reads on situations, so you can feel comfortable diverging where your opinions may disagree. But broadly, Stealing Signals’ goal is to give you a very clear approach that is consistent across all of the content in the newsletter. In short, it’s trying to teach you exactly how I would play things in your league (that link’s to the tacit knowledge piece again, but it’s easily the piece I’ve gotten the most feedback on, so let’s link it twice).
Content to expect
I don’t anticipate writing as many posts this year as I’ve gotten to in the past few years. Writing is hard, and it’s always difficult to see these things coming together in the future in the same way I can look back at what I’ve accomplished and allow myself to feel a little bit of pride (while I’m indulging myself, I’ll note I haven’t yet mentioned the TPRR posts I write each offseason that are the content of my own I look back on most often, nor the introductions to the in-season Stealing Signals columns, which contain massive amounts of evergreen in-season strategy, in addition to several other one-off posts I skipped over as I quickly went through the archives).
One of the reasons I anticipate writing a bit less this year is I’m also doing some more stuff on YouTube (subscribe!), although that will never take precedent over the newsletter. Here are the plans I do have for draft season 2024:
Offseason Stealing Signals — Eight total, one for each division, diving deep into each team and hitting on all the Signal and Noise from my offseason research to lay the foundation for everything else to come. I kicked this off with the AFC South.
Projections and tiered rankings — Projections will release later today, and I anticipate releasing the first version of what will be constantly updating tiered redraft rankings on Tuesday.
Targets and Fades articles — Breaking down my tiered rankings, discussing targets I have a tier ahead of and fades I have a tier below consensus ADP, and why (four articles, one for each major position). I have hit on some of my big targets already, including in “Perfect Storm” candidates for monster 2024 seasons.
Draft strategy — Definitely have strong opinions on structure this year, which I’ve already hit on with stuff like “Early TE is the biggest key to 2024 drafts,” “Hammer the rookie RBs in all formats,” and “One of the biggest reasons Zero RB will smash this year is hiding in plain sight.” (I should note I use “Zero RB” there more from the concept of Zero RB-adjacent ideas, which to me do include some of the Anchor RB structures.) I’ll have a more comprehensive strategy guide, either including home league specific strategy or with that as its own article again, but teaser (which I covered in the recent Reddit AMA) that Anchor RB more than Zero RB is probably my preferred idea in those home leagues.
Draft reviews — Articles breaking down my own teams, including stuff I was trying to do and ways I pivoted when it didn’t work well.
One-off features — Similar to pieces like “The macro trends you need to understand to dominate in fantasy in 2024,” I have a couple other conceptual pieces I have outlined and have wanted to write all offseason on topics I haven’t covered before. I’ll also likely dive into the RB Dead Zone conversation, perhaps dig into Team HVTs in trying to identify backfields with more upside than others, and undoubtedly come up with other topics when inspiration hits.
Once the season hits, you’ll get the acclaimed Stealing Signals recaps breaking down every game, every week, hitting your inbox on Mondays and Tuesdays. I haven’t mapped out the in-season content in its entirety yet, but I’ve also added a late week article, Input Volatility, the past couple seasons. More info on what the in-season schedule will look like as we near the season.
Subscriptions
There are three subscription types: Monthly, Annual, and Signals Gold. Here’s a breakdown of what each gives you.
Monthly ($15) — A popular choice this time of year, because for less than the price of most draft guides, you’ll get everything I referenced above. Just make sure to log into Substack and turn off auto-renew if you only want to hang out for August. No hard feelings on that, but I’ll also pitch that you could stick around for a month or two and get the key early part of the season from the in-season Stealing Signals column that started this all. Last year, after Week 1, the “Biggest Signals” were ranked Puka Nacua and Kyren Williams, and Signals subs prioritized them with FAAB bids.
Annual ($99) — A 12-month rolling subscription where subscribing today gets you access through the end of next July. I do have plans to release offseason best ball rankings starting in the pre-draft period next year, so this plan gets you on board with an increasing amount of early-offseason 2025 content.
Signals Gold ($199) — This was $149 last year, and renewing users will stick at that price. I’m going to leave it at $149 through the weekend, as its the one price change I’m making, and I want to give people a chance to get in at the old price. What Signals Gold offers above the annual subscription is relatively minor, but it’s access to weekly video Q&As on Tuesday nights during the season. The time rotates some depending when I get done with Part 2 of Stealing Signals, but it was typically around 8 or 9 pm ET, and we talked through waivers and some trade options around the individual players discussed in that week’s column. One important note is it’s not a comanager program, where I do ask that the questions are as generally applicable as possible (I can’t spend the whole video with questions about hyperspecific league types, but I’m happy to discuss the relative value of the players impacted by the decisions for those leagues; I ask that the subscribers make the necessary adjustments, for the most part, to their league types, if that makes sense). I also intend to make time for at least one private Q&A in August for Signals Gold subscribers, with a date TBD, but likely sometime around August 20-25 or so. In both cases, the videos are unlisted on YouTube, so the only people watching live are Signals Gold subscribers who get the link privately. A change this year is I intend to post the videos to my YouTube later in the week, because to be frank I need in-season content for my YouTube and there’s a lot of content/analysis there, as we always went at least an hour and often two. But those will post publicly after waivers clear, probably on Thursday morning. An additional Signals Gold feature is a private chat in the Stealing Signals Discord for Signals Gold subscribers, though I only get to questions there as I’m available (similar to the broader Discord, where I’m not very active, but it does exist for those of you who want to chat with other subscribers; here’s an invite to the free area).
So that’s how I foresee the various subscriptions existing this year. I also sometimes reference that I’ve made myself available for draft consultations in August in the past, so if you’re interested in booking a one on one call for a half hour or an hour, feel free to message me privately to set that up. To be clear, that’s an additional charge, and while I love doing those and have been able to accommodate several the past couple years, space would be limited if it came to that.
Whew, boy. There is nothing more exhausting for me than self promotion/marketing. Luckily, I do feel confident the work speaks for itself. I can’t imagine 2024 could possibly go as well as 2023, but we’ll do everything we can to keep that pendulum from swinging back. If you’re new around here, or if this post is where you’re signing up for the first time, the links here should be helpful in getting you up to speed (and that might be somewhat necessary to follow along well, as the focus here tends to be on new topics more than repeating concepts, but we definitely cover stuff multiple ways).
I’m looking forward to an another awesome year in 2024! Let’s crush it!
You got a sub for life Ben, keep up the great work.
As usual your content is always top notch