Fantasy Football - Top 10 Things to Remember for 2026 - Podcast for 3/5

to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Hi, welcome in. Thursday, March 5th. Very special episode for you today. Excited to have you with us, Andy, Mike, and Jason, the fantasy footballers. Back with you. Al Borland, Papa Josh, the Falcon over there in Ducers Alley, hanging out with us as well. 10 Things to Remember episode today. It's a big episode. We've been doing this one for quite a while. And, you know, the season is long. The fantasy football world, the NFL at all is changing and transforming and trends are emerging. It's always teaching. Yeah, we're always learning. I mean, there are now at least 120 things to remember over the last 12 years. I will say that you can't go back to the things.

to remember from previous episodes and have it be relevant. That's the point of why we're trying to remember what happened in the latest year, because things change. Like some of what I'm talking about today are like, these are new trends. These are different than what we have, what I would have said five years ago. I wrote an article on pretty much the opposite of one of these things about five years ago. It's just changed. It's just as the data changes. Oh man, you look so dumb in that article now. You know what I mean? Everyone should pull it up. Sure. I mean, the data was great then.

No, you got to change your opinions. That's a big part of the show is we always talk about staying water and adjusting your opinion. Even like a bonus thing to remember for us is don't get take lock in February, March, and April because a lot of the situations, you fall in love with players and you fall in love with, you know, where somebody signs and then the draft changes the way that their projection looks and spring training, all of a spring training. Yeah, I got, I got the baseball cap on today. Oh, come on, man. Training camp. Now, I think I'm getting cheers out there. The people are at the spring training games right now. Yeah, there's a dozen people listening that are like, yeah. And no, when training camp starts, all of a sudden, you're like, wow, they don't believe in that guy the way that I did three months ago. And we have to, we have to remember this, you know, July, August, September. So, but it's a big show. We got 10 things to remember for 2025. Lessons learned.

A couple other reminders. The Combine just happened. And so we have our update to the Dynasty Pass. I don't think is the post-combine update live yet, Mike? It's probably moments away. Yeah, it is very close. There's a chance then when you're hearing this that it is up, but it is being worked on. Yeah, talk to the people about the Dynasty Pass and some of the upgrades and features coming out right now. So the... With all this new information, we have risers and fallers. So, you know, that article is, or not really article, you know, just blurbs on players who's trending in certain directions of a new three-round mock draft, which, Jason, I think you guys also did a rookie mock draft on the Dynasty pod this week, if you want even more access to that information. And then brand new this year. So this is an announcement, brand new for the Dynasty Pass. We are adding.

some scouting reports of like the bigger players you know so a specific blurb about that guy some strengths some weaknesses so the dynasty pass always getting better but look for look for round two to be dropping very very soon yeah and all that stuff will be there essentially today or tomorrow i mean it will be there and then we have some other stuff in store that I am super excited about. Always cooking. But that's coming a little bit later. Yeah, quite a few things in that category of excited about future launches. We're always adding things to the ultimate draft kit. And a reminder, too, if you picked up the ultimate draft kit, maybe you participated in the promo during the month of February and you were trying to get into the listener league and you got the UDK from basically the moment you buy it until kickoff.

If you want, you can expand that purchase into an ultimate subscription as well. And we give you a pro-rated credit for what you purchase. So join thefoot.coms the community if you want to do that over there. No quick question today. We got news to talk about. We got the 10 things to remember to talk about. Let's do it. News and notes from around the league. Well, the Cardinals have, they've informed Kyla Murray that they intend to release him on the first day of the league year next Wednesday. He put a post out. This is a big domino. For free agency? It just, it changes everything. Like we did, you know, free agent predictions. And I had talked about, we're like, hey, Malik Willis, what's going to happen with him? I had thought, I had thought the correct thing for the Cardinals to do would be keep, just keep Kyler Murray for one more year.

and then go reevaluate and go from there. Obviously, that is not what happened. I got that one wrong. But I was saying, like, well, Malik Willis, I think there's two teams that are real serious, you know, that he could go to. Now I think it's like, oh, Malik Willis, we'll go to the Cardinals. I genuinely think. And it will be dumb. See, I'm not in that camp. I'm not in that camp. I believe that there's not going to be, and we've talked about this a lot before, If we play the fantasy football manager, the dynasty league manager, we look at Arizona and we say, we're going to plan for 2027, 2028. That's how we would build it out. Accumulate picks for those years, maybe tank and get a quarterback. That's a fantasy football manager. But there is really no patience in the NFL for almost any franchise. The coaching staffs, the players on the team, there just isn't. You know, you bring in a new head coach. And I talked to you about this. We debated it. To me, it was like Michael.

