The "My Guy" Fantasy Football Draft (4th Annual!) With Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck

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Speaker 1 It's our Ringer Fantasy Football Show crew. You can find the fantasy guide is on the ringer.com.
Well, like it's sort of technically on the ringer.com.

Speaker 1 Fantasyfootball.thringer.com. It's a great product.
I like it.

Speaker 1 We're doing this Yahoo Fantasy Draft on Monday, and you're banning.

Speaker 1 Are you banning laughter? No technology. Pencils and paper.
No technology draft. I don't know.

Speaker 1 So you have to print out stuff? Yeah. I know.
Or buy like a magazine or something? If you can find a printer somewhere in this world.

Speaker 1 I really like, so are phones banned? Yeah.

Speaker 1 No phones. No.

Speaker 2 This was unilateral. This should give you an edge.

Speaker 1 No, no, no, no, no, you don't want to. This is great.
Hyphen was in on it. Yeah.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Phones for emergencies only. I mean, I was doing fantasy when we just had like the USA Today, like just

Speaker 1 seasoned leaders, and that would all be looked at. And you just, I can't wait.
So we're doing a ringer draft on Monday and you can watch it live on the fantasy football channel that these guys have.

Speaker 1 New rewatchables is coming on Monday. We are doing Witness.
It is movie number 399, which you can watch on the Ringer Movies YouTube channel as well.

Speaker 1 Coming up, we're doing the annual My Guy Fantasy draft. 30 categories.
It went way too long, and insults were thrown around. Can't wait.
I would take a break, Pearl Jam, and then the draft.

Speaker 1 All right, we're taping this on a Thursday afternoon. I am here with the ringer fantasy football guys, Danny Heifitz, Danny Kelly, Craig Korbeck, Los of My Life with the Rewatchables as well.

Speaker 1 I think, what is this, fourth year we've done this or third?

Speaker 1 Third? Third? At least least third. At least third, maybe fourth.
It's an annual tradition, the My Guy Fantasy Football draft. We have all these stupid categories.
We draft different people.

Speaker 1 We try to make fun of as many people. I found like, I had less animosity toward fantasy football guys this year.
It's a really good top 30 this year.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like I was going through and I'm like trying to find people I wanted to short or be against or be angry about.

Speaker 1 I just, I don't know, hype fits. I just felt kind of happy and blissful and liked everybody.
Are you just like

Speaker 1 more forgiving in your old age? Yeah, I didn't have a lot of grudges. There weren't like I saw Trevor Lawrence.
That made me mad.

Speaker 1 But just for the most part, I wasn't angry at a lot of people. Kyle Pitts, obviously, but that's like, that's this ground that we've trend so many times.

Speaker 1 Like, who are the angry guys this year that met that I think are triggers for people? I think the entire Miami Dolphins team. Pretty frustrating group of guys.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but isn't everybody kind of lived with that? And

Speaker 1 I think through it and like everybody's kind of given up on on potentially not being disappointed by them I agree with you that there are there's not a lot of guys to hate this year and I kind of think part of that is there was just a lot of good rookies and second year guys last year that broke out there's just like so much new talent there's so much like new stuff to get excited about like feeling you can just like scroll and be like ooh that guy oh lad mcconkey like you just kind of like a lot of people in the top 50 this year so But we'll see.

Speaker 1 There's guys. There's less like old kind of semi-washed up sort of guys, like those Keenan Allen types.
You usually have a ton of those. Like, I'm not taking that guy.
Well, and a lot of

Speaker 1 the bets from last year, like Derrick Henry, is this going to work? He's washed. That worked.
Saquon Barkley is this going to work. That worked.
So, a lot of like risky bets paid off.

Speaker 1 And so, now those aren't things that people are thinking anymore.

Speaker 2 I think Christian McCaffrey is the guy that comes to my mind where you're like, What the hell do I do with this guy?

Speaker 1 Yeah, but that's turning into a game of chicken where people now are positioning it when they talk to other people about it. Like, I wouldn't go near it, but meanwhile, they're like, I'm definitely

Speaker 1 bidding for it.

Speaker 1 It's a good point that you're making because, I mean, basically, you know, happiness is just expectations minus reality.

Speaker 1 And I think to your point, if you take away McCaffrey, all these older players are like surpassing expectations now of what you think. Like the Mike Eddie 30.
Yeah, they just keep going.

Speaker 1 Derrick Hemi had the quietest 2,000 yards from scrimmage ever, and he's 30 years old.

Speaker 1 And like, I mean, didn't even talk about it because Saquon did what he did after the running back narrative flipped and all these older guys performing. McCaffrey was the only guy who didn't.

Speaker 1 But then the rookies, the same thing. We heard all this hype.
There's a lot of hype, except for Morvin Harrison Jr.

Speaker 1 All the other rookies hit the the mark. And so I think that those two guys had the animosity, but everyone else actually really surpassed it.

Speaker 1 So we have this where I feel like this is an NBA thing too, where the older guys are hanging on. So you have younger guys who seem like more prepped.

Speaker 1 I guess the NBA, they're a little younger, but like you have this thing where older guys are hanging on.

Speaker 1 So you still have Mike Evans, you still have Derrick Henry, you still have like guys that you Devontae Adams, who's 33, but getting like 20 million a year.

Speaker 1 But now you have like Brian Thomas and Levi Conkey and all these rookies that worked out immediately. So

Speaker 1 the collection of good players is just bigger. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 But do you feel like part of it is is this social media era where everybody, all the players can fire back at people and players have podcasts?

Speaker 1 And I don't know, 30 years ago, we would have just been like, fuck Caleb Williams. He sucks.
I was going to bring up Caleb Williams.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but Caleb Williams, I feel like, would have been way more polarizing. Where everybody's so glass half full on everybody now.

Speaker 1 It's like, Caleb Williams, I don't know, 4,000 yards, but maybe it'll turn, maybe this will be the year. There'll be a lot of disappointments.
And then next year will be the, I fucking hate that guy.

Speaker 1 I fucking hate this guy. Yeah.
I think we're in a weird era now, though.

Speaker 1 Like, there were literally AI videos about players that you don't know if this, like, Debo Samuel, there was a video that literally made Debo Samuel look fatter than he was just to get people like against him in commanders practice.

Speaker 2 Well, I don't think we even know if that was AI.

Speaker 1 Was it not? I don't know. I don't remember.
I think it was just a camera with a different lens. Oh, I thought he was that chunky.
He was that chunky. People apparently put him back on my board.

Speaker 1 The problem is we're at a point where it's really difficult to find the answer to someone's like, this Photoshop's AI. And we're like, I don't even know how to check that.

Speaker 1 And like, Brock Bowers being bald. And like, someone just photoshopped.
There will just be like a video of JJ McCarthy making some terrible pass.

Speaker 1 And then if you read the comments, everyone's like, that's Sam Howell from last year. There's like, yeah, there's like these accounts that are like, you know,

Speaker 1 these bots trying to take people down. It's kind of hard online now to decipher what's going on.
Yeah. One of my friends sent me this AI thing of the sad meme when I was sad at the Celtic game.

Speaker 1 And it, and I'm sad, but then all of a sudden I get excited and start pumping my fist. No way.
And I did an AI and it fucking freaked me out. Oh, yeah.
That's weird.

Speaker 1 It was like happy Me, but I had like big al Puccino teeth in it. That was the only way you knew it was fake.
But yeah, this is going to be the next five years of us trying to figure out what's real.

Speaker 1 What's a lot of propaganda in training camp now? Oh, yeah. Yes.
That's the other thing. The online propaganda, it's just hard to know what's real and what's not.

Speaker 1 Well, we have these coaches that are really good at selling.

Speaker 1 Everyone's savvy now. Everyone's mad at Sean Payton now that he's like talking up his team too much.

Speaker 1 He just compares

Speaker 1 talk about that every time. He just compares every single time.
They're talking about Hall of Famer, isn't it? He's like, this guy reminds me of Pat Bryant reminds me of Michael Thomas.

Speaker 1 Yeah, RJ Harvey reminds me of Alvin Kamara. Oh, no, he's like Patrick Mahomes, yeah, Mahomes.
Can you please come up with better comps, dude?

Speaker 1 It makes it way harder to figure out the nobody believes in us team, which is actually not just big for futures and betting and picking stuff, but also for fantasy.

Speaker 1 Because you know, you want to figure out like the when we're going to talk about like we have all these categories: the team, you definitely want all the guys from, the team you don't want all the guys from.

Speaker 1 Um, but the sleeper team, sometimes like Tampa last year, if you went in on them, you had baker and you had bucky irving and you had the receivers like you you were loaded up what were we gonna say i just think that nobody believes in this team is tough because like i forget which team coined that which team was the the 2007 giants right and so i just think that that was like sorry that was kind of dick but no i know it's earlier than that i'm not giving them credit but

Speaker 1 but i think that it was like uh there's just different era of media but i think now

Speaker 1 Basically, you're talking about adversity and it used to be like Tom Brady would go home from practice or game and turn on ESPN. And now guys just look at their phones at their locker.

Speaker 1 So like they're in their mentions. So they're,

Speaker 1 it's never been easier for individual players or teams to find things that like you have coaches printing out tweets people send.

Speaker 1 So it's like weird because it's like Patrick Mahomes, like the Chiefs just went to three Super Bowls and they had, they, and Patrick Mahomes is like finding stuff.

Speaker 1 Like even Steph Curry is like at halftime, I feel like checking his mentions and he's Steph Curry. So I feel like everyone's just finding advanced.

Speaker 1 I think you guys should have done that with the fantasy landscape.

Speaker 1 just like nobody believed in us second biggest fantasy pod people said we couldn't get here just start doing that when our name was the dantesy football podcast nobody believed no one believed because no one you googled it it wouldn't come up yeah they thought it was a typo now matthew berry's calling us

Speaker 1 um all right let's go through this because we have a lot of stuff to to hit we added categories this year the most important category though we'll go and we'll just go in order this way so you go and we'll everybody gets the pick and then we do the next one one and Danny Kelly goes.

Speaker 1 Sweet. Hi Fitz.

Speaker 1 My one true love. Who is it for you in 2025? It's a little lame.
I don't care. It's Jameer Gibbs, the running back for the Lions.
And it's this simple.

Speaker 1 It's because I think that the conversation we were just having, there's just a lot of players you could take number one overall this year.

Speaker 1 And so I think that, frankly, there is an unusually high caliber of people you can get fourth.

Speaker 1 And I know that for you, that's a Booger Eater draft and you prefer auctions, but like I, all my, no one anymore, none of my friends want to do it anymore.

Speaker 1 So, if you just get the fourth pick this year, I've even seen the fifth pick, and you end up with Jameer Gibbs.

Speaker 1 And I feel like in most years, Jameer Gibbs would be going first in a lot of recent drafts. And I just think he's the best running back in the league.

Speaker 1 If you want to do Bijan Robinson, that's cool too.

Speaker 1 But I just, I love Gibbs, and that kind of guy in this op in the Lions offense and everything, and especially if that defense is probably going to be bad again. So he's going to get so many touches.

Speaker 1 And I just think it's such an unusual profile for a guy that's still ascending and getting better that it's just a crazy good player to get in basically the middle of the first round.

Speaker 1 So you had him in the ringer fantasy football guide, a great product.

Speaker 1 $59 for him. Number three player overall.
You agree with that, Danny Kelly?

Speaker 2 Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think right in that range. I don't think you, I would not look at you sideways if you pick him first.

Speaker 1 Really? A lot of people. What scares me about him?

Speaker 1 It's just skating where the puck's heading. It's just, it's just he, next year, Bijan and Gibbs will be the top two picks.
Like, you would just. You agree with that? Yeah.

Speaker 1 I've never had Jameer Gibbs in a fantasy season, and every year I'm jealous of the guy who does.

Speaker 2 He's just so explosive. I think, obviously, the question marks this year are, is the Lions offense going to take a huge step back with Ben Johnson gone?

Speaker 2 And I still think they have so much talent and, I don't know, institutional knowledge, I guess, in terms of how they want to run their offense.

Speaker 2 This new guy can probably, you know, make it a pretty good

Speaker 1 new guy. He doesn't even know his name.
Morton, John Morton. Just offensive line and no Ben Johnson.
Sign me up.

Speaker 1 Panay Panay Sewell is like the new Trent Williams, where his ability, he can pull Panay Sewell as a tackle on plays that usually you have to pull a guard because he's so fast he can get there, which is just a Trent Williams thing.

Speaker 1 So as long as Panay Sewell is there, they're able to do things in the run game that literally other teams are not able to do. They can try things no other team can do.

Speaker 1 And that is the kind of advantage that it doesn't necessarily leave because Ben Johnson is a pretty boring pick because their cohorts all agreed with it and we can't even debate it.

Speaker 1 Something scares me about him from a durability standpoint. Yeah.
How many has he ever gotten? He hasn't gotten like 350 touches?

Speaker 2 Well, he's kind of like the new Alvin Kamara a little bit in the sense of just so efficient with his touches.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 And he scores so many touchdowns, explosive player.

Speaker 1 Big plays, yeah. But when David Montgomery went down at the end of the season, Jameer Gibbs was just like the best player.
Yeah, he had like 280 touches last year. Okay.
Who do you have, DK?

Speaker 2 I might have one that's a little controversial, I guess, here. I got Brock Bowers for the Raiders.

Speaker 2 I think there's a lot of people that are worried right now in fantasyland because of the way that the Raiders are using him in the preseason, which I know sounds silly, but this does kind of move ADPs and create a level of concern with him because he's not playing as many snaps with the starters as I think you'd want.

Speaker 2 They have Michael Mayer playing a bunch and maybe

Speaker 2 they're not going to use him as a blocker. But I'm just like, I'm going to ignore all that.
Bowers is just too good.

Speaker 2 I mean, if you look at what he did as rookie, third and receptions behind only Jamar Chase and Amon Ron St. Brown.
He has elite wide receiver numbers as a rookie tight end.

Speaker 1 He had the most catches ever for rookie in any position.

Speaker 2 And this is the same guy who, like, going back to his college as a true freshman at Georgia, led the Bulldogs in receiving on a team that had Lad McConkey, A.D.

Speaker 2 Mitchell, George Pickens, James Cook, Darnell Washington, Jermaine Burton, Aaron Smith, all draft picks, like super talented group. And he was by far the best.

Speaker 2 He's just, I think he's just a really good player. Craig and I kind of argued about him last year because

Speaker 2 there was a picture of him wearing like an auto trader t-shirt and he just looked like

Speaker 1 a sophomore engineer.

Speaker 1 yeah he looked like not athletic whatsoever i was like craig you gotta go watch and then a photo came out of him bald shaved everybody thought he had shaved his head ai not real anyway

Speaker 1 i had him on one of my teams last year and it was glorious yeah and then when you actually watch and there's less games in the late late afternoon part of the schedule I test wise, he just like jumps out of the TV.

Speaker 1 Like he would make crazy catches in traffic. Yeah.
Seemed just unstoppable. Originally, I was kind of like, eh, tight end in the first round.
I don't love it.

Speaker 1 I do think I'm now starting to underrate Geno Smith being the quarterback. Like, we did this last year with Derrick Henry and the Ravens.
We were like, oh, you know what? It's a different team.

Speaker 1 And now it looks so obvious. It's like, of course, the Ravens,

Speaker 1 Derrick Henry and the Titans, the lowest yards before contact. The Ravens had the highest yards after contact.
And it's like, of course it made sense. Saquon on the Eagles.
We overthought that.

Speaker 1 I'm like,

Speaker 1 Brock Bowers going from Aiden O'Connell and Gardner Minshew and Desmond Ritter to Geno Smith, and he did what he did last year with those three quarterbacks. I'm kind of like, man, I don't know.

Speaker 1 Maybe this guy should just be like the sixth pick in drafts.

Speaker 1 Well,

Speaker 1 doesn't it come down to math if he's

Speaker 1 70 points higher than the next tight end or something crazy like that? I always think that way.

Speaker 1 I've gotten to the point with fantasy where I'm just like, can I just have one of the best QBs? And because they all get 50 to 70 points more than every other QB. 100%.

Speaker 1 With Bowers, if he's like a wide receiver eight at tight end,

Speaker 1 I think that makes him first-round value in a Booker team.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 The easiest way to win your league with like your friends, if they're not paying a ton of attention, is to just lock an elite quarterback, lock in an elite tight end like Brock Bowers, get a running backs early and just win on receivers and running backs later in the draft.

Speaker 1 Like that's generally the easiest way to do it. I'm in on that.
And I think the Gino thing is the underrated piece of it. And I underrated with, I'm,

Speaker 1 I kicked over a couple standing mock things with the Raiders as a seven seed just to see how it felt. Just,

Speaker 1 you know, I'm in the store, putting on the jacket, kind of walking around, looking in the mirror, see if it feels four associates like, you look great now.

Speaker 1 Did you see Pete Carroll in his starter jacket? He looks great.

Speaker 1 All the players, like Genty, Gino, Pete Carroll, everyone just looks great as a Raider. Yeah.
Well, you think like... It's cool when the Raiders are good.

Speaker 1 Yes. And the Raiders have not been good while we've been.
As Craig knows, I invented the three and three out.

Speaker 2 for the playoffs.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 I don't know if I invented it or not. But I wrote about it in 2010.
I was like, Craig, I invented this. I'm just going to take credit for it.
You're like, sure.

