Mike Wright

So it seems like if your quarterback missed a bunch of games, Daniel Jones, Anthony Richardson, Tua, you got like the free pass this year. Is that the Mike McCarthy prognostication there? We'll find out. Because he's a winner, Jason. He is a winner. He wins Super Bowl a long time ago.

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Zach Taylor drives me crazy. I don't know that he is a bad coach. Like, I'm not saying he is just bad. You should fire him. But he definitely makes very bad decisions.

frequently so you are you do get your feathers in game he drives me nuts so I don't know whatever he's got Joe Burrow so he wins a lot of games hard to fire him but I think they could do a lot better than Zach Taylor and just imagine just imagine like oh there's all these coaching openings right and it's like the coaches right Ben Johnson is the bell of the ball this year he's gonna get to pick where he wants to go now just imagine one of these spots has Joe Burrow

Can I change my pick? I don't think they need Zay Flowers to beat the Steelers.

Last I saw was nine and a half point favorites over the Steelers. They need Zay Flowers.

Assuming that it's going to be the Bills. They would need them there.

Oh, man.

It's so not fair because, I mean, I would be impressed if somehow they kept him out of this game because in the situation where he would need to not play, that they would actually not play him. But the whole world knows.

That was very, very close to me, but I did not.

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I love that he got benched when he wasn't playing well enough and got brought back because really it's a confidence thing. That's when you watch Bryce Young play the last month and a half, two months. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. He looks so much more confident.

Welcome in. It's baseball time. No. Redo it. Redo it. Redo the show. Start over. It's not baseball time? No, it's never baseball time. Look at your compadre over here. Your best friend's wearing a... It's hoodie time. I'll grant you that. He's wearing a twins hoodie. Yeah.

The first month of the season had one total passing touchdown. And now he has the second most for a rookie quarterback. Let me ask you this. The last eight games, so the second half of the season, Bo Nix. How many passing touchdowns do you think that pace would be? The entire second half of the season for Bo Nix.

With 4,300 passing yards. Let's go. I mean, the offense has been... That's what Mike's talking about. He wants them youngsters.

Marvin Mims, two more touchdowns. Dude, he's coming alive. I loved him coming out of college. It's nice to see them actually use him.

44-point-something.

I thought that's what he was trying to say. People wear Yankees gear all the time just for fashion. They're not baseball fans.

Yeah, I agree. He still looks like a rookie, but he showed enough to wear your glass half full going forward.

I'm going to be completely honest. When the game came around and Sunday morning started, we were talking about Blackshear, and all of a sudden Miles Sanders was in the game. I was like, Miles Sanders? I didn't know he was active or going to play football this week. And not only did he play football, but he got 17 carries, 50 receiving yards, two touchdowns. Okay.

All on the ground. He had literally not a single target in that game, which feels stupid.

He's so good.

I mean, I just assumed.

I think he's a talented ancillary piece of a wide receiver core. Yeah, I can agree with that.

Right. Are you speaking NFL landscape or fantasy?

Why is it just them? You ever think of that?

I still think probably a three.

Did you mention Drake London's 18 targets?

I mean, in the games with Michael Penix.

Yeah, he's targeted on 41% of his routes, which is number one in the NFL.

I literally have no idea what you're talking about. Maybe you could hit a little better if the hitters showed up. Is there a part of baseball where only pitchers and catchers show up? It's the spring training.

I'm pretty in on Drake London, yeah. I think Pennix can get the job done. I mean, he's the wide receiver six this year.

So it's, you know, in the end.

I think next year he'll probably be more like wide receiver eight or nine, but he'll be a wide receiver one by ADP for sure.

If he's gone – Godwin was so good this year. He was, but I get it. He's older, coming off of an injury. McMillan's breakout, you're going to have a lot of conversation down the road of – you know, is this Jahan Dotson scored more touchdowns than he should have? Or is this Amon Ross St. Brown, the end of year breakout where you just couldn't be stopped.

Yeah.

I don't know why. I mean, I guess you got OTAs in football where it's just the offense. It's like, well, why is the defense there? It's because, like, well, the offense is more important.

Wait, OTAs is only offense? No. That's not true? No. Weirdo. What am I thinking of? That's how you think of it because it's your players you're paying attention to.

That's all we need for the drop, baby. Will Disley! Yee-haw!

Well, he'll probably get tickets. Yeah, he's an NFL player.

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Yeah, but you might be ejected for having a weapon on the field.

Of course it's steel. I know a thing or two about metal, okay? That is pure steel.

I'll kick us off with the performance of the year. Which single week performance was the most impressive? You had Josh Allen's week 14 where he put up 51 fantasy points. You had Saquon Barkley's crazy 44 points. We had actually this year a lot.

Of these massive 43-point performances like Alvin Kamara in Week 2, Jonathan Taylor's Week 16 explosion makeup for his drop in the touchdown, Jamar Chase put up a 50-burger in Week 10 versus Baltimore, and Brock Bowers, as a rookie, had a 25-point performance in Week 13.

Yeah, I mean, Chris Olave's name is Christian. It is. So Christian Watson. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Yeah, unlike the big performance of the year, which I feel like we had five of them that were bigger than the biggest last year. This year we had the Waver Wire Wonder, which undrafted Waver Wire stud was the best pickup of the season. Last year, Kyron Williams was great. I didn't feel like this year was as strong. You had Baker Mayfield, Sam Donald, good at the quarterback position.

Jawan Jennings, Darnell Mooney, and then Jonu Smith at tight end, and Bucky Irving, a later season pickup. This one was tough.

McCaffrey, Kirk, Watson, Godwin, Olave. Are there any? Okay, so let's focus on the Christian here. Come on, man. Are there any other fantasy football relevant humans named Christian? Or are they all down? Or did we go four for four? Did we take them all out? Christian Gonzalez just got hurt for the New England Patriots. Doesn't count. This is a fantasy show, but that's a good point. Did he?

Yes.

Oh, no. Goodness gracious.

Golly, man. What in the world?

Look out. Oh, all right. There's none left. Kyle, get on it. Let's see if there's any left, and then we can get some.

Christian Watson, Christian McCaffrey, Christian Kirk, and Christian Olave.

Chosen whatever. Whatever his name is today, I don't know.

He brought a lot of people to the championship.

Yeah, he was better at the start of the year. The wide receiver of the year. Last year was CeeDee Lamb stacking with Dak. This year. That was a good year. Yeah, for you. Jamar Chase, who finished as the wide receiver one, drafted as the wide receiver four, was obviously outstanding. Terry McLaurin, drafted as the wide receiver 32, finishes the wide receiver six, finally got himself a quarterback.

And then you got a couple of breakout rookies. Brian Thomas Jr., who finished as the wide receiver four in his rookie season, as the wide receiver 47 drafted, and Malik Nabors, wide receiver seven finished, drafted as the wide receiver 22. Yeah.

Would you rather have him or Amari Cooper? Oh, man. Can't believe the meat of that trade. Whoops-a-doozles.

All right, we also have Rookie of the Year, who was also Puka Nakua last year. Puka was dominant. I'm surprised Puka wasn't the waiver wire wonder. I mean, Kyron was great, too.

But, yeah, last year. He could have done the clean sweep there. The Rookie of the Year this year, the names are obvious. A lot of the names that we just talked about as a breakout, Jaden Daniels, Brian Thomas Jr., Malik Neighbors, and Brock Powers. Four studs. You know what?

Winners in the end.

The morning started really – Slow and wonky, but towards the end of the morning games, especially when there was like the back and forth between the Falcons outcome versus the Buccaneers outcome that there was a lot of exciting stuff. Unfortunately, the the incredible. Incredible, much-anticipated game that we were waiting for between the Vikings and the Lions did not come to fruition.

No one can. No one can. He also won't remember that he was nominated. Right, so maybe don't vote for him because he won't know.

Oh, because he could see it.

Yeah. Isn't there something neat about that? That's my name. When did I get this?

We have the Playoff King Award, who drove fantasy managers to a championship during the most important weeks, 15, 16, and 17. Last year was Kyron Williams, who was the running back 5, 11, and 1 through those weeks. This year at quarterback, we had Jared Goff, Jaden Daniels, Baker Mayfield, all hitting top 10 performances in all three weeks. You had Jonathan Taylor, who was...

Running back 17, that was the first week of the playoffs where he dropped the ball, had a minus eight point play. But then he was the running back one and the running back one. So if you were in the playoffs, you knew it. Jameer Gibbs. Running back 3, 7, and 2, Brian Thomas Jr., 4, 3, and 14 wide receiver finishes. Tee Higgins, he was the wide receiver 14-16 championship week.

He was the number one wide receiver. Or Sam Laporta, who you kind of forgot about early on, but top six wide receiver each of the three playoff weeks, including a tight end one finish.

Hey, I believe that's all rectified.

It would be two comments in a row. Yeah, the next comment would be, oh, wait, my bad. Good job. You got me.

This will be an interesting race. And there you go. I want to watch the top 10 video clip. So if you want to watch the top 10 video clip as well, go to footyawards.com. The link will be in that. So it's a good time voting on these. Make your voice heard. You see all the commercials last November about get out to vote. This is what it was about. This is all it was talking about.

It was talking about footyawards.com.

Woo, pitchers and catchers, you're the only ones allowed.

And it's really nice because you can't just do the classic March Madness bracket because the NFL recedes. So depending on who you pick, it doesn't just always go like your classic piece of paper bracket where, well, then that team goes and plays this team from that side of the bracket. So it makes it really, really nice for you. Very easy.

Brooksy and Schneider did a great job putting that together.

I have it Philadelphia v. Kansas City.

Boo! Hey, I know, and I've got Kansas City.

Big ref over here. I've got Big Red winning another one.

Basic.

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And that was not the reason he got fired. He got fired not because he wasted away that first pick, but because he was not a good enough head coach. I mean, that was just the truth. He was not ready for this job. Even, you know, Kraft came out and talked about how...

When the interviews, when he was coming up, Gerard Mayo was coming up for other interviews, he got scared that he was going to lose him and that he was the heir apparent. He was kind of that handpicked guy, so he put him in. I mean, the truth was he just wasn't that guy, and if you know it, you know it.

Yeah, that's some good ball by the Bills.

But they also, I mean, it's easier to win when you put in your star rookie quarterback. And that's what happened for the first time all season for the Patriots.

Bazooka Joe.

Like a year or two. Give him a couple years and let him go out on top. Yeah. Tell him to retire. Like, well, I'm not going to fire you, but just retire because you're doing awesome.

I definitely think retaining Brian Dayball is the right route here. He appears to me still to be a good coach. He's been working with not a lot, so I don't know about the GM situation, but Dayball is the type of guy that I think if they let him go, he would be interviewed immediately for at least that coaching jobs or go get another OC job.

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Right at the end. Yeah.

