1st Annual Fantasy EXTRAVAGANZA

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The Heed the Call podcast.

Did somebody say sexy dad pods?

No,

no one said it.

Welcome to the third edition of Heed the Call with Dan Hansis and Mark Sessler.

We are so happy to be back

with you, the audience, and Mark.

Listen,

the road to get here

was

hard

really hard

yeah I mean just if you it was so hard yeah I'd say like if you want to talk about sexy dad bods

thank you

by the way I was gonna say that we walked a lot of steps to get here so we would have the sexy dad buds you can't clump Justin into

the sexy dad bud category.

His relationship relationship is progressing as far as we know, but I would say this: he's not a dad, as far as we know.

As far as we know, he's not a dad, as far as he knows.

So

you don't want to have the dad bod before you're a dad,

and Justin thankfully doesn't.

Are you still pre-engaged, Justin Graver?

Well, I do have an update for the listeners if anyone's interested.

Did you hear anything, Mark?

I did, and

I would think that

people are interested

on this topic.

What's going on?

You still pre-engaged?

Jessica and I recently took a trip to Switzerland where she's from, where she grew up and was born and raised.

And now she lives in Los Angeles, obviously.

But I had never been to Switzerland.

And we've been together, you know, two and a half years now, dating back to the infamous NFL holiday party of whatever year that was.

And I never met her parents this whole time.

And so we finally go to Switzerland a few weeks ago and get a chance to meet her parents.

And I'm thinking this whole time, like, I need to ask her dad for permission to marry his daughter.

So, I learned how to say it in Italian, which is what language her parents speak.

So, I approached her father on the last day of our trip and I said, Voglio sposare tu aphilia con il tuo per meso, which is Italian for, I want to marry your daughter with your permission.

And he said yes.

So,

still pre-engaged, but uh, working on some

making it more official.

So did you just announce on this show that has many listeners that you have permission to get engaged, but you haven't done it yet?

Right.

Well,

what if Yesika listened?

Jessica will listen, but she knows that her dad was very happy, went inside, grabbed her mom, grabbed her, said, this is the good news.

Justin's asked me this.

I just did it already.

Why didn't you just do it in Switzerland then?

I wasn't going to do it in Switzerland.

I need to plan something special.

This is this pre-engagement is

pretty wild at this point.

We're very happy for you guys.

Yeah, and I would credit you.

I don't know what the current mode is, but I think if you're going to ask for

to go to the father and get the permission and get his blessing, it matters.

And I think that's probably a step that some would just flat out skip these days.

And

you went the classy route, and I appreciate that.

And I'm assuming

your class act.

Yeah.

You know, I remember when I asked for

the permission of my future wife's father, there's got to be a better way to say that.

I called from the

high school field at Hollywood High, home of the Sheiks, I believe, where I was covering high school baseball as a moonlighting job because NFL media,

giving us, you know, $17 an hour, three days a week, probably wasn't going to pay the rent.

And

to

G-Bob's credit, I was not a successful man at that time in my life, but he did give me the blessing and put his faith in me.

So I hope I rewarded that faith all these years later, 12, 13 years later.

You know, that's about that,

Hollywood High is about three blocks from where I am broadcasting right now.

And maybe I'll go visit and

take a look at where you made that.

I don't know if you should.

I covered a couple high school games at Hollywood High, too, and, you know,

I was getting some looks.

You know, just be careful.

That's all.

A little bit of rough and tumble vibe to it.

No, it's a

mark.

I want you to protect yourself.

It's a questionable boulevard.

There's no doubt about that.

I would mention one.

Especially

today is the inaugural

fantasy extravaganza for Heed the Call, and it's in shortened form.

Compared to last year's, past year's, but I will say this: we got

two big old fish, colleagues, in fact, with

Underdog Fantasy in Josh Norris and Hayden Winks.

And we're going to later today

break down some fantasy storylines as your draft is no doubt right around the corner.

If you're doing your best ball and you're just looking to crank out as many high-quality teams as possible, I thought of that because, Mark, we got the you know, fantasy corner

is usually something that we check in on and Hollywood High and the idea of you walking through Hollywood High made me wonder if it's even smart for you to go to Fantasy Corner, but it's also a new endeavor here, and we want to make waves and show that we still have the same hunger and fire in the belly.

So there was a group decision to send you back in the field once again, despite the obvious dangers that seem to present itself every year.

Yeah, and you know that I've, for months now, dating back, I'd say, you know, more than a year, I've been on the beat of child gangs, and that would be even children that are below the high school level.

You've got to be aware of that.

But where I would be walking to and reporting from, there are some concerns.

So I'm going to do, but a reporter must face danger, and that's my job today.

A journo is as a journo does.

The old expression.

I don't know if that's an expression.

Let's do some news.

I don't think so.

Oh, no, not the beast.

Not the beast.

Ah!

I lose my eyes!

My eyes!

Ah!

Ah!

See, people like to bang on Nick

Cage, of course,

for that scene in Wickerman where he gets the B mask put over his head for, I think, a penalty.

I never saw the film.

But

let me just say, like, that is some vintage as we get further away from the first decade of the 21st century.

Like, the CGI, the ambition didn't match up with the actual final product.

So we're talking,

imagine you're taking Nick Cage out onto a set, and then you're saying, pretend that bees are getting under your eyelids and stinging inside your mouth, but it's not actually happening.

Pretty good acting when you think about it, that that really bad CGI was done after the fact.

I just want to throw that out there.

Shout out Nick Cage.

I think that's a great shout-out.

Of course, the original Wickerman, you know, that predated this version, was far superior.

But Nick Cage,

almost a method actor at that moment, and doing

one of the more heightened scenes that you could ask him to do, but he's not done yet.

Yeah, and on the subject of Nick Cage, this news came out on Thursday that

the Oscar award-winning actor is set to portray John Madden.

This, according to the Hollywood Reporter, the storied football coach and sports commentator in a drama from Amazon MGM Studios to be directed by David O.

Russell.

Wow, Mr.

Silverlining's playbook and American Hustle himself.

The film will be titled Madden.

Interesting.

Am I a little bit novice?

Do I want to know?

Was there a dark side to Madden?

I kind of want, I like the public image of John Madden.

I don't need to peel back too many layers of the onion.

I don't want to have a complicated

memory of John Madden because David O.

Russell wanted to make some waves in Tinseltown.

But at the same time, Nick Cage and a bunch of prosthetics playing Madden, I'm definitely going to watch this.

Yeah, well, The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that this is not your classic bio pick about the life of John Madden.

It's about the inception of Madden NFL.

Oh, I got it.

Okay.

Kind of like how Air was not really about Michael Jordan.

It was about the, or Nike, or it kind of was about Nike, just the beginning of that empire.

Okay, that makes sense.

All right, I'm definitely in.

I'm watching it.

Mark.

No, I'd absolutely watch it.

It's an interesting angle to take on Madden versus a bio on Madden.

Nick Cage,

good choice.

Part of me that went to the thing I thought when I saw this was like, I wish like Philip Seymour Hoffman was still alive.

I would have picked him.

I actually reached out.

That's a great call.

Or John Candy, were he of a younger age and still alive also.

Well, I mean, we're 30 years on at this point.

No, I know, but I'm just, I'm trying to think of the, but I actually reached out to you.

That's wish casting the bridge too far.

Yeah, I reached out to a very talented

casting agent named Emily Hansis.

And she mentioned that she liked, that's your wife, by the way, in case you weren't aware, but I had texted her before that she was.

And I don't think she'd like being called a casting agent, but yeah, go on.

Well, a casting professional.

Is that correct?

I believe that's in her title, is she?

Yeah, that's close enough.

Casting management figure.

She mentioned that John Goodman would not be a bad choice, or the character actor Bill Camp, who is.

I looked him up and I think that fits too.

I mean, I guess it's just like

Nick Cage, though, like, there is something about him that makes this very intriguing.

But your angle that you looked up, Justin, that it's about the video game, I'm a little thrown by that versus a Madden with a Pat Summerall, you know, deep dive.

I'm still a little bit

shook from the John Goodman

portraying Babe Ruth film that came out in the 90s.

I can't give him any more towering sports figures.

He had his chance.

He had his chance.

You know who played a great football coach role was Kevin James.

Maybe he should have

a combined world.

He did.

He did.

And by the way, this was, like we said in the Hollywood Reporter.