Bidwell saying, look, we're bringing this new coach in here. I'm not going to let Kyler be the detriment to a third head coach. Yeah, you were very correct on that. They were going to move on. It was Gannon. Now they want a fresh, clean slate for LaFleur. I think I'm predicting it now. I believe Arizona will make three splashes this offseason. I think one will be the quarterback at a amount of money you guys don't like, but I like Malik Willis. I think he's a good quarterback. Is he better than Kyler Murray? I think so. by a wide margin. No, not by a wide margin. That's where it's a... I do not think to let go of Jacobi Berset. Brissette will be there as a mentor slash backup. I think they will sign Travis E.T.N. or a splash running back, but he seems to be the one that I'm focused on. And I think that they will make some significant move on the defensive side of the football via trade. Like, I don't know if it's Max Crosby. I don't know if it's somebody like Trey Hendrickson coming in. I think the Cardinals will make three splashes. None of this is me saying it will work.

It is just what I, the vibe I'm getting out of Arizona, we live here. I think there is an impatience. I think there's a focus on competing this year with LaFleur. None of that will work. But I think that is what they will do via their actions. I don't, I know he hates the press that he's the worst president in the land. Well, he is. He is. And he will continue to be by swinging the pendulum. in the public eye in trying to make a splash. That's what I believe will happen. One of the issues with them thinking that the patience has run out and that, you know, they're going to go hardcore this year to try to rectify things is they did cut Kyler early. So they are taking the most of the cap hit this year, which says, I think it's smart. It's like, this is not a team that's going to win this year, be competing for a Super Bowl. So like, let's just take that money on now. The issue that I have in them, why I booed this.

is because you could have traded him for a pick. The issue... I don't think you could. No, no, no. No way. It was absolutely out there reported that basically the reason that we didn't have a suitor is because we were trying to trade the contract. Yes. We're trying to get another team to pay the money. And that's why we couldn't trade him. So what ends up happening now is Kyler's a free agent. He gets... All the money that he's going to be paid is 100% from the Cardinals now. And what happens is he's going to go play on a minimum contract because offset language in the contract would say like the only way that he would make more money next year. Like if another team comes out and says, I'm going to pay you 10 million, it's irrelevant. All that does is mean the Cardinals don't have to pay 10 million of it. Kyler doesn't get any more money. So he's just going to go to wherever he thinks is the best destination. And that team's going to get a smoking deal, which is why.

people didn't want to trade picks. I just wish that they weren't so stupid as a Cardinal fan. I mean, this is why this happens all the time. Not just the Cardinals. This happens every year three or four times to players that were like, oh my gosh, why'd they cut that guy instead of trade him? It happens all the time. Yes, it does. It really does. And it's usually the same franchises. And so we're not alone in being a poorly run franchise. Well, you can't, you can't the way that the structure of the money works. We weren't going to be able to make a deal where we take some of it on and then work a deal for an eighth round. I mean, that just wasn't going to happen. Yeah, I agree. We would never get an eighth. But now. Yeah, I always bring the eighth up because it's the invisible pick. The, but now that the, now that Kyler will be a free agent, it's like, okay, the, you know, the rumor. Vikings. The Vikings is, that's the easiest one to go to. And, well, I mean, we definitely shall see, but it's like.

That would be very, very interesting. Can, like, the, the Kevin O'Connell Magic that has worked seemingly on every quarterback not named J.J. McCarthy to the tune of great success. If Kyler goes there and you, like, it changes, this is what I'm saying, this particular domino, you know, you know the meme where it's like the guy puts down the tiny. Domino and you're like, you end up somewhere that seems completely unrelated. Except, no, it was. It was Kyler got released. Now this did this, this did this, this to this. So it will be a very fascinating butterfly effect that will have really, really large implications for the NFL and for fantasy. We just talked about it on Tuesday.

