Second Year Studs + Hope Bomb, Baskets of Talent - Fantasy Football Podcast for 2/23

On today's episode, mailback questions and second year NFL players. Hey, make sure you subscribe to this channel and enjoy the video. Goodbye. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Thursday, February 23rd, the fantasy footballers. Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway.

The countdown begins. Oh, or for me. For you? I mean, it's sorry. I've been counting. I know, but not publicly. Yeah, no. Jason has to be really, really excited if you know what I was talking about. Oh, yeah. No, I'm there. Jason has the countdown because his countdown is he's no longer, he will no longer be the only person eligible for ARP. Yeah, no, I'm going to have a best friend here soon. Yes. And then we will look down upon you young and get off our lawn. And I've got a while. I've got a while. Mike is back from Mexico. You had a good time with your family? Yeah. I mean, you want to talk about being old man. I was the old man on this trip. Really? Oh, yeah. Oh, I had neck pain.

Oh, yeah. I had a massive diverticulitis flare up. Ooh. My, my, both of my feet had matching burn, burn, burn, burn, burn, from my, from my, uh, flippy flops. What? I was just, is it, so it's all physical. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. I was as old as it could be. On the precipice of your, of your 40th birthday. So my wife was reminding me. She's like, you are, you're turning 40 and you're falling apart. Man, I could not give a rebuttal because it was ridiculous. And I was, I mean, I was with you, you're kind of the youngest in spirit in many ways. Sure. Of the three of us, I am the youngest in age. Not the youngest in spirit. But I mean, we went to, we had the Super Bowl festivities.

And we ended up, you know, we were with a group from Spotify, this dinner, that dinner, this Drake concert at a club late at night, which it's normal at 38 to start your clubbing life, right? Isn't that the, okay. But like, you know, we felt we felt pretty old. Yes, we did. Well, you two did. Yes. I stayed. Yeah. Let's go. Well, this is not a podcast about the worst parts of being an adult. That would be the spitballers. Welcome into the show. We've got some stuff to talk about. Glad to have Mike back. Deucer's Alley is, well, it's full. Is deusin? It's full. We've, we had the Brooks birthday a couple days ago, too. So birthday's happening around here. Twitter at the FF Ballers, if you want to follow us over there. The community is join the foot.com if you want an extra episode of the show every week. And don't forget.

The 2023 Ultimate Draft Kit. You only have a few days left if you want to get in. March 1st is the deadline to get the ultimate draft kit before the contest is over. You get a chance to be in the listener league with us next year to play with us. If you think you're going to get the ultimate draft kit, which you do. Just do it now in the next few days. You do think that. Yeah, you do think that it is so good. And also a lot of it is available now if you do any dynasties, dynasty rankings, startup rankings, all sorts of stuff is in the UDK Plus. So grab it in the next few days. Probably better to do it right now. But you've got to March 1st to be eligible to play with the ballers in the listener league. Yeah, there's a lot of great stuff up there right now for the dynasty pass. That's ultimate draft kit.com. Quick question of the day as we kick things off.

Which second year player do you see ready to make a big jump in fantasy football? So we had a rookie review show, I think two episodes ago, went over players that actually made their contributions in their rookie season. There are some players that have obviously bright futures, some that really disappointed, that you almost didn't even hear their names mentioned throughout the year. David Bell is one of those guys. And so who do you think has the opportunity to make a jump from their rookie season? as you go look at the 2023 landscape. Well, I can I can jump in here with kind of spoiling some of our news section as well. Robert Woods has been released from the Tennessee Titans. They are left with a total of Traylon Perks at wide receiver. That is basically Westbrook Aquino is still there. He's a free agent. He's a free agent. He's a free agent.