Down the stretch. I mean, you had one of the worst games of the season, of the whole season. One of the most surprising outcomes in week 17 to let the Colts win. just get annihilated by a team they were super favored over where they had to win. When that game ended, I thought Steichen would not be back, but this is also a team that has not been that bad.

They were in the playoff hunt last year and this year. It didn't happen, but this isn't a team that – I think continuity also matters, so probably a good move.

For a redraft, not Dynasty. Because obviously Dynasty is Mark Andrews. Yeah.

Right now, I would go Kelsey.

Yeah, basically. I mean, it could go either way.

Honestly, and what I was just bringing up, so obviously if they cut him, he'll have to go – wait, would he have to go through the waiver system at his year in the NFL? I don't know that off the top of my head. Kyle, vet that.

Okay, so then if he is completely a free agent, I actually think he is –

the most valuable asset that any team can go get he's not worth trading for the current contract and giving up extra stuff for an older veteran but there are wide receiver needy teams and if he is out there he will he will have a lot of he will be hyper specific on where he wants to go yeah you know it's in it i think it will potentially come with rogers so we'll we'll see Yeah.

I can see him just going to the Niners.

I don't blame him. I don't blame him, man. What he put on the field last year was not special. Oh, man. It was an average running back. And I hope this coming season it's awesome, you know, that the team can commit to him. He could be one of, if not their best offensive weapon. He is still so young. And prior to this season. He'll be 24 this year. Incredibly explosive.

This last year, I mean, we watched, you know, we watch everything. But it was just you would compare him to other players that made things happen on their own, and you'd just be like, well, Brees used to always hit that edge.

I don't think the Packers would give up a first plus one of their wide receivers for DK Metcalf.

Yeah, I'm guessing they're floating their second round pick, which feels fair to both parties, to be honest.

Dude, I need to get rid of this trophy soon, and I'm telling you guys right now, you're going to want to stop drinking whatever's in your cup over the next month during our show. You're going to Mission Impossible him? A little food poisoning? Yeah, I'm thinking Dumb and Dumber him, but you're going to be sitting on the toilet.

Down the hatch.

The Saints have done that for going on like 13 years. Every year they have no cap space. They restructure some guys.

When they finally decide we cannot kick the can down the road anymore, which I don't know that they will ever do, but if they do, they will have the fastest route to the first pick in the draft because that thing will burn to the ground.

And the cap going up so much this year. I mean, it's similar last year, but these are massive jumps. Teams have to spend at least 89% of the cap. So it's $279 million this year. That means a lot of these teams, even the kind of penny-pinching teams, they have to spend some big contracts. And one thing that I find, I don't even understand how it works.

So the NFL as a whole must spend at least 95% of the cap. individual teams need to spend at least 89% of the cap. But how do you hold someone accountable on that?

Yeah, if the whole league is at 94%. How do you tell that team? You go to the cheap team? You go to the cheap team. You've got to give out another contract.

Jason, please. Sure, I'll kick it off. This was the one that really shocked you. I have Sam Darnold next year playing for the Minnesota Vikings. I don't think it is ruled out that they would bring him back, especially on a franchise tag. Bring him back for one year. That better happen quick. Well, right, sure. But this team won a lot of games.

They were inches away, basically, or one very bad game away from From being the number one seed, and I think they don't know what they have in McCarthy, Darnold coming back makes sense if they can find a good enough deal for the Vikings.

Now, if Sam Darnold goes out and has teams that are just money hand over fist, we believe in you, we're going to build our franchise around you based on what we saw last year. then he'll leave. But I just don't know if there are teams out there that are going to really, really, really do that. If there is one that's going to do that, I think it's your pick, Mike. All right. But I don't know.

I wouldn't do it. So you're going with the Vikings, Mike.

Yeah, I agree completely. I've got him going to the Browns. If it happens at the top of the draft, kind of like what you're saying, and Shador isn't or Dart, if those guys aren't the right fit and they want to take a defensive piece, I think the Browns might be able to get Cam at two. I would be shocked if Cam doesn't go one.

Because not necessarily to the Titans, but it seems like other teams, whether it's the Jets. Yeah, I saw the Giants rumors. The Giants trading up to one. Those rumors are flying. Or the Browns.

Absolutely. But if they don't, then I think Fields makes a lot of sense for their team.

That's the new, just let him compete. We've dropped him out of the kitchen completely. Let him find his way to the kitchen. I've got Russ going back to the Steelers. I do, too. The Steelers kind of seem like they're going to pick one of these two guys and sign them to a contract, so I've got them picking Russ since they picked Russ Lester.

okay as a backup so I think it makes sense get Jones draft a running back later yeah I could see them doing that I have him um going out and trying to get a contract anywhere he can and I've got him going to the Browns is everyone going to the Browns Jay well two of the players so far that I've mentioned are going to the Browns it will be him and Justin Fields

I have him going to a team with massive amounts of cap room to be able to spend on a running back. They already spent cash on a running back. They did, which they still need running back help. And I think Drake May could use a veteran, someone that can come in there and establish it. So I've got Najee going to the Patriots.

I've got him going to the Bears to be kind of the David Montgomery. It would have been great if you said Browns again. Going to the Bears to be that David Montgomery to DeAndre Swift, kind of the poor man's version of the Lions.

I've got him going to the Colts to be a backup. I know a lot of times when you're doing the free agents, it's always like who needs a starting running back, but they need someone better behind the oft-injured Jonathan Taylor.

Yeah, that's where he should go. The Raiders are where I've got him going. I've got him going there too. They are in desperate need of help, and he's available.

Oh, my gosh.

Don't you dare steal this guy. It's like a joke. It's like trying to get someone to clean up your dog poop. Like, I've got a really nice pooper scooper. You should check this out. Why don't you use it?

Yeah, exactly. Just try it out.

Who's that? The Panthers. Yeah. Yeah. I was waiting for Adam Thielen to chime in. Oh, I'm so sorry. He's asleep. Yeah. It's nap time. So I think they've got enough money. They're trying to get some weapons for Bryce Young and there's not a ton out there. Big enough for the both of us. Yeah. I will go with the Ravens. That team's going to be sponsored by Metamucil. When you need to stay regular.

Ironic, because the quarterback's name is Young.

I think that would be pretty easy.

58 more receptions this year, and he enters the top 10 all-time.

That would be so much fun. That's what I'll go with. That would be really great. I have him going to the Chiefs. He has played some really good football. The last couple years, he's looked great. And DeAndre Hopkins is not under contract. Juju is... This is basically... I think an upgrade right now, even though he's older for Patrick Mahomes, his play style to come in. This is a player.

I didn't know I was getting a drum roll.

I think maybe he will take less money because he's at the point where he'd love to just chase that championship. Sure. Uh, chiefs can't afford much. So maybe he'll come in a little bit cheap. All right.

Uh-huh. And then Amari Cooper. I've got the Saints. I think Amari Cooper going to the Saints is perfect. It's just been like Mike. Is this the huge debate as to who the Saints are going to grab between these two players?

Because I do think you can change midseason if you're great. Amari Cooper was a great – he went to a wide receiver needy team with a great quarterback and did jack squat. Now, granted, didn't he break his arm or wrist or something shortly after getting there?

Wait a minute. Did you know there was going to be a drum roll? No. That was a surprise.

Shattered his arm from his shoulder to his finger. They removed his arm, right? Played like it.

Ooh.

Either way, you ruined all anticipation. You just shouted the name. No, I didn't. I had just said Jay Rego. It is Janine Rego. Someone else out there might be like Josh Rego, and they're like, oh, I won. No, you didn't. Janine Rego, you were the one selected.

I agree completely.

I love Devontae Smith, but T. Higgins, when he has been on the field for the Bengals, is a fantasy star more than you realize. The injuries have plagued him, and that would be a reason to maybe go Devontae Smith. But I don't think that the injuries are just a guarantee to always happen. I don't think he is injury prone. I think he's just had injuries. We've seen that in lots of players.

And if he's on the field, he is more valuable for fantasy on the Bengals offense with the Bengals defense than Devontae Smith is on the current version of the Eagles. TTT.

That's dangerous.

Middle of the second round, non-super flex rookie pick. Would you rather have Isaiah Pacheco or the second round?

Obviously, if they were to roll back to the... Go into 2025 the way they went into 2024, Isaiah Pacheco would be great for fantasy. I don't believe that's going to happen. He didn't come back strong from the injuries. In the final year of his rookie deal, they need future anyways. And with a deep running back draft class, I think they're going to bring someone else...

talented in, and then that could just completely ruin Isaiah Pacheco, both immediate term and long term.

Veteran. Yeah, I would say veteran. I mean, if you say, you know, Darnold or, you know, Shador Sanders, it's definitely Darnold.

I think it would be pretty much all of the veterans.

if that were the case, or that would be my hope. Well, the nice thing is if you've got Rodgers, he's clearly a stopgap. They're still looking for their quarterback of the future. I don't believe this draft class for quarterbacks is great.

So I would rather them go with – like if I've got Brock Bowers from a dynasty perspective, if I get Rodgers this year and then they're probably going to be bad, then maybe they can get a quality quarterback next year that over the next eight, nine years is better than –

If you're not a Shador Sanders believer and that's the guy that's falling to them, then that ruins Brock Barrett or could potentially ruin him for four years while they figure that out.

Yeah, there were players that stood out for better or worse. You had Tez Johnson, itty-bitty baby boy.

Yeah, Caleb Johnson was surprisingly slow on the 40. That one makes no sense.

He's not a good sprinter. He ran a 4.57. I think he is a good running back.

Yeah, his official score, I believe, was a 4.57, which was just slower than what you thought you might see on tape. And truly, he hit 22.2 miles per hour in a game last year. Which should just be what you know. Well, that's what happened with Puka. Puka ran slow, but they had the tracking of him hitting, I think it was 22 miles per hour in college.

It's like, okay, so on the football field, he's fast, right? In underwear doing a track and field style sprint, you're not as fast. Which one do you want to play football?

Yeah, guys that help their stock. Omari and Hampton.

really showed out across the the gamut you know his his 40-yard dash 446 that's you know it's not breaking records but that's really fast for a guy that weighs in at 220 pounds all of his athletic measurables put him as an elite athlete I think he I think he combined himself into the first round he was a borderline first round pick yeah and and when I look at this but the thing is is with Hampton he projects to be a three down back like that is his skill set he was a a a

pass protector pass catcher in college and he's big he can do it all and so I do feel like for him for fantasy football purposes I want that team investment I want a team to spend a first rounder on him because then I know he's going to get the ball a ton I think he combined his way into that role yeah a lot of excitement around Hampton let's talk some more news news and notes from around the league

I don't think so. I feel like Debo's going to come here and help the team a little bit. Not a ton. They did need this. We've been talking about it. This is a... outlandishly bad, or outlandish is the wrong word. It is a very, very unusual wide receiver draft class for recent history. The prospects are not as good as they usually are coming out into the draft.