We brought up Kyler's name in Minnesota and how much different we'd feel about the Minnesota offensive weapons of Kyle was the quarterback. For sure. We talked about J.J. McCarthy being the guy that got the audition that doesn't sing very well. And everyone knows that he probably shouldn't play that role. And they may give him a shot. And I mean, I don't see them cutting or trading him. I think it will be a camp competition. I think it will probably be obvious that Kyler wins it if he was there or whoever else they sign. You've got to give. you've got to give your Vikings fans hope. Even if you give JJ another shot, you've got to give them hope that you can make a pivot quickly in the year and fix your season. Now, McCarthy did, to his credit, win five consecutive games to end the year. And his final four games, which were not complete games because part of the knock, you're like, dude, McCarthy just keeps getting hurt over and over and over. Maybe that was very, very bad luck for one season, or I guess two.

because he lost his entire rookie season to meniscus. But that is a factor. McCarthy did play better over those final four games, but I get it. I get if the Minnesota Vikings are like, that was not enough, and we're going to go with Kyler Murray, which is, these situations are so wild of Arizona is like, no, Kyler Murray, you are not good enough. Get out of here. You know what we're going to do? We are going to eat a substantial amount of money that we will continue to pay you because you're so bad for us. And then they're like, then they get to free agency and all the teams like, oh man, Tyler Murray's available. Yeah. He's better than your, he's better than just the bottom half quarterbacks in the league. He is clearly better. If you look at the Arizona Cardinals record, I don't have it pulled up in front of me, but he's almost 500 in games.

where he started on the Cardinals. And when he has missed those games, we're like four wins and 30. One and nine with Jacobi Burset. I mean, Baker Mayfield, Daniel Jones, Sam Darnel. Yeah. Teams, you know, it's a matter of running out of, like I told my son, I go, you hear we cut Kyler or we're going to cut Kyler? He goes, oh, thank goodness. I go, what do you mean? He goes, yeah, it didn't work the last five years. Why are we kind of keep trying to do it? And that's exactly why he's cut. Yeah. It's like sunk cost fallacy. You're going to keep them for two more years and fail two more times with a couple more bags of elves. I mean, I don't think it's moving on. I think it makes complete sense. The franchise pretty much had to move on for fans are sick and tired of it. But honestly, this episode is 10 things to remember. One of the things that we could very well have had as our, you know, an 11th thing to remember is that good players drafted well.

to bad franchises can turn it around when given another opportunity. You just mentioned Baker and Darnold and these guys who were top picks in the NFL draft and they They flamed out. They didn't succeed the way that they had hoped when they were drafted. But then you look at like, okay, it didn't work out for the Jets. It didn't work out for the Browns. It didn't work out for the Cardinals. It's like always those franchises. And then lo and behold, you go to the Buccaneers, you get a team around you and there's MVP chance. You go to the Seahawks and you have a team and a franchise around you. You win the Super Bowl. It's like that, Kyler could go somewhere and be really important for fantasy next year, not just.

himself, but also the weapons. I mean, Justin Jefferson, heck yeah, or wherever he goes. Or he could end up on the Jets. He could be on the Jets. Yes. Come on Jets, do it. The Jets are the best hope for the Cardinals to get offset money. Because I feel like for him to go to the Jets, he may get more than a year. And if we, I don't want to speak for you guys, but I feel like if he goes the Jets, you'd be like, well. Yeah, no. Good luck, New York. Yeah, we seen the movie before. We saw Justin Fields in the Jets. Right? I mean, that wasn't the reclamation project that we hoped it would be. So speaking of the Jets, they franchise tag Greece Hall. Yep. I mean, this is, I had told, I told Jason in the office, I was like, here's what I need the Cardinals to do. This was, and this was before the Kyla Murray news broke. I'm like, I need the Cardinals to cut Kyla Murray.

I need them to give Malik Willis a bag of money. Huge, like 30 million a year. And then I need them to draft Jeremiah Love with the third overall pick. So then I could just, I will wipe my hands and I will be completely removed as an Arizona cardinal. And you'll be rooting for Jeremiah Love. You know, oh, for fantasy, 100%. No, you'll be a fan. You don't know. When the Cardinals are a top five pick again in the draft, I'll say, eh. You don't know where Mike and I are right now. Yeah, you don't. I told Mike after he said that, I was like, dude, I had a daydream. I literally was daydreaming about this. And Andy, this will make you big mad. I had a daydream about using this show and this platform. Look, my son is Jack and Newsies right now. To show that you can leave a team. No, no, no, no. That's small potatoes, Andy. Yeah. To lose than that, to lead a revolution.

