2018 Footie Nominations + Studs & Duds

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Coming to you from Draft.com Studios with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, we're number one. 30 second best, baby. So proud. So proud. It's all the same when draft season hits. Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast for Monday, December 31st, the final episode of the 2018 calendar year.

I'm dawning some gear from the number one team in football. Isn't that how it works? Right. That's what it means. In April. See, I explained to my 7-year-old yesterday. He said, wait, wait, if they're the worst, why do they get the first pick? He thought that the better teams get the first pick. Oh, that would not be fair. My children were very confused as to why we were rooting for the Seahawks. Well.

I guess we have more to talk about than the Cardinals securing the first pick in the draft. There's plenty. Like piles and piles of head coaching firings this morning and, well, this is the footy nomination show. So we're looking back over to the last year. That was very John Hammond of you, Jason. Spare no expense. Yeah, no. Look, the footies are here. This is the biggest show of the year. Is your voice here, though? No, I am sick. I'm under the weather, but I am here in body form.

Body form. And I do want to bring this up briefly before you jump into the show. One of your many idiosyncrasies could be leading to this illness. And that is the fact it's in the 40s and you're still wearing a t-shirt. Most often you wear flip flops and shorts. Yeah, I thought you'd be proud of me for having pants and shoes on. I am proud of you, Jason. Can you confirm the only reason you actually have...

pants and shoes on is because last night I messaged you highlighting that the temperature is going to be in the 40s with high chance of rain. There's no chance that I have shoes on today if not for that message. Yeah. Yeah. So Mike has to screenshot weather apps. No way. I should have let it go. Well, you want to keep him well. You want them on the show. We don't need Jay Gris every single episode. Fair. Twitter at the FF Ballers. You're going to want to follow us on Twitter. We'll post the link.

To footie awards.com, that's where you can go and vote for the 2018 footies. All the nominations on the show today. So you've got your best at every position, breakout star, tons of different categories. We'll go through them all on the show today. That'll be the main focus. But we will touch on the news, the studs and the duds from week 17, you know, the players that played, that is, which was, you know, few and far between by the end of it.

And next week we have the truth episodes Thursday. This week we'll have the footy winners. But next week we'll start getting into the truth episodes. These are huge, huge strategic episodes as you go into next season. Absolutely. You can get your Foot Clan title shirt at Shotballers.com. Let's get into the rewind. Weekly rewind. We're going to go quick. Aaron Rogers did not return after suffering a concussion in the second quarter against the Lions. Hopefully.

He did not. Watching the game, nothing to play for, and your team is quickly down two scores. Oh, you're hoping he, I'm just hoping he's like, eh, I'm good cause. I've had enough. Well, how many figures am I holding up? 12. Yeah. Nick Foles exited the fourth quarter with a chest injury. Bruised ribs expected to play. They made the playoffs.

Philadelphia fans, my Super Bowl pick still alive. It's ridiculous. So he gets his million dollars, right? So if you have not heard of his email over here, if you didn't hear in Nick Foll's contract, he had a clause that said if the team makes the postseason and he plays 33% of the team's plays, then he gets a million dollars, a million dollar incentive. And he was lined up to hit that yesterday, except when he left.

with the injury, and he finished the season at 32% of the plays. So per contract, we'll see what the Eagles do. I would imagine the Eagles are going to pay him. I would imagine they'll pay him, too, because the only reason they're in the playoffs is because of Nick Foles at this moment. Incredible. In stupid injuries of the day, Melvin Gordon limped off ankle injury, expected to play against the Ravens in the playoff game, but.

At the point where Melvin Gordon was injured in this game, the Los Angeles football chargers had already secured their spot. They weren't changing based on winning or losing. That should have been like, well, I mean, the reality is that Seahawks should have done the same thing. Seahawks had their spot completely secured. They should have rotated in secondary players. Thank goodness they didn't. I think they got just like tricked into playing. It was when you're up against.

You know, your brother or your sister in a competition and you just, you got to keep going no matter how silly the activity is that you're competing at. So they just got tricked into playing. Hunter Henry is expected to play in the playoffs. That's fantastic news. It's big news for Los Angeles. Whether they can survive a game in Baltimore is another question. Jeff Wilson exited with an injury. Anthony Miller left of an injury. Kyle Allen, the last.

Quarterback standing for Carolina left. I checked on the – this was pretty early in the morning. I look at the scoring, and I'm like, wait a minute. Why is Keenan Allen so high on quarterbacks? Something's weird. And it was Kyle Island. Yeah, week 17. Andrew Whitworth, knee injury, didn't return. This is big news for the Rams. Hopefully he's okay for their playoff matchup. He's got two weeks.