Sestog and I showed up in Deadline Hollywood a few weeks back.

That was in a surreal summer.

That was right up there.

Now, hold on.

Because so one thing about that, because there was during Corona, we did a show, a version for NFL Network of our show, where they sent us cameras.

And I don't know what was going on with those cameras, but we looked like

John Henckley and John Wilkes Booth on those cameras and just like grainy.

Presidential assassins?

Well, yes,

we looked like wanted figures.

And that is the photo, the three shot of you, me, and Greg.

That's the photo that that deadline used of us.

Of all the photos you could have sourced, that went wild.

Yeah, not overly flattering.

No.

That kind of stuff gets under my, you know, that agitates me.

I know.

You tend to dwell on that.

It eats you alive.

Yes, I do.

We're going to move forward.

Yes, I do.

All right.

Justin, what's in the news?

We have real football news to talk about.

The Falcons have traded for Matthew Judon.

They gave up a third-round pick.

There is reportedly no contract extension in place, so the whole reason he was on the market is that he wanted more money from New England.

He's set to make six and a half million dollars in the final year of his contract.

So the Falcons, apparently there's no deal in place yet, but if they want to make their new, newly acquired Edrusher happy, they should probably pay him some money.

They also signed Justin Simmons, Free Agent Safety, who'd been on the market for a while, who just took a visit to New Orleans.

Division rival Saints signs with the Falcons one-year $8 million deal.

So the Falcons beefing up their defense.

This one is weird to me.

First of all, good job by the Falcons.

While Judon is not a young man at this point in football years, he's 32.

He also was,

you know, he's a former defensive player of the year with the Patriots.

He is a proven

sack master.

He had 32 and 38 games with the Pats.

In fact,

something we talked about at the end of last season, that the curse of John Abraham, which struck the New York Jets after they traded Abraham to the Falcons, and then they went over a decade or more without getting someone that had double-digit sacks or some crazy stat.

Once Abraham left the Falcons, the Falcons have gone into this long stretch where they have not been able to really

locate a consistent pass rusher that could get to the quarterback.

So, Judon feels obviously

a major void for that defense.

We'll start there.

I want to say the Patriots side of it as well, Mark, but from the Falcons side, this is a big win for them.

And again, you always think big-time star players are going to get moved for high draft picks, but as we see again here, a third-round pick, that is more than manageable for the upside you can get with Judon the next couple of years.

Yeah, I adore both moves.

So you have to go back to 2016.

And Vic Beasley, who had 15 and a half sacks for the Falcons for the last time that they had double digits.

So that drought is real.

And Raheem Morris,

talking about this move, basically said, whatever's happened in the past with our defense, it's gone.

Like, we are a different team now.

And he compared it to the Rams signing Von Miller, where they didn't bring him in and sign him to a new deal.

And he was pretty...

Sparse and real about the fact that they're not looking to take Judon and sign him to a big new deal right now.

It's like, let's see how this plays out.

But he steps in right away.

You know, in their first preseason game, they lost Braylon Trice out of Washington, who was a third-round pick and a pass rusher.

So it fills a need, but I think they were scoping this out before that.

Other teams were interested, were also interested in Judon.

But this is, along with Simmons,

this team is going for it in a very winnable division.

And

I just kind of was monitoring this Simmons thing all summer.

It's like, no one, like, I could think of 15 teams that could use Simmons.

It's like no one went and got this guy.

And I mean, this is someone who is not old and falling off a cliff.

He was extremely productive.

It was a cost-cutting maneuver for the Broncos a year ago.

As we talked about, probably part of the whole Russell Wilson fallout.

They've got one of the best safety duos in the league, and they've got good cornerbacks too.

So that helps Matthew Judon.

And also, when you've got a more sturdy quarterback, when you go back to that 2016 season when Vic Beasley broke out, well, that paired you with Kyle Shanahan's offense where they were passing the ball all over the place, and that helps your pass rush late in games go off.

And so I think we're going to see a sea change on some level for the Falcons if both these guys work out.

I think they will.

Yeah, that is on their side.

I don't think there's any downside here.

On the Patriots side, you know,

I,

knowing my history, tortured history in the AFC East, you would think that this is me trying to troll a little bit, but it's not because it's ultimately this most almost all this or everything will be forgotten by the time we get to even September 6th or whatever.

But kind of a weird summer for the Patriots so far.

You had

the way this Judon relationship fell apart and it did a little bit publicly in front of reporters at training camp where Judon was holding in and then was sent off the field and got into a vocal disagreement with coaching and management.

You had the Brandon Ayuk situation.

This team is in desperate need of playmakers and we hear a report that there was actually a deal worked out and in place, a trade, and then Brandon Ayuk is like, I'm not going to New England and kind of that off the table.

And then, you know, something more minor, but as we head into the second preseason game, you want to get excited about your rookie quarterback, Drake May barely plays game one, which, if you're a Patriots fan, is like, oh man, is he going to redshirt this year?

So it's like you want some type of the Patriot fan probably wants something, some good news, something fun and exciting to pop up on the radar one of these days because Judon leaving makes them a worse team.

There's no other way around that.

What else is in the news?

Yes, what else is in the the news?

Matt Milano.

This is a big bummer for Buffalo Bills fans.

Matt Milano has a torn bicep.

Brutal.

Probably miss the entire season.

They're hoping, according to Schefter,

I believe, had the report, that he could come back in December.

And, you know,

there is a big difference on that team.

You saw it last year.

He went down with an injury last year, midway through the year, and you saw what that did, and they just were never the same.

So, now for this to happen again at the same time, Mark, like at a time where

offensively, they're in transition and they may not be the juggernaut of the past, or if they are, it's going to take some time to get to it.

So, to lose kind of the captain and the centering force of your defense again, you just feel terribly for Milano because he probably was

itching to get back on the field after the fractured leg and torn ACL in week five.

Now, for this to happen, very tough for a former first-team all-pro.

Yeah, it reminds me of watching an off-season piece on Gronkowski when he was in one of his many kind of deep rehab journeys and how dark that is, how tough that is.

He spent all last season doing it, Matt Milano.

He's going to have to do it again.

December is a possibility, but this is a team that it's not just transition on offense.

Like, Micah Hyde is gone.

Jordan Poyer is gone.

Leonard Floyd is gone.

There's a lot of new faces, and it puts a lot of pressure.

Like, Terrell Bernard was really good last year at linebacker, but Dorian Williams, a third-round pick from a year ago, much more pressure on him to step up.

Matt Milano,

I remember Wes just loving Matt Milano, too.

You remember that?

He was just one of his favorite guys.

And this is a dude that

he really was sort of the engine in a heart and soul piece of that defense.

So to go into the season in a much tougher AFC East,

it's another challenge for Buffalo that just feels like they're kind of in a, they're not in a rebuild.

You can't call it that, but it's a bit of a reshuffling and you're hoping that a lot of things just go well and there's a lot of X factors there

I I don't think

yeah I'm not by far from counting out the bills because they still have

I think really good coaching and you have Josh Allen who I think is a top you know five quarterback in the league and and there are pieces still even with Stefan Diggs no longer there which obviously changes a scope of their offense in a lot of ways as well but the AFC East, man, that is that division.

We just talked about the Patriots, and they're a team that's still finding their way post-Tom Brady.

So I'm going to kind of take them out of it in terms of seeing them as a credible division winner.

But Jets, Dolphins, Bills.

I think we were saying the same thing last year.

I feel the same way this year.

And obviously the Jets were immediately taken out of the mix with the Rodgers catastrophe.

And then the Dolphins and Bills fought it out to the last week of the season.

I see this as a dogfight where, you know, 11 wins could win you this division.

I don't see a team running away with with it either.

It's going to be really interesting for the Bills.

Yeah, I say that.

That takes them down back to the pack just that much more.

Because

I'd ask you guys this.

Identify for me where Buffalo got better this offseason.

It was a very quiet offseason.

Not Cowboys-esque entirely, but they didn't add much.

Parts are gone.

Like, what's better about them?

What have they done to make their journey any easier?

I think there's some element of Stephon Diggs was maybe viewed as having lost a step across the second half of the season.

And, you know, Joe Brady in that offense doesn't want to have one go-to receiver as opposed to a mix of weapons.

They bring in Curtis Samuel, who Joe Brady has familiarity with.