to tell people across this great country that you do not have to beholden to stupid idiot managers because of where you live or were born. Why do I owe Bidwell Jack freaking squat? He's stupid. I don't know. All I know about him is he's a bad owner and manager. I should not be loyal to him. He has done nothing to earn it. Okay. And I don't want to leave the Cardinals. I want all of us to leave the Cardinals. I want tens of thousands of people around here to just say we're done. We're done. This is why you're a big Brazil fan in the World Cup. Huh? Huh? Yeah. You leave the USA and you go for Brazil, right? I have reasons to root for you. You can't go to country. Why can't you go to country? Because this is a man. Why you're loyal? Bidwell.

Bill well. All the bidwells, but Michael Bidwell is the owner of the Cardinals. We don't want you. It's like it's not even the city or the state where I live. That's not ours. Get out. And when they're good one time in the next 30 years, you don't get to celebrate. Oh no. Oh no. You know what I'll do. I don't know 15 times the next 30 years. Didn't you go to the Super Bowl and Tampa when the Cardinals were there? Yeah. Okay. Why? Because they had earned it. We are. We are Cardinals. I'm just saying, earned it. I'm just saying the whole thing where I was born here, I was raised here. And so therefore, I have to give my allegiance to a bad king. You know what I mean? Like, that's what it is. If you. Yeah. You don't have to give your allegiance to Bedwell. People are fans of their home team while hating a lot of the parts of it. You just want them to succeed because they're your home team. That's all.

But we know. There are very few franchises where you're proud of the every piece of the management. No, of course. All teams make mistakes. And you can't just like, so what are you going to do? You're going to go root for like another winner? Just pick a winner? No, I'll just play fantasy. I'll just play fantasy. So you're leaving all allegiance to NFL. To, uh, to, to, uh, to fandom. This is what you feel like you have to send a message to Michael. I think I would do. I'm not going to get in your way of sending a message. Yeah. I do what you want to do. That's where I'm, that's right. I'm still a Cardo's fan, but I'm like, but I'm like, but we also know that you don't know what Rudy is. You don't know what rooting is. Good point. So I'm not really worried about you. But what does it say when you know, it's like, oh, I got one foot out the door, right?

I got two feet out the door, so I'm not sure where I'm not even in the room. I'm not in the room. My hand is still holding the door. You can be in the room with two feet out. Oh, are you doing? You're playing a little of, uh, like my hands on the on the, on the, the door sill. You know, I'm like, leaning on the door. You know, I'm standing outside. What does Michael bid will have to do to like bring you sell the team? That's what he has to do. Okay. I. Nobody needs to hear any more of this. Breeze Hall. Oh, people are loving it. Breeze Hall to the Jets.

This is a situation where they open the door for Brise Hawn. They're like, get on out of here. And then he tries to walk and they've chained him to the room. I mean, they hate this. They hate this guy. And he's like, can't you let me leave? They say they're working on a long term deal. Okay. This is not good for Brayle and Allen dynasty managers. No, they put the version of it where he can technically go out and try to get a contract for someone else. Wait, they did the transition tag. I thought it was a franchise tag. I mean, that is a franchise tag. No, but you specifically say. You cannot do that with a franchise tag. You can only do that with a specific, with what they gave Daniel Jones, which is a transition tag. Right. I'm just saying you have like a basically a hierarchy of options.

for who you franchise and how you franchise them. I don't know if it's technically called the franchise tag, but the transition, if you transition tag someone, that is using your franchise tag on that player. But that would require another team, not only signing briefs, but then sending two first round picks. So he's not going anywhere for sure. He is a jet and that is unfair to him. He came out and said, hey, I don't mind betting on myself. So hey, the good news for fantasy. He's in a contract year. Show me the money. Yeah. A transition tag for Daniel Jones. It comes in at $6 million cheaper than the quarterback franchise tag. So the transition tag is going to save them some money. Jones can go out and get an offer sheet. The Colts would have a right to match. But it seems like Daniel Jones will be there. You talk about Domino's falling. Daniel Jones not being on the free open market is a significant deal. And then we got two more pieces of news. One of them. One's breaking right now. One of them is big news yesterday. The Bears, I mean, Drew Dolman, Pro Bowl Center.

for the Bears incredible offensive line at 27 years old, who signed an extension last off season. He's retiring. Bears Twitter spent the entire morning thinking that was the day they were getting Max Crosby. All the betting odds were like, we're the favorite. Something's coming down, you know, and then they're like so excited. And it's like, boom, you lost your role young center. That was awful. Star. Star Center. So that's huge. And I think there was reports, I don't know the name, but they're already like. bringing in other centers to talk to right now. Also, I guess this is breaking news. It is. As of right now. Breaking news. Huge trade. The Rams have traded a first round pick in this draft, 29, a fifth, a sixth, and a 2027 third, which is a lot of their picks. They, you know, less need is always, I don't care about them picks. Yeah, he's the U and Brooks of Dynasty managers. They're like, let me go get a vet. I don't want picks.