Big time coaching changes. This is kind of the headline of the morning. I mean, as we all drove into the studio today, multiple coaches were fired on each of our drives. I mean, that's basically how it was. And we do have full coaching changes episodes coming later in February and March. That'll include the hires. You know, these are the fires. Jets have fired Todd Bowles, Buccaneers fired dirt cutter, Bengals fired Marvin Lewis, the Dolphins fired...

the behole himself. Adam Gays. Broncos have fired Vance Joseph. Cardinals have fired Steve Wilkes. And the Jags have decided to return coach Doug Marone. That's shocking. And I heard a couple weeks ago that they were not going to let him go. But that's shocking to you? Oh, I, I, I, why is that? Because I don't think any team in the entire NFL.

you know, did worse than what their expectation was. But, too, they also did wonderfully last year making it to the title game. So it was one of those things where I think it's more rope because of the success than anger for the failure. And there was some pretty big news this morning about Leonard Fournette, right? I mean, essentially his conduct suspension in week 13 where he got into that unnecessary fight.

Apparently in his contract language, and now did the team inform him? Yeah, he got bodied. His guarantees are now wiped out. Yeah, he has no guaranteed money. The Jaggs said, hey, uh. Yeah, we read over the contract. We could take all your guaranteed money back, and so we will, which he's still got his contract, he's still getting paid. But if they ever want to cut him, if he keeps underperforming as he's been doing and they say, it's time to move on. Or over waiting? Right.

I mean, he came, he was not in shape this year. A lot of criticism for his lack of, the amount of time it took to recover from the hamstring injury. When you saw yesterday, Tom Coughlin was furious, furious with Leonard Fournett and T.J. Eldon, apparently for their behavior on the bench. They both weren't paying attention to the game is what happened. So this is the problem with Tom Coughlin in general, and I like Tom Coughlin.

But he is a great coach when you are having success. He is a coach that becomes overbearing when you are losing. And in this case, a general manager that becomes overbearing, as does Doug Marone. They have the same characteristics where in success, things are great. They make good decisions. But they grind the gears of those people. If you're Leonard Fornett or Yeldon, I mean, just put yourself in that position as a human being, your team stinks that you're playing literally for nothing.

playing. I mean, are you really going to be locked into this game while you sit there? No, and I understand that part, but if they are, put yourself in that situation as a head coach or a general manager and your two players on the sideline, if they're laughing it up when you're getting destroyed on the field, that's kind of a perception issue for, like, would you ever see Larry Fitzgerald on the sideline in Arizona? No, you would not. Cracking jokes in the middle of a 20 to 3 loss?

No, but if he did, they'd be funny. They'd be funny, Jim. It reminds me of the, uh, the Derek Anderson meltdown. Yeah. From years ago when he was the quarterback for the Cardinals, they were getting destroyed. And you just, human nature is, okay, we got to, I got to figure out a way to make this okay. So you tell some jokes. I don't, I don't know. It's, it's very, very old man.

It is, but I think Fournettes earned himself some criticism this year. Quincy Anunwa, four-year, $36 million contract extension. Anunwa will be back, and he is a favorite target of Sam Darnold. I like a new one a lot. You like him that much? You like him $36 million worth? For four years, I mean, it's the going rate. It's far more interesting that they went and made sure he's coming back while Robbie Anderson, what's going on with him?

Yeah, I think he's under contract for one more a year, but I would rather secure Robbie Anderson than Quincy. Robbie contains some risk. Sure. We're going to get into some studs and duds real quick. This week's fantasy stud muffins. The Josh Stallion himself. Oh, man. Excellent. Five. Where's my drop? Touchdowns. Once again, he has.

dominated for fantasy, 17 for 26, three through the air, nine for 95 and two on the ground. Holy moly, that's a lot of rushing. Listen, I am not anywhere close to victory lapping on Josh Allen based on, look, I liked him coming to the season. I did not like Josh Rosen. I will say this. I was trying to tell Mike this before the show, and this goes beyond fantasy for me.

One, he's going to keep doing this, and he's going to be a great fantasy player for a very long time. He has no weapons on the outside right now, and I understand. Accuracy and all that stuff is a concern. We already have this template. It's already been printed. We've already hanging it on the wall. He's the same size as Cam Newton. He's 6.240, Cam Newton 6.252.45. He's put up the best rookie season on the ground since Cam Newton. Cam Newton's accuracy, especially early in his career, left a lot to be desired.

But when you have super armed talent, one great throw makes up for two or three bad ones. Josh Allen can win with this template. That's all I'm trying to say is that Cam Newton led his team to a Super Bowl that way. I like Josh Allen a lot and I like him a lot more for fantasy. When you look at his rushing statistics, you know, third most rushing touchdowns for a rookie all time. And then you realize he missed a month. Yeah. It's insane. I mean, he is going to be a fantasy star.