They draft Keon Coleman in the first round, who draft Knicks were pretty split on his potential.

If he hits, and if Curtis Samuel can be, you know, a gadget weapon, and if Khalil Shakir takes a step step forward, you could say the sum of those parts replace what Stephon Diggs brought in a way that could be an upgrade because there's just more bodies to spread the ball around to.

Dawson Knox coming back from injury, pairing with Dalton Kincaid, pretty formidable tight end duo.

But I do get your point, Mark.

Overall, it's hard to see.

And Dan, I wonder as we tease a little bit the hot butt rankings, Sean McDermott, there was some like some weird smoke around would Sean McDermott possibly be fired this offseason?

He obviously wasn't, but I wonder what he needs to do this year to be safe going into next season.

Yeah, I think it's fair, and

we're going to get into that

when the time comes.

One note, just one, we want to spend just a little bit positive that because of the nature of the Milano injury, broken leg, torn ACL,

before this injury happened, he wasn't up to full speed yet.

And there's a certainly a chance that he was going to go into the season if he was ready for week one where he would have maybe a lesser role and they'd kind of work him back into action.

If nothing else, this allows the lower body rehab to progress at a rate that maybe doesn't get escalated because they want to get ready for week one.

That's the only thing I got for you, Bills fans.

It's a bummer.

Anything else in the news?

A couple minutes.

That is glass half full.

Yeah.

The Cowboys are beefing up their defensive line.

They traded for defensive tackle Jordan Phillips from the Giants.

A little in-division trade there.

And then they signed Carl Lawson, veteran edge rusher that, Dan, you probably know pretty well.

Yeah, Carl Lawson was a big pass rusher pickup for the Jets a couple years back from the Bengals.

They gave him a lot of money.

And then there it is again, the Achilles.

It got Rodgers September last year.

This training camp before for the Jets, it was Lawson who was wreaking all kinds of havoc in hell as a training camp with a lot of rave reviews.

and then he blows his achilles came back last year and didn't really find a role uh and now this is his chance to uh catch on and start again i just i wonder because those injuries um to the achilles they rob players of their explosiveness if lawson is going to be able to get back that spark but i would say worth a flyer and for a cowboys team that has to bargain hunt because they have such salary cap uh pressures around all those stars uh would it surprise you if lawson is making plays for them in november it wouldn't stun me wouldn't stun stun me at all.

Would it be surprised me if he didn't make the team?

Would not surprise me at all.

It's all a coin flip.

And one more note.

What was it, Justin?

One more note.

Corey Davis has come out of retirement and worked out for the Bills this week.

Weird.

Yeah, that was weird.

He retired suddenly, former Titan, and then a Jet retired at training camp last year.

I think there were some family issues going on, so he's back.

Tough thing to do.

I think he's close to 30, right?

So it's hard to take time off like that and then come back and make a team.

But the Bills, Mark, that's a team that, like we were just talking about, there's a lot of

targets to be had in that offense.

If Davis could make this team, maybe he carves out a role.

We'll see.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think he's especially fantasy relevant or maybe real-life relevant.

We'll find out soon enough.

But they are thin at wide receiver, and so it's probably a better landing spot for someone trying to start their career again than other places.

But again, I'm looking at this Bills situation.

I'm just like, I'm not just ticketing you for the AFC title game like I have in the past.

Not this time.

Ooh, the sess dog comes down with the hammer to kill.

Well, no, I'm not trying to be overly negative, but like I think that the hammer comes down.

You just like, you know, subway them right into the AFC title game.

The old mouser doesn't go to the AFC title game this time.

Thaw has arrived.

All right, that's fine.

All right, that's what's happening in the news.

All right, we're going to take a break.

But before that, let's do a little housekeeping.

Reminder that the new social handles are up at Heed the Call pod on Twitter and Instagram.

The TikTok is live.

That is excellent.

There's also our YouTube channel where every show is on video, goes up right around the time the audio show goes up.

So check out the at Underdog NFL channel on YouTube.

Be sure to subscribe to the channel and like the video.

Of course, we have our new subreddit,

Heed the Call, that is really doing well.

We want to get those numbers up please just leave five star reviews wherever you listen to podcasts to help us climb them charts and of course we have a new partner it is underdog fantasy so you could start playing on underdog today at least many of you download the underdog fantasy app sign up with the code htc and receive up to 250 in bonus cash that is for our u.s audience only uh so thank you very much for your support let's ride this rocket ship together we will be right back with the fantasy extravaganza.

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Yes,

yes, yes.

Hear ye, hear ye.

The fantasy extravaganza is back.

Mark and truncated for him this year, but you know what?

That doesn't matter because

truncated form just means we have to distill it to its purest elements.

So, as we celebrate

this gala, this extravaganza of fantasy, right in the middle of the heart of fantasy world right now, the middle of August, when all the drafts are either coming right up or

ongoing, or if you're doing best ball, you're doing drafts all the time.

It's what an exciting time this is.

And that's why we're going to bring two of our colleagues, and I love saying that.

I love saying it, from Fantasy Underdog.

It is the men behind the fantasy podcast that everyone listens to, Josh Norris and Hayden Winks.

Welcome to Heed the Call.

Woohoo.

Dan, welcome home.

Mark, welcome home.

You too, Gravedigger.

By the way, gentlemen, I haven't heard that tune since Hayden and I took a trip to the Renaissance Festival a few years ago.

How about you?

That was all Mark.

Mark was the Renaissance man the last time I heard.

Yeah, no, you are right.

I did.

I attended a Renaissance festival this offseason before all hell broke loose for Dan, myself, and Gravedigger.

But I would say that I think you understand out of the gate that we would do nothing less than

bring in and hire medieval trumpeters to announce your arrival in our association together.

I mean, we can connect the dots perhaps here, but

just to pull back the curtain a little bit,

Mark, while he was at the Renaissance fair, like truly, truly, in terms of our old home, things really, an explosion occurred.

So the Renaissance Fair has, I have mixed regards for it as an entity, but I couldn't be, and we couldn't be more excited to be with Underdog and to have Josh and Hayden with us.

Guys, how has this fantasy season been so far, which I know there is no season?

It's all year for you guys, but how's it going for you guys right now?

I mean, it never ends.

We launched Best Ball Mania 5 the day after the NFL draft is over.

There's always OTAs.

There's always training camps.

There's always potential trades.

Shout out, Brent Nayuk.

That is constantly changing everything.

So, Dan, you know how this is.

You do one bulk packet of research early in the summer.

You find some things that you latch onto.

You repeat yourself about 20 times throughout the summer.

And then as soon as preseason games start,

some happenings change, some lineups change, some guys play less than you think you do, and then you question what you've been doing the last two months as well.

There's a lot of that.

And I just got to be real because

I'm a fantasy old head.

I started doing fantasy in the mid-90s at the Pearl River Library, where we would, you know, rent out the community room.

And by the end of it, you know, there was always the guy that was throwing the Mountain Dew bottles up into the rafter area.

And you could see the librarians at multiple points, either walking by the glass to see what we were up to, which is probably being destructive in some minor or major way.

But starting in the mid-90s, going all through it, I've always done just redrafts.

I've done some keeper leagues.

Now, best ball is more new to me, and I know that's a central conceit of underdog fantasy.

Hayden, do you want to just like, for people and our listeners perhaps that are not initiated that want to be involved with the product here that we're connected to now, you want to give a quick rundown before we get into things?

Yeah, best ball is the best part of fantasy.

You just draft and you don't have to do anything after that.

So if you're a busy guy and you have better plans on Tuesday, there's no waiver wire.

There's no setting your lineups on Sundays.

There's no disgusting trade offers that you have to deny.

You just draft and we take your optimal lineup every single week.

So it's 12 person drafts, but then you compete against hundreds of thousands of players and all of a sudden there is a $15 million prize pool in Best Ball Mania.

So the stakes are higher.

And I think the big difference right now is the difference is all the running backs are no longer the top picks.

So like back in the 90s and the 2000s, it was about 10 straight running backs at the top.

On underdog, that's no longer the case.

Everyone's by committee.

So that's been pretty much the talk of best ball is Josh Jacobs is now a fifth round pick, and he might be the starting running back for one of the best offenses in the league.

I will note one thing that the first player I ever took in a fantasy draft, because I date previous to even Dan, was Roger Craig.

Jim Brown.