It was mostly a joke. Let's go Chig. Oh, man. Yeah, Oconquo? Yeah, baby. Treylon will not be literally the only wide receiver they have, but he is their basket of talent. And I believe he is a very talented wide receiver. I never heard that expression in my life. I like it. And you will not hear it again. You see what you were just trying it out and you didn't like it? No, I actually loved it, but I want to keep it special. I thought that was its moment. So like. But a one-time use level of special? Yeah, I mean, we're going to NFT that moment. And it's going to be worth quite a bit. So do you, you don't worry about Traylon getting a high draft capital addition in the draft or anything? Well, they're certainly going to bring someone else in, whether that is in the draft or try to their basket of talent. Watch it. You know, try to trade for someone or on the free agent marketplace. I don't.

believe that they're in a great position to they desperately need to bring in more wide receiver help but they've got quite a few holes to fill they don't have a ton of extra draft capital this isn't a great free agent class and the wide receivers in this year's rookie class i think there are some good ones but it's not the best class of all time there's not you know, a bunch of people that scare me. Traylon Burks, when he was on the field and playing more than 50% of snaps, which didn't happen as much as we wanted because of injuries last season, he was really good. He showed me enough flashes to believe in him going forward. I don't think they're going to be able to get out of Ryan Tanahill's contract. And I believe Ryan Tanahill is a fine quarterback to get Traylon the ball. So next year, he should take a step up. Okay. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, very talented. Just needs to stay on the field. Ironically, that was.

You know, Robert Woods' time there was marred by injury as well and just inconsistent usage. He was not the same guy. He had been coming off an injury. Yeah. I'm going to throw out the name Isaiah Pacheco. And I know that I'm going to throw an if, an if in front of it. But I think that there's an opportunity there for Pacheco. We know that the Clyde experiment, while he may be part of the rotation in the future because they do that, like his potential to take over this backfield is gone. That window is closed. Clyde's not going to be the guy, in my opinion. And Pacheco only involved himself more and more throughout the back half of the year. If he is their primary runner, you saw a little bit of what they wanted to do with him, even with an effective Cherik McKinnon. The back half of the year, this was a running back on pace for over 230 carries, over 1,100 rushing yards, eight and a half touchdowns. And he looks the part to me. I mean, this is a very,

Young, Swift. Fleet of foot. I mean, he runs hard, and I think that, you know, we have lived in the time period where Andy Reid had a Kareem Hunt. He had somebody he could lean on. And look, they're coming off a Super Bowl victory where Pacheco played a huge part. So I'm going to bring him up because I think he is, he far surpassed draft value in the NFL level and the fantasy value. I think he's that guy. I think he's got the it factor. He certainly has the speed, and I think he's a talented runner. The team loves him. You watch kind of the Super Bowl celebrations, and he's a big part of their plan moving forward. I'm not in love with his value in the sense that during the second half of the year, weeks 9 through 18, in those 10 games that he played, he was excellent. It was decent for fantasy football.

and really good as a runner, but he wasn't used in the receiving game. He would have been on pace for 20 targets. Oh, because that was Derek McKinnon. But McKinnon is probably gone. So the question here is whether or not he's ever going to be allowed the receiving role. If he receives it, oh, man. Then, yeah, fantasy value will be there. I am skeptical that he'll step into the receiving back roll. Yeah, that'll be something to watch. I mean, Derek McKinnon, I think, would love to come back to Kansas City. It's just whether that is a financial situation they can work out. Mike, I see a familiar name next to your name. I'm going to go with Drake London. I am very excited for his future. I mean, it started off pretty rough. Weeks 1 through 12, 36 yards per game. But then closed the season pretty hot. The final five games, he was looking at about 85 yards per game.

I think all of those, except for one, so four to the five were Desmond Ritter, which we don't yet know what Atlanta is going to do. And like people's, you know, argument against Drake London could be, well, Desmond Ritter is set up to be the quarterback right now. They're talking him up. Yeah, he actually showed up. Drake London was able to produce once Desmond was on the field. There's not a huge pie to go around, but Drake London was gobbling up just like a. an incredible amount of market share. We're talking like, oh my goodness gracious. 29% or something? 36%. Over the back half? Yeah, over those five games, he was looking at a 36% target share. But he is a, I believe, a tremendous player. And Marcus Mariotas is out of the way. So to me, it's either it's Desmond Ritter or better for Drake London, which gives me some hope and excitement that will be a bit more consistent.