Speaker 1 I was like, well, if we're going by that classic thing where, you know, four teams stay in, three teams go out. And then he was like, I invented that.

Speaker 1 I have no idea if I did, but I'm taking credit for it. Anything else? Piano key necktie? Anything else?

Speaker 1 The three and three out, the easiest thing to identify is like, did a team have a shitty quarterback and a shitty coach? And do they now have a competent quarterback and a competent coach?

Speaker 1 They like fit the model for it.

Speaker 1 And then you think like Bowers and if Genti's good.

Speaker 1 They're going to be a bitch to play. I mean, the Raiders didn't score any touchdowns last year.
That was the only thing holding Bowers back. He had five touchdowns.

Speaker 1 It's like, all right, if he is Geno Smith now, I like the guy had eight to 10.

Speaker 2 I love it. What do you have for my one true love?

Speaker 1 I'm going with Drake London on the Falcons. You've always liked him.
I like Drake London. I'm big on Atlanta this year.
I think Pennix is good. I think the offense is going to be one of those.

Speaker 1 I think like the Bucs last year, this is going to be an offense that you kind of want everybody on the team. I think Drake London's not that famous.
He's a really cool name, but he's not that famous.

Speaker 1 I think he's like the cheapest guy you can get that could be the number one overall receiver in fantasy. Also, you just look on like FanDuel, he's 22 to 1 to lead the league in receiving touchdowns.

Speaker 1 I think he has as good a chance as anybody.

Speaker 1 When he played with Pennex last year, 40% target share, first in the NFL, 117 yards per game, first in the NFL. He got 60% of the team's end zone targets last year, first in the NFL.
60%.

Speaker 1 I think it's a perfect storm of like, you have the gunslinger, even if Penix, worst case scenario to me, Penix is like Jameis. But for fantasy, that's all right.

Speaker 1 So if you have the gunslinging Pennex, you have

Speaker 1 a year two in a system of Zach Robinson and Raheem Morris. I thought they did a good job year one.
Zach Robinson comes from the McVay world. He's like moving Drake London around.

Speaker 1 He's moving him in the slot. They're like scheming him open.
And there's not like a true other alpha competition. There's like Darnon Mooney's good.
You have Kyle Pitts. You have Bijan Robinson.

Speaker 1 But I just think it's all going to funnel to Drake London. He's going to have like a Mike Evans 15 touchdown season, I think.
I guess where I pause

Speaker 1 is you thinking Michael Pennix is definitely good. But I'm not against it.

Speaker 1 I just don't know. He just has to be a gunslinger, which I think we know.
Oh, so is he going to be healthy? How many times did he get hurt in college?

Speaker 1 That was the big reason why Penix being on the draft. Pennix being the new quarterback.
Yeah, he's like, everyone's just penciling him in for 4,200 yards and 30 TDs.

Speaker 1 And it's like, how about is he going to play 12 games? What are you worried about? He only had four season-ending injuries. Right.
I just.

Speaker 1 That's fair. Am I crazy, though, that, all right, their backup is Kirk Cousins, who maybe as a starter was.
That's a good point. Not a bad backup.

Speaker 1 He was injured last year, but it would not be weird to think Kirk is better this year than last year because he's a year further removed from the Achilles.

Speaker 1 I think to your point, though, I think to kind of square what you guys are saying, because I don't think you're necessarily wrong that I just don't know.

Speaker 1 I'm wide open on Pennex. I don't know where it goes.

Speaker 1 He may not be good enough to get Atlanta at the playoffs, but I think that one thing we know about Pennex is he's going to throw deep down the field.

Speaker 1 Like Pennex, frankly, in a league where everything we keep bitching about, everything's like neutered, all the passing, it's like the bumper's up on the bowling lane.

Speaker 1 Like no one pushes downfield anymore. Like Mahomes, we took Mahomes.

Speaker 1 Pennex is ripping past ripping red.

Speaker 1 The only people last year that were throwing the ball more than 10 yards downfield on average was Richardson, who got benched, and Pennex. And like, that's what we liked about Jameis.

Speaker 1 Like, he's throwing so deep. And, like, that was him in college.
He was just putting it up there for Roma Dunze and Jalen Polk. My guy Drake May is going to be like that, too.

Speaker 1 Michael Pennix got Jalen Polk drafted by you guys in the second round. Jalen Polk, is he going to make a team? Like, that's on IR now.
Yeah. Yeah.
He's out for the season.

Speaker 1 He just got, he's out with a shoulder separation thing.

Speaker 1 And my buddy Hench texted, this is the first separation he's had since he's been a patriot that's good tough one tough one for poke uh so yeah also atlanta fourth easiest schedule that that's huge i think a lot of shootouts i was going through all my podcast notes last year to remember what happened last season because you just get amnesia when you're going through the season you forget 90 things atlanta was terrible last year Remember they should have been like three and 12 at one point?

Speaker 1 Well, Kirk. They won all these dumb games.
They won that dumb, what was that week two game against Philly? The big one dropped the ball. Yeah, Yeah, but they had like five of those.

Speaker 1 And we were like, how are they? Yeah. At one point, they were minus 400 to win the division, and they were awful.
Kirk was a mess.

Speaker 1 Kirk was like that last time with Ben Rothesberger, where he was like just Adele, Park and Bart, couldn't move.

Speaker 1 Kirk, it's weird because Kirk has always been this way. When you think of him as an average quarterback, he's actually incredibly streaky, extremely hot and cold.
And he was very hot in the beginning.

Speaker 1 He was actually streaking the offensive as well.

Speaker 1 And then he was the worst quarterback. He was so bad.
Couldn't throw. I have a lot of true loves this year.
So I wanted to target one that I couldn't figure out in another category.

Speaker 1 And I'm not just doing this because DK is here. Jackson Smith the Jigba.
Yeah. Who I had last year on one of my teams.
And I thought for about seven weeks,

Speaker 1 he was one of the five best receivers I was watching every week. He was open all the time.
There was like no difference between him and I'm on Ross St. Brown.

Speaker 1 He was fucking awesome. Every third down, it was third, nine, third, and 10.
Danny knows.

Speaker 1 And then at the end of the year, their offense died. And I'm not sure what happened to the offense.
Remember, they had that one, like they had the six to three game.

Speaker 1 The offensive line kind of died. The running back situation got weird.
And the team just kind of cratered right at a point when it seemed they were going to win. And there was some Metcalf stuff.

Speaker 1 I just think this year, he's by far the best receiver they have. I like the Seahawks in general.

Speaker 1 And I just think he's going to have a massive year. Like, I think he can be in the top six or seven for receivers.

Speaker 1 I just think he's 90 to 100 yards a game, steady, third downs, touchdowns. I'm in.

Speaker 2 Yeah, he's as reliable as they come in terms of route running, hands, just body control. He adds a little bit of run after the catch.
He does remind me, I think I comped him to Amon Ron St.

Speaker 2 Brown coming out.

Speaker 1 He's just open all the time.

Speaker 1 Just coming across the middle, out. I remember watching the Ohio State Rose Bull.
I think it was versus Utah. I was very over on January 1st.

Speaker 1 And I remember, I think Jackson Smith and Jabo had 350 receiving yards in that game. And I I remember thinking that he was like the best college game I'd ever seen by a player.

Speaker 1 And he's not quite that.

Speaker 1 But I think because he had a weird rookie year with Shane Waldron and everything, it's his actual level of talent has been really just straight up forgotten.

Speaker 1 He basically took the Lockett spot halfway through the year. Lockett was the third receiver on that team.
But we had him like in the Ringer Fantasy Football Guide right now. We have him 15th.

Speaker 1 We have him between T. Higgins and Garrett Wilson.
Yeah, at the wide receiver position. And I just think he's going to end end up like we have Puka six.
We have Neighbor seven. We have Thomas eight.

Speaker 1 I just think he's going to be in that neighborhood when the season's over. You can kind of go both ways.
That is my guy. You can do like the, it's his team now.

Speaker 1 Look what he did with DK Metcalf and Lockett last year. He was still great.
Now you have like a better play caller, all this stuff. And then you can be like, oh, well, you're betting on Sam Darnold.

Speaker 1 This is a team that wants to run the ball. The defense is going to be awesome.
Maybe they won't have to score that many points.

Speaker 1 Now there's only Jackson Smith and Jake Bow out there for defenses to focus on. You can kind of go both ways.
But I do lean your way where I think he's going to be a good talent. Well, plus,

Speaker 1 I hesitate to do this to DK. What if Cup is like pretty good this year? Wow.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 it's going to hurt JSN. Yeah.
I haven't thought about that. But what really happened with him on the Rams was Puka was just like a younger, better version of Cup

Speaker 1 and was just became cup on the team. And then it was like watching a shooting guard on an NBA team.
There's just a better shooting guard. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So I just wonder like how that, like, i i even i i wrote him off i was like that guy i wouldn't want to draft him but they're i don't know he's in his early 30s i think is it is it a wrap for him they paid for him like he's gonna keep they gave him a good amount of money i think it's a huge red flag that mcshay or mcve was like yeah we don't want you anymore

Speaker 1 but it is a red flag well here's what i'm here's what i'll say i think Cooper Cup is going to be on the team to play a couple roles.

Speaker 2 He's going to be their slot receiver and he goes out and he can still block his ass off.

Speaker 2 And that really matters to them in terms of like the schematic advantages it brings when your receivers can block it's like you can run so many different

Speaker 2 uh so many more different plays in like 11 or 12 personnel or whatever where the receivers are out there blocking too it just gives you an advantage but i also think if jsn he's actually what i've heard is he's running around outside more and kind of like not just stuck in the slot he could have bigger plays in his future and they're going to do a lot of play action that's like a huge part of their offense think like rashid shaheed and chris olave with the saints last year when they were on the field together it's like deep shot

Speaker 1 and obviously sam darnold i mean for all his flaws he will push the ball down the field he's aggressive downfield thrower and he's accurate downfield well and then the valdez scantling too in the locket spot just running like straight lines he's just clear out routes yeah and are you did you buy horton stock i'm buying horton stock i think he's gonna be i think the

Speaker 1 good let's take a a break. We are on a terrible pace.
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Learn about credit building and more at chime.com. All right, Danny, your crazy pills guy.

Speaker 1 The guy you're looking at that you don't understand why everybody else doesn't see it the way you see it.

Speaker 2 I don't understand why T. Higgins is so low everywhere.
And I'm probably part of the problem. I don't know if I have him high enough, but

Speaker 2 I think we're too low on T. Higgins.
Last year, he was a wide receiver four in points per game. He did miss like five games because of hamstring injuries, I believe.

Speaker 2 But again, he averaged 15 and a half points per game. He's in the perfect environment in Cincinnati with a pass-first team.

Speaker 1 They're very pass-first, pass-heavy.

Speaker 2 Joe Burrow loves to pass the ball down the field. Trusts him incredibly in the red zone.
They're just going to go out there.

Speaker 2 In terms of fantasy, the Bengals offense is pure sex. It's exactly what you want.
They're going to play fast. They're going to push the ball down the field.
They're going to score a ton of points.

Speaker 2 Joe Burrow passes to his receivers inside the five and 10-yard line a lot. Like they will throw a lot of passing touchdowns because he just trusts them.
It's kind of like the old Aaron Rodgers thing.

Speaker 2 He's like, trust him to make the calls in certain areas where they're just like audibleing. You got a one-on-one matchup.
I'm going to throw it up to you. And T.
Higgins, that's like his game.

Speaker 2 He's just so big and tall. It's like, you know, George Pickens, but more reliable.

Speaker 1 You know why he had him 14th? Because

Speaker 1 he played 12 games the last two years. He gets banged.
That's the thing.

Speaker 1 656 yards and 23 and 911 yards last year. He's only had 10 touchdowns once.
He is like a little more theoretical than I think people realize because you catch him on the right there.

Speaker 1 You're like, oh my God, this guy's amazing.

Speaker 1 He does get hurt every year. The thing DK keeps dropping on me that always blows my mind is in the games that T.
Higgins and Jamar Chase both played, that T.

Speaker 1 Higgins got more targets than Jamar Chase did. They're like the best passing offense

Speaker 1 since the

Speaker 1 Niners.

Speaker 2 I think he's the perfect combination of floor and ceiling at receiver for where you're getting him because he's going to give you a good floor.

Speaker 2 There's only one season he's had where he averaged less than 10 points per game, and that was 9.7. So he's like, that floor is solid.
He's not going to kill you.

Speaker 2 And he also has the higher end upside where if things go similar with the Bengals offense this year as they did last year, he might be a top five receiver in the NFL.

Speaker 1 I like it. Who do you got, Craig? Tyreek Hill.

Speaker 1 Whoa.

Speaker 1 Oh, my lord. I'm willing to embrace the crazy this year with Tyreek.
Wow. I don't get it.
I don't get it.

Speaker 1 Last year, Tyreek Hill had 1,800 yards.

Speaker 2 Two years ago.

Speaker 1 Sorry. Yeah, now you're guessing.
The last,

Speaker 1 not this year we just watched. 2023 had 1,800 yards.
He was the number one wide receiver in fantasy. He was 29 years old.

Speaker 1 He He had one bad year where he hurt his wrist in August, two and missed half the season. And it was a down year.

Speaker 2 He tried to quit at the end of the season.

Speaker 1 He played 17 games. And now he's still

Speaker 1 going to be sitting there. Now, so he was going literally second in drafts last year, second overall out of every player.
He's going number two. Now he's going 28.
And I'm like, whatever.

Speaker 1 The Dolphins are a mess. I'm willing to buy all that.
The vibes are bad. Tyreek's talking shit about Mike McDaniel.

Speaker 1 I'm getting this guy. I'm getting Tyreek hill at the end of the third round.

Speaker 1 If you just believe that he's not washed, guys, best picking drafts. I've just been down this road too many times in fantasy football.
Four decades of experience now.

Speaker 1 Usually when it goes south, it doesn't come back with the receivers. That's fair.

Speaker 1 However, if you really did like a Sloan conference research paper on this, this guy, Adam Harstad, did a study on this, and like, it's totally when it craters, it's never like back the other way.

Speaker 1 But it cratered half because he had a ligament injury in his wrist in August, and Tua, his quarterback, missed half the year. Well, the good thing is he's a reliable health bet this year.

Speaker 1 Again, it's a parlay. It's a parlay to be like Tyreek and Tua, but listen, this is why he's your crazy pills.
Yeah, I'm just like, this guy's going 28th overall. I get Tyreek Hill.

Speaker 1 I think this is what's going to happen. We always talk about like the week one test.
Yeah. Yeah.
Where it's like, it's Sunday at 11.25 a.m.

Speaker 1 and Tyreek Hill has two catches for 95 yards and a touchdown already. And you're like, ah, fuck.
He's bad.

Speaker 1 Because, like, to your point, dude, Bill Barnwell had one of the craziest stats I've ever read about Tyreek Hill's 2023 season, which was that the Dolphins actually had like the few, almost the fewest passes in the NFL in the second half that year.

Speaker 1 Because they were leading games, right? Yeah, because they were winning. So they didn't throw that much in the second half.

Speaker 1 But the point was, if Tyreek Hill had his 4.0 yards per route run, if he had had as many routes as Calvin Johnson did the year he set the single season receiving mark, which was 1,900 yards, Tyree Kill would have had 3,000 yards at the rate he was going.

Speaker 1 I'm kind of just like, we had one down year and the team was a mess. I don't know if he's just physically washed.

Speaker 1 I'm getting him at the end of the third round. I'm not so sure.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I'm not a pick. I'm not paying for him, but if he's sitting there staring at me in round seven.

Speaker 1 I don't disagree with what, like, it's hard to refute what you're saying where you're like, he could be a good pick. I'm like, yeah, I don't know how I can argue against that.
Mine's a little happier.

Speaker 1 My crazy pill guy is on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He's a rookie receiver named Mecca Ibuka.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 This just happens every year and I'm tired of I had Michael I had Brian Thomas Jr. and the Michael Thomas.
Thank God didn't have him. Brian Thomas last year, and it was great.

Speaker 1 And he just got better as the year long and was just clearly one of the 10 best guys by the end of the thing.

Speaker 1 This guy checks all the boxes for me. Like he fell too far in the draft.
He's going to a team that he's perfect for. They've already had receiver injuries.
Godwin's not coming back till October.

Speaker 1 McMillan's out for at least half the season. I bet when I was in Boston, I bet, and I never bet on player over-unders because I just feel like it's stupid.
You always want to go over injuries.

Speaker 1 His over-under for receiving yards was 675. And I was like, I'm betting this.
Like, I can't believe this should be like in the 900s. I look today.
It's, it's now 825. It's dripped 150 yards.

Speaker 1 And I think it should go higher. Yeah.
You win another week. You'd probably get at nine.

Speaker 1 Here's the thing. I love reading the quotes going back to Danny's guy, Russell Wilson, in 2012.
When the teammates and coaches, when it gets to a level of rave,

Speaker 1 you just know. And it was the case with Thomas last year in Jacksonville, that whole training camp preseason.
They were like, this guy's got it. This guy's fucking special.

Speaker 1 And that's what they're saying about Igbuka. And I just feel like you have him 44th in

Speaker 1 our fantasy draft guide.

Speaker 1 He's going to be in the top 12 by the end of the year, my prediction.

Speaker 1 Maybe I'm taking crazy pills.

Speaker 2 Bill, regarding your bet that you made, you know who had around the same yards? What was it?