No, well, not Jim Brown, but Roger Craig, and that's not too far off.

And that's the last time anyone took a book out of the Pearl River Library, by the way, back in that same season.

Dewey Decimal System, baby.

Let's get into it.

By the way, The Underdog Football Show with Josh Norris and Hayden Winks.

Absolutely a must

bookmark and play.

I, you know, upon our arrival, always aware of these guys, but I really plugged into their show because in a lot of ways, like, yeah, it's been playing catch up

both on the football side of things and on the fantasy side of things with my league of record draft coming up next Sunday.

And you guys have been indispensable.

Your latest show, 10 running backs and tight end moves we made after the first week of the preseason.

Starting there, like what are some things that are because I'm usually

I poo-poo the preseason from a fans' perspective, but that is not the case in fantasy.

There's so much to glean, especially with depth charts and how that changes.

What are some things that really jumped out to you as we move past week one and heading towards week two?

I'd say the loss of those Chargers are on everyone's radar just because, from a big picture view, the entire world believes they're going to throw the ball about 12 times a game and run the football 45 times a game.

Yet no one knows which of these running backs to draft after, you know, running behind three fantastic offensive linemen with first-round draft capital attached to their name.

We know in preseason week one, Gus Edwards didn't play.

J.K.

Dobbins didn't play.

There's this third-day rookie in Kamani Vidal that everyone's like wish casting an Isaiah Pacheco season and career arc to.

And at some point he was being drafted ahead of J.K.

Dobbins, and then he doesn't play in the first week of preseason.

So here we are about two or three weeks ahead of everyone's home leagues, ahead of the NFL season starting, and a team that we expect to be, I don't know, top five, top six in carries, having absolutely no idea who to draft on this franchise.

And to me, I want to side in that regard to J.K.

Dobbins, even though that might only last me like three and a half games and instantly regret it after four weeks.

Yeah, Josh hasn't learned his Darren Waller lesson from last offseason.

He was the talk of training camp as the veteran that was going to stay healthy this time.

It didn't last very long.

I think my big takeaway was

pretty similar to what Josh just said, but with the Bills wide receivers, we know that the Bills are going to be able to pass the ball with Josh Allen.

We don't know exactly who to draft.

And it was notable to me that Keon Coleman played every single snap with the starters.

And then Curtis Samuel, who has some experience with Joe Brady, he wasn't out there, even though he's the veteran, he's actually signed a decent contract.

He wasn't out there for every single snap, but they did throw a lot of screens to him.

So that's another one of these storylines throughout the preseason that we have to kind of monitor.

Is it Curtis Samuel?

Is it Khalil Shakir?

Or is it Keon Coleman for the Bills wide receivers?

I have a question for you.

Like, are there

teams that you just stay away from?

Because I think I heard you say that, for instance, like the New Orleans Saints with Chris Olave, you're a little freaked out about the situation.

Like for people that just like they look at that player and they say, in an isolated world, this is a great wide receiver potentially, but in that environment,

no-do.

I think that's a fantastic point.

And it's something all summer long I've wanted to keep it super simple, that you just should draft good players on good teams.

Again, how simpler can it get?

But when you look at last year and the bottom eight offenses in the NFL, there really wasn't a single needle mover at the running back position besides Brees Hall.

And in fact, you have to go to the the wide receiver 29 last season in points per game, which was Gravediggers, Brendan, excuse me, DeAndre Hopkins to find the first wide receiver off the board that was in a bottom seven offense in touchdown scored.

And specifically to your Chris Olave point, like last season, the New Orleans Saints tied for the eighth most touchdown scored in the NFL, which is still one of those numbers that makes zero sense when reflecting on the 2023 season.

But despite that, yes, despite all that, Chris Olave was the wide receiver 21 in points per game.

And now you're having to draft him as like the wide receiver 11 or wide receiver 13, depending on what platform you use.

And I just don't think they're going to score the eighth-most touchdowns in the league again this season.

And in fact, they could be a bottom five, bottom eight offense in the league, and just totally flip where they were last year because of all these offensive line issues.

And we know that Derek Carr is just terrified under pressure.

One team that's kind of freaking me out is the Minnesota Vikings.

Now,

I have been a leader of the Darnold Hive

really since the beginning, the dawn of time.

And I always yeah, I always thought he

was the old Montreal via New Jersey screw job with the Jets.

And I do think, I really think, and I'm not alone because the Hive has grown quietly amongst the football Cagna Sante.

And now here we are in a place where J.J.

McCarthy's out for the year, and Sam Darnold is, for all intents and purposes, locked and loaded as the QB1.

Now, Hayden, you had a shocking take teased at the top of the most recent

underdog football show.

How does that change J.J.

McCarthy's season-ending knee injury?

How does it change the Vikings' outlook from a fantasy perspective?

Well, I think everybody has their last-round fantasy pick locked up now with Sam Darnold because I think he's going to be a top 15 fantasy quarterback this year.

I looked back, Nick Mullins, Josh Dobbs, we know who those guys are.

We appreciate their production, but it's time for Sam Darnold to get out there.

Am I cutting out again?

No, I'm looking at Josh Norris, and he is just shaking his head almost in disappointment with Hayden's take here.

Go on, Hayden, and then I want to hear what Josh has to say about this.

Well, Josh Dobbs and Nick Mullins last year had three different top five fantasy quarterback weeks, and that was without Justin Jefferson.

And now you got Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and eventually TJ Hawkins in the back half of the year.

And this Vikings defense wants to blitz like crazy because they don't have great corners.

And this is tons of shootout potential.

The Bears' offense is good.

The Packers' offense is good.

And everyone just around Sam Darnold, it's the best landing spot imaginable.

And I just keep going back to those starts.

Josh Dobbs right off the airplane, and then he immediately becomes a fantasy quarterback one.

And NFL has this fetish over Sam Darnold.

And I think this is going to be the first year where that ultimately ends up paying off.

Josh, you don't seem to agree.

No, I mean, I get it.

And look, I've watched Sam Darnold up close and personal a number of times.

And you'd think by what, is it year six, year seven?

Year eight that this is the year, finally becomes the year.

I totally agree that this is the best environment he's ever walked into.

And you could even watch in freaking preseason action, Kevin O'Connell dialing up these wide open passes all across the field.

The second touchdown on JJ McCarthy II, no one was within 10 yards of that wide receiver.

But we are talking about Sam Darnold for an extended period of time.

All he has ever done is let us down.

And I'm totally with Hayden.

Like, again, a 40-pass attempt Nick Mullins game, we got that last year.

And yes, Josh Dobbs off the plane walks in after the first quarter and boom, he wins the contest.

Listen, do I really want to wager my entire fantasy football season on Sam Darnold here in week seven, week eight?

Probably not.

This is what I would do because I've been in a QB two league

since the dawn of time.

I have no problem taking a chance on Sam as my third quarterback, and maybe we catch lightning in a bottle.

I wouldn't go that high.

QB15?

What's that?

QB15?

I think he's got a chance to be up there.

I'm just saying, I think there could be some,

you know, I could take him later in the draft and has a big season.

And Sam Darnold didn't let us down.

We've let Sam Darnold down.

And I think that's so important that we

phrase it and look at it from that perspective.

Anyway, Mark, I know you agree deep down.

You believe.

You took a picture with him at the airport.

I did.

No,

he was quiet and calm at a lunch counter.

He ordered eggs and bacon and was kind enough to take a photo with me.

And so I am in his camp on some level, but QB15,

I think you need to have a number of tabs of LSD under your tongue to

engage in that kind of a gamble.

What is Hayden doing outside of the show?

This is all

revelations to me.

The other kind of recurring segment on your show this time of year,

earlier this month, Hayden, you had your favorite pick in every round of the drafts.

Josh, you have yours coming up here.

So why don't we dig into that a little bit?

And I want to start with Devon A.

Chain.

People seem to be all over the map on how to how they either trust him and the system he plays in, his ability to stay healthy.

Like, are you guys in lockstep?

And where do you see Achan?

Because he is kind of all over the place, it seems like, right now, Hayden, you take this one.

Yeah, this is a guy that absolutely smashed every single model that I had last year.

And these type of guys in year two get a bigger piece of the pie, and especially when the other starter who scored, you know, 21 touchdowns happens to be 32 years old.

So there's only one direction that this thing could go.

He has another offseason under his belt.

He's put on a little bit of weight.