A haboob rolled through. Those are fun when you're outside.

And then, with T. Higgins getting tagged, the free agent pool of wide receivers, there's not much there. So if you want, if your team needs a wide receiver, there's one way to do it. And that's a trade for a guy. That's why I think DK Metcalf... probably will get traded because there's going to be teams that need to trade to address their wide receiver position.

They can't necessarily do it in the draft or in free agency. To me, Debo will be a mild addition to this team. And I'm excited for Ricky Pearsall and the opportunities there. You've got Brandon Ayuk, who is, we don't know when he'll be back. Right now, I think the projection is probably start on the pup. But if he doesn't, he's not going to be full strength.

It'll be really interesting to see where Jennings is drafted because Jawan Jennings was a stud at certain points last year, and it seems like they really need him now.

Yeah, and so going forward, this is great for Puka, the fantasy value of Kyron Williams. I think that those two guys – I mean, Puka, you can make a strong argument that he should be the number two wide receiver behind Jamar Chase. Yeah. Anywhere there from like two to five or something, there's kind of a group of awesome wide receivers.

But he very likely could – I mean, he was on a points per game basis if you take out his injured game, he was the number two wide receiver last year.

Yeah, I think we are happy that Kelsey is back. Titans six. He is still, you know, if you were to remove Travis Kelsey's name and just have tightened X. Would you rather have him or Andrews?

Your guess is as good as mine.

Looks like ten.

One every two catches is a huge touchdown.

I mean, that's wild. Like, when you look at his game log, a consistency rank of 12, yeah, I don't know. It just feels strong with the amount of red in there. I mean, you have 23% of his games, it was a bust, but he had so many really high-level finishes.

38% great. Like that for Mike Evans.

Yeah.

Julio Jones, same thing.

A little bit lower than that. What you know for sure is.

They will do their best to get him 1,000 yards. That will be in play because then Kyle, he's tied right now with Jerry Rice. Am I remembering that right? That's correct. So if he gets it this year, then that's Mike Evans' record of most consecutive 1,000-yard seasons, right?

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I don't know what to do with this one, yeah.

If you were playing Jerry Judy over the first half of the year, it was detrimental to your fantasy football lineup.

It was Cedric Tillman at the beginning.

Yes.

Is that the Watson injury game? I'm not sure the specifics of it. Week seven was the Watson injury. 39% of snaps for Watson that week.

He's so bizarre, though. Jerry Judy has underperformed pretty drastically your hopes and your dreams for when he was drafted. He was in the Jefferson draft. Oh, yeah. Jefferson draft class. CD Lamb. Where Judy was the second wide receiver. I think you had Ruggs first. But it had been four years in Denver where you had an end of season.

You had one okay one, 972 yards, six touchdowns in year three with the Denver Broncos. But it's been an underperformance as a whole. And then you get the first half of this. But then now is this a the genie's out and the team's like, holy crap, we didn't even realize that this was part of the range of outcomes for Jerry Judy, which if you remember, they got him and they extended him.

Jason's not here. Well, he is.

Put a 200-yard game in there. It'll help.

Is this the Jameis Winston? Is it Devontae Parker? Right. Like the round one wide receiver who gives you very little, and then year five you're like, Holy crap, Terry. I knew it. I knew I should believe in Jerry Judy the whole time. And then you go, oh, no, no.

Yeah, we were about to hit record. Yeah. But he's not here. No, he is in the Slack saying, there's no way. This is a fake out. You're faking me out.

Yeah, he went nuclear. And when you compare him to other rookies, what they have already given us in the NFL, guys who were drafted in rounds one through three, Ladd is in the 80th percentile for targets per route run. We love that. Yards per route run, fourth best over the last decade. He's right there with Beckham, A.J. Brown, and Justin Jefferson in terms of a per route basis. So this is...

This is a player who is on a rocket. Could the pendulum swing too far for left? Let me give it to you.

Yeah, so best balls for the absolute degenerates and maniacs out there. Best ball is open if you want to have a good time. But right now, we're seeing an early best ball ADP of wide receiver 10th.

Yeah, this one is brutal because I want to be all chips in on Ladd, but that wide receiver 10 is a

Oh, man. It's as spicy as it gets.

Yeah, like that is projecting a very big jump.

Did we talk about they'll probably have a new OC. Well, not probably. Most likely they will with Kellen Moore. Yeah, how does that make you feel? Being lined up for the Saints job.

Brown? I'll be on the Nabors side. Yeah. Brown will be a fringe wide receiver one in terms of ADP. And I know he finishes.

The big games in the back. I mean, you have an overall number one. Big games in the back. Yeah, big back Jordan Addison. He had a number one overall finish. Two weeks later, he was number three with actually more points than he scored in his number one output. So when you, like those types of performances, that's multiple games in one. So it juices you up to wide receiver 16.

Right. Part two. Right. That's somebody else.

19 touchdowns through two seasons.

Yeah.

Hilton had some good years. That sounds pretty. Well, Hilton never got the nine touchdowns.

No, this is fantastic. I mean, it's February. We'll get into the content. Jason Moore will be here eventually. Jason Moore, when he is done doing whatever he's doing.

Two.

I will. You will? I will. You? Yeah. You've been hurt so much. But here's the thing is, like, yes, there are many pains, but there are many pains from many fantasy football wide receivers out there who can't give you what T. Higgins can give you.

I wouldn't go there, but I would say that T. Higgins, yeah, he hasn't been a top 15 guy, but in three of five seasons, he's been wide receiver 22, 17, 19.

I think it is, if it's a place that I would project as good as the Chargers, it would probably be neutral because I think he can go be a number one. But this isn't like, I don't think he can be Jamar Chase. He can't be Jefferson, but he could be like Mike Evans numbers. T. Higgins can do that.

I mean, there was no football. There was a Pro Bowl, I guess. Oh, my gosh. I saw some clips online of like the receivers putting on gigantic hands.

Yeah.

Well, hold on. It was announced he was hurt like an hour after I drafted him.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I know more about that than I know about the Pro Bowl.

Yeah, he was a playoff guy.

I thought you were going to go a different direction with your saying it like how you were on this podcast last year. giving the warnings of Brandon Iyuk, who was on a great team, a high-powered offense, has a good defense, has this unbelievable level of efficiency where Iyuk, the magical year two years ago, he was at... 17.9 yards per reception on 75 catches, 75 touchdowns. Jamison Williams.

75 touchdowns. Sorry, seven. Jamison Williams, 58 catches, 17.3, seven touchdowns. Very similar. Very similar. He was incredibly efficient. Big play dependent. Volume can go up for Jamison Williams. 91 targets. That's a number that you could see going up, but it's – I think he is difficult because it was so it was a huge place and those can bounce back and forth.

I'm not saying he can't kind of replicate this, but it is very difficult.

Yeah. Kyle has won that argument two of three years. So the point is still on his side.

I got it. I got you.

We did what you asked, sir. We replaced the hole.

And he was interesting of he was far more productive against man coverage instead of zone. So maybe the downtick there that we mentioned at the top of the show of defenses running zone going down a little bit because, like, man, yards per route run, it's over three. Like, that's incredible. And then zone, it was down under two yards per route run. So it may be more –

predictable with moving forward with him with that information if we can get a hold of which defenses are preferring to go with man coverage. I mean, it makes sense for the prototype of wide receiver that he is. He's the traditional X wide receiver where it's like the bigger guy, let's let him win a 50-50 ball.

Puka and Nico are easy.

Yeah, and the reason I wouldn't say he's the biggest bust in fantasy football last year is like that whole first half. Week one was great. He was the QB4. They lose Tua for a huge stretch of games. You blamed it all on that. You didn't think it would be that bad as it was where, I mean, he's like in the 50s. He did nothing without Tua. And then Tua comes back, and you got something.

Tyreek Hill wasn't unplayable. Travis Etienne, if you put him in the lineup, you knew you were going to get punched in the face. But Tyreek, he's at least giving you games. He's just not giving you anything close to the wide receiver one.

Yeah. Home leagues, you mean?

Everyone needs a good backup quarterback, but they really need to.

They need Joe Flacco.

Yeah, you need someone like that where you can feel confident that if Tua misses a couple games, we're not just buried in the bottom of the ocean. Give me Jameis or give me death. Well, we like Jameis for fantasy. I don't know if people want Jameis to win football games.

1,718.

Oh, for the Saints?

30?

Yeah, I was with you. I thought it was fake. I think I even saw it and didn't post it into our basketball channel because I'm like,

you don't want to be you're not getting me on this one and then you post it and i'm like i guess this is real and then like i didn't want to share it to my other friends groups because i thought this is fake and people are going to laugh about how dumb this trade is not that luca got traded but just the compensation is it doesn't make any sense

Mission accomplished. I've seen those. Those seem too many layers into the conspiracy. You're down the rabbit hole, but, like, at this point. What other explanation makes sense?

Which I analyzed it again, and it really takes it over the top, is watch the eyebrows. Is that what it is? Because one is up, kind of like the rock, and then it's due, and then vol, the other one, flies up.

So you've been spending some time with this.

I told you, I can't get enough.

Jay Grizz.

Yeah, I mean, this is what happens. And that's what makes the loss just even tougher, as you know. You knew that things were going to get pillaged there.

That's the rumor mill. Essentially, it's his job. But nothing's official.

Or is this waiting for – Well, they could have bought – I thought that Belichick had like a $10 million buyout.

Belichick didn't have a job. Like, he could have been hired. So that's – I don't –

when you're talking about jerry jones i don't think it's wrong to think what what's the master plan yeah what circus show does he have lined up but like looking out there it's i don't know you have time for a bridge years no i don't think so i think he's hiring schottenheimer to be the head coach going forward yeah he jerry jerry likes to think he's really good at the general managing

They need Aaron Jones.

It's not meaningless for Anthony Richardson.

I think plans have changed. I don't think he's going to be driving anytime soon.

Yeah.

Whoops. Whoopsies.

Bad timing. Consequences for your actions. Free speech. You say what you want.

There you go. A couple of years. Did you say the part, Andy, of the Titans have said both Mason Rudolph and Will Evans will play for the Titans? Yeah.

When you got two quarterbacks, how many quarterbacks you got? You got zero. You got zero.

Callahan, brother, you know. You've seen enough. You know. You saw it week one. You're like, that's all I need to know. Because then it happened again in week two. This is not the answer.

Just hit the outro button right now.

Al Borland, the king. Give him the applause, Jason. The people love it.

They're not trading May.

I don't think that's happened. But, I mean, someone can trade up to get the number one pick.

But you could be wrong. That would be insanity. Drake May looks like he has a future.

Thank you.

There was further reports, too, of like Wentz might not even play the whole game.

I think it's McElbow. Yeah, yeah. It's McGroin. Thank you.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that was a good time.