Speaker 1 What was it? It was 675.

Speaker 2 Ray Ray McLeod had 686 yards last year.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 2 Wandell Robinson had 700 yards.

Speaker 1 675 is like like 50 yards a game. You got it.

Speaker 2 Quentin Johnson had more than 700 yards.

Speaker 1 Who do you have for your crazy pill guy? Oh, Jalen Hurts, the Eagles quarterback. Jalen Hurts is, he's ranked further back than Lamar Jackson.

Speaker 1 Like whatever platform you want to look at, it's generally like Josh Allen Lamar, like 24, 25th. Jalen Hurts is like 37th on Yahoo, 38th on Sleeper.
Like that's next to Marvin Harrison Jr. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And Jalen Hurts is ranked like they banned the tush push. And they didn't.
And I actually don't understand because people are caught up in like, oh, well, is this ceiling as high as Josh Allen?

Speaker 1 I don't care. There is a play that the NFL, the other 31 teams want to ban because it's too easy for Jalen Hurts to score a touchdown.

Speaker 1 It is literally like literally without exaggeration, I think Jalen Hurts is probably in the 21st century at quarterback the most reliable week-to-week player there's ever been.

Speaker 1 He doesn't have down weeks. He doesn't have down week.
Even Josh Allen has a few stinkers. He's been number one on this season.
Hurts misses some games.

Speaker 1 When he plays, Jalen Hurts is the best player in fan and the most predictable player. The whole problem fantasy football is hard to predict.

Speaker 1 He is the single easiest player to predict in the entire league at any position. And you're going to get it.
So, if I, and this is honestly, he's kind of my one-true love, too, in a way.

Speaker 1 Maybe get flame.

Speaker 1 Hurts, if you get Jalen Hurts in the fourth round, I think that is the single best pick you can make in fantasy football this year because you're going to get a guy who is going to have more 30-point weeks than single-digits.

Speaker 1 You're just absolutely. I think there'll be those games where he's just nine for 17 for 112 yards and rushes rushes for 50 yards in a TD.

Speaker 1 And you just look at it and you're like, but then he has 27 points somehow. And you're like, it didn't even look like he had a good game.

Speaker 1 Jalen Hurts has played 50 games that matter in the last five years. He has 50 rushing touchdowns.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'm with you. He's a great guy to have.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 What I love about him, and we talked, I think a couple of years ago, we were talking about how he's the greatest fourth quarter.

Speaker 2 fantasy quarterback of all time because if the Eagles are trailing and they're trying to come back in the fourth quarter, he's running around a ton. He's passing it,

Speaker 2 So he is game script proof too, because he's either going to be scoring rushing touchdowns early in the game and they're going to be icing the game later, or they're going to have to, you know, last six minutes of the fourth quarter, he's going to score 15 fantasy points because he's running all around and doing everything.

Speaker 2 So it's just, yeah, he's so consistent week in and week out. It's great.

Speaker 1 It's, I would still rather have a few other guys, but it's the fifth best guy and you're not paying that much for him.

Speaker 1 You're up with a new category.

Speaker 1 I absolutely hate myself for doing this guy. George Pickens, but I'm in.
I'm going to do it.

Speaker 1 George Pickens. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 Wow. I'm buying Dallas.
I think Dallas is the off-brand Bengals this year.

Speaker 1 I need some oxygen.

Speaker 1 I think Dak and CD and Pickens are like Burrow and Chase and Bob.

Speaker 1 Their guy from the stands. Who's their starting receiver running back? Whatever.
Who's their starting running back? Chase Brown. Who's for the

Speaker 1 Javante Williams?

Speaker 1 He didn't blow

Speaker 1 last year. Who cares? That means he'll throw it more.
Or Miles Sanders. I do think he's dead on that they're the off-brand Bengals because they're the same team.
They have horrible defenses.

Speaker 1 Their offense is built around a quarterback who's doing a Peyton. Discount Bengals? Yeah, 20%.
Peyton Manning cosplay with these two top receivers.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's like I think Dak could lead the league in passing. Schoenheimer let him cook.
Yeah, everyone talks about the Bengals last year. Oh, how many points he scored, how electric they were.

Speaker 1 The 2023 Cowboys scored more points than the 2024 Bengals. I like it.

Speaker 1 I would never take him.

Speaker 1 I think it's more likely he's off the team in week eight and something horrible happens with Michelle Rammer. Sounds like you don't like it.

Speaker 1 Ever since that game when it was the last play of the game against Cleveland and he got in the fight during the Hail Mary before the Hill Mary. He only cares about fantasy football.

Speaker 1 I actually completely had him picking up. I came away more impressed with that.

Speaker 1 That was nuts. That was cool.

Speaker 1 My guy, I wanted to shout out Keon Coleman because I think he's going to rope me in, but I don't want to pick him. That's a good one.
He's just getting too much buzz, and it feels like ah, 33 bucks.

Speaker 1 And then you're like, What did I do? But it's definitely Travis Hunter for me.

Speaker 1 I was like, I'm staying away. I'm not even buying, I don't even, I'm not even shopping in your grocery store.
I'm not even getting a cart and pushing around.

Speaker 1 I don't want to know, I don't want to think about it. And then I read this one thing about Liam Cohen.
It's like, he's just going to be two bubble screens a game trying to bust him for 50 yards a pop.

Speaker 1 And I was like, oh, like,

Speaker 1 called the Holy Ghost. Yeah, just, oh, what do you mean? You just, just bust one at any time.

Speaker 1 Whoa, whoa, about doing phrasing. Sorry.

Speaker 1 I was really worried about the defense, offense thing.

Speaker 1 Just somebody trying to play a thousand snaps or whatever on both sides seems inconceivable with how fucking big football players are in the NFL. Right.
And he's not big.

Speaker 1 But I feel like he's going to be sitting there and I'm going to get excited about it. And I'm going to hate myself for doing it.
We just had a massive

Speaker 1 argument about this on our part. Bill, I need some therapy life advice thing.

Speaker 1 I think I was the single biggest Travis Travis Hunter fan in sports media.

Speaker 1 My crazy pills thing on the draft was basically that I was just like, why do we talk about the ceiling of every prospect?

Speaker 1 No one ever admits that all these guys are probably going to have an average outcome between whatever.

Speaker 1 And the only person we won't talk about ceiling is Travis Hunter, who won the award for best receiver in college football, best defensive player in college football.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, what if he just does both at a great level in the NFL? Everyone's acting like it won't happen or can't happen. It's impossible.
Yeah, you're like, he could be Shohei Otani.

Speaker 1 I've been talking about this all year. I was like, yeah, he's like, Otani.

Speaker 1 What if he's just four catches for 80 yards a week and he scores every other week and he's just doing that on the side as he's covering the other team's best receiver? Jim Thorpe.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, he could win offensive rookie, defensive rookie of the year. He could do amazing.
And I'm not going to lie, I capitulated 20.

Speaker 1 I capitulated 20 minutes before he walked in the studio. I admitted to them.
I was

Speaker 1 on our show. Non-stop.
Travis Hunter is going to blow everyone's mind. He's the best player since whoever you give up.
Today he was like, ah, I don't know. The chicken dice.
He's sold low.

Speaker 1 I saw him play in the preseason game. I'm a champansi for it.
It's a weak move. You should have have doubled down.
Stick with your gun. I should have.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But I'm worried that like I need the strength to stay away.

Speaker 1 I'm worried that like the meetings, he's going to fall behind and stuff and they're just going to play him. It's going to be really frustrating.

Speaker 1 It's going to be cool on the field, but like for your lineup, it's going to be kind of like annoying. I'm nervous.
It could be cooler in real life than in fantasy.

Speaker 1 It's like, okay, he plays double the snaps. You don't get double the fantasy one.
Did Jax play the Bengals in week four or five?

Speaker 1 And you're like, so do I bench him because he's going to have to cover T. Higgins? And you're like, I've never asked that question before.
So it will be a new experience, I guess.

Speaker 1 Well, it's like you never want to have the first of anything. Right.
You never want, like, you don't want the first iPhone. It's like, oh, it's not going to work.
19 things are going wrong.

Speaker 1 The first iPad, the first like car that has gas and electricity. And it's like a hybrid.
And it's like, oh, it's in the shop. So maybe, maybe wait a year for Hunter.
I think that's.

Speaker 1 I still, if he's sitting there, I still feel like I have to. Oh, I get it.
Who do you have, Heifitz?

Speaker 1 Oh, I hate myself for doing this guy. Yeah.
Those are the easiest categories. Kyle Pitts.
Falcons. He's back.
He's almost honorary. Yeah.
He's grandfathered in.

Speaker 1 Best situation Kyle Pitts has ever been in, cheapest he's ever been. It's that simple.

Speaker 1 He will never do it. But he had more $0.
We would.

Speaker 1 He was a fourth-round player.

Speaker 1 Marcus Mariota was his quarterback. We ranked him in the fourth round.
Michael Penix, the last quarterback throwing 10 yards a throw, is his quarterback. He's a 14th round pick on ESPN.

Speaker 1 I mean, he's going near Hunter Henry. And I'm like, Kyle Pitts, everything we've ever said about his upside remains true.
I'm just saying, yeah, like he's he's been not met expectations.

Speaker 1 The problem is Pennix is not that good. But Pennix.
When you watch the Falcons, he's not like a tight end like Bowers or Kiddo. Like, he can't really block.

Speaker 1 So he's basically a wide receiver, and he's not as good as the other wide receivers of the Falcons. I guess

Speaker 1 J. Ray McLeod.

Speaker 1 He's a vertical receiver, and I'm not even saying he's necessarily going to be ever what we thought he'd be.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying Michael Pennix made Jalen Polk an early second-round pick, and Jalen Polk will probably never.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying Pennix made Polk. He made all these guys.

Speaker 1 DK, who do you have?

Speaker 2 I have,

Speaker 2 and I do hate myself for doing this, Kyler Murray for the Cardinals. Fantasy point of view, remember that rushing is an absolute cheat code.

Speaker 1 It's a two years, stupid. Two years removed from the ACL.
Did you fall for that one?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Well, he's another guy that

Speaker 2 the way that I talk myself into it is he's never, he's a high-floor, high-ceiling guy. And those are the types of players I want to go after in fantasy because he's not going to fail you.

Speaker 2 The worst average he's had in points per game last year is 17 and a half.

Speaker 1 That was last year. So he's just going to fail the real life team, but like the fantasy team.

Speaker 2 I don't care. I don't care.

Speaker 1 This is the high ceiling, low floor, unless you're trying to win NFL games with them. I'm fine.
And he's a low ceiling.

Speaker 1 It's actually probably better if they're losing because then in the fourth quarter, they're running around. I actually want him to be better.

Speaker 1 He's to me, he has shades of Ben Simmons to me, Kyler Murray. Okay, can I talk about fantasy, though, maybe?

Speaker 2 Because that's what we're talking about here. It's important.
He's the quarterback eight in the last four years, almost 19 points per game.

Speaker 2 Going back to 2020, when he ran a bunch, he averaged almost 10 points per game as a runner only. The last four years, it's been like five.

Speaker 2 And there's been a lot of talk in this training camp that he's, it's kind of, I feel like it's a lot of these, you know,

Speaker 2 dual threat quarterbacks kind of try and, because they know long-term, I need to stick in the pocket and just like pass and be that.

Speaker 2 I think Kyler's kind of at a turning point now where he's like, actually, my running really makes me a lot better and I probably should embrace it more.

Speaker 2 And there's been talk that they're working him into the designed run game a little bit more in the preseason.

Speaker 1 So I'm just, if he, it, if he doesn't do it, that's great.

Speaker 2 He's going to be like a top 12 quarterback, probably. If he does run a bunch this year, he'll be top five.

Speaker 1 Listen,

Speaker 1 he makes sense in this category. It's awesome.

Speaker 1 We

Speaker 1 have the, I'm staying away from that whole team team category. And I guess the nominees are Cleveland, New Orleans, Miami, and Carolina.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 I vote Cleveland. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Cleveland. Cleveland.
Cleveland.

Speaker 2 I have Pittsburgh.

Speaker 1 Fuck off.

Speaker 1 What are you talking about?

Speaker 1 You don't want anybody in the DK Pittsburgh? He wouldn't even accept DK.

Speaker 2 I mean, I love DK, but no.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 1 So I had Cleveland's the obvious pick. Yeah.
I do think there's a Judy, like, he was huge last year for them. Right.
Jameis was playing. It's Jameis.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 Judy had huge stats. Yeah.

Speaker 1 jameis literally jerry judy had yards per route run yards per game whatever metric you want to use every game with jameis was more than double his career average right and then when jameis didn't play it went right back i had new orleans written down for sure wouldn't feel great about really anything involved in that team and i had miami written down just because that feels like that you'll actually spend money on some of the guys in that team and it'll feel worse.

Speaker 1 I'm surprised you had Carolina. Carolina is like my sneaky, truly out-of-nhere team fan.
Carolina just had a habit. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because Super Hubbard was actually good last year. I like Coker.

Speaker 1 Who knows? I'm

Speaker 1 sneaky high on Carolina this year.

Speaker 1 The only other one I thought of was Pittsburgh, which I was glad you brought up because I don't like having DK Metcalf on my team because he's Feast or Famine.

Speaker 1 You never know what's going to happen with him. I wouldn't want any receiver.
There's no way I'm running back. No way.
I'm taking Rodgers. I do like Friarmuth, though.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't have to do it. But he's going to be a Friar Moon with Johnny.
I traded for Johnny. He's like Friarman, a little bit.
All right. Next category.
Hi, Fitz, you're up. Oh, no.

Speaker 1 This is a group category. It's the

Speaker 1 Arkumail Nanjani. Why the fuck did you bulk up like this is actually ridiculous? What are you doing, guy? And we all have Marvin Harrison.
So do your random.

Speaker 1 So Marvin Harrison Jr. obviously had a disappointing rookie year.
And

Speaker 1 to say the, I, I still maintain that if his name had not been Marvin Harrison Jr., if it had been like Dave Harrison, son of Marvin, Malik Napers would have gone over him.

Speaker 1 But it was hard for anyone to say Marvin Harrison Jr. So he's drafted and has this point of year and he comes in this year and he's absolutely ripped.

Speaker 1 He's got the huge biceps, like he's added, what, 10 pounds of muscle, which when you're an NFL elite athlete, that's a lot of weight to add. And I'm like, you're a wide receiver.

Speaker 1 Why are you having big biceps? Why are you getting your arms? Nobody was ever like, you know what Marvin Harrison Jr. needs? 10 more pounds of muscle.
That's what he was missing.

Speaker 1 It's like, why is he not getting fast?

Speaker 1 I don't like like armchair psychologist. I don't like that he came into year two and was like, I'm going to look better in the mirror.

Speaker 1 Like that, I don't know if the muscles he's added are necessarily like the most

Speaker 1 function to get off the line better. I remember David Boston way back on Arizona just got really jacked, but he had a couple years where he was like one of the eight or nine best fantasy receivers.

Speaker 1 And then he just got too big. Yeah.
And it was like his career was over. It's like a desperation move.
It's like getting out of a breakup and you just like get ripped.

Speaker 2 Maybe that was like he was disappointed with his rookie years.

Speaker 1 He just

Speaker 1 what is that is that for a movie what is that for why does he look like i mean he's my age he looks for a movie have you seen what sashi baron calls no is he like ripped now oh my god he's ripped a bear shaved body yeah

Speaker 1 he looks that would have been a good oh my god punishment you have to wear the borat bathing suit oh my god

Speaker 1 i have a question because i i i thought about this i know mac from it's always sunny just getting ripped man can you think of a single time any

Speaker 2 skill position where a guy got bigger over the offseason, that was a good thing. I'm sure it happened,

Speaker 2 but I really honestly can't think of one.

Speaker 1 It's way more in the other direction of older guys losing weight and then they're like a cutting muscle strategy trying to keep your knees. I'm just trying to think of like a tight end, maybe.

Speaker 1 LeBron has lost weight throughout his career, right? That's all older athletes have to cut muscle eventually for your joints.

Speaker 1 But actually, you're ranking. That's what I'd like to do.

Speaker 1 He's young enough, like you do have to get larger.

Speaker 1 Like you do grow into your frame, but I just feel like, frankly, maybe, I mean, here I am criticizing an NFL athlete, but I'm just like, I just kind of think. He's too ripped.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know, just Cheeto dust all over me. But I'm just kind of like, you know what? I just think he was, he read all the comments and he was kind of embarrassed that he had a bad year.

Speaker 1 And everyone else, he was like the sixth best rookie receiver in his class. And I think he was embarrassed.
So he got really ripped. Give us your shameless Homer pick.
So what is this category?

Speaker 1 Do you want me to talk about Melissa Neighbors? There's one giant that you're the most.

Speaker 1 Is it like a diamond in the rough or is it like

Speaker 1 the best player in the team? Just a guy that is on your team that is being discussed as a fantasy guy anyway, but you're even higher in arm than you should be just because he's on your team.

Speaker 1 So Neighbors is the obvious pick. I will just reiterate that Malik Neighbors really was leaned on by the Giants more to start his career last year than anything.

Speaker 1 And the more fun pick would be Jackson Dart. Well, that's exactly.
So Neighbors is week six. Dart, I think you

Speaker 1 don't have to hold Dart the whole year because he's not going to play for two months. I will say Cam Scataboo.
Cam Scatabu, the running back, I am in love with him.