And the other big thing with Devon Achan is they keep saying they want to use him in the passing game a little bit more.

And that was something where it was effective when they used him last year, but they didn't get to that quite enough.

And one of Josh's favorite notes is how often the Dolphins were up big in the second half and that the Dolphins did not have to pass the ball very much in the second half of game.

So I think that with Achan, with Tyreek Hill, with Jalen Waddell as well, these type of guys, they're going to get more volume just because there's not as many 60-yard touchdowns and three touchdown leads going into halftime.

Yeah, Dan, Hayden and I kind of live in our own fantasy football world at times, and we put this content out there onto the great platform that is YouTube.

And then we get all these nasty comments about our opinions.

And I love it.

It's like great feedback.

And silently, we read them all and get judged and feel bad about ourselves when everyone disagrees.

Yeah, it's not just our opinions.

It's our our appearance as well.

Oh, yeah, I'm in there, but

totally.

We got you.

We got you.

We love you.

Thank you for watching.

But everyone is just terrified of drafting Devon Achan.

And I think it goes back to the idea of upside and how much risk people are willing to take.

Because a main comment we were getting is, well, he might score 50 points, but I don't know when that 50-point wink is coming.

Okay, I just want to draft a guy that scores 50 points in games.

Like, hey, that can change the course of your entire fantasy football season.

And he was already the running back four in points per game last year.

And to Hayden's point about the Dolphins, and it makes me really want to draft Jalen Waddell this year in round two or even round three where he lasts and not do it last year, is that, I mean, he only had 23 catches for 306 yards and one touchdown in second halves of last year.

Tyree kill splits are very similar in second halves of last year.

And it's because, again, the 10 point, the 20 point leads this team had, and when they were in neutral scoring games, they had the third highest pass rate, but finished the season with the 15th highest pass rate.

They're only projected for nine and a half wins this year.

So Vegas thinks they're going to be in more and more and more close games.

Let's attach ourselves to an awesome offense and just get the guys.

They're probably going to get more opportunities than they even did last year.

I have one more question about the Dolphins, and I'm going to get it.

But first, I want to throw it.

It is a tradition on the fantasy extravaganza that, you know, Mark Sessler, he is known to head out into the field.

And I don't know know why he does it, because it never seems to end well.

It's called Mark's Fantasy Corner.

So let's throw it out there to Mark's Fantasy Corner and see how things are going this year.

In the past, it's been quite physically dangerous, but maybe things will be different this time around.

Mark, are you there?

Yes, Liam.

I'm hoping it will be safer this time around.

I am on an avenue swelling with noise and activity out here.

To be frank, it mirrors my inner strife about a fantasy football league that I've signed up for, gentlemen.

And Dan will be stunned by this, as I've long been fantasy avoidant.

It is a best ball elimination joust that goes as follows per the commissioner.

This is an 18-person, 14-round draft taking place on August 22nd at 8 a.m.

Eastern.

Each team will have 10 hours to pick.

That sounds really good.

I'm sorry, what time zone?

That was important for the audience.

Yes, Eastern time zone, 8 a.m.

on the 22nd of August, just in case you want to follow along.

The draft will be completed over a week or so.

The draft requires 252 picks to be made.

I I don't know why I'm doing this, which amounts to 18 picks a day.

If we fall off pace, per the commissioner, we will trim the time between picks.

Please don't take all day to pick if you don't need to, he notes.

Critical item, each week, the team with the lowest point total will be eliminated, and all their players will go on waivers.

I've never done this before, gentlemen.

How do I handle this, and especially, how do I handle the chaos of the later rounds, which is about 7,000 hours into this process?

Before you guys answer, let me just note that it sounds like in terms of you seem to to be in a safe area right now.

So maybe we're not doing it.

Maybe things will be different this year.

Okay.

I hear a swallow in the background, Dan.

That was a swallow.

First, I think the audience has been wondering, Mark, what you've been up to the last two months.

We finally have our answer.

It's only focusing and thinking on this new fantasy league that you have embarked on.

What a journey.

You love to challenge yourself in new spaces and new territories.

And you have found your niche, I feel like, here.

If I can answer your question, I think with some of your later round picks, you could take some somewhat aging veterans that might score better early in the season versus later in the season.

To me, a quintessential selection in this wild and crazy league that you have joined would be someone like Chuba Hubbard, okay, who is going extremely late, running back 50s, even later than that, because people just assume that in October, November, he will be replaced by rookie Jonathan Brooks when he comes off the pup list.

And they are, to me, underselling the amount of volume he's going to be getting in the first three or four weeks of the season.

So you just have some, I think, free points at a very much discount.

And then you can just pick up the scraps, the trash that everyone has left you, and build a super team because I know you will in the future.

Very nice.

Good trip to the corner.

One more Dolphins note here.

And this isn't just because I'm a Jets fan, but I do.

I have been known to revel in late season demise of Mike McDaniel Tua teams the last couple of years.

I just, there's a Super Bowl September vibe to these Dolphins teams that there, and there's been a falloff, undeniably, in terms of production

and success rate.

And

what about the idea that you do go all in on Dolphins, and then right around Halloween or so, you spin those guys off before they fall off the tracks, and you end up, you know, kind of getting all the good stuff without the bad stuff.

Is it time to start?

This is kind of a serious question.

Is it time to start looking at the Miami offense based on their output the last couple of years as something you buy high on and try to sell low at all costs?

This is a trope alert in actually the best ball streets because the Dolphins in week 17 travel into Cleveland, Ohio.

And I'm not sure if you guys have a weather forecast for the in-Cleveland game, but if you happen to make your finals

all of a sudden,

you have Tua throwing potentially into wind and snow in Cleveland.

The dome is not going to be ready this year unless it's the quickest dome built of all time.

So that's going to be the difficult part is week 17, tiny hands Tua in Cleveland.

Hmm.

So what are we saying, though?

Are we saying that

is the trope that it's not that

the numbers

do the numbers, but does the data back up that this is something that you've got to be very wary of?

You know, you've got to, at some point,

believe

what the numbers are telling you about their offense.

The data definitely backs it up.

If you guys paid attention to that Chiefs game, I think the film also very much backs it up.

It did not seem like they wanted to play in that game.

So, yeah, everyone back weights in the best ball.

They're like trying to figure out who's going to score the most points, like literally only in week 17.

That's what everyone cares about.

And everybody wants to draft the Dolphins, but the dang weather in Cleveland might not cooperate.

All right.

Let's move to Seattle.

Another interesting setup, a team that loves to run the football.

They had their, you know, they had their ups and they had certainly their downs on offense last year.

Something, a player that you guys, Josh, differ on in opinion is Kenneth Walker.

Where are you?

Where is his round for you?

And then Hayden, I want to hear where you have him.

Yeah, Hayden has him right around where he is being drafted as running back 17.

I'm all the way up as running back 13.

And look, I love stats.

You can't have phasing football without stats.

I love geeks because then they watch the show and create content as well.

But I think sometimes the geeks get a bit too into the stats that they lose their minds a little bit.

And to me, that is about Kenneth Walker III, where, yeah, he can be inefficient on goal line carries and he can have lower yards under expectation and, you know, he can get stuffed at the line of scrimmage.

Okay, he is also...

arguably one of the most explosive running backs in the nfl can change your fantasy game your week and the actual NFL contest with one singular run.

And I also believe that if you listen to new offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb, who Mark, I think you talked about in the show a couple of days ago, I mean, the offense that he had at the University of Washington was so modern, so new, so many cool motions and shifts and looks and space created.

The drumbeat that he is creating for this player is unbelievable.

Three-tool guy.

can run the ball every run you got he's got to be able to pass protect he can do that he's electric out of the backfield as a pass catcher.

I just want to hook my wagon to an offense and a team that believes in an electric player like this and be above market because I think the Seattle Seahawks are about to shock Vegas and shock so many fans out there that aren't in tune to what Brian Grubb can do with this with this talent of tools that he has.

Hey, Den, why do you disagree?

I'm not going to go on this show with this audience and say that anything negative about Kenneth Walker.

I draft him where his cost is.

Josh wants to be higher and make me look bad.

That's his M.O.

My thing with the Seahawks, I think they're going to pass the ball a ton just because that's what Ryan Grubb did, and especially down the field.

So I want to kind of buy the dip on JSN.