I would love if they don't even hand the ball off. Take a knee. On his one snap, just have Josh Allen take a knee, lose a yard, and then run off the field. It would be electric.

Take a knee or go for the touchdown.

Super Bowl goes away.

It's 101. If it was like 50...

I can see him going for it, but, you know.

He was just beating the crap out of the defense.

Yeah, I don't know how Tomlin will handle it.

You see the Jonu Smith one? So it's Jonu Smith can earn an additional $400,000 if the team has top 20 points scored or net yards. and he plays 59% of the snaps. To get there, he would have to play 100% of the snaps this week. Oh, my gosh. So we'll see on that one.

And they're playing for a playoff spot too.

Yeah.

But it's like – If they take him off the field one time, he loses that?

He'll be out on the field just like laying down.

Because obviously if they're not – They've been scoring a lot of points. Top 20 in score net yards seems like it.

Did Brian just stay up 48 straight hours? Oh, they had this prepped. No question. No, you did.

Oh, that's so sad. In case you lost. Hey, you know what? Sometimes you don't have to tell everybody everything. You can just be like.

Wait, wait, wait. You were trying to make them feel good by reminding them. You need to evaluate of what you think would make people feel better. Yeah, my bad. Because telling me I would have been in the graphic had Jameer Gibbs not run a 30-yard touchdown with three minutes left.

I told you that to make you feel better.

Remember her? Anyway, yes. They paid for it.

They paid for a big cake, too. They threw it out. But they paid for a huge cake for you. It would have been great.

Oh, I feel way better. All right. Thank you.

Oh, yes. Oh, yes.

Congratulations. But not Mike. No, I didn't win.

You know how the Oscar people, they put their movie out in December? Like all the Chalamet talk for the Bob Dylan movie, whatever it's called. And they're like, oh, he's going to win Best Actor. Yeah, we just kind of sneak it in at the end. Because that's when everyone is not really paying attention, but you are.

Yeah, we had to go to the vehicle.

Mims is hard to trust. It's a little janky. But the snaps the last two weeks are at 47% where he's been a mid-20s type of a player. So has he solidified that spot? I don't think we know for sure. It's sketchy.

I need an IV. I'm very dehydrated.

Yeah, and we're still waiting on who is the quarterback. You're waiting on Jalen Waddle. The last news I saw on Waddle was actually more positive that he might play. and the news on Tua is seemingly negative.

But the grass was destroyed.

Players were slipping all over the place. Is your Oconquo belief and faith still strong if you're like, they're going to be rotating guys?

Do you prefer Broncos, Buccaneers, or Dolphins? Their roster percentage is pretty close.

I'm sure they covered our tickets. Yeah.

I like him.

Stroud. Since the return from the benching, he has been a much better fantasy quarterback.

And I'm going with Russ against Cincinnati. You've got to be locked into the news of what Mike Tomlin is saying is going to happen because we laid it out. They will know if they need to win the game or not to try and get the division. But the matchup is there. It's the second highest total of the week right now. And, dude, Cincinnati, this is the team we want to play against.

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Debo, at least he had a fantastic game. He had a catch. He had a catch, guys.

Hiring Indeed is all you need.

How did you not make Jeremy do it? He's the champ. I do what I want.

The britches are getting big. The britches were prepped.

Yeah, yeah.

Oh, my gosh. He's my co-manager.

I mean, that changed rapidly. Yeah. They sold you down the river.

People are always shocked about that. It is actually very detrimental to your wallet to win.

hire a maryland monroe yeah and buy signs everywhere banners and we're getting written up by the by the complex yeah saying that we're not allowed to put banners up don't tell me what i can't do i'm the champ so lady yeah you you win negative money yeah but i had already looked into like but it's marching bands yeah how if i could rent a few cheerleaders to cheer every pick i

All day.

Some leagues people will reach at the end of the first. Otherwise, they'll be mid-second at the latest.

I think Bowers will go ahead of Brian Thomas.

It might be a good reason. I'm sure there's going to be plenty of discourse of, well, like, is Bowers going to Laporta? To me, the answer is absolutely not. Laporta, it was a really low-scoring tight end year last season, and it was not done on volume. It was done on touchdowns.

Laporta's coming through in the playoffs because he's scoring a bunch of touchdowns, where Brock Bowers is a new Travis Kelsey, where he's the focal point of the Raiders' offense for the foreseeable future.

It was – that was a bad one.

Yeah, he did. He's catching passes.

But even if they do, Bowers – They'll have a rookie quarterback too.

Bowers has 1,150 yards with a game left, and Laporta last year finished the season at 17 games with under 900 yards.

He could be close. This wasn't an argument.

McBride has 104 receptions. Bowers is at 108. McBride and also McBride is one game fewer. So McBride's at 15 games.

And like the the beginning of Travis Kelsey's career, five, five, four. Then then it went up and you had a run where he's hitting double digit touchdowns.

We do have a piece of news that actually is important for waivers. Brown's running back, Pierce Strong, is in the concussion protocol.

Deonta Foreman is in a really, really bad situation, but the running backs are right now a flow chart of injuries where you know that Foreman's going to get the ball a lot. Can he do anything against the Ravens? I don't know.

It's been great. But we did it.

Oh, I'm cheered up. I'm good. I'm on to 2025.

Yes, but at the same time, had that not happened, that victory was going to feel so, so, so good. And unfortunately, we're down to three minutes, and the Lions are having just an incredible drive of melting out the clock. And it was, they're going to do it. Like, they didn't have to score. They just needed to eat the clock up.

But then San Francisco is so inept on their rushing defense that Jameer Gibbs ripped off the 30. I mean, every time Jameer Gibbs touched the ball.

Yeah, he threw that up early, the score of the League of Records.

Every time Gibbs touched the ball last night was like, Terror. He could go. Yes.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, that would have been cool, too.

Or Ford mid-game.

Yeah. Yeah, just a full game of Jerome Ford I would have won. And also, I mean, like a shout-out to Sam Laporta, who, like if people stuck with Sam Laporta.

He had a massive run. The three playoff weeks, tight end won. I mean, 14.6, 12.3, 15.4. Yeah, he was very good. Laporta came through in the clutch when he was – I mean, halfway through the season, he was like – every single week is, do I drop Sam Laporta? Do I drop Sam Laporta? And he – Really, I feel like – If you held on, you were rewarded.

Garendo is still the, he's scored almost 12 points.

Yeah, I mean, the producer's got a lot of power here.

Does that feel like Gibbs ran a 30-yard touchdown with three minutes left?

Oh, well, he was almost the biggest.

I mean, they're tied as the first person in next year's listener. Right. Because the listener league winner. Yes. Team name, Boomin Newman. Yeah, Jared. Username, Jared Actor, which we have not got to the bottom of. Is it Jared Actor? I'm not sure if he's an actor or if this is a dinosaur thing. Yeah, is this a pterodactyl reference, but... Probably a dinosaur reference. Jared Hector.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Give yourself a couple weeks or wake up to an alarm and come into work and talk about how awesome it was that everybody won a bunch of championships. One of those things you could choose to do.

Because once you get – There was a fumble by Debo, which I was like, what if that – After the Gibbs touchdown.

I, of course, finished watching the game just in case they did an end around with Debo and he fumbled it. Because it would have – It would have been enough to win.

Of course I'm going to watch through.

But, yeah. That's it.

Oh, did that one get changed too?

Is it going to work? Al, you've got to fire that one off back there.

I don't know if our sponsors approved two ugly guys on that drop.

Your co-manager is the graphic guy. Oh, that's a good point. The producer with the guy who does the graphics. That's a pretty good combo for some celebration. God.

I thought he had the Tommy John surgery.

But it's a nerve issue. His face on the sideline. He was almost crying. Because I'm sure inside his brain he went, it happened again. It happened again. I'm trying to sign a contract to be the franchise quarterback for the 49ers, and it freaking happened again.

We really hope that he's okay.

There is some weirdness, though, because the I think they're the Saturday game. I know the Steelers play before the Ravens. Kyle, is that is that correct? Because like there's some weirdness of.

Oh, I had it flip-flopped. Okay, so the Steelers will know if they have a chance to win the division or not. Right, right. And they won't.

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. There is no... No effort?

You just move the hair.

Push the down arrow. Hold shift, push down like three times, and you're good. This is not hard.

Well, enjoy that, Foot Clan.

Right in line with what we're used to seeing, 46 last year, 45 the year before, 49 the year before this. We bring this stat up every single season in the draft time when you're talking about quarterback strategy for the streaming option for the late-round quarterback people out there and in here. There are options from the waivers that you will never think of

For instance, Malik Willis had a top 12. Drew Locke. Drew Locke had the epic game. Man, if anyone played Drew Locke in that game.

Yeah, he didn't start either. So no one, for fantasy purposes, started. We should really have this number be 43. Okay.

Outright busts are easier to deal with. If you got Travis Etienne, you moved on. You weren't spending every single week thinking, oh, I got to find a way. I think I should start Travis Etienne this week. You just went, well, that sucks. You lit the pick on fire, and you found someone else to try to get you fantasy points. Kyler, the whole season... I mean, the thing is 44% of his games were bust.

That is awful. And he was so much worse in the second half because the first half of the season, his consistency score was number five. So he really was like the drug you shouldn't have. It's like, Ooh, you like this. This feels good. You've got something nice here. Boom. You're addicted. Now you're on the streets. That was Kyler. Yeah, Kyler had a... Putting people on the streets?

Yeah, I mean, homeless. This was a situation where you ended up in a meth house if you kept with Kyler Murray all season long.

You think you've got a floor. Usually with mobile rushing quarterbacks, it's like, well, we know he's going to get 30, 40, 50 yards a game, so you're starting with a 3, 4, 5-point baseline in fantasy points scored. But the issue with Kyler this year... was sometimes he just didn't run. And that was the success or failure for fantasy purposes.

In games where he had 20 or more rushing yards, he averaged 21 fantasy points per game. Yay, great. But then in games where he had fewer than 20 rushing yards, it was 12.5 fantasy points. There were so many times as a Cardinal fan that I'm watching these games. I'm like, why aren't you running there? Scramble. You have a superpower.

You literally are so much faster than everyone on the field, and he just chooses to not exploit it.

If he's a ninth round pick, he's one of those mobile quarterbacks that falls towards the double digit rounds. You highlight and target those guys. That's why Jaden Daniels was my guy for Andy because he was the last drafted quarterback that

Yeah, that worked out pretty well. But this is the truth series. You're also going to go into next year seeing, hey, Kyler was a top 10 quarterback this year in fantasy. He finished as the quarterback 10. I mean, that was not the experience, and so I think you've got to pump the brakes and be cautious next year when drafting him.

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That's what I was going to bring up. I think in super flex leagues, Brock Purdy is a name that I will be much more excited about because he is pretty consistent. He was the consistency rank of number eight. So that's great if you're drafting him as your second quarterback. The issue with Brock Purdy, and I think you will always have this issue, is the lack of great games.

