Old, Bland, and Undervalued Players + Hot Dog Decisions - Fantasy Football Podcast for 6/13

And now we turn to the world of sports. The football season is upon us, and that means it's time to get ready for your fantasy football drafts. The ultimate draft kit from the fantasy footballers is the cat's pajamas, and only tool you need. The best rankings in the business, sleepers, breakouts, values, it's even got a free companion app. Don't be a pigeon-libered fuzzler. The ultimate draft kit will keep you on the up and up, and keep all the horn swogglers at bay. Don't even think about entering a fantasy football draft draft draft kit without it. Don't be a square. Head to ultimate draft kit.com today. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in one and all. Not quite back yet. Someday, the lion will roar again. So a lot of people.

Very unhappy with your lack of an intro. No respect for the sickness. I lost my voice. Well, you didn't lose your voice. I lost some of my voice. Yeah, I mean, honestly, first words out of the gate here wasn't sure if the volume would be there. If it would sound like me, I'm kind of okay with where it's at. Yeah, it sounds enough like you. And it wasn't, you know, it's like when you start where it's like you don't like it anyways, does it really matter? Probably not. Right. Probably not. Hi, Jay. Hey, what's up, dude? Mike's here. Chillo. There was a moment earlier, Jay, when I thought, like, you didn't have a hat on to start the show, and I thought you were going to, like, finally, I thought you were going to do it. It's not haircut day, my man. When I get a haircut, you'll see these locks as locks. You do it for one day. Yeah. Oh, because you prep up for the. That's right. I don't want to give them out of respect. Out of respect for my Tinder. Okay. Okay. Um, so when you're at home.

What is the hat ratio? Good question. Yeah, that's a great question that our audience really wants to know. And I would say that it's people do. Yeah, the people want to know. I would say it's usually 70% of the time no hat. No hat. Yeah, walk in, hang my hat by the door and just live in my shame within those walls. If you have a guest coming over, have you ran to get a hat? 100% my man. Yes. 100% if a guess is over my ratio is more like 95% hat oh okay well it's good to know i just i feel like there's once that hits or once it dips to a certain percent nope goes up is like that's when you just shave the head yeah you did that once i did that one i don't think i got the right skulls i think but you did that you weren't a hat man back then oh you're saying shaving like i'm saying now if all you'd ever do is wear a hat what's the difference then why go get

Why go get haircuts and just be free? Instead, give yourself a haircut every day. You don't have to do it every day. Speaking to the bald one back there, how often do you have to, like, is it every day? No, every, like three days. Everything, like a, like in the shower? Yeah. He keeps it real close. Are you a straight razor? They make a special, like, it's called like a head blade or like a head razor. All right. You can look into that. No, thank you. We have a great show for you today. We are talking through old bland and undervalued players and whether there are some opportunities there for fantasy football. It's been a funny offseason because my dynasty team, you know, speaking to our leagues, there are those of you out there that are probably more like Jason and Mike who have some young studs on the dynasty roster. Young bucks.

But it's been kind of a funny offseason for my dynasty team because I'm known as the, I'm the guy with the old players who all seem to be getting contracts. You are, you have the golden touch right now. Your roster if they're on there. Like for instance, Alvin Kamara is on your roster. I haven't heard a peep about any kind of contract extension whatsoever. I know it's coming. Only because every other elder statesman that you think is like an expiring dynasty asset on your team has received some sort of extension. It's pretty wild. So today we'll talk about some old players that get devalued due to age and whether you think that they have some seasons left. Talk through some news. We made an announcement on the Tuesday show, letting people know that we have our 10th anniversary live event on Saturday, August 24th at the Palace Theater in Los Angeles. Tickets are available at ballerslive.com, our 10th anniversary megalo show. So you can go over there.

And there was one website question submitted by Andrew in relation to the Megalus show that he wants us to answer. Said, hello, ballers. My sister's wedding is on August 24th as well. How do I explain to her that I cannot make her wedding? You don't explain that. You don't miss her wedding. They need to move the date. Uh, this is both and she's going to want to come to the show too. She didn't know. She didn't know what, you know, we just announced the show on August 24th. That's not her fault. But now, now she understands she can move her date. Now it's her fault. Well, now it's her problem to solve. So, yeah, just, just change the wedding date. Go to hers. Go to ours. Bring her along. She can't get married at the show. I will allow that. I will absolutely allow that. Yeah. So that's an option too. Um, the ultimate draft kit available right now at ultimate draft kit.com.