Jackson Smith and Jigba did not have the rookie season that many thought he would, but I think by the end of the year, they got him going a little bit more in the intermediate part of the game.

And he's got some decent size for a slot wide receiver.

And Geno Smith, I do think, could really throw the ball over the middle.

So I do think there's a chance this has a great match for one another.

And I think that Tyler Lockett, he's kind of on the decline at this point.

I would not be surprised if JSN overtakes Tyler Lockett and becomes an every week wide receiver three.

I've got a question for you.

Go ahead.

Can I throw a question out there?

I get that cool people don't draft quarterbacks early and all that stuff.

But like there is a certain player out there that Dan had a fascination with, Anthony Richardson.

Like what we saw last year, I believe you mentioned Josh in like like two clean starts that he finished like QB2 and QB4.

And we see that ability, but like with his health situation, the way he's used, like is that a quarterback you can trust or do you go into the season trusting that he could be a QB1 for you?

I personally do.

Now, best ball and home leagues are very different.

In fact, I think you should take the swing as the quarterback five or quarterback six in your home leagues because if an injury does occur or he misses two or three weeks, as we talked about, Hayden would advocate picking up Sam Darnold and he's your streamer for those two or three weeks or the rest of the season.

So it's very easy to do.

It's a very easy strategy in single quarterback leagues.

But again, it's this upside conversation.

We're not trying for these small wins in fantasy football.

You know, drafting the wide receiver 29 that turns into the wide receiver 25, doing that a couple of times, it gives yourself like a little pat in the back and it makes you feel good.

But really, you want to draft the quarterback five who can potentially finish as like the quarterback one overall.

And we all loved what CJ Stroud did last year.

But Mark, to put your point into context, and this is from the great Richard Ebar, yes, Anthony Richardson is two stars with a quarterback four and quarterback two in those weeks.

C.J.

Stroud only had two top six scoring weeks as a rookie over 15 starts entirely.

And he's being drafted right around where Anthony Richardson is.

So yes, I am in on Anthony Richardson.

I think he is just inexperienced and not raw.

And how Shane Steichen was able to build this Indianapolis Colts offense to score the 11th most touchdowns in the league last year with Garter freaking Minshew.

I still expect them to be a top 10 offense with Anthony Richardson at the helm.

You know, what kind of frustrates me a little bit about Richardson is I thought that because of the truncated rookie season and any concerns people have about how many times he got hurt.

And then, you know, the new rookie quarterbacks come in.

I was hoping I could get him at a value a little later in the draft, but he's going in the four by four.

Four for four, he's going as the sixth quarterback off the board before Joe Burrow and Kyler Murray and Dak Prescott.

So I guess if you want this guy, you're going to probably have to go get him and not hope he falls to you.

Yeah, any quarterback that can run now is going to get priced all the way up, that's for sure.

Let's pause right here and throw it back to the fantasy corner where Mark Sessler has yet another dispatch.

And

hopefully things stay calm in terms of the neighborhood he's in this year.

Oh, yeah.

Well, Dan, it is

becoming rowdier in these streets to some degree.

I am reminded that many here might not have the chance or opportunity to play fantasy football this season if the raucous nature of the avenue refuses to come in the near future.

I am reminded also by these words from Bukowski, and he wrote, There will be open and unpunished murder in the streets.

It will be guns and roving mobs.

Land will be useless.

Food will become a diminishing return.

Nuclear power will be taken over by the many.

Explosions will continually shake the earth.

Radiated robot men will stalk each other.

The rich and chosen will watch from space platforms.

Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground.

The sun will not be seen, and it will always be night.

Question for you guys, Tajay Spears or Tony Pollard?

I heard an explosion there.

Oh, screw it!

You know, I don't...

Why do we do this?

And also,

Tajay Spears or Tony Pollow, it's great.

I am a Tajay Spears fan.

I'm actually willing to take to

Gravedigger's approval both of these running backs, depending on which one falls to me.

Brian Callahan all summer long has been an advocate that this is going to be a 1A versus 1B.

And then we saw that in the first preseason game, even inside of the red zone.

They were going in and out, depending on the snap, depending on what the formation and the alignment was.

I'm just a huge fan of Tajay Spears as an individual talent to make people miss in the open field.

But Mark, I do have to say, I just got a message from HR saying that you have a work-from-home internet security training that is overdue, and you need to get on that pronto.

We'll do.

That's fair.

That's important.

Hey, where's the gravedigger?

I want to hear from him for a second here on the Titans.

Fantasy prospects.

Because Tony Pollard was, you know, famously one of the bigger bus of the fantasy season last year with the Cowboys.

We all thought he was, or many of us thought he was going to make the leap.

Are you buying in on him?

Do you think he's going to be?

And of course, he's replacing a literal legend, a giant in Derrick Henry.

Those are impossible shoes to fill.

Well, if we just look at preseason week one usage as a guide, Tony Pollard had, I think, six touches to Tajay Spears, three or four, maybe.

So it looks like very 1A1B.

I think what's going to be tough is figuring out who gets the touchdowns because they're both going to touch the ball a lot.

They're both going to be involved in the passing game.

And they're probably going to rotate in and out around the goal line.

If you had both guys, that seems great for a best ball scenario because somebody's probably going to score every week.

But trying to figure out which guy to start week to week in a home league definitely feels like a challenge that I want to avoid.

Now, the other part of that, Dan, is he says someone's going to be scoring points every single week right now, not to be the bearer of bad news.

The Tennessee Titans are projected for the fifth fewest points in the NFL this season.

So I don't know if they're going to be scoring that many points every day.

We're all cool, Gravedigger, with the Mayonnaise Cologne bit you got going on with the QB.

But are we actually going to score points in Nashville this season?

That's a fair question.

Hey, do you guys agree now that we're all family?

First of all, it's magnetized, the Titans helmet that spins behind Justin.

Do you agree that it moves perhaps 27%

too fast?

Oh, now it's 27%.

It was 24% last week or earlier this week.

Just honest opinions.

I'm just

taking

a data survey on this.

Like, what was percentage-wise, like, how too, how much is it too fast?

Or maybe it's just right to you.

Leaving question.

It's about, I would say, like 36% too fast.

My question is, is it, does it have anything to do with causing these earthquakes?

Is there a magnetic pole that's moving these tectonic plates?

That needs to be investigated.

There was a very troubling,

because Hayden is also a Californian.

There was a very troubling news article that came in the wakes of the earthquakes that rattled our first show on Monday.

It was like, oh, heads up.

New fault line.

So smell you later.

And it's fair to wonder if the magnet has played a role.

That's all.

The speed is throwing the earth off its axis and we're going to have a Pangea situation.

Yeah, I would point out though, because while my studio shook like a cracked egg over here, the helmet continued to spin.

It did not move.

It was unaffected by nature or God or anything of a higher power.

It just continued to move.

Not to put him in the spotlight, but Hayden is a massive viewer viewer of your show.

I mean, for 10, 12 years, all that kind of stuff.

So just for the audience out there, Hayden, I would love to ask you this question.

How does it actually feel to be in the storm in the moment when all these drops are hitting and all these bits are being created on the fly?

Is it weird?

And you're going to re-listen to this later on?

Is it exactly what you expected?

Just for the audience out there who might want to do the same thing.

Yeah, I've been losing my mind

preparing for this.

That was the one that I've kept saying.

Whenever I hear hear it out, I always say my mind.

And I actually caught my wife who hasn't put you guys on a couple times, but I heard her, she said my mind out of nowhere by herself, unprompted too.

So we've started a relay race down here based off of your drops.

Oh, man.

That's touching and a real compliment.

Thank you.

Because you guys got so much to do that we got to let you go.

And again, you got to check out the underdog football show.

You guys kill it.

And every day you got something dropping.

And I am absolutely getting smarter and hopefully winning my league of record this year as a result next week when we draft.

I won't tell you what time zone we draft in, though.

You'll just have to guess.

Rookie wide receivers, obviously a juicy wide receiver class.

Hayden, I know you have Malik Neighbors ranked ahead of Marvin Harrison Jr., which, you know, listen, Harrison was the guy in a potentially all-time receiver draft that was the first one off the board.

But obviously, it's not just about the player's skill, it's the setup.

Is that kind of explain why things are the way they are for you?

It is, but it does sound weird to say that the Giant setup is better than the Cardinals.

But I did go back two years ago when it was weird.