Speaker 1 He just came back to practice today. I wanted him on the pack.
Scataboo is the man. I freaked out when they took him in the fourth round.
And Scataboo, you were always on him, too. I loved him.

Speaker 1 Scatterboo.

Speaker 1 Yes. And I think he was the only player to have like 1600 rushing yards and 500 receiving a season since McCaffrey.
And I just, frankly, he's slow.

Speaker 1 And we're by, I mean, it's just overlapping stuff of. He's like a cult hero.
Yeah, it's like a white running back, which is funny. He's good.
Everyone's like, well, he's slow.

Speaker 1 And he's not that playing. I don't care.
He is good. I am so convinced that he has.
And also, the funny thing about him is because he's so big.

Speaker 1 He has a total three-down skill set, which is hilarious because he's not fast, but he can block and he's a really good receiver.

Speaker 1 So I am really convinced that Scataboo, and I also think because he had this hamstring injury, zero rookie hype, he would have shot up. Well, he basically missed all of training camps.

Speaker 1 He missed a lot, but like Tyrone Tracy, in a weird way, even though he was a receiver in college, I kind of think that's the empty calorie touches, where I actually think Scataboo could get goal line because he's way larger and he can do passing work.

Speaker 1 Transformative Giants draft. Yep.
Yes. Oh, yeah.
Really seemed like a special one. Dude, Abdul Carter is don't even get me started.
He is.

Speaker 1 Every Giants fan of my life is just like has to be hosed down about Abdul Carter. He is, dude.
When they put him over the guard, like the Cowboys do with Michael Parsons against the Bills.

Speaker 1 Unbelievable. But we knew it the whole time.
That's what like the Joe Milton game is just so devastating. But then the Pats ended up.

Speaker 1 I'll do my shameless homeer pick ahead of everybody else, the Travion Henderson. Yeah.
Oh, yeah, God.

Speaker 1 I was looking at the Jameer Gibbs rookie numbers where he was like 900 yards rushing and, I don't know, 600 yards receiving. And it felt like a lot.
It felt impactful.

Speaker 1 If Henderson plays 17 games, there's no way he's not doing better than Jameer Gibbs rookie season.

Speaker 1 He has this home run receiving power that I don't even think Gibbs has. Like I was looking at Gibbs' biggest receiving explosion thing.
Henderson's going to do it multiple times.

Speaker 1 And if you have kickoff returns in your draft that's tied to the players, which some drafts do,

Speaker 1 and they change these kickoff rules, and I think he's going to be one of the biggest weapons in the league. I just think he's,

Speaker 1 it was honestly a miracle that he felt it. The Browns had 36 and took the other Ohio State running back.
That's going to be an all-miracle. It made up for the Abdul Carter thing.
No, it's Karma.

Speaker 1 It's Karma. It's

Speaker 1 Karma for when you guys took, the Patriots took Sony Michelle over Nick Chubb when they came out of Georgia. Seesaw it the other way.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 But so we get Will Campbell for who he's not Abdul Carter, but he is, you know, he'll be a good left tackle for us.

Speaker 1 And then Henderson, who if he had gone 12 to the Chargers, people would be like, should he be RB5?

Speaker 1 They'd be just going, what's Harbaugh? Can he get to 2,000 all-purpose yards? And on the Pats, he's kind of buried, but he's been the story of camp. That's all people talk about covering the Pats.

Speaker 1 I think he's every day. Every day, he does 100-yard touchdown returns.
The thing with Henderson, we were just talking about it.

Speaker 1 We recorded our show for the fantasy show earlier today, and I was saying, I think the thing with Trayvion about why I think he'll a larger impact rookie year than most rookies is just I think the passing game's harder because, frankly, they don't want to trust at the end of the day, a rookie's still an intern, and like they don't want to trust the $100 million quarterback with like being protected by the guy in black, but he's 21 years old.

Speaker 1 And I think Henderson is a function of NIL because they paid him a lot of money to go back to Ohio State and want to win a championship.

Speaker 1 And so, I think, frankly, he's just, it's a new era now where people as a running back, as talented as Trayvian Henderson, would have gotten as much experience on the team.

Speaker 1 And so I think while that might be larger, you know, it's more of tread on tires, so to speak, for like his contract in terms of a rookie year impact, he's just more experienced than most people this talented are entering a season.

Speaker 1 The fact that he can block like he does, because they go nuts about how he blocks. Hardest thing for rookies to learn.

Speaker 1 So he's out there and it's like, oh, it's a passing down. He's out there.
It's like, maybe it's not, or maybe it is, or maybe they'll run and you're going to have to defend the whole field with him.

Speaker 1 He's a godsend like mcdaniels is talking about like vareen and james white all these dudes they had in this spot and he's like this guy's like all of those dudes on stage oh yeah he's way better than them yeah he's gonna surpass ramondre quickly and i entered the season thinking that would not happen but he's clearly he's yeah i'm gonna all my friends are gonna bid me up on him and it's gonna

Speaker 1 i'm just gonna be like what are you 28 28 30.

Speaker 2 yeah uh who do you have for seattle uh i'm shameless homer about kenneth walker i absolutely love that guy i think he's i stand by this i think he's one of the best pure runners in the league going back the last few years.

Speaker 2 I mean, he make guys miss, break tackles,

Speaker 2 you know, just obliterate angles in the open field. He's actually proven to be a pretty good pass catcher.
Last year he had 46 catches, which was 12th most among running backs. And that was only in

Speaker 1 why can't he play five straight games? Well, that's the problem. He's basically suplexing defenders.
He's landing.

Speaker 1 He's too elusive. Right.

Speaker 1 He's a red flag guy. You can't find him for the game.
Well, this is why it's

Speaker 1 a red flag. I'm shameless about it.
He's one of those guys where if it was just like, if if you just watched like silhouettes of players running, you didn't know who that was.

Speaker 1 If somebody, like, he kind of looks like Saquon Barkley in moments. Yeah.
He really has. He's awesome.

Speaker 1 He was great. Saquon with a touch of Isaiah Pacheco.
Yeah, a little bit of angry run.

Speaker 2 He has a weird running game.

Speaker 1 He runs like a crab. He runs sideways.
Do you have a shameless Steelers pick? To be honest, no.

Speaker 1 I don't.

Speaker 1 You got mad at me for avoiding the Steelers. I think

Speaker 1 there's nobody that I'm like, this guy's going to crush. I mean, like, I can give you like a player I think is kind of under the radar.

Speaker 1 I don't, I'm not saying at all he'll be fantasy relevant, but their third-round pick last year, Roman Wilson, the receiver out of Michigan, I do think is good. He played five snaps last year.

Speaker 1 He was hurt all year. Five.
Literally five. Rodgers is talking him up.
He won the natty with Michigan. He had 12 touchdowns that year.
Like, he's like very gritty, dirty work, blocking guy.

Speaker 1 Apparently, he's been great in camp. He's like that slot receiver that is exactly what the Steelers need.
Rodgers has seemed to like him.

Speaker 1 I do think there's a chance that in like a month or two, we're like, oh, Roman Wilson.

Speaker 2 You make that some manufactured touches.

Speaker 1 That was sad

Speaker 1 i don't have a shameless homer pick i don't but here's a guy who had five snaps last year that i'm mildly excited about yeah uh we'll take a break and then coming back with the uh veal chop guy this episode is brought to you by apple watch real talk for a second you think you're crushing it with sleep you're getting eight hours, you're doing everything right, feeling great about it.

Speaker 1 Well, using the Apple Watch is kind of like checking game film. It breaks it all down for you.

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Speaker 1 All right, this is a special category.

Speaker 1 Danny's going to lead us off. It's the My Veal Chop Guy.
The Veal Chop, which we argued about last year on this podcast. It's a Feast or Famine Order.
I still have yet to have a veal chop.

Speaker 1 It's expensive.

Speaker 1 It might be great. It might be terrible.
You just don't know.

Speaker 1 David Chang, we did this category last year and he was so upset that the veal chop was besmirched.

Speaker 1 He thought it was an absolutely insane take that I continue to be the worst food take person. Did he really get bad veal chops? Dave Chang walks in and they're like, better not fuck up that food.

Speaker 1 That's what I said.

Speaker 1 This is like, this is like you know he's snobby in general with this food it's not like he so he thinks all veal chops are good he can he his theory is all veal chops bring something to the table okay

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 anyway who do you who do you have for your veil chops a phrase like it's definitely helpful

Speaker 1 participation show for veil chops who do you have for your veal chop guy danny jameson williams of the lions Good year last year. Yeah.

Speaker 2 He obviously the first two years in the league was all over the place. He got, he was injured at first, then he got suspended for gambling.
And then he was, I think, just kind of a knucklehead.

Speaker 2 They didn't trust him right away. So he was playing off and on.
But every time he gets on the field, you're like, this is the fastest guy in the league.

Speaker 1 It never works out. Like, there's been a lot of these guys, and usually they're out of the league in like three years.
He was right on the cusp of like, you literally might be out of the league.

Speaker 1 That's what we had with Taquan Thornton, who the Chiefs are trying to save now. He's like 4-2 speed.
The Chiefs are just like kind of your last stop on the way out. Yeah, totally.

Speaker 1 It's a tire kick.

Speaker 2 But J-Mo, he had over a thousand yards last year.

Speaker 2 To me, he's just the perfect example of there'll be one game where he has 200 yards and three touchdowns, and then he'll have like a catch the next week, and you're kind of, you know, whack-a-mole trying to figure out when to play him.

Speaker 2 But I truly believe he's one of the most talented receivers in the NFL. It's just a matter of.

Speaker 1 He is open by five yards when he's on a deep pass.

Speaker 1 You don't even see the defender behind him. The first round three years ago.
That's one of the better fantasy questions from last year of who had more receiving yards, T. Higgins or Jamison Williams.

Speaker 1 And everyone would have said said T. Higgins.
Uh, I like that one. I mean, it felt like he was getting better and better as the year was going along.
Um, who do you have for your Bill Chop guy?

Speaker 1 It's got to be Devon Han. I was just running it back.
It has to be. He hurt his calf.

Speaker 1 Like, for the most part, it was pretty good experience with him last year, right? When Tua played, he was a top two running back. He was basically Saquon.

Speaker 1 When Tua didn't play, he was irrelevant and borderline not. Alexander Madison had more points per game than HN when Tua was out.
Yeah. And so it's like, I mean, he hurt his calf.

Speaker 1 And right now, he's got a hurt calf, which is like the biggest red flag of all. For speed guys.
The calf is just, that's, if we did a draft,

Speaker 1 the softest shoe injuries you want to see, calf is a good job. Especially after this NBA season, I now treat the calf.
Calf injury like it's, it's

Speaker 1 like a heart attack. Yeah, it's a basic, it's like a heart diagnosis.
Like, oh my God, it's a calf injury? Jesus. So I don't know.
I don't know where I stand with HN.

Speaker 1 I honestly think I'm probably going to avoid him. I was, I was kind of into him until the calf injury came around.
And now I'm honestly

Speaker 1 on that team. Yeah, I'm out.
I'm kind of out on him, too. The way Craig nailed it, he said, A channel's a parlay.
You're parlaying that Devon Achan's calf is okay with Tua plays football. Good luck.

Speaker 1 I have a great build chop guy. I'm really excited about it.
I'm excited to talk about him with the three of you. Braylon Allen.
Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 1 So I had Brees Hall on both teams last year. Sure.
And Flees Hall. Me too.

Speaker 1 He just put his poop in a doggy bag and whipped it at me for four months.

Speaker 1 Vivid. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And every time Braylon Allen came in for him,

Speaker 1 you have that sinking feeling as a fantasy football person. You're 100% right.

Speaker 1 The guy behind your guy comes in and you're like, fuck, that guy's better.

Speaker 1 You just knew it. You just sold it.
You just knowing yourself, like, this guy's better. He just is.
Just hits the hole farther. He seems stronger.
Like, God damn it.

Speaker 1 I thought I just really got this wrong.

Speaker 1 I just think he's going to end up being the Jet Starter and having a big season. He's like 19 years old.
I don't even know.

Speaker 1 But he knew

Speaker 1 he was the youngest drafted player ever. He wasn't he? Yeah, he was the youngest drafted player I think ever.

Speaker 1 And then, I mean, I don't know about the 30s when there was like World War, like, you know, World War I, World War II gaps or whatever, but like the, um, he had his freshman year at Wisconsin, he was 17 years old.

Speaker 1 He had, this is the meme is people always talk about this, but like he had like 1300 yards at Wisconsin in a very similar scheme.

Speaker 1 But overall, to your point, the person who's going to notice this immediately is Aaron Glenn, the coach of the Jets. Right.
He's going, I think he. That's kind of team he wants to have.

Speaker 1 I want to run the ball. I want to pound the ball.
The case for the Jets to go nine and eight and get a seven seed, which I will not make, but there will be a terrible seven seed in the AFC.

Speaker 1 It's just where it's going to happen. But the case is Braylon Allen is actually like incredible.

Speaker 1 And their line is, and the other point, the Jets have a sneaky, really good offensive line. I mean, you know,

Speaker 1 well, unless you watched the membo footage last weekend. Was he not good? Oh, no.

Speaker 1 The membo footage was bad.

Speaker 1 Footage. Preseason is.
I didn't call it footage.

Speaker 1 It was like

Speaker 1 cruder films. I was

Speaker 1 Pat's fan text thread as we were exulting that we have Campbell in that membo and somebody was like, look how slow his hands are. Slow hands.
Can't get his hands up fast enough.

Speaker 1 It's like, oh, slow hands.

Speaker 1 But anyway, Alan, that's my guy. I am stubbornly.

Speaker 2 I'm very stubbornly staying on Brees Hall Island. And I don't feel good.

Speaker 1 I'll sell you my coffee. I don't feel good about it anymore.
No, as you can imagine, never happens again. We get mad at each other.

Speaker 1 One of them is mad at me. Yeah.

Speaker 1 The only time I've seen them actually really angry at each other was when he bespirched breeze fall breeze small breeze fall it's only thing i've seen him do to get him it's a weird one because

Speaker 1 he seemed like just a slam dunk he's not no good

Speaker 1 two years ago it seemed like he was a slam dunk paid fifty dollars for this guy in a fan a draft feel great about he's never had a thousand yards in a year yeah who's younger average less than like

Speaker 1 i just can't get over the fact atian literally is on par with gibbs bijan and saquon when tua plays and then literally literally he's there with alexander madison and post-injury nick chubb when tua doesn't play and I can't think of a player that would be more the spirit of this thing of boomer, feast or famine than Jalen Allen's in the 20s somewhere, right?

Speaker 1 25. No, lower.
Lower.

Speaker 1 By the time this season, what if he has a starting job? Way lower.

Speaker 1 I mean, if he had the starting job, but I don't think he's going to. I think he'll be lower.
Way lower. If Brees gets traded.

Speaker 1 There's a world where if you didn't have this podcast and everyone in the league wasn't listening, you might have to. But I haven't won since 07, so it'd probably like zag against him.

Speaker 1 i'll tell you right now you want to get him for two dollars he's the running back 47 you can get him for two dollars that's where he's going in really yeah you can get him for two dollars i don't think he'll be free he's not even a bit he's not even a veil chop guy he's like a freaking appetizer yeah he's like the scallops with the bacon yeah

Speaker 1 um

Speaker 1 all right

Speaker 1 dk

Speaker 1 you're i wouldn't take him even if he was free guy aka the dnd list the list you don't want to be on i have three guys on mine this year yeah mine's kind of a team thing.

Speaker 2 I'm staying away from the Cowboys backfield. So Javante.

Speaker 1 Just blind staying away from one person.

Speaker 2 Even if they're, I mean, I guess I would take Jaden Blue really late for a dollar or whatever, but

Speaker 2 I just am avoiding that. I just don't have any faith that they're going to run the ball well or often.
And I think they're going to be a pass-heavy team. I'm just staying away from that.

Speaker 1 Who do you have, Craig? Garrett Wilson. I'm good.
Yeah. I don't want anybody that's Justin Fields is throwing passes to.
Rodgers had the third most passes in the league last year.

Speaker 1 Garret Wilson was the wide receiver 23.

Speaker 1 Now he's getting drafted as the wide receiver 15. How he's getting better with Justin Fields throwing the ball like 18 times a game.
I don't think that's it. Justin's being double teamed.

Speaker 1 Yeah, double team at all. I like that one.
I have, with apologies to DK Metcalf

Speaker 1 and Kyle Pitts,

Speaker 1 Trevor Lawrence

Speaker 1 literally, he was one of my big guys last year. Like big year coming.

Speaker 1 I can tell.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's also not good. He's not good at at being.

Speaker 1 You're not willing to wait for the Liam Cohen. I'm not willing to wait on anything.
I don't think he's accurate. I think he throws hospital balls left and right.

Speaker 1 If I was Brian Thomas Jr.'s family, I'd be terrified every game.

Speaker 1 I don't think he's a smart quarterback. I think he does dumb shit, especially inside the 20.

Speaker 1 I forgot until I went through my notes how fucking stupid the Jaguars were last year, where they were like 0-4, and we were like, how is this team 0-4?

Speaker 1 I just don't think that goes away. I don't think he has it.
And I think he's a complete stayaway. I think for zero dollars.

Speaker 1 I think the literal recent history of the NFL would suggest that I think giving up on quarterbacks who played for horrible organizations like Jacksonville is just a mistake.