He traded all those picks to the Chiefs for all-pro cornerback Trent McDuffie. They were apparently won Trent McDuffie short last year from, and they might have been. They might have been a Trent McDuffie short. I mean, they were able to score on the Seahawks, no problem, but they couldn't stop them. Yeah, that's a big trade. This is probably a great trade for both teams. Chiefs are going to end up with another first round pick here. It really probably is because the Chiefs let go, their offensive tackle that played like start of the whole season. So they have to replace a tackle in the draft. They've got the ninth pick. A lot of people are saying, oh, if Jeremiah Love is there, they would grab them. Hard to imagine that. More flexibility. Yeah, exactly. It allows them to fill other needs. And they, I mean, they're at the point where they have to just like,

do the rebuild so that they can go for three more. Yes. Where, like, don't, for the chiefs. Yeah, yes. Like, don't be, don't be splotchy and like, hey, we're sort of good. Like, no, man, like, rip it down real quick. So you could do a real quick rebuild because you have, you got Mahomes. Yeah. So, like, you can still tread water with Mahomes. You could rebuild really, really fast. So trading, one, a great player, but into all of those options, that's, man. Yeah. All right, we're going to take a break and we'll jump into 10 Things to Remember. All right, it's time. Big episode, 10 Things to Remember from 2025. Let's get into it. Don't forget to remember these things. All right, it looks like I am going to kick us off with number 10. All right, number 10. It is titled, My Players are going to get hurt, aka draft like a general manager, not like a fan.

Look, injuries, these are a foregone conclusion in fantasy football. You have to embrace it in spite of what Mike and CMC managed to pull off this year. Sometimes there's magic. Yeah, sometimes Mike can turn on the madden. Dark magic. Mike turns on the setting in Madden, the injuries are now off. But historically, that's not the case. Look, 98% of all NFL players show up on an injury report every year. So you're talking about everybody. It doesn't mean that being fortunate with injuries is not going to determine success for fantasy football. Obviously it does. Mike, I mean, he stayed healthy. You won a championship? The NFL. I didn't stay healthy, but McCaffrey did. No, no, McCaffrey did. But in the NFL, it's the same way. The final four teams in the NFL that made it to, you know, the final four, Seattle, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and the NFC, 25 players combined on the injured reserve. The Cardinals had 22 alone.

on their team. So injuries make a big difference in the NFL as well. But when you look at fantasy football, I just want to give you some context. On average, three of the top 10 players drafted every year in fantasy miss four plus games. This year, we got a little bit more lucky with the top 10 this year, but look at the second and third round. When you go outside the top 10 basically, Malik Neighbors, 13 games missed, Nico, two, Jacobs two, Puka one, Brian Thomas three. A. Chan 1. Drake London 5. Bucky Irving 7. A.J. Brown 2. Brock Bowers 5. Lamar Jackson 4. It keeps going. Hampton 8. Daniels 10. Tyreek 13. Kiddle 6. Those are the like sequential picks in the second and third round. You need to start building your fantasy football team like a general manager does in the NFL. They are building their rosters not based on perfect health.

It looks the best, right? We love it when we put the perfect starting lineup together. Yeah. And what you'd love to be able to do on paper is build the perfect starting lineup that looks amazing. Lock them in and then spend your entire bench on upside, right? Not a player that's already established and guaranteed production. but a bunch of upside players. But general managers in the NFL, they build their teams on attrition. They understand that they're going to miss players. Now, maybe not 22, you can't build a team strong enough to withstand 22 injuries on Arizona or on injured reserve. But it is obviously Bidwell. He and Nancy Kerrigan, them. Have you seen the grades for our training facilities? The chain facilities may play a role as well. We didn't put them next to a power plant, but it's not good.