Yeah, it's very good.

Although, let's just be honest, just like brief aside,

Daniel Jones with the beard went from

I would say like a five and a half to like a clean seven.

You're right.

And I think that guys follow, there's a reason why quarterbacks are typically good looking.

It's there's a lot of human nature to it all.

I mean, I was looking at your faces that are the show of

the show of beards between you three.

So, like, I feel there is some level of

bias, yes, towards beards.

Is this like a Joe Flacco situation?

Like, he got so much better looking over time.

And, like, I don't know.

He got better as a quarterback.

Josh, have you ever had facial hair?

You look like a guy that's always clean shaven.

No, no, no, no, no.

I have to do, I don't do a clean shave every day.

I just do the razor to it nearly every single day.

If I let it out three or four days, it's like three different colors, though.

It's like red here, blonde here, white here.

Hayden is the one that

is unable in any part of his face to grow facial hair because he's still really two years old.

But it doesn't.

I did have a mold last year, though.

Yeah,

it's not going to come in, but

I can't get the top of the head to grow out.

So I'm debating if I'm going to bring the

shot back.

Bring it back.

Bring it back.

Exactly.

All right.

These rookie wide receivers, let's talk.

So, yeah, because, yeah, the Giants, no one's expecting them, even with a better-looking quarterback this year, to be a big-time offense.

But there's also going to be probably a high target share here, I imagine, right?

Yeah, this is more just shout out to Brian Dayball.

Last year, obviously, we forgot because the entire organization melted in front of him.

But two years ago, this team kind of surprised, And I went back and they were 12th in EPA per play.

They were 13th in success rate through the air.

Those numbers were way higher than I kind of remembered just because last year was such a disaster.

And the other thing here is if we're copy-pasting Daniel Jones' stats, he's never had anyone that looks like can move like Malik Neighbors.

This is, to me, is a total offensive mover.

And I think that they're going to work in tandem.

Brian Dayball is going to throw the ball into the slot.

Now they have a legit outside option in Malik Neighbors.

They'll move him around the formation.

So to me, they're just going to pass the ball a little bit more than what the Cardinals are going to do.

I know what the Cardinals offense wants to do.

It's a Browns.

It's the Eagles.

They want to run the ball.

They were really effective at it last year.

So nothing against Marvin Harrison, the player.

I just think that Brian Dayball, the Giants and Malik Neighbors, I think they're going to pass the ball a little bit more than the Arizona Cardinals.

Dan, I think the big difference in that is Marvin Harrison Jr.

is being drafted on every single platform as wide receiver nine right now.

And Malik Neighbors is being drafted as like wide receiver 25 in your home leagues, wide receiver 18.

So I would not just go ahead and flip them, but I do have them back to back because really, in order to hit that wide receiver nine draft capital that is attached to Marvin Harrison Jr.

right now, he has to be Puka Nakua last season.

He has to be rookie year Justin Jefferson.

He has to be rookie year Jamar Chase.

Those are some pretty lofty expectations.

So I wouldn't flip them.

I would just like condense the split, condense the gap in between them right now.

And yet it makes sense in some way too, right?

Because the way Harrison is spoken of, he's kind of seen as a can't miss all-pro level guy.

Obviously, the bloodlines are impeccable

as a player.

So it's like

you could see it, but you don't want to, it's these guys, these type of like instant superstars, they don't happen every year.

So you're kind of banking on something that doesn't typically happen.

But you're drafting him at your ceiling, at his ceiling, I guess is the right way of putting that.

I think one guy, and I wish Hayden could go back to back here and maybe I'll set him up for it, is Brian Thomas that may be the rookie wide wide receiver that is being underdrafted?

I mean, just if you think about what the Jacksonville Jaguars were doing last year, I mean, Trevor Lawrence tied with the NFL lead with 11 touchdowns and 20-plus yard passes.

He was ninth in percentage of his passes that traveled to that area of the field.

That was with trying to like force Calvin Ridley into that role.

They obviously go out and get Gabe Davis, who can be this sacrificial lamb, do the dirty work, ex-wide receiver stuff.

And they're going to do all the cool and fun, intermediate and downfield stuff, get him on the move with Brian Thomas Jr.

I thought he liked just from reading the Beat Riders and all that type of stuff, especially John Shipley, that he had a slow start to his camp.

These last three or four or five days have just been outstanding, so it's all starting to click.

And he's like imperative, he's essential for the Jaguars to be what they want to be this year.

So I think he's going to have a huge, huge season.

That makes so much sense.

That makes so much sense because they need, yeah, they need him to hit after the way their offseason

went.

Anything else to add, boys?

Just keep drafting 6-3, 210-pounders that can run 4-3s.

It seems like a good idea.

And

maybe we should put the bullish Brian Thomas stuff before I got off the rails with the bullish Sam Darnold stuff at the top of the show.

So maybe Gravedigger could put this Benjamin Button in and reverse the show.

Darnold adjacent, where do you feel comfortable taking Aaron Rodgers off the board?

After Sam Darnold.

Okay.

So, okay, that's interesting to me.

So, you, you, do you guys both agree with that?

Josh, do you agree with that?

I mean, I'm right around with ADP with Aaron Rodgers.

The thing with him is, you know, he's going to throw a lot of touchdowns.

He always does, but that's what his scoring is.

There's no rushing upside to it.

So drafting him right around the likes of like Matthew Stafford just makes a ton of sense.

To me, they're almost like

if one goes and you can draft the other if you want to in that regard.

But I either, I mainly am going to attack that like elite quarterback territory where they have a chance, even down to like Kyler Murray of finishing as the or Dak Prescott as the overall quarterback one versus like dealing with these pocket passers that like don't have that much of a big ceiling for the entire season, to be honest.

That's fair.

All right, the underdog football show with Josh Norris and Hayden Winks.

So excited to be part of the family.

I am digging in.

I'm getting into this best ball world.

I am excited and you guys are the best in the business.

Before we go to break, boys,

if you have the stomachs for it, Josh,

we were going to go to the fantasy corner one more time.

And I never like going there a third time because I always feel like it's just,

you just come out of it feeling sick to your stomach, but maybe this year is different.

Mark Sessler, are you there?

I am here.

I've got to let you know that, you know, back in the day, I worked for C-SPAN and covered Beirut in 1982.

I see vast parallels to what I'm witnessing.

Right now, it's no picnic out here on these streets.

I still would like to have 10 to 12 more children in my life through various partners if possible.

That seems that's not going to happen at this point

if this continues as is.

Oh, do that training work.

Mark.

Mark, you there?

Mark.

Oh, God.

All right.

I should not have went back for the third time.

We got to stop putting it in the field.

See, this isn't like the other fantasy segments, Josh and Hayden.

Hayden.

I don't know if it was any good.

I don't know if I think you guys had great info, but I will say it's a unique segment because there was an active war zone during this fantasy conversation.

Mark is trying to do two jobs.

He is trying to host this podcast and also be like Anderson Cooper.

Who knew you were so versatile?

Well, let's speak about him in the past

sense because that did not sound great.

All right, there you go.

Thank you, Josh and Hayden.

Check out everything that Underdog is doing on the fantasy side because nobody does it better.

Heed the call.

We'll be right back.

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All right, we are back.

Thank you again to Josh and Hayden.

And

great news.

Mark is here as well.

So, you know, it's just a bit.

Yeah, it's,

you know, to pull back the curtain, I wasn't actually in a war-torn street while also conversing in my studio with fantasy football heads.

Just to let you know.

Yeah, good, good, good, good, good.

We have fun here.

And,

you know, I asked about that Aaron Rodgers thing

because it is always, if you're a fan of a team, there is always that pull.

And we always, in the past,

we used to offer fantasy tips at the end of the show.

And one of my standing was was just like standing tips was if you're doing it in a group setting or even on a Zoom setting in the modern era.

Don't be the guy who gets drunk.

Let the other guys get drunk.

And then you can drink once the draft is over.

That will give you some good pick advantages later in in the process.

But I guess the one I would say this year is just be very careful about getting too hung up with your favorite team.

And that was a great point about Rodgers.

Like he might throw 34 touchdowns this year.

But in fantasy, the fact that he gives you very little with his legs at this point of his career, especially coming off that injury, yeah, a little bit of a warning sign there.

And I would say with like your brownies, Mark, like...