He only had two games that qualified as great this season. He's not going to win you a championship. If you're in a single quarterback league, he's not taking you beyond the playoffs to win championships. It's just not his style because this is a run-first team. If they're doing great, they're going to have rushing touchdowns.

Man, those were the good old days. Because I don't think that's what we're going to get at all. Those two teams are not the same. No. And one of those two teams is the worst. Just the absolute worst.

Yeah, I really do think he will be. Harbaugh wants to play defense and run the ball, but he was a quarterback, and he sees what he has in Justin Herbert. I mean, you just watch how he talks about Justin Herbert. Find yourself someone who loves you the way that he loves Justin Herbert.

The first month of the season, when they started out running, playing defense, they were only letting Herbert throw the ball 22 times a game on average. From that point forward, they had their bye week, and you saw 31 pass attempts a game. the rest of the season to a lot of success. I think they'll end up with a better weapon or two. I expect them to really try to get a tight end.

Maybe Tyler Warren, the rookie, I think he'll be associated with this team. Will Disley is fun. We love playing the drop. But his utilization showed how good a legitimately good tight end would be for this team. That would help in the run game. You know, kind of a dual threat tight end would be great.

So I think the talent of Herbert will not, you know, it won't be put to the side over the next five years for fantasy purposes.

They were 4-2, and they never recovered from the Hail Mary.

The normal NFL plays were not there for Caleb Williams. No, no sustained drive. He showed flashes of why he was drafted number one. I saw enough to believe that he will get better. I think bringing in Ben Johnson as the head coach is fantastic news for hopefully being able to develop Caleb Williams and give him a system where, hey, let's learn how to take the easy stuff

The on-time stuff, like let's work on you being on time. Hit that leg, hit that third, that fifth step, drop.

Unload. Bite your knee. Use the slot receiver more. I think that this will be really good for Caleb Williams' progress going forward. But rookie year was overall a disaster. The few games he had that were good were against Carolina, Jacksonville, Indy. The end of the year, a couple games against Detroit when they lost all their defensive players.

For the most part, when he played top half defenses, he was abysmal.

I'm on the optimistic side, but it's not... Like 70? No, I think I'm more like 60%. I think it's going to work out. I'll be interested in two years.

Yeah, yeah. He did have... I think he was playing the VR at half speed. You know what I mean? That's what it seemed like. It's so much faster. It's like, dude, speed it up in that VR.

That's my way of playing the video game.

We almost took him out of here. We took a couple of quarterbacks out to talk about. We're not going to talk about Aaron Rodgers today. Like you're just not even worth it? Yeah, it's just not worth it.

Some of those weeks, if you remember how the season got started, because we don't do this based on quarterback rank. We do it based on score. So, like, the first two weeks were great for him. You know, he was the quarterback seven, quarterback five, and that was maybe okay for fantasy. But as far as his performance, he didn't get 18 points in either of those weeks.

It wasn't a really good fantasy performance. It just kind of the league stunk to start the weeks.

Yeah, they're also clearly going to move on from Tyler Lockett. He's going to cost them too much money. So maybe at this point in the career it's addition by subtraction, but it is subtraction of a really valuable asset that Geno's used for the last several years.

Really? I do.

Yeah, I mean, we don't know if he's going to play football next year and he stunk this year. What was the truth? The truth is he stunk this year.

Based off of what evidence?

Yeah, the data was between the ears. Just both your eyes and your brain. If you watched it, it was not a good experience. And I doubt he plays football next year. It's certainly not going to be for the Jets. And I don't look out there and see a bunch of franchises that are like, I want to do what the Jets did this last year.

So here's the truth. The truth for Jordan Love, and we talked about it throughout the season. It was a touchdown problem. in part caused by Josh Jacobs' greatness. Josh Jacobs, to start the season, we spoke about the touchdown regression, how many carries he had without scoring a touchdown on the season, and that pendulum, I mean, that thing got momentum the other direction and flew off the

whatever the middle part of a pendulum is.

The last 10, the hanger? I don't know. What?

I'm saying this thing, it was propelled and it flew off because Josh Jacobs scored two or three touchdowns, it seems like, every single week. The last 10 games, Jordan Love, who last season and to start this season, His touchdown percentage was really, really good. He was great in the red zone. He always got it done there.

flopping is a 15 yard foul flopping should be penalized for sure so that you don't not incentivize doing it because in truth it's a smart play like he should do that if this was if i'm a chiefs fan i'd be like why didn't you throw your hands up and fall over because draw the penalty there's nothing to lose only 15 yards to gain yeah first down 100 so i put a poll out this morning because i love i love greatness i i

And then the last 10 games of the season, if you put that on a 17 full season game pace, 17 total touchdowns. You can't have that for fantasy.

So going forward next year, do you expect them to continue the recipe of writing Josh Jacobs and making that the foundation of this offense? Yes.

He's the quintessential pocket passer that is good enough to have a great season. and not great enough to be reliable the way that Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow, to me, if he doesn't get injured, he will be good as a pocket passer every single season for fantasy football purposes. A Jordan Love, a C.J.

Stroud, these guys have to have the phenomenal passing touchdown season, and that's just not a sticky stat.

There's not a bunch to discuss. He was very mid-level, and I really wanted to make sure that in today's episode we got to Anthony Richardson and Bryce Young. Oh, I can't wait. Those two players have a little bit more conversation needed for next year.

This was, I would say, a pretty good hit for us in draft season. He was on our bust list in the ultimate draft kit. We brought up a lot of the similarities between Baker Mayfield's amazing rookie season when they then bring in Odell Beckham Jr. And it's hard to remember it, but sophomore year, he was the most overdrafted.

It's a guarantee that you're going to see a complete level up, which needs to happen to be drafted that high. And you just don't want to draft guys at the presumed level up that we haven't seen yet. None of us thought it would be this bad by any means. I mean, C.J. Stroud was one of the most fun players to watch in his rookie season.

I grew up, I mean, we all did. We grew up diehard Phoenix Suns fans. Like in Arizona, that was all there was. And our Charles Barkley era, we didn't get a championship. Why? Because of Michael Jordan. Michael Jordan stopped us from having enjoyment in life. Dude, I love Michael Jordan. Everyone loved Michael. You didn't get tired of watching Jordan Jordan. You were like, that's greatness.

And going forward now, I think there are a lot of questions, especially for fantasy purposes, is very Jordan Love.

Yeah, even these really, really bad fantasy games, you don't watch from an NFL perspective and think, man, C.J. Stroud, he really doesn't have it. Oh, he's not that good. It wasn't like that.

Yes, it was Joe Mixon, the same way with Josh Jacobs for Jordan Love. It was C.J. Stroud is playing good ball. He's doing what he needs to win NFL games. But for fantasy football purposes, he's not running the ball. And if the touchdowns go in the running game, which now with Joe Mixon instead of Damian Pierce, a lot more likely – That's just not okay for fantasy.

If you don't throw at least two passing touchdowns in a game while you're not a mobile rushing quarterback, you're taking an L at that position.

5.9. Mike was the one that really, you know,

I think the Raiders need to hire Bobby Slowik. I would love to see that as their head coach.

Yeah, just take them off this team so they got to get Stroud someone new.

Where's Jaden Daniels go next year? Like second, third round? He will go very early.

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I think that is going to be what the case is.

Yeah, I don't know how much I want to give credence to the narrative of the concussion worries. Get the ball out quick. Don't let plays develop down the field that can put Tua at more risk. It still worked. You know, they won games down the stretch where they were really close. You know, they started so poorly, especially with Tua's injury, lost a lot of games.

They dug themselves a hole that wasn't really their fault, and they did get close to the playoffs. So you can't really argue it didn't work. And even from a fantasy perspective, the second half he was the consistency rank of the quarterback 14, not winning you championships by any means, but so much better than what we saw earlier in the season.

I would imagine it's more of the same, especially since they decided to keep McDonald's at head coach. He's McDonald's now? Yeah, he's always been McDonald's. You don't know, do you? No. Yeah, he's been McDonald's.

That's Seattle. No. He's McDaniels. No. Check tape. McDonald's. Kyle. Kyle. But that's not his name.

No, I know. I know. But where it started, I'm pretty confident that McDonald's was Mike McDaniel.

Oh, okay.

Checkdowns and bombs. I'm going to say he's 10th.

I can't stand the Chiefs. And 76% are on I can't stand the Chiefs.

On deep throws or just in general?

We'll go 43.

I'm crushing this.

Like, I don't think he checked down a lot. He had screens, but he didn't check down.

Well, look at his second half, right? We talk about the consistency score in the second half. He was number five. That's because in those games that he did play, and he exited some of those. He had 28 points, 20 points, 21 points in three of the five. The others, though, 13.9 and 13, it's really – you can get big game-winning performances with him.

That might be true. Genuinely, to start next season, if a month in he's played four bad games, they're going to put the hook out there and pull him off stage.

We did not see on film. things that made me believe it will get fixed. But what we did see on film was incredible ability when it worked. His deep passes that connected were amazing. His physicality, his running ability, and goal line touchdowns were what you want. They were Josh Allen, Jalen Hurts-esque. And so this is a player because of how

bad he was so often, I don't think he gets gassed up next year.

That was the worst thing I've ever seen.

Why did you come off the field? Were you hurt? Oh, no, I was just tired.

He levels up or he flames out. You're right, Andy. He's not going to be the quarterback for 17 games next year unless he is good. So I will be drafting him next year.

The hope for him has always been, and the reason he was drafted so high is really Josh Allen and the transition that he was able to make as a quarterback that had a 50%-ish completion percentage for a year and a half. And then they got Stephon Diggs. He leveled up. He became a good quarterback. more consistent.

If you watch the first year or two of Josh Allen, you got head-scratching throws that were just like, man.

Now that we know, let's just ask Who that guy? That guy and like five VR headsets.

That was something. That was out of control. It's all right. Only two pumps. Yeah, three is the penalty. Yeah. The nice thing is, you know, the second half of the year, and for fantasy purposes, what I hope we get from Bryce Young, I think a lot of times he's really seen or assumed because he was a timing passer and he's a smaller guy that's not this –

incredible athlete that he's pure pocket passer but you know after that bye week when he got back in he was on pace for 432 rushing yards that is a real that's that's a dual threat you know that's kind of the numbers we're talking about with with Bo Nix where you you have games where he's rushing for 30 to 50 yards it's not every game but at least it can provide you a way for they're going to add another wide receiver here right they tried to get Deontay Johnson to fix the problem

And, uh, I've got good news for you right now. It appears to be 23 degrees and 17 mile an hour winds for the upcoming contest. So I don't think we're going to get that crazy, amazing back and forth affair.