Also, ballerslive.com if you want to come to the show. Yeah. No, I mean, never hurts to hear it twice. Now I'm imagining people actually trying to have a ceremony during the show. If, I mean, it would have to be like 90 seconds. I mean, you couldn't do a long ceremony. We wouldn't probably. Just do you, do you? Yeah. Get out of here. Can any of us officiate? Yeah, I can. I can do an online course in minutes. Okay. All right, you can follow the show over on X at the FF Ballers. Jason is at Jason FFL. I'm at Andy Holloway, Mike, at FF Hitman. Quick question of the day. This comes in from Sean. I have heard you say to avoid picking the onesie positions. So quarterbacks and tight ends back to back. These would be positions where in most leagues there's only one that starts for you as opposed to running backs normally a couple.

wide receivers, two or three. Could you elaborate on why you advise against taking 1Z positions back to back? I would love to hear your thoughts. It comes down to just supply demand. This is economics. It's called a 1Z, O&E, because you're playing one of them. Like this is not super flex. We're not talking about tight-in premium, just regular scoring leagues. You start one of them, and every single week, you're starting at least two wide receivers, at least two running backs. That's not... even taking into account three wide receiver leagues or the flex position. So you just, you need more of them each and every single week. That means during, like, injuries and by weeks, you need more and more of them. So why not back to back? Well, it's not so much back to back. That's not the advice we give just both early. Yes. You know, if you were to take them back to back 9, 10, great. That's not the issue. The issue is when you're spending a premium, it's not so much about like, oh, we don't want you to have a great.

tight end and a great quarterback. It's the opportunity cost you give up for in the third round. You're giving up a prime, very important running back or wide receiver. You're going to need more of them. You're going to need them more with bi-week fill-ins with injuries and all of that. And so when you, if you take your third and fourth pick, and so now, and you go quarterback and tight end, great, you got those positions on lock, but you're going into the fifth round with presumably, you know, either zero running backs or wide receivers or one of each. And that is really hard to play a position that is the most important, which is running back and wide receiver without, you know, premium assets. It's just very, very different. Is there an aspect, too, of risk aversion with, you know, obviously high draft capital pick on a onesie position that player gets hurt, wipes out that position for you? Right. Yeah, absolutely. If you're going, if you're investing in Mahomes or in a Kelsey

early and they get injured, your gap to the next fill-in is enormous. Your cost is there. But obviously, with a position where you're going to roster many more of them, you can take those hits a little easier. I'm curious, are there 80P situations right now, average draft position, that people are going to be tempted by the, like, where's Mahomes and Kelsey right now? That's the one for me. Is that third and fourth? That's third and fourth. That's the one for me where I am. actually genuinely for the first time in like, I don't know, seven or eight years, I've been tempted because not only... Oh, yeah, Kelsey 303, Mahomes, 402. Not only is it a value on each one of those players over the previous several years. You know, last year, Kelsey was the fifth overall pick. Now he's in the third round. You can get him. Usually Mahomes is a second round pick. Now he's in the fourth round. So you're getting a value on those guys, but you're also getting the stack. So, like... Lamar is going at 4.0...

404, Andrews at 411, there's a chance he would slip into the fifth. If you took Lamar early, you might be tempted if Andrews was there in the fifth. Well, each round that you get later, it's more and more agreeable to do because when you, you know, the difference between giving up a fifth round running back or wide receiver versus a third round running back or wide receiver is massive. So, yeah, I mean, Lamar, Andrews, you're starting to get okay. I think both of those can be okay. This is not a hard and fast rule written in stone. It's just a risk situation. It's one of those things we want you to be aware of when you are on the clock. If all of a sudden it turns out that in the fourth round, even though you took Kelsey, the clear and obvious best player available is Mahomes, great. But if there's running backs and wide receivers, it's a matter of who's on the board that are really, really quality players that have dropped there to sacrifice one of those for a onesie when you already rostered one. It's just, it's not usually a winning strategy. News and notes from around the league.

Let's talk about some Brown's mini-camp updates. Jerry Judy dealing with a minor injury, and Amari Cooper did not report to Brown's mini-camp. He's in the final year of a deal. I just looked at this. He gets paid $23 million this year. But he would like... He sees what's going on. I honestly, at 30 years old, after the way he played last year, this is your chance to get it again. I mean, you're not going to get it at 31 or 32. So... You know, Amari Cooper staying away from minicamp right now looking for a deal. He has all my dynasty team. Probably going to get a deal. We know he'll get it. Probably going to get it. T. Higgins did not report to Bengals mini camp, but I believe Jamar Chase did. Yeah, Higgins is going to do what the franchise players often do, which is I'm not going to sign my Tinder and not going to have to go to all those offseason stuff that I don't have to do when you're not giving me a contract. And then hopefully he doesn't show up like Fat Thor last year. That's what Jacobs did. Yeah.