Speaker 1 Like, you're talking about they had to out Liam Cohen had to oust the general, the GM of the Jags, Trent Balky, like he was like Littlefinger or Rasputin or something, because that's the organization.

Speaker 1 But if you just look at is this a Trevor Lawrence defense? Because it feels like you're making a listen to a pod. No, it's just over Baker.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying, Baker Mayfield was salary dumped by the Carolina Panthers, and he's now a $40 million a year player.

Speaker 1 Ageno Smith was a backup for eight years and then went and now is like a good above-average starting quarterback.

Speaker 1 Bryce Young was given up on bench by the Panthers and then two weeks later outplayed C.G. Stroud the rest of the season.
I mean, if you just look around and around.

Speaker 1 Ceres made the key point about Bryce Young yesterday on the ring right NFL show. It's like his stats are basically the same as Anthony Richardson.
Anthony Richardson is younger.

Speaker 1 And everybody's like, Bryce Young looking good.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 Bryce Young is, he played two good games. Come on.

Speaker 1 Everyone needs to settle down on Bryce Young. That was beat the Eagles.
I'm just saying that like

Speaker 1 these garbage time, like everyone was not taking them seriously because they were so terrible. I'm dubious about that.

Speaker 1 But you do like in Jigba for the Seahawks, and it's like Sam Donald's the quarterback of the Seahawks. It's like he's been given up on by like four or five teams.
I guess I'm just saying

Speaker 1 14 and three last year. I know, but that's my point.

Speaker 1 The Jets gave up on him. And the Panthers gave up on him.

Speaker 1 You haven't followed football for long enough because you're way younger than I am. I've watched this happen too many times.

Speaker 1 When these people get infected by being on bad teams for too many years, that's it. It's like gangrene.
Your leg falls off. That's what I'm saying.
But then how did Sam Darnold win 14 games last year?

Speaker 1 Well, Sam Darnold, how many teams was he on? He bounced around. He had to go to the Niners and be rehabilitated.
I think Trevor should be coaching.

Speaker 1 He would have to leave Jacksonville before anything good happens for him. There's too much baggage.
He needs to cut his hair. I will bet the Jags to win the Super Bowl when Jagger.

Speaker 1 He just gets a bus cut. How many times do you watch Trevor Lawrence do something stupid and then cuts him on the sideline and takes his helmet off and he's like,

Speaker 1 like,

Speaker 1 I just can't do it again. I just think coaching, Kevin O'Connell said, Peterson won a Super Bowl and then was fired with the same quarterback because he couldn't make it happen.

Speaker 1 William Cohen had one good year with Baker Mayfield. Everyone's like, oh, Ben Johnson, 2.0.
Like, are we sure he's even going to be a good coach?

Speaker 1 And what makes us think Jacksonville is confident anyway? They just traded their entire draft for Travis Hunter. What exact week did Trevor Lentz fail you lost your season that you feel this way?

Speaker 1 How about all the weeks? Every single week. It was two and eight last year.
There's plenty of hate in his heart right now, I feel like. What is his career record? Oh, it's 22 and 38.

Speaker 1 It's better than I thought, actually.

Speaker 1 I just don't get it. The last two years,

Speaker 1 last two years, 32 touchdowns, 21 picks in a league where everybody is like 30 touchdowns, eight picks. I'm out.

Speaker 2 He's making some good points.

Speaker 1 I'm out. I'm sorry.

Speaker 1 I just feel really passionate about this. I don't get it.
It's just like the Justin Herber thing where he sucked in the playoffs last year. And now everyone just forgot nine months later.

Speaker 1 It's like Justin Herbert, one of the eight best quarterbacks in the league. Is he?

Speaker 1 Because we watched him stink in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 But the through line of those is Greg Roman, who's the coordinator of the Chargers, just has never designed a modern passing offense. And like, like from 2019 with Lamar that's another

Speaker 1 excuse maker for Herbert. Oh, I will defend Herbert as well.
I'm just saying, like, like, we know

Speaker 1 what's the fucking Scientologist.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying they're definitely going to be good. I'm just saying that I don't a quarter.

Speaker 1 We're at a quarter of the league is quarterbacked by highly drafted guys whose first organizations failed them.

Speaker 1 And it's really clear that, like, okay, some guys just needed good, better coaching or maybe 25, 26. Josh Allen is someone you forget.

Speaker 1 Josh Allen fucking sucked in his first two seasons and then was awesome in year three. He was 26 his second season.
No, he was terrible as rookie game. His Texans terrible as rookie.

Speaker 1 The Texans playoff game Josh Allen played his second season was the worst game I've ever seen a quarterback. That was when he was lateraling.
It's like, you know what?

Speaker 1 He almost looked like Justin Herbert. Yeah.

Speaker 1 You would say Herbert hasn't won the playoffs. Justin Herbert, the week 18 game versus the Raiders, that Brandon Staley blew because they tied the game.

Speaker 1 One of the best games I've seen a quarterback, maybe it's not playoffs, but if they win the game, they make the playoffs, and if they lose, they

Speaker 1 lit up. Uh, who did he light up? The Raiders, who's okay, but it was

Speaker 1 two fourths and 15s, two and 15.

Speaker 1 Senator is their interim head coach. Uh,

Speaker 1 look, I think, like, if you can get come around on Sam Darnold now on his like ninth game on Seattle, and you're like, I know Sam Darnold, I only came around because he did it, he went 14 and three.

Speaker 1 He had a point really good, but That's my point.

Speaker 1 Kevin O'Connell's himself was the one. And they're like, how did he do it? And people are like, oh, you did.
He's like, no, organizations fail quarterbacks. Totally.

Speaker 1 More than quarterbacks fail organizations. Okay.
Well, year five, Trevor Lawrence, they have one of the five worst offensive lines in the league, right, Danny? Yeah. Bottom five.
Probably. Yeah.

Speaker 1 We've already seen that when he's pressured,

Speaker 1 it gets a little dicey. I just want to wait one more year.
If it doesn't work,

Speaker 1 I would like to see. Yeah, exactly.
I wish you guys a lot of luck. The Herbert one surprises me.

Speaker 1 Which hurts? Well, it's like. He scored 14 points against a good defense.
Yeah, he played the Texans.

Speaker 1 Sam Darnold got eviscerated in the future. I'm not going to defend Sam Darnold.
He fell apart. Or like, I don't know, Dak Prescott or something like that.
It's like

Speaker 1 Dak Prescott over Justin Herbert. What the fuck is Dak Prescott? What did everybody take a D ⁇ D on this guy? I decided to draft it.
Just Joe Mixon. His foot's messed up.
I wouldn't draft him.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's just Joe Mixon's foot. They're not being honest about it.
I don't even know who he's going to play. Would you.
So you guys would take pits? Yeah, because he'll be so cheap.

Speaker 1 He's the cheapest he's ever been.

Speaker 1 Zero dollars for me.

Speaker 1 No, he's, I'm doing it.

Speaker 1 Oh, this is a fun. It's a group category.
Our Aaron Brooks, please don't ever watch him. Just check the box score after the game guy.
It's Justin Fields. Yeah.
Just don't watch one snap.

Speaker 1 Literally, don't watch one snap. Make the points.
Yep.

Speaker 1 He'll be like in the 20s every game, right? Just don't watch any of the snaps. Don't watch the footage.

Speaker 1 As the Blake Bortles was that way, Tim Tebow had that year where he had like one point before the fourth quarter and then scored 18 every fourth.

Speaker 1 And it's a, it's a tough existence in fantasy when you have a guy like that, but you can squeeze out 20 points. Craig, who is, this is one of our best categories from last year.

Speaker 1 My, that 2024 booty call isn't happening again guy. The guy who kind of

Speaker 1 late at night in the fantasy season last year, all of a sudden he was getting points for you, but you don't know if it's a real thing or not.

Speaker 1 Well, this is funny because we just had a long conversation that he was involved in. Sam Darnold.

Speaker 1 I booty call guy for you. 35 touchdowns.
And Tasha Henstridge and Species. I'm like, it only works there, nowhere else.
You know, I'm like, in that movie, great. The Kevin O'Connell system, awesome.

Speaker 1 Now he's like in Seattle. I'm just like, I don't know.
I don't know. I don't want to change that category to the Tasha Hedrid species.
Yeah, I'm like, only working once. You can work with it once.

Speaker 1 I'm like, for sure.

Speaker 1 Sam Darnold, anywhere else? Not for me. Sam Darnold on his own? Not for me.
I was split for mine between John U. Smith.
I still don't understand that season he had last year. Yeah, that's a good one.

Speaker 1 Tiger Kill quit on the team. How did that

Speaker 1 Chuba Hubbard thing happen where all of a sudden he was like one of the six best running backs?

Speaker 2 He had all of it. He had all of the.

Speaker 1 Okay, so that's so. I'm going to go John U Smith because

Speaker 1 Hubbard, Hubbard was like winning people leagues. Yeah, yeah.
And I just wonder if that happened. It's also because it may have been a bad move, if you want to say it, but they overpaid those guards.

Speaker 1 So the Carolina has a weirdly competent offensive line, and so it's a good line. And Chuba Hubbard, you have to be good to survive three regimes.

Speaker 1 He He was drafted by Matt Roll, really, Matt Roll's wife. Right,

Speaker 1 she's like, I like this guy. Let's take a look at it.
I looked at his game log, and it's like pretty like every three games, he would have 150 yards.

Speaker 2 Well, yeah, he was getting like 85% of the snaps for that team.

Speaker 1 It's a good line, he's good. So, I'll go John Anu.
Who do you have? John is better than I think, unfortunately, Terry McLaurin for Washington for like a buzzkill.

Speaker 1 But I mean, Terry McLaurin tied the most touchdowns in the history of the team, but I mean, he only had like under 1,100 yards, but now Debo's there.

Speaker 1 And also, every touchdown Terry had looked like, other than, of of course, when they played the Giants, everything looked like the hardest catch. It was like a mirror of miracles.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it was like a miracle. I love he's sneaky, like 31 years old.
He's 30, the contract. Terry's a great guy.

Speaker 1 He's easy to root for, but I just think where you're drafting him, it's like his ceiling and every list. Should we do an ESPN segment here? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 You got to pay him. You got to pay Terry McLaurin.
You got to pay him.

Speaker 2 I actually do think they need to pay him.

Speaker 1 I mean, if they want to win 10 games, you need to pay him.

Speaker 1 Everybody had a booty call guy? I got one. Who's yours?

Speaker 2 James Cook for the Bills. I love James Cook, actually.

Speaker 2 And I think there is a small chance that he is just in that tier of like Alvin Kamara, where he's just way too, he's so efficient and he just keeps doing it every year. It shocks you every year.

Speaker 2 But last year, he had 16 touchdowns rushing.

Speaker 2 The two years before that, two and two.

Speaker 2 And if you look at his other underlying metrics, he is not a normal elite quarterback.

Speaker 2 He was 28th in touches per game, 38th in snap rate, 24th in rush rate in terms of how many carries he was getting relative to the rest of the team.

Speaker 2 Like barely, just over half of the goal to go opportunities were his. I think it was just like lightning in a bottle.

Speaker 2 He got the most goal-line carries, I think, in the NFL or inside the five-yard carries in the NFL last year. I don't know if that's going to happen again.
Josh Allen's going to steal some of those.

Speaker 2 Maybe Ray Davis steals some of them.

Speaker 2 His underlying metrics just don't match the production. He would have to be one of the most efficient running backs in the NFL again in a second year, and I don't know if he can do that.

Speaker 2 And also, he wasn't really used in the passing game that much.

Speaker 2 So, I don't know. The James Cook, he just feels like that was one.
That was a weird season.

Speaker 1 New contract. Yeah.
I really liked him second half of the year. I thought he was awesome.
Yeah. So, I don't know if that, I don't know what to think on this one.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 There's some red flags, but there, I could also see him being one of the five best guys. Right.

Speaker 2 He could be like Kamara. I think, like, it's possible, but the metrics, the math, it doesn't, it's not math thing.

Speaker 1 All right. Next category is my look.

Speaker 1 Somebody's got to get points in that team guy. For me, it's Calvin Ridley.
Me too.

Speaker 1 Calvin Ridley, too. Oh, you have him too? Yeah.
He's one of my favorite players this year. Here's the thing.
Kingward might be like pretty good. Yeah.
That's another guy.

Speaker 1 When you read the quotes and stuff, I like that he got in the fight with Jeffrey Simmons. Yeah.
And they're like, what did you learn from that fight? And he's like, Jeff's pretty strong.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Have you seen Jeff? Yeah. Well, there's also like a narrative now that's not a

Speaker 1 narrative anymore, but it seems like it's become a narrative of we're not talking about Cam Ward enough, which is really borrowed from the NBA where we don't talk about guys enough, but

Speaker 1 the guy in every single ESPN show is like

Speaker 1 we don't talk about Austin Reeves enough. And it's like, no, we actually probably talk about him the right amount.

Speaker 1 The Cam Ward thing, he just looks like he's going to be a franchise quarterback. They have a good offensive line.

Speaker 1 And I'm not ready to think they could steal the AFC South or be out of nowhere and win nine games or anything like that because they're pretty bad. And the coaching was bad last year on that team.

Speaker 1 Who fucked up more games than the Titans? It's just hard to do anything though with Will Levis.

Speaker 2 That was Levis a lot of the time.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but they had some special team stuff too. They were special teams.

Speaker 1 They were sloppy. They brought in a new guy.
But their defense was also one of the best defenses to start the season ever that like barely won any games.

Speaker 1 I will say that I love, shout out to Bill Callahan, the reverse Nepo, where the son gives the dad the job. And so they have the best offensive line coach in the league.

Speaker 1 And I do think it's underrated how much better Cam Ward will be than Will Levis. And then the offensive line, getting Dan Moore Jr., it's kind of like the Panthers.
There's some pieces.

Speaker 1 I kick-started it as a sleeper. I couldn't get there.

Speaker 1 Overpay a mid lineman looks dumb in March, but then when you actually see the team, you're like, well, if it works, if it makes JC Latham back to right tackle and everyone's, okay, it's actually above average offensive line.

Speaker 1 Cam Ward with time, I mean, it's kind of like he's doing a Matt Stafford arm angles with like Ben Rothes, like if he was Ben Rothbard, smaller Ben Rothesberger. Like, I like Cam Ward a lot.

Speaker 1 And he's, he also, all he talks about is throwing to Calvin Ridley. Yeah.
And right now, Calvin Ridley is being priced like Will Levis is still the quarterback.

Speaker 1 It's basically, they're just like assuming he's going to have the same year he had last year.

Speaker 1 And I don't really want to have Calvin Ridley on my team, but it seems like he's going to be the beneficiary. He's the boring player that falls like multiple rounds and nobody wants to take him.

Speaker 1 Also, he was great. What was it? A gambling thing? What was this thing? He missed the whole season.
He was an entire year for gambling. To me, I'm like, great.

Speaker 1 That means his legs are a year younger than his age suggests. That happened with eight Roddy Garcia.
All right, so we all have Ridley for that.

Speaker 1 Anybody have one other guy for i had i had ted mcmillan for the panthers oh i just think

Speaker 1 good receiver and you're not going to like to hear this but i thought bryce you know elevated that offense in the second half of the year at least statistically he had some moments yeah statistically well i think he got his confidence back because he was yeah like yeah no confidence at all you know this cuttlebutt right

Speaker 1 do you know why bryce young was in turmoil part of mentally tyreus maxie started dating bryce young's girlfriend oh really

Speaker 1 And we think, and then you know, he kind of the benching was like a rebirth of sorts. Well, it was really the Andy Dalton car accident, yes, right?

Speaker 1 One of the most underrated, the most underrated football moments.

Speaker 1 Who was the guy that got stabbed by the Chargers team doctor? Tyrod Dale Darrell, yeah, yeah, conspiracy. Do you think that that car crash? You never know.
Who knows? Princess Diana since

Speaker 1 Daniel Jones has gotta watch three episode Netflix show. Yeah, who hit Andy Dalton?

Speaker 1 Oh, oh, we'll do this quick. My, sorry, that's a little too rich for my blood guy.
Mine's McCaffrey.

Speaker 1 I'm just any price over $32. I'm just not.
Are we doing the McCaffrey thing now? I'm just, I'm just, we don't need to.

Speaker 1 Everyone.

Speaker 1 You don't have to talk me into it. I'm not doing it.

Speaker 1 It's just what your level of risk is. If it works, you'll probably win.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 You'll feel great week four when he has like the 230 total yards and three TDs and everyone's talking about how he looks like he did five years ago and then the red flag pops up.

Speaker 1 I mean, we're kind of stepping on this, but you also had a category later. I'd be afraid to look on Tuesday and see the red flag guy.
He's, it's almost should be named after him.

Speaker 1 Yeah, honestly, it should. He's unlike any other fantasy pick I could remember, McCaffrey this year, because

Speaker 1 we're all afraid he's going to get hurt. But every week he doesn't hurt, we're going to rank him where each week first.
Yeah, like he's the first player. Like the three best guys in the

Speaker 1 that's my week one test thing with McCaffrey is he's going to probably have three touchdowns in the you know he's just been practicing all month.

Speaker 1 He's going to play nine, he's going to play 19 out of 20.

Speaker 1 I get scared when they, it's not even just a calf injury or an Achilles injury, they have it has some name that I don't even know what the you mean bilateral Achilles team tonight?

