Rookie Review Show! + Second-Year Outlooks, Mystery Boxes - Fantasy Football Podcast for 2/15

Today's show is a little off the rocker, but we are going through all of the rookies reviewing how they performed, what our expectations are going forward. It's a blast. Make sure you subscribe and enjoy the show. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome, man. Jason wasn't paying attention. That's why that happened. That happened because I was afraid of what Jason was going to pipe and that it was going to ruin the intro to the show. So somehow it made me forced. So I ruined the intro to the show by you being afraid that I would ruin the intro to the show because of what I was typing. We're here. We've got a show we're going to do. We're all excited for it. I hit the button. The show starts going.

Then I just see you staring at your computer with a smirk. Well, we had a conversation before the show. Yeah. We were talking about the Super Bowl still. Oh, that's it. And we're talking about the halftime show with Usher, which in my opinion was fantastic. You liked it? We were having a huge dance party at my house. And then, you know, he had some guests come out. And then he had a guest come out in what I can only describe as some kind of. pilgrim schoolboy outfit and we were laughing about the because of course the internet saw that and had a good time and it then i i remembered the starburst berries and cream commercial yeah we've been watching where where the the main actor gets very excited about the flavor of a starburst yeah it looks similar it's very excited by the way that was not the only yeah and everyone thought it was silo green but like miniaturized

You know who else had a very, very entertaining. Whoops, they noticed me moment, right? From the Super Bowl? Which? J.J. Watt? No. Did you not catch J.J. Watt going back to his. Oh, yeah. The microphone? The hair. Oh, okay. The blonde tips. Looking like he's coming from the 90s. Yes. And he tweeted out. He said, you ever switch up your hair and wonder if anyone will notice? And then he said, they notice. And it's just picture after picture of... He went throwback. He went throwback. The messy spiked hair with bleach tips. I had that in high school. Yeah. Yeah. It's a look, man. It's a look. But he handled it the right way. Oh, my goodness. We're sharing the pictures right now. Yeah. So there you go. That's what we were laughing about. Welcome into the show. Yeah, he's in O-town. Yeah, it's...

So look, I can't imagine going through that conversation ahead of your Super Bowl coverage though. Well, you know, just play it safe, man. Just probably the like what it will now be, have been the most viewed. Oh, yeah. Program in American history. Oh, man. And you're like, this, I got a big plan for this. Yeah, it's a look. Jason, maybe you bring it back. I don't have his body to get away with his hair. If I had that hair, then I've got, I've got real problems in my life. If you're JJ Watt, like if you are a superhuman, just like you were, you were born and your work ethic have created this just greater than everyone else human, you know? Like if you're one of those dudes, your Hymnsworth or whatever, you could do whatever you want.

You got, there's, there is no haircut. Well, no, now Guy Fieri just popped up in our, which. It's not that far off. Looks pretty similar. And to bring it all together, I don't know if you, if you guys watched the, the puppy bowl. No. No, no, I missed, I missed that action. My kids were, I mean, nine in the morning. Dad, you got to get, get max on. We're trying to watch the puppy bowl. And it was a huge deal. So they watched it. And then there all of a sudden out of nowhere, there was Guy Fierry. Part of the, see, how does he do this? I don't know, but he was talking about Flavortown. That guy's got an empire. This is a Thursday episode of the fantasy footballers. We welcome you in. We got a rookie review on today's show. Some mailbag if we have time for it. Good quick question to dive into. I see two hats in a bald head at Inducers Alley. So we're not testing any new hairstyles out today. Thankfully, although Kratos over there. Yeah. If you thought about just like bleaching.

Bleaching your scalp. Parts of it, though. So like if they were tips. Just like look like a leopard? Yeah, okay. All right. I don't like that. We've got a rookie review, like I said, a reminder. You know, a reminder, alternate draftgit.com. Order by March 1st for a chance to win a listener league spot. Come play with us in the listener league. It's the lowest possible price. Pick up the UDK Plus. Get a bunch of bonuses. And you get instant access to the dynasty pass. Ultimate draft kit.com. Yeah. We're doing real good today. It's definitely, definitely the preseason, 24 preseason. We're ready for this show. We're super, super here with you. Thank you. Follow us on X at the FDF.