If you had to make the decision today, Mike, in a keeper league. Okay. And you're keeping Drake London on your roster going into next year or you're keeping Cortland Sutton on your roster going into next year. Oh my gosh. Who are you selecting in that situation? Oh. And yes, I'm smirking. Wow. It's a confidence test. I think maybe in both directions. No, it certainly is. I mean, so Cortland Sutton is, it's Sean Peyton. Like, can Sean Payton turn that version of Russell Wilson back into an NFL quarterback? I will probably take the upside of Drake London right there. Yeah. That's where I go. Just to chime in, it's an easy Drake London for me. I don't think it's easy. I said for me, and it was very easy. I am always going to air on the side of young, up-and-coming hyper-athletic guy versus...

someone about to near the age cap at their position who hasn't been performing well. Corlin Sutton disappointed this past year is getting a little older. I'm going to definitely go. Everybody disappointed. Everybody's getting older, especially mine. Everybody is even Drake London is getting older. I will say this. I'm going to throw a little hope bomb out there. That may be the next. That's a fun bomb. Yeah, maybe the next generation of. Being potentially enthusiastic at the tight-in position is on the precipice. Because I think that you have three very talented. So first, you've never really had the Kyle Pitts consistency, right? So Kyle Pitts still exists out there as a potential upside, right? He's 22. You have three talented tight-ins from last year that I think should see their roles improve. Chick-a-conquot in the back half of the year was great. Rookies don't really do it. He did it for a few games, and he's going to have that same opportunity. He talked about.

with Birx, Trey McBride over the last few games showed what he was drafted for. Greg Dulcich flashed at times, and you talk about Sean Payton. And then you've got a couple of pretty good rookie tight-ins coming into the draft this year with, was it, King, Kincaid and Myers. Yeah. So I'm just saying there could be like six names that are not in your ordinary discussion. That's all I got. Hopefully. It's a hope bomb. It's not a truth bomb. We're going to hope that tight ends finally do something. Yeah. I mean, there's just a chance is what I'm saying. Yeah, I've been trying to look at like studying tight ends. Even Colquette. Colquette could take a more consistent step forward. I do like Colquette next year. I mean, we'll see what if Justin Fields is actually their quarterback or not.

But looking, trying to find, I've mentioned this, just trying to find some indicator for tight ends that we may have missed, which, I mean, people, this is an A, this is a study that is that has existed since time began, trying to figure out how do you get a breakout tight end. And I mean, the, so far the truth that I can at least gleam is they do it pretty rapidly. Like you, you know. kind of right at the beginning of their career if they are going to turn into something or not. It's not nearly as common to have the guys that take like the Greg Olson path where, I mean, he was a high draft capital guy, but it took a few years in a new team for him to get going while the other guys you kind of, you saw it in a certain points per game threshold right away. Yeah, I'm really a fan of what I saw of Chigga Conquo in the athleticism because he.

He did, he put up numbers that would have been good over the course of his season on like sub 50% of snaps. So he seems like somebody like, you know, we were talking about Andrews a couple years ago. Oh, what if you played more snaps, right? Right. But we'll see. I mean, there are some names out there that are going to be talented. We talked about it in the truth episodes, the involvement of the Titan position. I think it could be fun to watch. I'm going to choose to jump upon the hope bomb. I love it. Let it explode. on me. I love playing the game, the tight end game, but it just, it doesn't often work out. Every once in a different kind of, yeah. Every once in a while you get Jordan Reed, you get Darren Waller, you get George Kiddle, like, it happens. Russian roulette is thrilling. It is a real thrilling game when you come out at the other side. There's no better feeling, though. Correct. Then hitting on the lowly drafted.

Superstar tight end. It feels like you cheat coated your season. Yeah. But yeah, Kelsey in the first, anyone? Yeah, oh, for sure. All right. Let's hop into, uh, we got some news. We do. News and notes from around the league. Uh, well, we got some surgery news and then we, Jason mentioned it. Robert Woods was released. Taylor Luan released. They are, they are making some moves. Robert Woods tweeted, where should I go? And then Cooper Cup raised his hand. So a return to, I mean, it makes sense. It does. Brock Purdy was supposed to be having surgery this past Wednesday, but delayed due to inflammation and swelling. They're going to reconvene an early March. Obviously, the recovery is dependent on the surgery taking place. You know, this happens, right? This is why Kyler didn't get surgery immediately. You know, generally, you need swelling to go down, but the fact that it was expected to happen didn't happen.