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a good leg. I don't love that it's spread to the other leg.

Speaker 1 No,

Speaker 1 he's like malaria.

Speaker 1 The one that caught the other leg.

Speaker 1 The Warren Buffett rule is my the ultimate fantasy thing to me of just like be bold when everyone else is fearful, be fearful when everyone's bold. Everyone's not fearful.

Speaker 1 He's a first round in drafts. Okay, Okay, but he's the best fantasy football player since La Danian Tomlinson, period, full stop.

Speaker 1 But he's literally not somebody people are fearful about if he's going seventh. But he's the best fantasy football player since La Danian.

Speaker 1 If he's playing the draft start, he's going to be in one of the.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I got him seventh like literally yesterday. He wins the league.
If he's healthy in week 15, 16, 17, you win the league.

Speaker 2 The argument is you're not trying to get seventh place.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 2 if you're trying to avoid, you know, doing a rage-baiting tweet, maybe don't take Christian McCaffrey.

Speaker 1 But Matthew Barry had

Speaker 1 the rule of like you can't win your draft in the first round, but maybe you can lose it. And like, maybe I'm tempting the fantasy gods with hubris by being like that.
But you know what?

Speaker 1 This is the exception. Like, I know I sound like hyperbolic, but McCaffrey literally has the most fantasy points per game of any player.

Speaker 1 And the Niners, even last year when he came back from this injury, they were conservative with it. He played all the snaps.
How old is he now? He's 29. 29.
29. I'm not doing it.

Speaker 1 His Achilles are 38, though.

Speaker 1 Bilateral. Bilateral.

Speaker 1 I'm more scared of Achilles and Calfs than anything. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's like Cold War 1960s level fear.

Speaker 2 You can't just be standing there and your Achilles just explodes. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I also had Garrett Wilson for this category. Sure.
But we already talked about him.

Speaker 1 Hey, Fitz, who's your $1 quarterback guy? $1 quarterback guy? So I'm curious where you think this begins because, like, is Dak Prescott a $1 quarterback guy? Is Drake Man?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 He's probably in the four to five range, right? I think in that case, I will just say I think there's more $1 quarterbacks than I I can ever remember. And I can make a case for Stroud.

Speaker 1 You heard mine in Lawrence, J.J. McCarthy,

Speaker 1 more than $1. But I'm going to have Jordan Love.
I think Jordan Love is probably, you don't think so? He's higher than $1, you think? Okay, then I was just like J.J. McCarthy.

Speaker 1 You're going to be around two quarterback leagues or just one quarterback? I mean, I have Cam Ward as my $1. Oh, so in that case, then I would pick Michael.
You're going that deep, Michael Penix.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, Penix.
$1 is like your backup QB you spend a dollar on, and then he wins eight weeks for you. And you can't believe Pennix.
I think Pennix is going to throw a lot. I agree.

Speaker 2 Bill, I'm getting like Gary Payton vibes with Cam Ward. He just talks shit and picks fights with everyone, has no fear whatsoever.

Speaker 1 The Simmons fight was enthralling. I read like eight stories about it.

Speaker 1 Why did he do that?

Speaker 2 You're going into prison. You can pick a fight with the biggest guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, dude, when he picks shit with Shadur. Punch the biggest guy you can find.

Speaker 1 The 5 a.m. meetings.

Speaker 1 He gets in there for 5 a.m. meetings and he would bring the skill guys in and the coaches were like, well, this will stop once preseason starts.

Speaker 1 And then the coach was like, every day, 5 a.m., he's a guy for real. Dog bumbles through the through the roof.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's he checks some boxes for sleepers. It also makes you think about like when you're like, oh, a rookie quarterback, how much can they come in and like be a leader and immediately take over?

Speaker 1 Reading what Cam Ward has done kind of makes you think about Caleb Williams a little bit.

Speaker 1 You don't hear any of that about Caleb Williams. And again, no.
New left tackle. JC Latham's a first-round pick at right tackle.
You have Peter Skronsky's a first-run pick at left guard.

Speaker 1 And then they have Kevin Zeitler from the Lions and right guard. It's an unusually good line for for a guy.
Good line coach as well.

Speaker 2 I like the Cam one. I drafted him in my league.

Speaker 2 In a Super Flex, I have him as my QB, too.

Speaker 1 And you loved him.

Speaker 1 You loved him in the draft, right? As a franchise guy? Yeah, I didn't.

Speaker 2 He's like not on the level of a lot of the first overall picks we've seen in the past at quarterback in terms of as a prospect, you know, older guy.

Speaker 2 And Hafits, you talk about he's like the ultimate American

Speaker 1 American story or something. Cam Word is the American dream.
Right.

Speaker 1 He's like a zero-star guy that started at incarnate word, who transferred to Washington State, who transferred to Miami.

Speaker 1 He went from one D1 offer to the number one pick in the draft. And the art, I know there's a lot of issues with NIL, but to me, that's why we did NIL and started paying players.

Speaker 1 Is that's the American dream? Is like there are a lot of guys maybe could have been Cam Ward, but couldn't transfer or whatever, couldn't put themselves through school, but he was able to make money.

Speaker 1 I can't, it's really like a, in a very corny way, a very American story. But yeah,

Speaker 1 Efton Chisholm Jr.

Speaker 1 Same thing. That's right.

Speaker 1 Our new Julian Edelman. Gotta have one.
Yeah. There always has to be a white slot.

Speaker 1 DK, who do you have for your DeMar DeRose? An anti-lytics guy? New category for us. Anti-lytics,

Speaker 1 they make no sense, but he's going to put up points and you don't really understand how or why.

Speaker 2 This one, I'm going. The anti-lytics is because the numbers and vibes and overall just feel right now for the Dolphins is not good.

Speaker 1 I'm going with Jalen Waddell.

Speaker 2 These guys hate him.

Speaker 1 There's a kind of a long-running bit.

Speaker 2 There's a long-running bit bit on our part.

Speaker 1 He will never be on my team. How we feel about Lawrence.
This is what I'm talking about, though, because we're all out on him, you know, here collectively. But weirdly, his stats are good.

Speaker 2 Well, last year they weren't great, but going back throughout his career, you know, he's averaged 12, 13, and 11 points per game.

Speaker 2 And, you know, if Tyreek goes off and does his thing, like he tried to quit last year at the end of the season, like if he does an Antonio Brown type thing and just pieces out midway through the season, Jalen Waddell is getting 35% target rate.

Speaker 1 That's true. And I won't dispute anything he just said.

Speaker 1 I just, you look at Waddle and the type of player he is and you think he's boom-bust, but he's had 20 points in a game like three times in two years. It's not even fun to have him.
No.

Speaker 1 No. I'll never know because I'll never have him.

Speaker 2 I'm taking him.

Speaker 1 You like him? I'm doing it.

Speaker 2 Screw you guys.

Speaker 1 Do you have a DeMar DeRosen guy? This is your category. Yeah.
I think James Cook, it's like, oh, he had 18 touchdowns last year. No way he'll do that again.

Speaker 1 You know, the numbers suggest that he'll regress. And I'm just like, nah.

Speaker 1 I'm just like, nah, he's going to do it again.

Speaker 1 He actually had the same thing with James Cook. I'm like, he's just going to do it again.
He's just going to have 18 touchdowns again. It'd be great.
I don't care what the numbers are.

Speaker 1 I had the same thing. He's going to have 16 again.
I'm like, it's just going to happen. Mine is Isaiah Pacheco.
Ooh.

Speaker 2 But you're out or in?

Speaker 1 I think he's an anti-lytics guy, and he'll end up with like 13 touchdowns. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I love that.

Speaker 1 Because you watch him and you're like, it feels like the first four running backs on the team called in sick and they had to like grab him. Hey, we put on this jersey.
And he's like third and two.

Speaker 1 He's figuring out how to run.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he just doesn't seem like he should be a starting running back or any kind of running back yeah and then he's 17 for 80 with two touchdowns he runs like he bites because he was a like he was going pretty highly in drafts two years ago or like last year and then he broke his leg yeah and so he was out most of the year now everybody just kind of forgot about him well people were like oh he broke his leg last year i don't want him because he was so bad when he came back i'm like he came back last year right he's recovered yeah i like pacheco did you have an anti-atletics guy i had james cook too where i'm like generally speaking you can count on touchdown i think you said james cook never had more than two touchdowns in a year and then he had 16, and that's the safest bet you can make is to have less than 16.

Speaker 1 I'm like, ah, he's going to do it again.

Speaker 1 And yet, that one, that one, he's going to do it again. Well, this dives into, I can't resist, even though I know I'll be afraid to look on a Tuesday and see the red flag guy.

Speaker 1 I don't know why I have him down, but I think it's because I had him in both leagues last year.

Speaker 1 Sam Laporta.

Speaker 1 I just felt like he's always has some sort of minor injury that you're just being held a hostage with no he's gonna play he hurt his shoulder but he's okay and he takes big hits when you watch the lions it always feels like he gets racked yeah um goff will just throw it over the middle and he'll just get annihilated by a linebacker

Speaker 1 i didn't really enjoy the experience he 20 or whatever i paid it was a little tough tough for sam laport last year dude mccaffrey we gotta name this the mccaffrey award like if mccaffrey pops up with the red flag like i don't can't imagine anything

Speaker 1 against mccaffrey but this has to be mccaffrey is there anybody else who's in this i think i rick hill has to be in here i think malik neighbors is kind of in here.

Speaker 1 This is the secret giant since keep to ourselves. He's already has quite a bit of injuries.
Second rounder right now? Is that a toe injury since?

Speaker 1 He has injuries where he's just trying to stretch out to catch the ball and gets hurt. Yeah.

Speaker 1 He got not, I mean, he got knocked out in the Cowboys game when he made an amazing sideline catch and he's face hit the ground. I think he lost consciousness.
And then

Speaker 1 what is he like 170? Yeah, well, he has the back. He has the toe.
He has a shoulder.

Speaker 1 He's all they got. They're going to throw him.
He led the league in targets last year. I'm like, just be careful.
I'm a little worried because he's a special player.

Speaker 1 They threw him 50 balls in the first month of the season, which, I mean, that's what Cooper Cup got when he won the Triple Crown: 50 targets in the first month of the season. He was a rookie.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I'm also, I don't know if he knows how to protect himself in the field to some degree, or I don't know what's going on there, but he's picked up more injuries than I would like to see.

Speaker 2 He's 200 pounds, by the way.

Speaker 1 He's kind of thicker than you think for a fast guy. 200 pounds? Really? Yeah.
Well, that's because he wears one, so he looks slim.

Speaker 1 That's smart, smart uniform stuff. I'm going to start with the ball.

Speaker 1 I had a repeat here. I had Kenneth Walker.
Always hurt. It's going to be great.

Speaker 2 It's going to be awesome watching him run and score a bunch of points in the first three weeks. And then in week four, he's like out with an oblique injury.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, fuck.

Speaker 1 I've had him the last couple of years in at least one league. And it just never seems like he's healthy for more than three weeks.

Speaker 2 I'm going to do it again, though.

Speaker 1 He's great. You think he's 21?

Speaker 1 All right. You're leading us off for my 2022 Cooper Cup.
It's a year after the year guy. So we named this after Cooper Cup because he had that 21 where just everything's perfect.

Speaker 1 He checks every box. It's clear it's his career year.
And then the next year, you're getting bought at that price when it's like, that's never happening again. Right.

Speaker 1 So who's that this year for you, Craig?

Speaker 1 I don't want to believe this, but I think it's the right call is Jaden Daniels and the Commanders.

Speaker 1 Jaden, they had, they were the best fourth down team ever. 87% conversion rate.
Jaden, everybody was worried about how skinny he was. He played all 17 games.

Speaker 1 He did hurt his ribs, but he was able to like keep playing. I'm kind of like, man, also, their schedule last year was way easier than it's going to be this year.
Last year, they played the NFC South.

Speaker 1 They played the Titans, the Cardinals. This year, they play the NFC North and the AFC West, which I think are the two best divisions in football.

Speaker 1 Their two easiest games are Atlanta and Miami, outside of the Giants who are in the division. And I'm kind of just like,

Speaker 1 you know, there's a lot of things that could go wrong. I feel like the roster is fantastic.

Speaker 1 We don't know about the McLaurin thing. Yeah.
Not sure about

Speaker 1 Debo. They've been

Speaker 1 the seventh-round running back who's like, my name's Jacob, but call me Bill. Right, right.
Whatever, whatever's going on. Jack Corey.

Speaker 1 Yeah, their tight end is Zach Ertz. He's like 40.

Speaker 1 That's the other thing with Washington is they're an old team. It's like the Steelers, you think that they're old because of Rodgers, but they're kind of young.

Speaker 1 The Washington, you think they're young because of Jayden Daniels. Washington's the oldest team in the NFL.

Speaker 1 I don't want to spoil my pod with Sal, but you won't be surprised to know I don't have Washington in the playoffs. Yeah, you know,

Speaker 1 I i also had jaden daniels oh yeah i just i thought everything went right i mean they completed a hail mary yeah i know they were 20 for 23 on fourth down like part of me is everything went right missing the playoffs to me is a given maybe that's insulting to washing fans but i'm like the quarter if you look at my quarterback yeah's one of these if you look at the quarterbacks they played they were like atrocious oh yeah

Speaker 1 and they went from the half-dead Ron Rivera to the Dan Quinn.

Speaker 1 They went from, I don't even remember who their quarterbacks, Sam Howell and all the other schmunks they had the year before, to Jane Daniels.

Speaker 1 Easiest schedule possible. Yeah.
Like, come on. They were the classic bump team.
It's not going to happen again.

Speaker 2 The thing that I like reference with Jay and Daniels is. I feel like it's such a hater thing to say.

Speaker 2 It's like Jay and Daniels is going to fall off of her having an all-time rookie season, one of the most exciting and electric players in all of football.

Speaker 2 Like, like revitalized the entire, it revitalized the entire franchise, like a whole new era.

Speaker 1 But I look at what happened with CJ Stroud, too, like in a year too where people start to catch up with what you're good at and take away the things that you're really good at i just worry a little bit that you know that's gonna happen here i don't think their defense is good like they lost a lot of dudes true i do think there's a little bit of like off-season amnesia you get sometimes where you kind of start to look at like the narratives and the math and you're like well they were pretty good on fourth down oh actually this and that oh their schedule was hard And so you're like, you know what?

Speaker 1 I'm out on the commanders. Jayden Daniels is going to have a regression second year.
When I watched him, I was like, this is this guy's fucking awesome.

Speaker 1 When you watch week one test, you're going to watch him like, oh, yeah, this is, this guy is unbelievable. He also Jill Burrow in week three.
It was like week three.

Speaker 1 And I was like, I trust him over anybody, maybe. Let's go do surgery.

Speaker 1 That would be the zag against this is if he's just in that Alan Mohan category and that's it, then that means he goes at least 10 and seven every year. Yeah, it just doesn't matter.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it doesn't matter. I kind of lean that way more, actually, to be honest, but I think this is like a like mathematically.

Speaker 1 It's more for Washington than him. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Like it's just everything went right for that team last year i mean if you want to do sophomore slump it's jaden daniels but the nature of this category like the year after the year after i think saquan has to be right the guy saquan just had the best running back season any running backs ever had like he literally just spurned his old team went to the eagles which are the two home down teams where he grew up had the most rushing yards ever in a single season including the playoffs and then won the super bowl and we kind of just saw that except he lost super with mccaffrey And then McCaffrey barely played last year.

Speaker 1 It's like the history of, I mean, Saquon had the second most touches of the 21st century.

Speaker 2 Like 482 or something like that.

Speaker 1 500 touches.

Speaker 1 Who was the Aaron Schatz thing? 375? It was 370. It was the curse of 370.
Curse of 370. That was a great one.
I was really jealous of that one. Saquon had four.

Speaker 1 I should have invented that one, correct? There you go.

Speaker 1 You could just say you did.

Speaker 1 Bill invented that. Bill invented the curse of 370.
Yeah, Saquon had over 470. And so you look at that and you're like, okay, so the history guys at that is really simple.

Speaker 1 Half of them who did it missed half the next season.

Speaker 1 So it's a coin flip. And if he does anything,

Speaker 1 who's the backup running back on Philly, Will Shipley, who I had later down, Will Shipley is the biggest sleeper in fantasy football now that everyone knows Jakore Krosky Merritt exists.

Speaker 1 The biggest sleeper in fantasy football. Yeah, Bill Merritt.

Speaker 1 Will, you invented that one too. Will Shipley is the Eagles signed A.J.
Dillon, but he's kind of washed. Will Shipley actually like A.J.
Dillon?

Speaker 1 No, I'm telling you, Will Shipley is going to be the guy. It's the Philly.

Speaker 1 I think Will Shipley, if you think Saquon's going to get hurt, Will Shipley be the Eagles starting running back by like week 11. DK, you had a 22 Cooper Cup guy, right?

Speaker 1 I put Saquon.

Speaker 2 Okay, I just think it's the like the obvious is just based on the volume. I guess you could put Derrick Henry here if you want.
I'm personally not fading Derrick Henry until he actually falls off.

Speaker 1 He's like the mountain from thrones. Like, you're gonna see him die.
No, it's stupid, though. You just gotta take him everywhere.
Yeah, it's like Mike Evans is like that, too. Yeah,

Speaker 1 let's all give up. They're just gonna keep doing this until they stop.