Yeah, follow us. You know where we are. Here's the quick question. The dynasty question comes in from YouTube. How do you maximize the value of rookie draft picks? Do you trade them at the draft? Do you make the picks and trade them on off-season hype, right? Like every rookie hasn't played, they could be great. Or just keep the rookies on your team and hope they live up to their potential? I've got two big answers for me personally. One is the life cycle of the value of a rookie pick. We've talked about this before, but it really changes. I mean, in the middle of a season, when games are being played and your start-sit decisions are what's on your mind, rookie picks do not have that much value. People don't care that much about their rookie picks. So if you want to...

If you want to trade for a rookie pick, that's the time of the year that you want to do it. It's not going to cost you an arm and a leg to acquire a first rounder. Whereas when you get near, when you get near, I can't look at my screen because you, this is, this is so wonderful. I don't know what's happening. This is the worst podcast we have ever done. Yes, without a doubt. And I blame other people. We're. Our slack, I'm sitting here trying. I'm trying to be a normal. To say the point and not look at my monitor, but I can see all these pictures popping into our show doc as we are communicating here. And you two, the camera was just on me. I'm sorry. So you couldn't see, but you two are just cracking up to my sides. So we are, we're actually in Vegas right now for the FSGA.

uh, conference. So we are recording a little bit early. If you noticed a strange tweet from Andy on Monday afternoon, that's what we're laughing at. Wait a minute. Andy tweeted this out. What? You tweeted that? Oh, this is a long, a long con joke. Wow. Well, go back, uh, go back to Monday's, uh, timeline and see. So I don't know anything that Jason said, but my answer is rookie picks peak in value right before the trade deadline for contenders to come and make moves and then at the NFL draft. That's when people are the most excited and landing spots are happening. So it's kind of in real time. You can see them going up. So if you're trying the honest.

Truth is if you're trying to maximize the value of a rookie pick, if you don't have like the 101 or the 102 is probably trading it because it's always, rookie picks are always what's in the box. It could be a boat instead of getting a player who you know is in a good situation and they're a good player right now. Because when you hear rookie, like, oh, 10 years on my dynasty team, this guy's going to be. a stalwart blue chip player for me. And the truth is that's just that so rarely happens. What is difficult is that we've talked about it before. There's a pressure sometimes to like follow a consensus too with rookie drafts. And so if you don't have like super strong conviction about a player, that is even more in that what, you know, the advice that Mike just gave. If you're really, you know, if you really, you know, let's say last year, C.J. Stroud would be an example, right? Sure. And you.

you want to go after C.J. Stroud because you believe in him, like, great. But I have seen a lot of people take players that they don't want to take because they think that this is the consensus number four pick and you shouldn't do it. Quentin Johnston was that player last year where all the, I mean, things that are true signal for the odds of this player is going to hit our first round pick. Quinn Johnston had that. A pedigree. I mean, he kind of disappeared in the national championship game, but he was in the national championship game. He had a monster season production, and then the Chargers drafted him. He was immediately linked to Justin Herbert for five years, and the excitement of that landing spot is extremely hard to look away or to shake that off, even if he felt like,

You know, like there's still, there's a lot of red flags about Quinn Johnston, but the draft capital and the spot made it so appealing. And, you know, we make, there's been so many jokes about Q. He honestly could turn it around. Just the odds are, historically the odds are now against him. Well, we're going to be talking about him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we absolutely will. But that's the point what Evandy was saying of the consensus. If you were in that 105 to 107 range, it's like, you're. You're probably drafting Quinn Justin. I did. I was guilty of it because some things are just so appealing of the unknown versus. Had I shopped, I could have shopped the pick. I didn't. I made the pick immediately. Look, it's just like the same thing happens at the NFL level, right? You know, if you shoot your shot and you change the order of what people think and you miss that or the player you passed on in QGE, you pass on Q's because the conviction, he blows up.

Those emotions get wrapped up into it. The other thing that I would recommend. So the timeline and is one thing. The reality that veterans are probably a better asset than the potential rookies when you just factor in complete bust rate. And then the third thing is. And we're here to try to help you with this. You're listening right now. You probably are the people doing what I'm about to say, and especially with our Dynasty podcast, if you're listening there, but it is when you get an earlier look into the upcoming draft class, not everybody learns on the same day how many players are great. And the earlier you get in and have an expectation of this upcoming draft class, you're just more ahead of the game. If you, you know, like right now.