I think he'll be a very good quarterback two to draft in fantasy. When we're looking at these guys who are going to be drafted, either not drafted in single quarterbacks or if you're in a super flex league and they're drafted 13 through –

through 32 he'll probably be a better value than the guys around him the truth about Bryce Young is that he will be an NFL quarterback I think for a little while which didn't seem like was going to be the case when Andy Dalton took over it is really nice to be drafted with the number one pick because I think if he was a second round if he was a Will Levis he never would have gotten the opportunity again

Saquon is breaking it. Yeah, you looked at me like you had stared at these documents. Dude, he's not number one. I mean, I'm going to auto-make him number one because according to our metrics.

Well, we don't have a historical comp for, like, games over 30 points. Like, he's not getting enough credit for the incredible games, which he had five of.

Yeah? Wow. They really are.

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Always seems so calm, under pressure. The moments don't seem to get to him. He does not appear rookie-like in any way, shape, or form. And I know, going back to the VR thing, when we were talking about him as a college prospect, he was talking about that was what he was giving credit for His transition from the ASU quarterback we saw to the LSU sensation, he said it was the VR stuff.

So I didn't know until this weekend that when he was... And Malik neighbors.

And Brian Thomas Jr. The weapons certainly helped, but he doesn't have them for the commanders. It is interesting. I'm sure next year a lot of programs will be picking up the VR headsets, putting them on, saying less Call of Duty, more VR.

It's just sad because, like, I've already seen the tweets. You know, you knew they were coming. It was so predictable that, like, oh, Lamar can't win in the playoffs. It's like, Lamar, what's not? I know Lamar had the phone, but Lamar was there. He was, you know, they could win the game if Mark Andrews catches the two-point conversion that was in his hands.

The turnovers were huge this week. If you look at the losing teams, all four losing teams – outgained the winning teams in total yardage the the texans the lions the rams and the ravens all had more production in yardage but lost the game yep yep yep all right uh let's talk some more news news and notes from around the league presented by usaa insurance

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Oh, they can absolutely. If there's anyone that can do it, it's Jerry.

You don't usually see the gray beards so manicured.

Oh, yeah. Dude, he could get a great beard dye commercial.

And they didn't have Diggs. They didn't have Tank Dell.

Yeah, it was tough sledding. But, yeah, I mean, I think right now you have to – You go into next year assuming you don't have Tank Dell. Certainly for fantasy football, he's not going to be on the radar.

It sounded like he plans to play next year, but not sure how well. You know, he's not sure, you know, what type of player he is anymore.

I think he could go Adam Thielen somewhere. You know what I mean? Go and be a productive player for a team that needs someone, and we're going to break. Sorry, Coop. We love you. Big Cooper Cup fan, but we got it.

Touch of gray for Cooper? He will be 32 next year. Jokes to be made, you know?

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Clearly, Mike has not discovered the Iams for people yet. No, he'd be healthy. Not a healthy coat right now.

David Montgomery is out for the year. That was the news we missed. It broke moments after releasing yesterday's show. Out for the year.

Welcome in. Here we are. Round two. December 17th. The Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Semi-final week in the majority of fantasy leagues. But maybe more important than all of that, the Monday Night Football games are over.

It's a devastating blow. I know there are teams with buys. Maybe Montgomery didn't get you through last week with that performance, but... I know Kyle the Borgogan. He's got a team on a bye. He wasn't very happy about this, and it's because Montgomery's been so solid.

Derek Carr probably not back before the end of the season. We got word that his broken hand is a few weeks away. Alvin Kamara undergoing more tests on the injured groin.

You just paid Alvin Kamara. Why would you put him out there?

You're waiting for him for the next season.

And you're going into Lambeau on Monday night.

I have made, like, in the one team that I have in the semifinals with him, he's on the bench. I'm not expecting to have him. I'm not expecting to play him, and I'm not sure he's worth the wait in this Green Bay matchup.

How do they give him a full allotment of snaps, though?

I'm doing the exact same thing with Romandre. I'm playing Romandre Sunday morning instead of Kamara on Monday.

I really, yeah, this is one of the biggest stories heading into the semifinal week is certainty on Alvin Kamara and then by extension certainty on Kendrick Miller as a start. He could get a lot of checkdowns. He can catch the football.

You could be in a sincere McCormick situation.

Joe Mixon talked about it, the hip drop tackle. D'Amico Ryan says he came out fine. Joe will be fine. It just freaks me out, man, because Joe Mixon – That's a fart in the wind, man.

You're saying that we need to wait and see what the practice reports say.

Houston is sitting at 9-5. There is a chance that they could take the two-seed from Buffalo. Yeah, in your bra. There's two. Well, I mean, yeah, Buffalo would have to lose. You ready for this schedule for Buffalo? Uh-huh. New England this week, and then the Jets, and then New England.

No, no. So that's that's freaky. That that's that's a scary one to me. And we'll be monitoring it. Patrick Mahomes might be out in Week 16. They still have a two-game lead on the 1C. By the way, Houston's the Saturday game this week. We have multiple Saturday games this week. And then there's a Christmas game the next week for championship week. But isn't there a matchup this week?

Wait, there's a Christmas?

You don't have to watch them anymore.

It's both. Christmasfootball.com. We own that, right?

All right. We own them all, baby. This is where the money is made. We license that out. Bingo, bingo.

Goes up. Gino Smith, hopeful to practice this week. Al is having a good time back there. Jalen Waddle will not need surgery on his knee. Nothing major in question for the week.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, the truth is there's a lot of stuff we're monitoring this week, and it's Tuesday, and it's waiver day, and we'll talk about options if you need them, and then we will keep track of stuff and let you know what to do this weekend.

Mike is a man of fewer words than a man of few words would be.

Yeah, if I told you he was healthy right now, how confident would you be to put him in your lineup next week? Mildly? Yeah, barely. Barely? All right. I think that is it by way of news. Is there anything else, Al? Have you got anything for us? I think you got it. Any other of my players on my roster getting stronger heading into the semifinal?

So he gets his name mentioned because he's got his appendix? No appendix? No, he gets his name mentioned.

No, he won't. You don't think he's playing this week? I mean, active or not, he's the third, fourth string on this team. I mean, Chris Brooks has looked good. No, he hasn't. Okay. All right. Yeah, the unplayed Marshawn Lloyd. Take it from Jason, the start of the week. That was today's News & Notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com. We'll take a break.

We'll talk about waivers not named Marshawn Lloyd.

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And that beard was $2 on Timu. Yeah.

$2 for 10 wigs? I'd like one wig for $10 that doesn't fall apart.

Yeah, we suffered for multiple weeks. All right, running backs. Now, I am, on first glance, not seeing Lloyd in this list, but I am seeing Jerome Ford at the tippy top of this list, who has a magnificent matchup, who, in my opinion, on film, watching him every week, has looked like not just a better runner than Nick Chubb, but a pretty... Good runner, receiver all year long. So Jerome Ford?

I believe he switched over to mash reruns. Yes. I mean, I think that's what he put the theme song like that. Yeah, no, I think, uh, I think he was disappointed. I think that would have been a pick me up. Maybe you would have seen him today. Uh, but we don't know. We don't know when he'll be back.

You also need to remember that before Chubb returned, when he was more of the full-time back, he was on pace for 72 receptions on the season. I think it's going to be Dorian Thompson-Robinson for multiple reasons. I don't think it does the team any good to put Winston out there anymore.

I also believe that if you don't come out and basically say, hey, Jameis is our guy right after the game, more often than not, It's not that guy, so that can help the running game. I think Dorian Thompson-Robinson can help the running game.

I don't think the numbers back that up.

I disagree. I disagree.

James Winston was on base for 700-plus attempts. The offensive system and the focus on the running game, which is what made the Browns running backs valuable for years, was predicated on them not throwing the ball 700 times a year. And it's not like Jameis Winston. I mean, what'd they score? Six points or something last week? I mean, they have not been moving the ball down into scoring range.

So to me, I'm indifferent on the total touchdown situation there. And I think they hand the ball off. I think it's a game plan built not around Jerry Judy, but built around Jerome Ford. And that's all I'm saying. I'm not saying that the offense will score more points, but I'm saying that he'll get more opportunities than he would have with Winston.

It's been – yeah, it's unfortunate that we've gone the direction we did with Winston. I mean, they scored seven points against Kansas City, 14 against Pittsburgh the week before.

You're still very Winston Bullish.

I'm fine with Judy, but beyond that, I mean, we just saw Will Levis get benched against Cincinnati last week, and I don't know. He's playing some pretty crappy football.

Can you imagine Cincinnati? I mean, we probably have a line already. I'm guessing they are. Where's the game?

Eight and a half point favorites?

Yeah, so that implied point total, a lot of that's going to Cincinnati.

Yeah, yeah. Tajay Spears. So that's the next big name. He scored twice last week. Tony Pollard re-injured his ankle. We don't have any further reports on Pollard. He's been playing through injury. He's been finding a way to start games even when it didn't seem like he was going to, so that could happen again, a la DeAndre Swift for the Bears missing practices. But Spears?

It could be DTR and Mason Rudolph, which is the most likely.

Kendra Miller, we talked about him already in the context of Kamara. If we get more, you know, it's hard. I would go hard in the paint for all three of those guys if they were somehow out there, which, by the way, they wouldn't be mentioned on this show if they were rostered in 50% or more of leagues. They're not.

No, it didn't happen. I mean, Jefferson did enough for your team. Aaron Jones did enough for your team last night in the 30-12 shellacking by the Vikings. You... You know, Keenan got it going again.

You know, probably a little bit higher in playoff situations right now, but, you know, Kendra Miller is still 16% rostered, and I would throw everything at picking up those three players. Put them in the order you think is most suitable for your roster, but bid everything on those three guys if they're out there.

Yeah, the value of the backup is diminishing exponentially right now.

Yeah. And even if you're not blocking, I would be dropping the backups for these guys who might have prolonged value.

Um, what is the, is, is Ty Johnson is some sort of mirage or is this a new, I don't, I don't understand.

I don't know what he is, man. I don't know what he is. Is he a third string running back?

Is he the number one passing back? I mean, it

I think Gainwell might be in play as well as an add. Kenneth Gainwell looked good in the passing game, and we really don't know how banged up Saquon is. If you are Philly... you've got to make a decision on what's most important. He's got a lot of tread on the tires this year. Saquon does. And if you don't have him for the playoffs, you're in trouble.

So as the practice reports go on, Kenneth Gainwell, in our league of records, somebody threw him on the roster Sunday morning. I believe it was you, Jason? Yeah, it was. Doesn't matter because Al kicked me out. And Barkley's not talking about his injury, but he missed the second quarter, and he only handled a little bit of work over the second half.

Yeah, kind of got it going at the end.

Wide receivers that you want to keep your eyes open for, to me, is Jalen McMillan is the headline.