it's going to delay some of the recovery. Get this man some ibuprofen. That's all he is. Thanks. Man, why didn't they think of that? I'm not saying they haven't thought of it, but I'm just throwing it out there. The doctors may have overlooked the ibuprofen. Maybe four pills. Yeah. Take it to the limit. Extra strength. I can see Mike walking in, giving that advice, turning around, walking back. My job here is done. Just toss the bottle. Yeah. Take it from me. I'm 40. He might do an I keto roll out of the room. I'm out of here. And McCall Hardman, he kept trying to play football over the back half of the year, and it just didn't come to fruition. Underwent surgery for a core muscle injury, eight-week timeline to get back. And resume his normal role of making it more confusing to know which chief wide receiver you might be able to play. That's the only role he plays. I don't know if he's under contract. Yeah, Hartman is a free agent. Oh.

Yeah, so he'll just do that for another team. Now is the time to remember who's getting new contract or not. Okay, fine. I wonder where, have we seen enough of McCle Hardman? To make a decision one way or the other? You've seen enough. Yeah, I mean, they're not going to be a guy. I think they're going to hope that Skymore and Cadarious Tony can fill the small void left by Hardman. They. They'll draft someone. Well, Juju will be gone too. That'll be the really interesting question is whether they re-sign him or let him move on in free agency. Is that it? We got any news, Brooksie? Anything else? Nothing else. Al, how are we doing today? Doing well. Yeah. Yes, sir. Having a nice day. All black again, I see. That's weird, right? Yeah. I thought I'd switch it up today. Such a different look. No, got back from the cruise and you just kept the same spirit.

It's what fits. I have a self-correction. I said Myers for the rookie tight-in. It's mayor. Yeah. It's because it's Michael Mayer. It should be Michael Myers, of course. Of course. For your convenience. It's not my fault. So it's Michael Myers plus John Mayer. Right. And now we have something really scary. He's slowly. plays love ballads like as he walks up to you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was looking for a body as a wonderland joke. Ooh. But I'm going to just. Body was a wonderland. Body parts are a wonderland. Welcome to the off season. In addition to the fantasy footballers podcast. Let's take a break. Get into the mailbag. We got to get Al some bright colored clothing that fits him. You know, we just need to have a, a company uniform.

You know, that we require during production of our show for him to wear. Can it be like, it could be anything we want? Like a hot dog uniform? Oh, I was going to go like a, like when a kid dresses up as a sailor. Oh, that's a good one too. We can really have like a uniform for each day of the week. That does seem like us. Yeah. Yeah. It's almost like he's losing the wheel of shame. I'm looking into it. It's just his job. It's called the week of shame and it's every week working for us. Mike, you ready for a mailbag drop? Yep. Mailbag. You better not lose that when you celebrate this birthday. I mean, once the clock ticks over, I mean, my voice could become a pumpkin. Ibuprofen is what I recommend. I've heard good things. If you've got a question for the show, we're here to answer them, and we'll have some mailbag episodes throughout the offseason. Go to the website, the fantasy footballers.com.

Click the submit a question button or dial our voicemail hotline. 302464 TFFB. No voicemails today, Brooksie? No, there. Okay. Nothing that was up to snuff, huh? The quality on a couple. People drive in and it's not going to go well in the podcast. He doesn't take your voicemail unless it's on an SM7B. Yeah. Yeah. He doesn't take no guff. And preferably. Like John Mayer play some, you know, play a little guitar in the background. All right. Instagram question from Brandon Ismarin. Who do you want to see at Saints as the Saints quarterback? I would like, I'll go Derek Carr. I mean, super happy about that. Is that just kind of the default answer for all the open jobs right now? Because it's, look, Derek Carr, I think is more willing to go down the field than Jimmy Garoppolo. So we need someone who can get it done for our dear sweet sweet Chris Olive.

Like, we need targets down the field or, or James. They just let James Winston have his job back because that was working out just fine for the rest of us. I don't care about your saints. That's not been discussed either. Yeah, but like, I don't understand. And he doesn't even care. That's James's personality. He's like, yeah, man, talk to whoever you want. I'll be here. I feel like James should either go back to the Saints or even back to the Buccaneers. You know, it's like, oh, Brady's gone. Oh, you're allowed back. We didn't want to replace you, but it was the goat. And I think James would get it. I would get it. It'd be like, yeah, that's Tom Brady. He's still under contract by the Saints. Is he? Yes. I did not realize he was still under contract. So he should, he should by default be the starter right now. The weirdest part to me of James starting the season and.