Breeze Hall working off to the side. There have been some Jets updates in general. Still dealing with a minor lower body injury. He missed time at OTAs as well. So precautionary right now. Yep, not concerned yet. But you'll be really excited when you see him go through drills, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, there's no different than Kyron, right? It's like, oh, we're not concerned. And then he shows up, it's like, ooh, thank you. I was super concerned. I might not have let on, but I was terrified. Yeah, I mean, you are a little bit. It is always that way. I mean, no matter how minimal it is, you know, when Anthony Richardson was saying, you know, he's not 100%, he's 95%. He's like, oh, that's good news, but you're still, you're always going to be like, I just want everything to be great. You know, Joe Burrow had a quote this last week. It's like, you know, that it's a process coming back from injury. There'll be good days and bad days and all that. That's just the truth.

I don't want that truth. I just wanted to be all good days. Yeah, don't tell me that. Right. Mike Williams expected to be fully cleared from his ACL injury in August. Okay. And then, I mean, Aaron Rogers has been missing mini camp unexcused. It's not excused per the head of coach. But they knew he had a previous engagement that was important to Aaron Rogers. that he's at but it's not excused it's this you do not have permission but you're going to do it anyway right it's it's a it's a weird story like if this thing got spun out of control yeah it doesn't matter that much but it like if if somebody decided they're not going to be there even if you wanted him to be there what's your best PR move your best PR move is yeah it's fine with me though it's not to say like I'm upset and then mess up your off season so he's at an event that's important to him

I will say this. With him out, it does, it has lifted my spirits of Garrett Wilson quite a bit. Wait, him being out? Yeah, because it reminds me that Tyrod Taylor is now a capable backup there. Oh, okay. He's been having, you know, really good, you know, drills with Garrett Wilson in the absence. That doesn't make me feel better. It makes me feel better because what we saw, the basement was Zach Wilson last year when Garrett Wilson was. trying to play football with him was so far down. And I'm worried about Aaron Rogers. I'm worried about his health. I'm worried about his capability. It's just nice to know that like it's not going to go to an incompetent backup. Tyrod Taylor is a competent backup. He's a competent backup. But if I told you today he's starting the season, enjoy watching Garrett Wilson's ADP. Oh, I would, I wouldn't. I mean, you're going to take an L at the ADP. But if you, but if you then said just kidding, it's Zach Wilson.

I'd be like, enjoy putting them on your bench. Yeah, no, that makes sense. It's knowing, because you had the, with the rookie year, you had some games, Flacco, am I remembering that right? Oh, yeah. Like Flacco and Mike White, where it was, as long as the quarterback doesn't suck, then Garrett Wilson will still be okay, which, because you're, it's a risky, it feels like a risky pick right now, drafting Garrett Wilson where he is because of, because you're so reliant on Aaron Rogers, but. It could be so much worse than Tyrod. So I'm on Jason's side. It's nice to know that someone is there. It's a good, it's a reminder that Tyrod is there. Okay. Yeah, I mean, it was, can't get worse than last year. So. It can, yeah, could have stayed the same. It can be bad, though. It can still be bad. Tyrod's such a weird player because he's had good games. He's had games. He also, wait. Who's behind Taylor? Yeah, because he's an injury risk. He's going to get hurt. They drafted one, didn't they?

Let me see. Jordan Travis. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Not good. No. We're really close here again. Yeah, you're taking a quarterback risk. It's a risk. Yeah. And then we did get news that Jonathan Brooks, who we talked about on the Tuesday show, may not be ready for the start of training camp. Jason, I'm trying to read. Your expression. Rookie back for the Panthers. Yeah, I mean, he's coming off of an ACL during his final season in college. I thought it was going to drop him more in the NFL draft than it did. It did not. The team invested in him. I love that he may not be ready because this is not a setback situation. This is a take your time. Don't rush him back. He is the future. This is not a team that needs him out there incredibly early. I think Jonathan Taylor or Jonathan Brooks is going to be a fantastic pick this year.

second half when you so let me push back though okay yeah because we had a conversation about jonathan brooks the adp is going to go up then we had a conversation about buying the injury dip it's not the same as you know when bets built out our chart 71% of the time underperforms adp it wasn't factoring in collegiate injuries but this is still coming back from an acl i i think it is a unique and different case than an injury dip Because this isn't a situation where you've got, you know, Sequin and he's had this year or that year and now he's injured and he's dipped in ADP. No one knows what Jonathan Brooks is anyways. There isn't really a set ADP where he was established. And so if he starts the season looking like he's going to be the backup, his ADP is going to be so low that it's not really an ADP dip. It's just no risk. No, that makes sense. Low risk and what I would project for Jonathan Brooks, even though he should be better next year.