Yeah, because... Well, look at you. Because I don't... Look, we're coming in here every week, and we're repeating names that don't matter. At the top of the waiver list. So I want – if I'm going into the fantasy playoffs, I think that Jalen McMillan matters. You know, we've said Cuge for 1,000 weeks because guess what? He just keeps getting dropped and picked up and dropped and picked up.

I'm not saying if Cuge is out there you shouldn't pick him up. I just think – You would pick Cuge up over McMillan, right?

No.

No, because I'm living in the vacuum, the single vacuum of a one-week situation, and I prefer Jalen McMillan this week than I do the Denver matchup for Cuge where Ladd McConkie's the target hog. It's a touchdown prayer for Cuge, and I think McMillan. We saw what Godwin did in the offense. He's finally getting the opportunity. Six for 75 and a touchdown. And guess what? We know what Cuge is.

We don't yet know. what Jalen McMillan's potential is.

Trayvon Diggs is out for the season now. I mean, this is a huge opportunity for Tampa. They're going to score a lot of points. Controlled weather environment. Not up in Denver. Figuring it out. A team that's kind of going down. That's just my... Is this like another McMillan touchdown guarantee? There's barely... He barely has room to score more touchdowns. He's scoring so many.

So I'm McMillan, huge. And then beyond that, you know...

boring, non-competitive. You knew both games were over instantly. Worthless game. That's the biggest part to me. You knew that the Raiders couldn't beat the Falcons, even if the Falcons tried to beat themselves. Oh, and they did. Kirk Cousins had 112 yards in the pick and a touchdown.

I mean, they've been the last two weeks. Yeah, he's a rookie. So we'll disagree there. I mean, I feel like the baseline for McMillan is going to be higher. You know, Bateman is definitely a home run threat. He's had zero catches against Philly the week before, but then last week had the two touchdowns. So it's, I'm still McMillan, man. Sure. You also have the easy matchup.

We don't agree a lot today.

There you go.

Watson over Dobbs.

I just want a shot at the way Ladd-McConkie's come on in the back part of the season. The fact that this is the Baker-Mayfield offense, that the running game is banged up and hurt. That's the way I lean. Now, none of these are – these are not must-starts. Nobody in this wide receiver category is a guaranteed must-start, although I do consider Cuge, McMillan, and probably –

Probably Bateman as, as flex worthy plays. Another name that you have to bring up is Malik Washington in Miami because Malik Washington, it's a, it's a San Francisco matchup, but he already caught five passes last week. They let go of Odell Beckham and Jalen Waddell is injured. And so you're looking at this situation where, you know, we caught what three more passes than Tyreek did.

My dart throw, my – Our dart throw. Oh, because you're – Fireball. Nope. Oh, all right.

My dart throw, my – don't be surprised if he has a huge week and you didn't see it coming and he's still on waivers next week. Is Jalen Coker of the Carolina Panthers? That's Coker, Al.

As you've always – as you looked up and verified. This is the deep threat for Carolina. Adam Thielen's going to be your underneath and your dink and dunk, but you've lost Xavier Leguette, and he's not really a deep threat type of guy anyways, and Jalen Coker is. Jalen Coker is a physical force. He played 80-plus percent of snaps.

He had four for 110 in a touchdown against Dallas, and if you want to take a shot, because you are just ravaged by injuries, that'd be your guy.

Jason, I wonder what the kind of next piece of the Lions offense is going to be without Montgomery. Like, is there going to be more involvement from a secondary option or more involvement from Laporta? Like, I think Laporta could be more of a focal point where, look, you have to understand this team isn't going to just – they're not just going to run Montgomery packages with Gibbs every play.

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They're going to do what is in their best advantage when it comes to structuring this offense. We used to know what they do. They go out with their huge, giant personnel and run Montgomery. That's not how they're going to use Gibbs. They may use them sometimes like that. but they're going to kind of conform to the personnel that they have, and Laporta is a weapon that's been waiting in the wings.

Maybe it's some Tim Patrick. Maybe it's Jamison Williams. I think we're going to see some different stuff. Maybe it's more Jared Goff in general because— I think it will be more Jared Goff.

All right, we'll take a break. We'll jump into tight ends where we agree on everybody.

Did you see that they threw on first down one out of 24 times?

All right, we're into the tight ends, and we agree on everyone because there's not really anybody.

Target for the Jacksonville went to Brian Thomas or Brenton Strange last week with Mac Jones. It's a great matchup against Las Vegas, but I have gone through this exercise. I don't think that I'm going to sit Otten down for strange even if I got him on the waivers.

I don't think I'm going to do that.

I've been through this whole exercise. I knew bringing it up with submarine, any attempts of me getting Britain strange on the waiver wire in our league of record to fill in for, for, for Kate Otten. I've been through the exercise. And to me, it's the highest over under the week in the Tampa game. Who's going to score a touchdown?

I mean, Britton Strange, if I told you a player got 11 receptions in a game, you'd be like, that's a dominant week. This was not a dominant fantasy week.

Yeah, it was 73 yards. He didn't score. The odds of them scoring are low. I'm not saying Britton Strange is going to have a bad week and he's unstartable. I'm just saying I'm going to go with the odds that Baker throws three to four touchdowns. And I'm just going to hope that one of them is to Kate Otten. It's not like they haven't taken shots to him.

I'm just going to hope that that's the situation.

And it sucks.

Because of untapped upside that we don't know about.

To smart him. It would be hard to smart him, right? Yeah. Boston.

Well, I mean, I don't feel any of these tight ends, so I shouldn't have even taken a shot.

What do you like there?

You know, that's going to be my defense this week in the semifinals. Cardinals are a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde on defense, but I'm going to just hope that even if, you know, if Bryce plays well for three quarters, one bad quarter from Bryce could be enough to support a good performance. My favorite defense of the week is the Packers. It's gotten even better.

I mean, no Camara, no Carr, no Olave, no Buddy.

And then the Raiders against Jacksonville and Jacksonville against the Raiders. Both directions kind of work, although I wouldn't do it with the Raiders because I'd play Jacksonville defense if I'm desperate, but I wouldn't do the Raiders defense against the – Did you watch the Mac Jones highlights? Did you watch the Mac Jones bravado in this game?

I believe that Mac Jones is doing the one thing that you should be doing in your situation. If you're a backup quarterback, by the way, he was, when you say, are there any highlights? He was a top 10 quarterback last week. He attempted 46 passes and he supplied, he supplied not Britain strange with 11 catches, but Brian Thomas with all those catches. I would say Brian Thomas supplied Mac Jones.

I mean, Mac Jones threw for 300 yards. Mac Jones did what you're supposed to do when you get a chance. Don't come in and be a Desmond Ritter, Dink Dunk Fest. Just chuck it. Winston's done this for years. Flacco's done it. Come in and show another team. Mac Jones is playing for a job. Show another team that you could maybe be a starter someday.

Well, it's one of the best ways that I've seen strategically, and I've been around the game for a long time. If you run on first down, that is guaranteed to not be a pass by Kirk Cousins.

You never know. They pick them out of a hat right before the game.

Well, that's going to dovetail poorly into this next segment.

Because my streaming quarterback is Aaron Rodgers against the Rams. Following up on Difference Makers, the Rams defense is 28th against quarterbacks over the last six weeks, 31st against wideouts. A lot of risk there for me. I think there will be a lot of points scored in that game. So I think Aaron Rodgers is actually a streamable option.

Yeah, I just—I mean, both. Both are fine. Both are in the exact same category. Both could suck, and both could be great. But Rodgers has got a couple good weeks in a row, and, you know, it's tight. It's close. Flip a coin. Don't play either. I mean, we're not in a position here, by the way. This waiver show feels weird to me in some regards.

I know we've got to do it, and there might be a nugget here or there. Most people— Most people have got players to play this week. I mean, that's why you're here. I mean, David Montgomery goes out. You probably got a guy on your bench that's better than most of the guys you're picking up. Maybe you end up able to grab a Spears or grab a Ford, and that would be awesome. Ford would be outstanding.

He can't do either of those if he doesn't get the opportunity to.

But if not, maybe you're playing defense more than you're playing offense in some of these leagues.

Yeah, pick him up. Falcon, will you bring those in here real quick because we're going to close the show out. I forgot we had to show these off, but we do have some sweet swag. If you notice, there's a new custom helmet on the center of our table, and the folks at Green Grid Iron hooked us up with that. We have many helmets for the first time. These have been requested for years.

So if you want mini helmets, Jason's got the white one. I got the black one. They're all on shop ballers.com and we'd love to get them out to you so you can display them. They'd go nice right next to like a championship trophy.

It's not a bad idea. Thanks for joining us back tomorrow with the two of us and maybe Mike or a bear or a bear. We'll find out. Catch you then.

Is he going to start next year?

He was firing phasers before Baker had lasers.

Yeah, I mean. He's got $300 million to comfort him at night. You know, if you're a Brock Bowers manager going into a semifinal because you survived his three for 35 night, you need to get on your knees and pray that it's not Desmond Ritter again. 39 passing attendance for Desmond Ritter ending up in three for 35 for your superstar tight end.

It's not that it's much better with Aiden O'Connell either.

Yeah, this is like a factorial thing. This is like Gardner Minshew was much better than Aiden O'Connell for Brock Bowers. Sure, yeah. And then Aiden O'Connell's much better than Desmond Ritter, and Desmond Ritter's much better. Barely better than you.

And what I like about it is I can wear it, it looks casual, and then I can go, I can play some pickleball in those things. It's a performance jogger. It looks great. It's perfect for the low-impact workouts, or maybe I'll play some one-on-one, maybe that high-impact workout too. Or maybe you're doing some yoga or some stretching, or even sitting at the desk in the studio.

Okay, yeah, and I'm glad we broke that down. And we had an injury to Sincere McCormick. That was a monstrous injury. you know, significant situation for fantasy managers because he left with an injury. It went to Madison after that. He did nothing with the seven carries he had before the injury.

And so, um, you know, this is one of those things where like in a few years, we'll probably be saying like, do you remember that guy sincere McCormick that was relevant for like a week? I doubt we'll remember his name. Probably not moving on.

Well, I didn't realize that you had picked out a Difference Maker as well, Jason.

I mean, it would be bad in second.

You walked right into that. Well done. Yeah, I'm going to walk off too. Okay. Another one? I'm on baseball fire, baby. It's pretty good. It's pretty good.

Yeah, I like it. J-E-T-S, Jets, Jets, Jets. We talked yesterday about Unready to Roll, incentives for players. We are talking about incentives for teams coming down the stretch. I talked about Houston. They don't have a real shot to change their playoff position. It's what freaks me out about Joe Mixon this week is that

Joe Mixon had another one of those hip drop tackles happen to him where that's where he missed three games earlier in the year. So as far as we know right now, he's going to be active. But if he was banged up and I was Houston, I wouldn't play him. So we talk about team incentives. We talk about player incentives. I'm going to talk about a pride incentive.