I would love, always been one of my favorite players at the running back position, Nick Chubb, but I feel like he's probably a stayaway guy this year, given that he's still kind of slowly working his way back from that devastating knee injury.

And given the Watson of it all, the entire Browns offense is kind of a tricky one to get too bullish about.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's like also if you are, and I fell victim to this countless years back in the day when I would draft a ton of Browns players, but then the Browns in real life would take a massive dirt nap, and my fantasy players and my fantasy team

by default would take a dirt nap too.

And it's like, it's a double slap

of devastation.

Yes, you almost want to stay away from things that affect your heart too much, I'd say.

But I do, it was Wes of all people that always, always trumpeted the concept that don't pick up players that you really would struggle rooting for in real life.

And I do think you should enjoy the process and enjoy the people on your team.

So whether that's the greatest strategy technically or not, I've always thought that way.

Like, I'm not going to pick this guy if in real life he is an agitation to me.

The other above the treetops wessism that I

he used to say when we would do the fantasy extravaganzas that is such great advice, and actually I heard Josh echo it at one point in our conversation today is that take big swings.

Like when

you're not trying to, ooh, if I pick this guy, you know, I want the wide receiver 27 instead of getting the wide receiver 31.

Like take the big swings and

because that's how you win leagues if you can just hit on a couple big picks like that.

So

if you can get a guy that's kind of a middling contributor that you could probably like a wide receiver, for instance, that you know has a ceiling of you know 60 and 905 touchdowns, maybe go the riskier route with the guy that has the higher ceiling, even if it's a lower floor, and you're probably going to be better off in the end.

And speaking of Chris Wesling, before we sign off on our first week of shows here with Underdog, Heed the Call, with Dan Hanses and Mark Sessler,

how could we wrap up the show, as we mentioned, Chris Wesling, without having a conversation with one of our favorite people in the world?

It is the great Lakeisha Wesling, who now joins us from St.

Louis.

What's up, Keish?

Welcome to Heed the Call.

Hey, hey, you guys.

I love, love, love the name.

I'm so freaking freaking proud of you guys.

Like, seriously.

And hey, Gravedigger.

How about that?

Yeah, Keisha.

Like,

you know, we talked on the phone a few days ago and, you know, you said very nice things.

And, you know, that's obviously really important to us.

And, you know, the name, one thing that I thought to myself that I wanted to talk about in that first episode was why we chose the name.

Heed the call.

And maybe some people aren't familiar with the background on that.

And maybe the best person to connect the dots there is Lakeisha, because it directly connects to Wes and our relationship to him, both professionally and personally.

Go ahead, Keisha.

My late husband, Chris Weslin, was part of the ATM podcast with you guys, all four of you.

You guys did some amazing things.

And a big part of it was he would talk about, you know, heeding the call, like following what calling that is put on your heart.

Like if you're religious, it could be, you know, the Holy Ghost, like whatever spirit, whatever moves you to follow that voice.

And I think that voice had you guys start this fault, start this podcast.

So you guys are heeding the call in itself.

Yeah, I think I, when I think about Wes,

I'll never forget I had this little side podcast with Connor Orr, and the first person that I interviewed was Wes.

And we just sat in like the conference room at the old NFL.com building.

And I basically was just just like, let's just talk about your resume, like what, like the various jobs that you've had and how you got from A to B to C.

And like, it was just this incredible journey.

Obviously, we know he was a mailman, but then the stories about being a mailman, and then the stories of working at like a law office, and like how he was quietly running like a fantasy football site from the law office.

And like, I kind of got all of that to hear.

And it's like, Wes, from the minute I met him,

to the very end was someone that followed his heart from start to finish.

And I was looking through some photos the other day that Lakeisha, you and Wes and I also, we all got together as a group, but there were a couple times that the three of us would go out on like a day drinking Saturday or something to the cozy or some other places.

And I just like the minute when I think of you two and Wes together, just like the memories we had and the laughter.

And I just hope that this summer alone that you've had,

you know, you're in a different city now.

I hope you've been able to get out and have some fun too.

And it was even a pleasure speaking with you yesterday when I called you.

You were at the Cheesecake Factory, I believe.

And I could hear Link in the background talking about food and you wanted him to put a napkin on the food.

It was just like, I just have wonderful memories and can't help but smile every time I kind of anyone involved with this whole journey.

It's very special to me.

One of my favorite tropes of talking to Lakeisha is Link inevitably getting into some mischief and Lakeisha having to handle that business while trying to talk to me.

And I'm watching this Pete Rose documentary on HBO right now.

And

Pete Rose, who's a near and dear figure to all the Westlings, including Wes, who wore number 14 on our softball team, The Shield, because of Pete Rose.

Pete Rose, like Wes, is from the west side of Cincinnati.

And a lot of people that grow up on the west side of Cincinnati stay in the west side of Cincinnati, and that's not a bad thing.

That's a great thing, in fact, to have that bond to a city and your family and where you're from.

But

a credit to Wes, and I always felt a connection with Wes on this as well, that I grew up in New York, and I have you know, family that I love and friends that I love in New York, but I did feel a pull to try something different in my life and go somewhere else.

And Wes did that, going from Cincinnati to Tybee in Georgia and spending time there, and then eventually coming out to California to work with Mark, Greg, and myself, and all the magic that came from that.

And so heed the call

when we were.

thinking in the spring about what the name of the show should be,

that was the first thing that came to mind, like that this next chapter in our career is about taking risks and not being afraid to embrace change and knowing that it is probably the safer move to operate as you were, as we were, for instance, with the NFL and kind of roll with the ebbs and flows of being in that structure, or

from my perspective at least, going somewhere and really saying, okay, we have this beautiful audience and this loyal audience and we love doing what we do.

What could be the best version of this?

and what drives you?

What gets you excited and makes you want to do this at this stage after we've done it for over a decade?

And that's what that's to me what heed the call and what this podcast is about is like taking the show in a place that truly fulfills its potential.

And Wes has such a, his DNA is embedded within the show and really all of us.

So like.

Keish, you picked a great man and he's still with us as we do this show now.

Oh, yeah.

He just, I see him more and more in lincoln like every day like the good and the bad like it's so crazy like i know you guys have young boys but four is it's like we're in that like sweet spot like he's starting to remember a lot of things like i have a tybee island shirt on um chris that was one of his favorite places in lincoln his memory like he'll talk about when we were there in may what song we played on the golf cart like riding to the grocery store like he just loves all things all things tidey, just like Wes did.

And it's just, it's just so much fun to just kind of like watch life and is like

through him.

Like, it's just such fun age.

It is, it is.

I miss the boys that they there's certain things I don't miss about four-year-old Jack and Harrison, but there is an innocence and a personality that really comes out.

And one more thing before we say goodbye, Keish.

Facts and questions, FAQs, everybody knows it.

Yes.

Actually,

Jordan Rodrigue, a friend of ours, texted me.

It could also be facts after questions.

So you still get the FAQ.

Listen, either way, it's

Dan, one thing.

Like, the idea that you are already out on Twitter attempting to hashtag this and brand it as like a technical grammatical change to the English language is utterly absurd.

You simply need to go with what the actual meaning was.

Can we start there?

You're saying I should take the L L on it, but I can't.

I would say, but one of the FAQs was like, Are you guys going to do live shows?

I find I'll set a goal right now, and I'm not afraid to say it on the show, Keish, for us to do a live show from Huckapoo's

Heed the Call live show in Tybee Island.

Maybe even we could try to do it next spring and

have our fans there and really do something special.

I think that would be very cool.

Because anything we could do that connects back to Chris beyond the name of the show uh is is something that i think would be a lot of fun yeah i think that is a fabulous idea like i still get pictures from folks on tide bee island just sending pictures of like listeners coming to huckapoos and taking a picture with all the you know the chris signage around the bar it's just it's it's a magical place like you guys have felt it there before it's crazy that lincoln fills it at four like i think that would be just

it'd be a lot of fun maybe too much fun.

Well, it's on the bucket list for the show.

Keish, thank you so much for joining us and supporting us.

And you know, we love you.

I love you guys too.

All right, that is it.

The first week of shows, heed the call.

We are just getting going.

We can't get, can't wait to be back on your screens and in your ears.

Next week, we have a full slate of shows with some more guests that we really think you're going to like.

This is just the beginning.

And remember, you know what you got to do.

Heed the call.

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