Guy, like, we know this, running backs especially, the second year after the ACL recovery, then they get back into who they used to be. But John the Brooks, for the Panthers over the second half, should see so much volume. And if, as long as he's... Unless they have to manage him. Yeah, it's just the projection would be, you're talking about volume. So then just real quick, do, like, then, Jay, do you have interest in Chuba as a later round? I mean, is Chuba even being drafted, a guy just for those first three to four weeks that you may have someone that can start? Yeah, I mean, I think it's okay. I mean, I'll have to wait and see. I'm not personally positive that it's Chuba that would be the starter versus Miles Sanders. I think both those guys are, neither one is who this team wants to be the primary ball carrier. So I'm not, I think there are other options out there later in drafts. I'd rather grab a Devon Singletary.

who I know is the starter and can fill in for a couple weeks to pair with Jonathan Brooks than the presumed starter for Carolina. From week 12 on, he was the running back nine, averaging more points than Jemir Gibbs in that time span. Yeah, he had a great stretch of games. I will certainly be betting against that to repeat. Okay. And might as well break this out for Mike's sake. Oh, what do we got? Well, we got our coach speak, Mike. How do we not love the coach speak? I mean, I do. Is this one for me? I don't remember if the train stops on its own. No, you stop the train. You are the conductor. Good. Good to know. John Harbaugh, Ravens Head Coach, talks about, he was talking about whether Derek Henry can maintain the same workload he saw in Tennessee. Can he? He said, well, I do believe that he can. I mean, I watched the Warrant Terry put on defenses, ours included. I can't wait to see him in action. Good. Good.

So for those of you that have them, that's great news. I love a good outlier. I love a good outlier. You know, Derek Henry was for four seasons, a mathematical fantasy football outlier where you go, I don't draft early first round running backs that don't catch the ball unless it's Derek Henry. Right. Because he's literally. There's a lot of unlesses with him. Yes, there's a lot of unlesses. I'm going to keep unlessing Derek. Oh, he's too old. Unless is Derek Henry's a key. Unless he's a Yetty. Yeah, exactly. I will keep unlessing Derek Henry. Okay. Well, there you go. We'll take a break. Come back with old, bland, and undervalued options. All right. Before we jump into this segment, I did want to get a quick status update. Jason, you made a choice.

at lunchtime to go double hot dogs today and you double chili dog uh double cheese chili cheese dog that's that's implied you had been eating well for a long time but you said that today you noticed the impact a little bit more severely than in years past yeah i've spent my life uh abusing my body uh nutritionally And I've spent the last several weeks taking care of myself, cleaning it up. And then I was like, oh, check out them chili cheese dogs. Those look delicious. And to be fair, very egged on by Andy over here, which I don't blame you because they were delicious. And I am feeling every ounce of that chili flowing through my veins right now. I feel them hot dogs trying to come back up. Was this a.

chili with bean or without? No bean. No bean. Okay. No bean. Now this was, I only brought it up because this was the topic of conversation just before the show and he was really noticing. He needed some medicine. He got my Pepsid complete. He said that he had no. He's like, I've eaten dogs before and this time it's really. I'm just surprised. Yeah. I think your body doesn't want this stuff. And I think what it is because I started to give the argument that like, wow, it's crazy how. Your body can get used to, you know, I've eaten poorly and I don't always feel like this. And I think what the truth is, is I always felt like this. So I never noticed. Yeah, you've just been feeling a little better. Now I'm just feeling not better, just normal. Like I should. Wow. Okay. Speaking of being old. Old, bland, and undervalued. Apparently we had our first old, bland, and undervalued episode in July of 2017. What a year.