I'm going to talk about a trend that is happening right now. And this is Difference Maker. So I thought about this. And to me, it is the Jets. Aaron Rodgers has been a top 10 quarterback. Each of the last two weeks, I was so close to throwing Rodgers, Adams, Wilson in against the Jags last week in our DraftKings lineup. I was a coward. I didn't do it.

Fortunately, still am not to shame, mercifully. But believe it or not, Garrett Wilson and Devontae Adams right now are top. They are top. Two of the top 12 fantasy wideouts.

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And Rodgers in his last four games, that's a full season pace of 4,234. You know, that's a 34-4 touchdown to interception ratio. That's more vintage Rodgers. We don't know how banged up he was, but the matchups, the Rams – And then Buffalo, who, yes, they win, but they give up 40 a game?

Yeah, but they've been bad in terms of giving up total points, and I think that Rodgers and Adams are a couple of guys at this stage of their career that, look, you're not playing for a playoff spot. But there's a lot of pride there. There's a lot of pride in showing some signs of what they were capable of on the offensive side, and we're seeing it.

And I think they're going to be difference makers down the stretch, playing the Rams at home, playing the Bills on the road, where the defense has been awful.

Yeah, he cares about being a legend on the field.

On the cusp, but I don't think he's a – Well, he's in an ideal situation where he literally can focus on himself because there's no playoffs. Exactly.

So I'm sure Al Borland is really thrilled to hear that as he has Devontae Adams rostered, made the trade midseason, and I applaud it. We're a keeper league. We have players that even when they're injured, they have value. He managed to turn the Brandon Ayuk injury into Devontae Adams for the remainder of the season.

Oh, are you doing a formal endorsement?

Yeah, that's wonderful. I'm thankful. I would do the same in your position. Now, move on to your difference maker.

Yeah, this was like we didn't get to talk about it yesterday.

Thank you, Santa.

Okay.

You know what's a slight encouragement there, too, is the fact that there are now three teams in the NFC at 12-2, and there's one by.

At first, I thought, is this a guy who's trying to get FaceTime, and he thought the camera wasn't on him yet, so I'm going to try to do it again. He does have OCD.

I'm guessing he needed it to be even because he missed the kick. So that's how that works.

It was one of the hardest doinks I can remember.

Perfect. What? I mean, it's where he should have been all along.

A lot of times when you want the money, going somewhere new, people will shell out more for you than just renewing your contract.

Andy, literally as we were talking, a statement came out from Jerry Jones. Am I defending him, by the way? You were so super wrong.

You're just explaining his position. There's a lot of A lot of words in this statement of just, we did this, we looked at everything, the staff, and we, whatever. But I think the most important part, the climax of this is, prior to reaching the point of contract negotiations, though, it became mutually clear that it would be better for each of us to head in a different direction.

This is Jerry Jones saying, this isn't money. This was not money. We decided before that, before talking about money, everybody, and everyone believes you, Jerry.

Yeah, we don't know if that's in their protocol or not. And they also have an insurance against the cap for injury. I don't pretend to be an expert on this, but what I saw was that some of that cap money the following season would come back. So yeah, maybe they do get off the hook a little bit here thanks to the second re-rupture of the Achilles.

And that might sound like, why is this news? If you hadn't heard or seen him posting things all over about basically wanting out of playing for the Dolphins, including putting his face on the Antonio Brown photograph where he left mid-game, peace out, peace sign. Not a good look. Not a good look. Very funny. It was a delightful tweet. I very much enjoyed it.

But I was, you know, you saw that and you went, ooh. And that's why he has to come out and say that, no, things are good now.

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I'll tell you, before we get into the footy awards, I feel like there should have been an extra category this year, which is... It's like the best show moment, but it's the best off-air show moment of the year because we've had a couple things around the office going crazy. Are you sharing this? Yes. Yes, including Cricket Gate. Cricket Gate just happened.

I don't know that we have time to explain this. Our entire... crew, programmers, deucers, y'all almost got fired today because someone put, and I don't know if you know this exists, and if you didn't, congratulations, because you can really hurt someone with this information. There are little chirping cricket bugs that chirp

I do not either. A lot of times, I'm going to be honest, I have cheated and looked. I have logged in, and I know who wins and by how much, and I don't have a clue.

anywhere between you're talking about it's a tiny little speaker it's an electronic device yes and it it chirps at random between 5 and 45 minutes and you can't find this thing and after a couple days you definitely can't find it when it comes from different areas Yeah, and so we were like, Friday we were threatened. We just knew it was Papa Josh, of course. It's like, okay, Josh.

It's a good goof. Get it. I'm sick of hearing this cricket. And then it just kept escalating and getting worse and worse. And so this morning, after the weekend, it was like.

I told Andy we move offices and we clean house, hire a whole new staff. Yeah, this is like Raiders-style stuff. You start all over. So we go out to the producers. I tell Falcon he's fired in one hour. So it doesn't matter whose fault it is. One hour from now, he's fired. Just completely, like, I put a timer on my watch, and I don't care if it was Josh that did it. We own this company.

We ain't living with that cricket gate. Josh, you're going to have to have that on your conscience. And then we tell everybody, because we pay for lunch every day here at the studio, and then we tell everybody, We're not paying for lunches anymore. Not while the cricket's happening. No, no, no. This is serious business. This is serious.

And apparently that, not firing Pingree, but threatening taking lunches away, allowed Jeremy to come clean. He gets his championship. He thinks he could do absolutely everything.

Yeah, there's a lot more to it than that.

That makes me very excited.

Do any of the deuces know? No. No? I mean, who packed it?

He took it out and then was like, that one's not enough. I'm getting more. And then he put it in the drop ceiling. We're looking under desks. We're looking everywhere.

Yeah. So, anyways, congratulations to Owl and thank you to our fans who have almost destroyed the company. Yeah, we almost burnt it down.

Impressive. Oh, man, I hope that everything's wrong inside.

Wow. Pretty much a landslide then with that many people, right?

That was my vote.

That was mine. And when you started with Josh or the sound, I was like, Jamar Allen.

All right, Andy. Well, I will read this one for you, even though it is your award. Please do. This is the Fantasy Reapers. Man of the Year. Which player's injury hurt fantasy managers the most? You had a four-pack here. Christian McCaffrey, Isaiah Pacheco, Chris Olave, and Chris Godwin. I'll be honest. The Christians, they all get hurt. Oh, that's right.

And then the only one who wasn't named Christian is Isaiah. I mean, come on. You're not too far off there. All right. So drum roll, please. And the winner with 88% of the vote. I think we know. No surprise. The first pick in your draft a lot of times, Christian McCaffrey.

He's totally fine and could have played in the playoffs. If they had made the playoffs, he was good to go. That is going to help him stay near the 101 this next year, and you know it's true. He won't be the 101, but he will still be in top of first round. Sixth pick.

That's fair. That's fair. He won't be at the 101, but he'll be in the first round. You'll get to a point where everyone's willing to take the risk of – Because you've had this before. You've had Christian McCaffrey disappear for years. Yeah, and he did it two years in a row. Right.

I think Tank Bigsby did hurt Travis Etienne this year. But what is insane is that, you know, it's like, it feels like. Tank Bigsby was awful. It feels like.

over the course of the season etn wishes his 3.7 he played 15 games like it feels like he missed half the season he didn't he only missed three games yeah he had 632 i'm sorry 558 yards rushing yards across 15 weeks yes yeah wait we had 558 yeah so do you bigsby had 766 rushing yards yeah on how many attempts did etn have

Yeah, we finally get a home playoff game, boys. Oh, gosh. Congrats to us.

It is juicy. I wish it happened earlier in the season. We've talked about And we've got the data to back this up. This has been a tip in the past that did not come true this season, which was that the waiver wire is usually so much more valuable in weeks one and two. Those guys hit and stick oftentimes. And that is true over the last decade. It wasn't really true this year.

Some of the biggest waiver wire pickups early on in this season They just turned out to kind of be flops like Isaiah Likely was, you know, he was the big spin, the big spin. Then it turned into not much. Bucky Irving was later in the year off of waivers several weeks in and totally worth it. All right, Jason, you are up. I'm up with the fantasy quarterback of the year.

Remember, this takes into account the draft position, the big game performances, impact to fantasy teams everywhere. Last year was Dak Prescott with the winning award, and this year the nominees are... Oh, that drum roll comes after?

Where's the rail? All right. The nominees are Lamar Jackson, who was the quarterback one. Josh Allen, also awesome, is the quarterback two. Burrow, fantastic. Jaden Daniels, rookie sensation. And the aforementioned waiver wire wonder, Baker Mayfield. And the winner is... Can I get the drum roll, please? The winner is... Wow. Jaden Daniels. 39% of the vote.

I thought for sure this would be Lamar Jackson. I thought it'd be Lamar. That's who I voted for. I actually did vote for Jaden Daniels. It's QB 14 all the way up to 40. Yeah, that's awesome. And he was a rookie. What's the percentage? The percentage was 39%. And who was runner up? Runner up was actually Baker Mayfield at 21. So people were taking into account. Drafting them late.

You know, because, you know, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, they were awesome. But you're spinning a second and third round pick for them.

If you had Jaden Daniels, you might have just won your championship because you got him so late. Owl, you had Jaden Daniels. You won your championship. I sure did. Against Lamar Jackson. So, I guess, footies. Hey.

jade oh yeah your footy is in the mail yeah you you're a you're a rookie in the nfl you may not know that yeah you don't you don't know we send them out by freight almost impossible to lift where they got to get craned in sometimes all right fantasy running back of the year

That is fantastic. Well-deserved. He was awesome this year. Fantasy-tight end of the year. Last year, Sam Laporta, a rookie. This year might be another rookie. Brock Bowers, who was drafted as the tight end nine, finishes the tight end two. Trey McBride, drafted at three, finished at three. Jonu Smith, undrafted, finished at four.

It was absolutely a landslide. And the runner-up, George Kittle, only 14%. So it was kind of split between the other three.

And Bowers, because you are a rookie, you need to know your footy is in the mail.

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I think Brian Thomas was the breakout because it was far more surprising. Yes. Like mobile quarterback, you could see Jaden Daniels coming. Brian Thomas was the most surprising breakout.

I think it makes complete sense. Yeah, because it makes no sense. Well, it makes sense because Jaden Daniels was like he was the best. He was the rookie of the year, but he didn't break out as much as Brian Thomas did because Jaden Daniels was already drafted, you know, as the second pick in the NFL supposed to be great.

I mean, it's just like just small nuance. It's how in the NFL, you know, the MVP is not the offensive player of the year type of voting. So that's just how I see it. All right. Where are we? We are to the comeback player of the year. Which fantasy player amazed you the most in their return to relevance? You had J.K. Dobbins come back from the Achilles.