I mean, it was a few games in and, like, I don't remember what week he had the back problem. It was very quick for the season. But it seemed like he was playing better, making, you know, more conservative decisions, not turning the ball over as much, and just playing decent. And enough that we, let's see what happened. But remember, they gave him like, The contract before the year started that looked like he was easily going to be the starter for not just this year or for last year, but at least through this year. And then they're like, man, Andy Dalton, we can't get him off the field. Yeah. He's burning it up. I think the game logs till a slightly different story. Okay. What hit me? Okay. So week one comes out. Wins the game. Zero turnovers. Two touchdowns playing well. Okay. Week two. Was week two the back?

He played week two and week three, 100% of snaps. Okay, so he got through them and then was out the rest of the way. Three interceptions in week two in a loss. He got five interceptions to those two games. Yeah, I'm just remembering week one. Yeah, week one, he was good. James Winston was played in week two and three. Derek Carr did come out and say he's going to take his time in free agency. And it does seem like there are a lot of potential destinations. for Derek Carr, including teams that haven't been brought up as much like Carolina with Frank Reich. Sure. Could be a home for Derek Carr. Obviously, the Jets, the Saints. There are going to be opportunities for him, and he said he wants to do his due diligence. I think Carolina's where he's going to land. But if I'm a franchise... I think they win the division with him.

Sure. I mean, it's a very easy division to win. If I'm a franchise, like I know obviously the Jets, they want to go after Earn Rogers. They also want Derek Carr. They just want to replace. They've got such a good defense. They've got great weapons on offense. They need a quarterback who can come in here and do enough. And I think the quarterback they should go after wholeheartedly is Jimmy Garoppolo. Because Jimmy Garoppolo... is not going to cost what Derek Carr costs. He's not going to cost both financially and capital what Aaron Rogers costs. You have a great team. Jimmy Garoppolo, we already know, can play on a great team around him and get to the Super Bowl. So to me, if I'm a Jets fan, that's the guy that I'm wanting, someone that is fully capable and doesn't break the bank. But for fantasy, what do you want?

Oh, gosh, not Jimmy Garoppolo. That would be ridiculous. We all want James Winston. We want James Winston. I want those picks, baby. Keep slinging it. They'd be great if all the Tampa wide receivers just brought them back. They didn't care about it. The picks didn't matter to them. They cared about the 5,000 passing yards. I said, did you hear the 30 plus touchdown parts? Oh, my goodness. All right. Here is a question from Twitter. Michael Campbell. I want to get my redraft buds to start a Dynasty League with me. How do I get them interested? So far, I've mentioned it and haven't gotten many positive responses. Got some suggestions for you, Michael. One of them is, look, if you're buddies, if you can't convince them, you can go hop on our Discord community, and we have a Foot Clan League's section where you can find people for your...

for your leagues. Yeah, it's hard to convince, assuming your league is 12, it's hard to convince 11 people to make that transition for the first time. Yeah, you don't want to convince people. You want to ask them and have enthusiasm because a dead dynasty league manager is the worst thing you can have. 100%. You've got to have commitment here. So if you've got three or four guys that want to do it and the rest of the league doesn't, that's a good core. Go over to Foot Clan leagues and see if you can, you know, Grab more people to fill out your league. And if you can only find 10 total teams, do a 10 team league instead of finding two people who, you know, they just go, okay, I'll take a team, but they're not going to be active. They're not going to participate. You're going to have two leagues, two teams that just stink up the league. The truth is dynasty is super fun. It keeps you active all year long. And we love it. I mean, it's a great format.

brings people together at different times of the year, rookie drafts, all that stuff. So it's a super engaging, like you can give them this clip. Like it's an engaging fun form of fantasy football. It's more of, you feel more like an actual general manager of your team where because it's, you know, usually like about 30 players on your roster. That's who you, you can have that person forever. You can, if you get a quarterback at the. at your startup draft, you can have that player on your team forever until they retire. So I think that that's the part that is that is appealing and more, it's not appealing for everybody, but it's just, it's a deeper management experience where you're more concerned about, you know, like your pick equity of what are these rookie picks worth and, you know, that type of trading. I mean, there's an element of it where.