Speaker 2 I almost put Henry as my one true love for this year, but I decided to go with Powers.

Speaker 1 It is awesome to have him on your team. Oh, my God.
You feel invincible. Really? 100%.
It's just great. I'm never going to die.
You feel

Speaker 1 me? Like immortal. Do we all have for the, I just want everyone on that offense.
I don't care who team is it all Cincinnati across the board.

Speaker 1 I think you're going to hate me. I have the Niners.
I have the Niners too. Well, the Bengals, you have to use your first three picks to get the, you have Chase, and then you have to get Chase.

Speaker 1 So you would want Pearsall and Jennings to wait six weeks on Ayu. I would take, well, maybe,

Speaker 1 oh, Kittle, Pearsall, Jennings, McCaffrey, Purdy. I think they're all good values.
I'm confused by you having the Bengals.

Speaker 1 I feel like you make fun of people who like spend all their money on four players, but you literally, to get Burrow, T. Higgins, Jamar Chase.
Well, Chase Brown, you'd want everyone on that offense.

Speaker 1 I don't care who team. So that means I get Burrow, Chase Brown, Higgins, or Jamar.
That's like your

Speaker 1 Chase. That's a pretty good one.

Speaker 1 Even if I get one of them, I'm happy. Oh, okay.
Yeah, no, I mean, that's not Chase Brown on my team. I wouldn't really be excited for the Gosecki.
No. I like that.
You think you're like that?

Speaker 1 He's a Sabus, whatever his name was. The Bengals are good.
I think the difference is the Niners are cheaper because you get a cash in the first round. Ricky Pierce

Speaker 1 is super duper cheap. How about, can I offer you Drake May, Stefan Diggs, Trayvon Henderson, and

Speaker 1 Efton Chitchester? For someone here,

Speaker 1 I will just say this about,

Speaker 1 while you're talking about the fucking Patriots, I will just say this. You guys better be better under Vrabel because if you're not, all your shit about Herbert can't win.

Speaker 1 Drake May currently has won one game as a starter. He has one win.
So they better win some goddamn games. He played 10 games and he went one and nine.

Speaker 1 And I'm just saying, you better actually be better. Instead of defending this, I'll ask you, what do you think Gerard Mayo is doing this year for a job? Great question.
Where is he doing?

Speaker 1 What is Crossion? What is C2?

Speaker 1 Do you realize how bad their offensive line was last year? It was like, please don't just get Drake May killed. And yeah, Drake May has it.

Speaker 1 I think that they will, I think they could make the playoffs. I just, if they don't, it will be funny.
I'm going to because that Drake May is going to be perfect.

Speaker 1 I'm going to come through a wall right now and start strangling how many people

Speaker 1 loves Justin Herbert. Nate Tys knows.

Speaker 1 Cincy, any other? So you would say Dallas, even like you would roll the dice with a running back? No, I wouldn't want the running backs now. Okay.

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Speaker 1 DK, who's your my year too early? Fuck it guy.

Speaker 1 So there's obviously

Speaker 1 we talked to Buca.

Speaker 2 I think he would be like my top choice. I talked to Tet McMillan.
I went a little further down the board here.

Speaker 2 And I, for some reason, I'm just really excited about Colston Loveland, the tight end for the Bears.

Speaker 2 I just think, and I really like Tyler Warren too, actually, the Colts tight end, but I just feel like they drafted him with a very specific role in mind,

Speaker 2 his ability to do things over the middle field,

Speaker 1 stretch the seams, run after the catch.

Speaker 2 There's teams that were looking at him. I heard this from Dane Bruego.
Teams were looking at him as a receiver before the draft. Some teams were kind of evaluating him through that lens.

Speaker 2 He's a really big, smooth, huge catch radius. I just think he's going to be a huge part of this offense.

Speaker 2 And obviously, there's other weapons in that offense. DJ Moore is still there.
Roman Dunze is still there.

Speaker 2 But I just, I think like four weeks down the line, if he's you know, top two on that team and receiving, it won't be a big surprise to me.

Speaker 2 And like the way that Caleb Williams looked in his last preseason game, hitting his, getting it, getting the ball out, hitting his back foot on time, in rhythm.

Speaker 2 And I just think that's going to be Colson Lovely over the middle of the field.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah.
I'm going to stay with the Bears. I think Luther Burden.

Speaker 2 Great name. That's a good one.

Speaker 1 One of the best names ever. He might just, in my head, he's just like Antonio Brown waiting to happen on the field.
But

Speaker 1 I'm not convinced anybody likes DJ Moore. I'm not convinced Roman Dunze is good.
And I kind of think Ben Johnson wanted Luther Burden drafted Luther Burden.

Speaker 1 And he's already popped a few times in preseason. And if he plays in the slot, Ben Johnson's slot receivers, he had Jarvis Landry when he was in Miami, who caught like 100 passes a year.

Speaker 1 And then obviously a Monrost St. Brown.
I just think I test-wise, Luther Burden, who had a weird year, his final year in college, there's like injury stuff. He wasn't that good.

Speaker 1 The year before, he was like the best wide receiver in college football. It would have been a tough time.
Wasn't there some like work ethic questions with him? Yes.

Speaker 1 Well, I think our joke during the draft show was that all the teams were looking at Luther Burden and being like, oh man, five-star, crazy talent, crazy speed, might be a headache.

Speaker 1 Ben Johnson, who's just dealt with James Williams for three years, is like, oh, I'll be fine. Yeah, give you that any day of the week.
Yeah. I just think he's awesome.

Speaker 2 He has his number 87, though, which is tough.

Speaker 1 Well, that's because they're too young to remember when receivers wore that. So they're bringing it back because they think it's new.
It's kind of rough.

Speaker 2 It looks like a tight end. It looks, yeah.

Speaker 1 DK mentioned my guy.

Speaker 1 Oh, Tyler Warren. Oh, it's my Tyler Warren.
So I waffled between the two of those. All right, let's do the Tyler Warren Warren thing.
So they picked Danny Dimes as their QB, who

Speaker 1 I checked around with Giants fans. I didn't need to ask High Fitz because I already knew, but I talked to a couple other Giants fans of my life, and they were just like,

Speaker 1 because I was like, I just want to make sure the Colts as an AFC South team is not going to happen. Yeah, I was like, just how bad was Dimes last year?

Speaker 1 It just sounded really bad. Like the chasm from 22 dimes, which wasn't exactly Joe Montana, but he was like 15 T D's, five interceptions.
He ran for 700 yards.

Speaker 1 That guy was like miles better than last year, Dimes, who lost a job to Tommy DeVito. No one said anything nice about Daniel Jones while he was alive.

Speaker 1 Only when they cut him and he wasn't playing every week, where people were like, oh, he can play.

Speaker 1 I'm a Giant fan. I never heard one nice thing from anybody for four years about that guy.
I mean, Richardson has to be so bad for them to be like,

Speaker 1 they're just

Speaker 1 like giving up on it. I just screen passes.
So I just, I picture

Speaker 1 the one thing they do have is a good offensive line, right? The Colts. It's okay.
It's above average.

Speaker 1 Whenever a running game's good.

Speaker 1 And there's going to be play action and throw to Tyler Warren because they had this whole deep passing offense that he's not going to be able to execute because he can't throw deep. No.

Speaker 1 You know what he can do? Throw Tyler Warren. It's tunnel screens to Tyler Warren.
I'm in on Tyler Warren.

Speaker 1 I think he's this year's kind of discount powers.

Speaker 1 Totally agree. People think Tyler Warren can block because he has long hair.
And Jeremy Schockey and George Kittle have long hair. And he can't block.
He's a receiver.

Speaker 1 Tyler Warren had the, he was the only player in the Power Five Conference last year in college football to have 100 catches. Like he's a receiver.

Speaker 1 He had tied the most catches in a game of any tight end ever in the history of college football. Like he's a crazy good receiver.

Speaker 1 And again, to your point, Daniel Jones, like, I mean, Dable, the shoestring and bubblegum, that Giants season that made the playoffs that screwed up the whole team.

Speaker 1 Like, it was so much tight ends to guys that didn't have talent. But I totally agree.
I just, the.

Speaker 1 I also thought he should have gone first as the tight end. I know you like Loveland, but I mean, I like him.
Isn't that crazy that he fell to 14.

Speaker 1 i remember looking at him for the pats the second when you watched him in preseason you were like oh

Speaker 1 yeah

Speaker 1 and the other thing too is that the cults are every team has something like this or a lot of teams do where they haven't been able to fill a tight end for 10 years yeah it's kind of like platooning that forever it's kind of like you know maybe like didn't this makes sense i can see him in the uniform i can see him having big games the cults

Speaker 1 competition like there's no other real alpha Let's speed through the rest of these because we took way too long.

Speaker 1 We'll just go rapid fire. Missionary position.
We've all had him. This is getting boring.
It's not even exciting to see him in the lineup anymore guy. For me, it's Kelsey.
Oh, that's

Speaker 1 just like, all right. Oh, Kelsey did the thing where he had one catch for 10 yards and there's a red flag next to him.
And should I start him next? Oh, now he has seven catches for 90 again. Just not.

Speaker 1 Is there anybody else you would have?

Speaker 2 Aaron Jones. I mean, I think he's a good player still, but he was banged up pretty much all last year.
He's getting older.

Speaker 1 They're talking about platooning him. Yep.

Speaker 1 I have Alvin Kamara. just you're going to turn him on and watch him, and then you're going to watch Spencer Rattler, a quarterback.

Speaker 2 You're going to catch he's going to catch a pass on the side, uh, you know, like a bubble screen or whatever, and just get gain one yard.

Speaker 1 Yeah, just be a three and out machine, you're never going to see him.

Speaker 1 Uh, Jared Goff does nothing for me anymore. I don't want Jared Goff on my team.
I don't know what it makes me feel dead inside. Yeah, just like he can't move.
I know he's good.

Speaker 1 Uh, I felt for the preseason hype.

Speaker 1 That guy, uh, I had Genti just because the hype is like, no, no, actually, you should pay $50 plus dollars for him. They're going to use him all the time.
And

Speaker 1 I've been, I mentioned Hunter before, but those two, I think, we didn't really talk about Genti, but it just seems like he's going to have the ball at the time. He wants the ball.

Speaker 1 Picardo's going to give him the ball.

Speaker 1 And then the only other one I had there was Mahomes, just the

Speaker 2 Mahomes. That was a good one.

Speaker 1 Comeback,

Speaker 1 better weapons. There's not another Hall of Fame.
I'm not buying it. There's not another Hall of Fame quarterback whose hype you bought? Maybe in the East Coast.
Well, I mean, his. What do you mean?

Speaker 1 Who?

Speaker 2 Maybe in

Speaker 1 Pittsburgh?

Speaker 1 Russ Bell? Yeah. Didn't buy that one.
Aaron Rocky. Any other preseason hype guys you were?

Speaker 2 I so I was I couldn't remember exactly how to define this category whether it's like I fell for it in I think that's part of the point is some of these categories are confusing intentionally they're all apex mountains and so I put George Pickens because I've I have fallen for the preseason with Pickens and I don't know how it's going to go.

Speaker 2 I think Occam's Razor is probably he's going to be off the team in week seven or whatever. But like, I think he could also have 1,200 yards.

Speaker 1 You haven't, none of the Rodgers quotes

Speaker 1 the teammates. I actually have the Rodgers?

Speaker 1 I have a box on my Google. Okay.
There's a lot of good stuff about him.

Speaker 1 You should, so you should do your own research. That's the problem.
I'm just saying. A lot of the young guys really like him.

Speaker 1 Good locker room guy.

Speaker 1 Like a hostage situation. He's misunderstood.
Yeah. Him and Tomlin, they really work.
Craig walked in one day and was like, Will Howard said, can't wait to learn from him.

Speaker 1 And we were like, what the fuck do you think Will Howard's going to say? Why? Because he's a rookie? Yeah. You were like, yeah, they said nice things about him.
I'm like, well,

Speaker 1 what are they going to do? This guy is going out of their way. It's going to be truly effusive.
You could be like, oh, yeah, it's been great.

Speaker 1 Skylar Thompson is like, this guy is completely misunderstood. All the receivers, all the linemen.
He seems like he's very well liked right now. That's all I'll say.
These aren't my quotes.

Speaker 1 I'm reading. I don't know what plan B is for the conversation, though.
What do you mean?

Speaker 1 Like, if we just added some new person and then somebody interviewed Danny Kelly and we're like, what do you think of the new producer, Johnny? Well, why aren't we? I'd be like, Johnny's been great.

Speaker 1 He's weird thoughts on the pyramids. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Why aren't there quotes about how awesome Sam Donald is? Everybody loves Sam Darnold. All the players are talking about how great he is.
Why isn't there that? Because Sam Darnold doesn't.

Speaker 1 They're not paying attention. Yeah.
They have been talking about that. It's almost like Sam Donald's focused on winning.
the season instead of just talking about who built the church and winner.

Speaker 1 He's not talking about that stuff right now. He's famous.
People are interviewing him

Speaker 1 he's not i don't really know if there has been many this is the first topic since we've done the show where like younger craig would punch current craig in the face no this is actually honestly a little sad oh stop no it really is

Speaker 1 you know what's funny is sean came on our pod and was like craig you have to have a take you can't be apathetic about this you you can't say like they'll probably win eight games because your take for a long time was like this is their best of me so if i have to pick a side i'm gonna be like yeah fuck yeah we'll win 12 games december craig was like i can't believe some team's gonna talk talk themselves into Rodgers.

Speaker 1 I still maintain that this was the best thing they could have done in this situation this year. I don't know what the alternative was.

Speaker 1 I like when with Shield, anybody brings up Rodgers to him and he just like, he, it's like this switch goes out. I want him to be good.

Speaker 1 No quarterback over 42 years old has ever played more than 10 graves other than Tom Brady. Like, he's just, Shield is the most out of anyone at the ringer, I think.
He's 41. I love that.

Speaker 1 Is he going to be 42 during the season? Towards the end of it, yes.

Speaker 1 What were they going to do? Give Sam Darnold $100 million? I'm good.

Speaker 2 Hey, come on.

Speaker 1 I thought

Speaker 1 what should they have done? I don't need to open up.

Speaker 1 Shouldor a cane of worms, but I don't understand. Yeah, you could have had Jackson Dart.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you could have had Jackson Dart. That actually had never occurred.
It actually seems really good. Yeah, you're right.
Right now, that dart looks okay. Sure.
Looks okay. It's hyphenous in Jersey.

Speaker 1 Kenny Pickett looked really good. I like how you went from throwing dimes to throwing darts.

Speaker 1 Dude, and also use two emojis you can use because you can use the dart, but also you can use cigarettes, which are all like all-time emoji quarterback. Yeah, sure.

Speaker 1 I mean, you're in between DeVito with the thing. The Giants are cornering the market on like the emoji quarterback.
Schraeger had the funniest

Speaker 1 Schraeger monologue about Dart. About he has it.

Speaker 1 He has it.

Speaker 1 You can see it. He has it.
He kind of does. Yeah.
He does. He has a little bit of aura.
He's come a long way from that Cruden video where Cruden's like, show me your snap count. And he's like, cool.

Speaker 1 And he just claps. That's how I felt in our old studios when we had all the podcast interns.
And I met Craig. I was like, I told Fantasy.

Speaker 1 Craig has it. He has it.
I can see it. How do you start a podcast? I'm like,

Speaker 2 actually, we do that.

Speaker 1 Line up the audio. Oh, this is,

Speaker 1 I think, my favorite category. I'd never root for an injury.

Speaker 1 I would root for one. It's Brees Hall.
I want him to get out. Damn it, Craig.
So Braylon Allen can't get the football. Let me live.
Yeah. I'd never root for an injury, but he is one injury away guy.

Speaker 1 And we already talked about Brees Hall.

Speaker 1 Russell Wilson, wouldn't mind a pulled Hammy so we can see Dart. I know.
Just saying.

Speaker 1 I had Ray Davis down here.

Speaker 1 Wow. There could be a really fun seven-week Ray Davis stretch.

Speaker 1 We don't want anyone to get hurt, but if James Cook has a little pulled Hammy or something and Ray Davis comes in and he's just awesome. Yeah.
I could see that one.

Speaker 1 I have to, just as a Pats fan, put Ramondre Stevenson on this thing.

Speaker 1 I don't think he's going to get benched.

Speaker 1 I don't think he needed more touches we're that guy how do you feel about remondre i feel i still feel like he's a good running back the fumbles are just out of control yeah right i just can't handle the running backs that fumble just don't fumble hold on the ball remondre's an ex that in two years he's not even going to remember the name he's going to be like who was there before like it's going to like slip out of his memory you it's i don't know what the total number of running back fumbles

Speaker 1 what the number is before you just completely lose confidence forever but i'm there he's close yeah yeah it's like double digits in two years Any other injury guys? Dude, just lingering.

Speaker 1 You mentioned the Eagles. Well, I mentioned Will Shipley, who I do think is the most

Speaker 1 probably the player who is the biggest ratio of how much people are talking about him, which is zero to the importance he could have in the season, which if Saquon, you know, again, second most touches of the 21st century, if Saquon gets hurt, you're like, damn, Will Shipley is, is he going to be the starting running back for the Philadelphia Eagles?

Speaker 1 And then if you want to say, oh, maybe it's not him, it's A.J. Dillon, fine.
I haven't heard anyone talking about A.J. Dillon for the Eagles, but even if they split it, that's a crazy workload.