It included players such as Philip Rivers, Jason Whitten, Frank Gore, Larry Fitzgerald, Terrence West. Oh, Terrence West. Not a name I was expecting to remember today. Terrence West and Jonathan Stewart. Yeah. Yeah. So, nice. Every year there are a handful of guys that make a massive impact on fantasy football that their ADPs are. completely nerfed because they're old, they're bland, and therefore undervalued. Last year, one of Andy's My Guys, Mike Evans, fits the bill, where it was like, you're just used to him. You think his situation, he's not going to have a career year. And he didn't necessarily have a career year. And yet, it was awesome. It helped people win fantasy championships. It was a great resurgence. So we're going to go through a bunch of.

all the old players and basically say, do we think they're under value? Yeah, this is not a message to go draft the old guys. This is a message of like, let's have a discussion about some players that, you know, we can push back against the bias. And over the last decade, we've averaged 3.8 wide receivers, age 30 plus that finished in the top 24. So about four wide receivers a year in that age range, 30 plus. Last year there were six of them. Mike Evans. finished at 7 at the position. Keenan at 8. Stefan Diggs at 9. Devante Adams at 10. Adam Thielen. Adam Thielen finished at 18. In fact, he was one of the best players over the first half of the year. And then he got tired. And then he got tired. And DeAndre Hopkins as well was in the top 24 last year. So it happens. Now Cooper Cup's the first name I want to bring up. He's going to be 31 in the season. He's 30.9 years old right now.

He's being drafted as the wide receiver 22. So he's one of the guys that the community is already expecting to be one of the four that makes it in. However, you know, you look at Cooper Cup, you can talk about the injuries. They have been a huge problem for two straight years. He's ended up with 812 receiving yards in 737 after his almost 2,000 yard season. But all the peripheral metrics on Cooper Cup have gone down in a big fashion. whether it's his yards per outrun in general, dropped it from 3.1 to 2.4 to 1.8. His yards per outrun against zone defenses has dropped 27, 25, 22. Target per outrun has dropped. Fantasy points per target, which I love that metric. I think the fantasy points per target metric is one of the most consumable, easy to understand, easy to translate 1.9, 1.5, 1.4, doing less with less.

So where are you with the Cooper Cup experiment in drafts right now? He's going in the late 4th, middle to late 4th. Are you going to be targeting him? I am 100% fine getting Cooper Cup in the late 4th. I expect Puka Nakua to be the 1 for this team and Cooper Cup to be the 2. But this is a team led by Sean McVeigh that year after year after year after year after year after year after year. has had incredibly powerful wide receiver performances. Now, the last several years, it has been Cooper Cup and then it has been Pooka Nakua. But prior to that, you saw Cooper Cup and Robert Woods have multiple seasons where, you know, both guys were top 13 fantasy wide receivers. Cooper Cup is very, very good. He's been dealing with injuries. Now, that's really it, right? Even on a fantasy points per target basis, if you look at some of that, you look at the touchdowns per game played.

And that's really gone down. I don't think that that is indicative of, I don't think that's prescriptive for the future. Cooper Cup around the goal line is still an incredible, strong asset. And he had so many targets last year in that area that didn't connect. I think that Matthew Stafford's still going to go to him. So at the back of the fourth, if he falls to the back of the fourth, I'm fine grabbing cup there. I actually think. You're probably taking him over to Vante Smith, Jason, and D.K. McCaff, two players that I know you like. Yeah, I mean, obviously who's on the board is going to make a big deal to me. I'm not just taking. Yeah, he's going a couple spots ahead of them. Sorry. Yeah, I mean, I personally, I still believe in D.K. Metcalf a little bit more. So I would be taking Metcalfe over him. But I'm not out on Cooper Cup this season. To me, it's just a matter of injury. Like, do you think he is going to continue struggling with injuries, which is fine to think that he has the last couple years. He's older.

All the reports, I mean, they're stupid. It's like, it's worthless to even bring it up. All the reports are he looks so healthy and all that jazz, but they always do, right? Yeah, of course. Best shape of his life. I will take him here. In the fourth? Yeah, because I believe the ceiling is higher for him than the Smith Metcalf situation. I have so much more confidence in what they've done on the offensive line in Los Angeles. the quarterback play of Matthew Stafford and the fact that Cooper Cup could kind of reemerge. I think that you've got a year. I've got a year where I'm happy to go grab Cooper Cup in the fourth because the ceiling's a little bit more significant to me than some of the other options. I will just say I think one of the differences when we look at old fantasy assets.

is do they still have a ceiling outcome? Because that's really where I think you want to start fading the veteran. Cooper Cup still does have a ceiling outcome. Cooper Cup could end up with the yards per outrun and the fantasy points per target. Yeah, because the fantasy points per target, I think are primarily like touchdowns per game. His utilization around the goal line was there. So I think you could still have a top 10 fantasy performance the way that Mike Evans did last year. If you look at him, you know, on the just what he actually did, which it was a very hot, very cold.