Speaker 1 The only other thing I'll say is I think Zach Zach Charbonnet for the Seahawks. Yeah.
I don't even have to push an injury on anyone. Ken Walker is just always hurt.
He's the other one.

Speaker 1 He's the easiest person to see where if the Seahawks are good and it's what we think they'll be and they make the playoffs and the defense is awesome. They're going to run ice out.

Speaker 1 And then Walker's hurt. And you're like, Charbonnet coming on Seahawks Island with this.

Speaker 1 I am coming on Seahawks Island, but I just think basically if Charbonnet is the easiest player to envision joining that like top four group of like, oh, it's McCaffrey, Saquon, Gibbs, Bijan.

Speaker 1 Zach Charbonnet was fifth in the second half of the season.

Speaker 1 But it's, if Kevin has hurt, man, he's going to be so good in that system.

Speaker 2 He has a fun running style.

Speaker 1 He will go out of his way to truck you.

Speaker 2 Like, he's one of those guys who will be like, I could go there or there and be open, or I could just run right through that guy in a good way, in a bad way.

Speaker 1 It's a trolley problem, but he chooses more people. He totally runs over all the children.
I do have a random football question, though.

Speaker 1 Like, everyone's talking about Quinn Kubiak's, like the zone blocking, how good it is. And Gray Zabel's been amazing in his zone blocking scheme.

Speaker 1 scheme so why don't more people do zone blocking schemes like why did the patriots do it last year when you had no offensive lineman i can answer that so the reason it's super hard to figure out it's hard it's hard to teach it's detail oriented it's detail oriented to teach it's a simple system for when you understand it players like it because they talk about feeling like a computer zero one C hit and so they feel like I don't have to think.

Speaker 1 I can just execute. And so you become faster.
So one, you need an organizational commitment to it because what you end up doing is basically like hyphens a great answer for this.

Speaker 1 I was like going with a hypothetical. I'm just making all this amazing.

Speaker 2 You also have to have a quarterback who's willing to play under center.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so you can't have Rodgers because

Speaker 1 you have to be able to do play action, turn your back to the defense. You can't have Rodgers doing the Ben Roethlisberger impression where everything's in shotgun.
You can't do that.

Speaker 1 So you have to be under center, number one.

Speaker 1 But what I'm saying, you also need an organizational commitment to faster alignment.

Speaker 1 Look, the Niners line, I think when they started doing, and now it's more gap stuff too, but the Niners' line was like the lightest line in the league. So you need a multi-year effort to draft.

Speaker 1 They've got right guys.

Speaker 1 But the whole point, though, it sounds complicated. It's just to make cornerbacks tackle.

Speaker 1 The premise of this when they started doing this with the Broncos, Mike Shanahan, his dad, Alex Gibbs, the whole point was, well, if you're going to have all these dots and Matt, make the one one-on-one with the running back the worst tackler.

Speaker 1 That's a cornerback. So the whole point of wide zone.
Or the slot cornerbacks. Yeah.
Those guys.

Speaker 1 Well, that's why those guys are the most important guys in modern defense right now or the most underrated because that's where the front side. Yeah.

Speaker 1 It's like the whole all of modern footballs right now is about the B gap, which is a whole different conversation. But the point to your question about why doesn't everyone just do it?

Speaker 1 Like, why don't you build the play into the black box? It's hard to teach. Matt Patricia tried to teach stuff, and he's like, It's not that easy.

Speaker 1 So, why can't? Sorry, why can't Kubiak do it? Well, his father

Speaker 1 invented it, yeah. Like Gibbs, Shanahan, and Gary Kubiak.
It's like I invented the three out, right?

Speaker 1 Exactly, but yeah, so his dad like invented the thing. I like it because it seems like it teams up.
And Gray Zabo just seems like he's just a wrecking.

Speaker 2 Oh my god, he's looked so good.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it's a lot of guard talk. Like, he's replacing Quentin Nelson as the guard.

Speaker 2 He might be. He's looked incredible in the preseason.
I saw some stats. This is from Ian Hart at

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 2 Seahawks were like 30th in yards before contact per carry last year. And in the preseason, they're like fourth.
The run game has really been clicking.

Speaker 2 And

Speaker 1 I can't wait for Seahawks to throw a backbreaking pick six in the fourth in week one. And everyone's like, fuck, he's handed Arnold down.

Speaker 2 Well, I think the other thing to add to what Hey Fitz said about the zone game, and I get Alex Gibbs said this back in the day, is like, you don't do other stuff. You just, we're a zone team.

Speaker 2 And I think some teams like to be more multiple than that.

Speaker 2 And it is a way to kind of protect your quarterback and not make him have to throw a back-breaking six, pick six or whatever.

Speaker 2 But yeah, they're going to like run zone, bootleg, throw deep. It's going to be fun.

Speaker 1 The next category is my rookie Nitrous Oxat guy. I'm not even sure what that one was, but it was just so we could have his.
Xavier worthy. Yeah, I didn't know what it was.
I don't know.

Speaker 1 I just thought it was a fast rookie.

Speaker 1 Thornton on Vegas, maybe? Oh, yeah, Deontay Thornton. Yeah.
Thompson.

Speaker 1 All right, last category. Thornton.
Thornton.

Speaker 1 Who's seems like he's their number one receiver. I don't remember.

Speaker 1 He's going to be about this scantling. He's going to just stand there and run fast and he'll catch it.
I like that. He's going to watch the ball.
By the way, great guy to have him Madden.

Speaker 1 Thornton. Straight line guy.
Sure. Are you playing Madden again?

Speaker 1 Depends if my son. I beat him and it drives him crazy.
And then he throws a tantrum, even though he's 17 now.

Speaker 1 I only play if he wants to play. I just, you never lose it once you have it.
The remote. I'm just

Speaker 1 kidding. Uh, last category: I know this is good value right now, but I simply don't want to refer him guy.
It was Aaron Rodgers for me last year.

Speaker 1 I don't know anyone who would draft Aaron Rodgers this year. No, but he's not getting drafted.
Um,

Speaker 1 I'm gonna put him in again, Aaron Rodgers. But the other person I want to put in is Brees Hall.
Hell yeah, because I have because it helps with the Braylon Allen stock. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 Brees Hall really hurt my feelings last year. Even Trevor Lawrence, like, just

Speaker 1 ran a tag team on me.

Speaker 1 I'm back. Like, just the feelings hurt.
No, Brees has.

Speaker 2 I'm zagging.

Speaker 2 I'm all in on Brees.

Speaker 1 He's going twice. It's like a conspiracy theory.

Speaker 1 I feel like you don't even think he's that good. You're just upset at how much we think he's.
Yes. Correct.

Speaker 1 He's your Jalen Waddell. Yeah.
He doesn't even hit the right holes in preseason.

Speaker 2 Of course he does. He's really good.

Speaker 1 He's a good player. I'm with you on Rogers here.
I'm with you on Rodgers. I don't want Rodgers to be here.
We're talking about fantasy football. Who's drafting Aaron Rodgers in fantasy football?

Speaker 1 No, but no, Steelers.

Speaker 1 You know why? My issue with Metcalf, Caleb Johnson, all these guys. It's the Rothesburger Steelers again.
So it's like a good value. I don't want to root for him.

Speaker 1 I don't want to watch Rodgers because off the field, he's annoying. But on the field, we saw this thing with Rodgers.
What he's doing now is the old Rothesberger. He doesn't want to get hit.

Speaker 1 So everything's shotgun, and it ruins the offense. They can't run the ball because it's shotgun.

Speaker 1 Evidently worse.

Speaker 1 Why is my guest attacked right now? Doesn't want to get hit at all. All right.
The name of this category.

Speaker 1 The name of this category is: I know this is good value. So you're saying you know the Steelers are good value.
No, it's a good point. I don't know.

Speaker 1 I guess more. I just wanted to mention him anyway.
I was like, I'm trying to make you back into complimenting the Steelers. I'm like, it technically says, I know this is good value.
So

Speaker 1 mine is the Saints wide receivers who, in theory, are being drafted super late. Chris Olave is good.
Rashid Jahid is good. But I'm like, I just.

Speaker 1 I just, if it's Monday night football and it's like Saints Chargers and I need 20 points out of Chris Olave, and I'm watching Tyler Shuck and Spencer Rattler. I just can't do any of that.

Speaker 1 He's a D and D guy for me, Chris Olave. Yeah.
He's hard to put. Too many concussions.
Like at some point, it's not.

Speaker 1 And it's like stupid. If someone's going to be throwing hospital balls, it's Tyler, Shuck, and Rattler.

Speaker 1 Jesus. All right.
This was fun. Can we do 30 categories and not mention our favorite sleepers of the year? Oh, yeah, that was our last thing.
Who's your favorite sleeper?

Speaker 1 Well, I had him for Nitrous Ox.

Speaker 1 I just want to mention Matthew Golden for the Packers. And I am a huge fan of him.
And I think that there's overlapping reasons why he's falling through the cracks.

Speaker 1 But frankly, in a nutshell, most really fast guys don't have any touch or feel. Like they're like Taekwond Thorntons.
They're track runners. But Matthew Golden to me, he has tempo.
He has feel.

Speaker 1 He has really good hands. A lot of these fast guys can't catch for shit.
You got to be like a Deshaun Jackson. Like, you know, he's got the video center fielder.

Speaker 1 I just think Matthew Golden has a lot of

Speaker 1 juice, frankly, but also feel. But then you go to the Packers and I just think people think he's going to be a rotational player.
I'm like, yeah, he's going to play for them like all the time.

Speaker 1 Two receiver sets, three receiver sets.

Speaker 1 He's one of my favorite players to get. Who's your sleeper?

Speaker 2 brees hall

Speaker 1 is he really your sleeper

Speaker 1 grow up

Speaker 1 grow up peter pan breeze kind of chocolate breeze all ranked ahead of jalen hurts

Speaker 1 uh anyway yeah ricky pierce all i like i think that one makes a lot of he's been a sleeper i feel like he's away he's down there having coffee you want me to pick some you want me to pick someone like way way down the list people think he's their number one receiver yeah but he's still not you mean drafted highly he's been shot in a year like he's got to be healthy from that right that was unbelievable that he played after he got shot he was lucky to survive he shot the checks right

Speaker 2 i'll give you a different one damian pierce running back for the texans

Speaker 2 because under the category of somebody on this team has to get a thousand yards and 10 times and he also has a thousand yard season on his resume i thought he was really good coming out of florida he just wasn't a good fit for the wide zone scheme that they ran last year basically just was a forgotten man And I think now they're switching to more gap stuff, a little bit better for him.

Speaker 2 And it sounds like Mixon is not back anytime soon. So I'll throw that out out there.

Speaker 1 Who's yours? I think it's Tank Bigsby, the running back on Jacksonville. Like him, yeah.
I think what Liam Cohen did for Bucky Irving in Tampa, I think Liam Cohen could do for Tank in Jacksonville.

Speaker 1 I think he's much more similar to Bucky Irving. What Liam Cohen did to the Bucs running game last year was pretty incredible.
And Bucky Irving, his whole thing is yards after contact.

Speaker 1 He was the best in the league last year at it. Number two is Tank.
So I kind of think they have similar profiles.

Speaker 1 I have from the College of Holy Cross, but that's not why I'm taking him on the Carolina Panthers, Jalen Coker. Okay, you're a cokehead? He's great.

Speaker 1 So I was really invested in him because he was a Holy Cross guy who's actually like doing stuff. It's not like we have a lot of football players.
He's good. He is good.

Speaker 1 He was a significantly longer career than Xavier Legette, who they took in the first round. He was making big plays for them.
He was open. Bryce Young trusted him.

Speaker 1 And now I think people just think it's going to be Tet McMillan's team. And I wouldn't be surprised if he had the most receiving yards on the Panthers.

Speaker 1 I think the Panthers just kind of have like a nice cast of guys now. Everybody does a thing.
Like I think Leguette as a number two makes way more sense.

Speaker 1 McMillan is like your classic number one who can get a ton of targets. Coker's like the speedy guy doing a button.
I just think they kind of are filling out a nice. Chuba Hubbard is

Speaker 1 RB4. The offensive line is not bad.
Year two with Dave Canalis. Yeah, and I was too harsh on Bryce because I did think he had some good moments.

Speaker 1 I just thought it was notable that Richardson is just out of football now.

Speaker 1 They're not the same.

Speaker 1 I know they're not Richardson's path. Like Luis Bryce's arrow was pointing up, by the way.
Literally, Anthony Richardson's completion percentage is lower than Sean. I know he can't complete.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think it's just like the difference. Inaccurate.

Speaker 2 The difference is you can, as a coach, you can trust this guy to run the offense you want to run more than, like, that's why they want Daniel Jones.

Speaker 2 It's like, I just trust this guy to run the offense. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Nice, you know, whatever. What did we call Richardson at 209?

Speaker 1 Right. From Robo Cup.
Robo Cup.

Speaker 1 He can't go down the stairs.

Speaker 1 He can't get in a car. He literally can't go down the stairs.

Speaker 1 Brace had moments, but man, he seems so small in some of these games.

Speaker 1 That's the thing you can't like when you're watching all the TVs and you see the different quarterbacks and then you see him and he just seems. Well, that's why they got a McMillan.
He's so tall.

Speaker 1 I can see him. Yeah.
All right. Guys, this is great.
When's our big draft? Monday, one o'clock. It's going to be on the Ringer Fantasy Football YouTube channel, one o'clock Pacific time.

Speaker 1 It's all, it's, it's a lot of Ringer people that people recognize. Yes.
We're all going head-to-head. There's going to be punishments that we talked about on your podcast.

Speaker 1 I think my favorite, what was the one I came up with? The tweet one? Ragebait. Rage Bait.

Speaker 1 Go listen to that if you want to know what that is. Go listen to that.
I had the punishment idea of one tweet each week, Tuesday at one o'clock. Written by everyone else.

Speaker 1 Almost like the Colin Joe's Michael Che thing, where you're writing the weekend update joke for somebody else, and it's just like a tweet that will make it.

Speaker 1 The funniest thing is that it would be the worst for you because you have like 5 million followers. Yeah, you have the most to lose.
Yeah, I do. I probably is.

Speaker 1 You didn't think Curtime would lose this just now. Yeah, but he also enjoys tweeting Ragebait stuff more.
I'm not going to finish last, though.

Speaker 1 Dane Lathan's in the league. He's going to finish last.
What pick do you want? We're doing Snake. There's 10 teams.
What's your ideal pick?

Speaker 1 Because we're going to do a trivia question to determine the pick.

Speaker 1 Oh, interesting.

Speaker 1 I usually like being near the back so you can get basically like three, four of the top like 32, 33 rankings. I think this is a good year, actually, to be towards the back of the draft.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 Because I don't, I would, I wouldn't be psyched about any of those running backs. We didn't even talk about Bijan, but like,

Speaker 1 I don't know. I don't.
Bijan's good, but I don't want to want to spend $60 on him in a fantasy league.

Speaker 1 You're probably going to want to do that.

Speaker 1 Do I have to? This is great.

Speaker 1 You can move this. All right.

Speaker 1 I don't know. Do you have anything else to say?

Speaker 1 Do I have to?

Speaker 1 You don't have to do anything, but I mean, he's like, yeah, he's going to blow your fucking mind. Like, for how good he is, he's not that famous.
He's not that. He doesn't have that Saquon

Speaker 1 electricity where everyone wants to play him and Madden. He's like the biggest freak I've ever seen, even though he is.
But he doesn't really have that. I think it's a combo with the Falcons.

Speaker 1 And then also, it's weird that he wants to be an actor, but I will say Saquon himself said like a month ago that the best player at making people miss in the NFL is B. John Robinson.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, he's so. I'm looking at my future, and it's going to be a future of starting running backs, Trayvion Henderson, Braylon Allen, and Kenneth Walker, some sort of running back platoon.

Speaker 1 And everyone will have a flag next to them at some point. And I'll wonder why I didn't spend more money on it.
Well, R.J. Harvey, are you in on him? I am.
A little bit in on him.

Speaker 1 We don't have to talk about the Broncos at all. Yeah, the Broncos.

Speaker 1 Unfortunately, with the Broncos, like a month ago, it was like cool to be like, I actually think the Broncos could now everybody's. I'm so, I have so much money on them, too.

Speaker 1 It's like, and now they're the sexy

Speaker 1 tender thing. I can't wait for him to spend 22 bucks on Braylon Allen in this draft, and then we're going to be tweeting from his profile.

Speaker 1 just like booger's rodeo the yahoo draft though that's the booger i'll just take him in like the eighth round yeah well yeah right after i take no punishment in the seventh yeah which yeah yeah if you don't know what we're talking about you'll have to go listen yeah listen thanks all right thank you guys good to see you thank you bill thanks to gahao and eduardo as well and i'm going to be back on uh sunday with a a brand new pod and then episode 399 of the rewatchables witness You weren't there for that one.

Speaker 1 No, I actually haven't watched it yet, but I will watch it. I think you really would have liked it.
I can't believe I haven't seen it for how much I love Harrison Ford.

Speaker 1 It's like an incredible Harrison Ford movie. Anyway, Mallory, it was just the two of us.
And I can't imagine. Lines were crossed.
I assume.

Speaker 1 In case you were wondering, they were.

Speaker 1 Lines were crossed. Good to see you guys, though.
Thanks, Joel.

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