We were going through some potential trades on, on some episode. And, you know, we realized that there's a big three wide receivers. There's a lot of good wide receivers this year. Right. But there's like three potential seemingly previous to destinations, like superstar. Marvin Harrison, Jr. Roman Dunesay and Malik neighbors. Yep. Those three guys are a cut above. And that's not to say that the next one is going to be bad, but it is to say that's a tear break when you're actually looking at the value of actual picks. You know, the 105 isn't always worth the same thing. Some years that might be an incredible pick. Some years that might be like, man, I really wish I had a top four pick because that's where the break is. So just getting in earlier on that expectation, I think is.

is how you maximize those picks. Yeah, and you can see all of the team opportunity pages, too, in the Dynasty Pass to see what teams have maybe the biggest opportunity for a rookie to make an impact in year one in the UDK Plus. All right, we're going to dig into some of last year's rookie class. I mean, it's perfect. We've been talking about QGE already, so let's jump in. Rookie Review. All right. We are looking at last year's rookie class today and who can maybe step up and make a huge difference in fantasy football next season. When you start at the quarterback position, you don't get to start with the best story. You get to start with the worst one. And I think there are some reasonable excuses that you could hand this quarterback.

When you're taking it 101, talking about Bryce Young, Carolina's rookie where they just traded away their future. You know, they traded away the pick that ends up this year's number one for Chicago. It was as bad as it really can get for Bryce Young. Among 44 first round quarterbacks with nine plus starts. So that's a lot. 44 of them. His 2.1% touchdown rate is the fourth worst. It's fair to say he did not have anything close to elite weapons, right? I mean, this is, hey, wait, what? Yeah, thank you. I think you could actually argue against that narrative. Because I know when you're looking at Bryce Young, there are plenty of excuses you can make. One of them is the wide receiver court. And going into this season, I think if we looked at what these teams, the Carolina Panthers and the Houston Texans had,

available as weapons, what they had done to give their incoming rookie receivers. I think we probably would have been on the Carolina side. A big contract for Adam Thielen, a veteran. They spent a high draft pick higher than Tank Dell's draft pick on Jonathan Mingo. You know, it's like, in hindsight, now it's like, well, Nico Collins and Tank Dell, they're awesome. But it's like, that wasn't how Tank Dell was viewed. You know, I think that's fair. I mean, yeah. They gave Miles Sanders a bunch of money. Yeah, yeah. I guess they added Schultz in Houston, but it's not that different. It's not that different. But, you know, you lost the head coach. Frank Reich was brought in to be the quarterback whisper, and they lost him in the middle of the year. Hayden Hearst came out and said he believed that Bryce Young had too many voices in his ear. It's hard when you do have a lot of change.

when you don't have, I don't know, I don't know if he can redeem it. Like we've seen quarterbacks that are drafted this high and there's a shell shocking that happens the first season and they're not the same. Yeah, the best example of overcoming it that I can remember is Trevor Lawrence, who his rookie season was abysmally bad. It looked like some of the numbers that he had. were numbers you didn't think you would really bounce back from. But he had the Urban Meyer crazy insane organizational struggles there. They had the quarter. I mean, that's similar. I mean, that's similar. You lose a quarterback after one year. Or you mean, your head coach. Yeah. Second lowest PFF grade under pressure, but was under pressure 42% of the time. Didn't have separators on the outside. Didn't flash a lot. Had opportunities to make plays, didn't make them.

It will be hard to trust any wide receiver in Carolina for a while. Yeah. And you've got to make your call on players on what you believe in them when you're playing fantasy. The reasonable take here is to say that Bryce Young still has a chance to be good. But if you have to make your call on whether that will happen or not so that you can. trade for him or trade him away or or you know bypass him in a startup draft or draft him i do not think it's going to happen for bryce young trevor lawrence still hasn't been that great as a one-on-one bouncing back and he has actual traits and things he's got a you know a great athleticism a rocket arm uh things that bryce young just doesn't have what brys young was supposed to have is incredible accuracy and

just the intellect of seeing the field. And those things didn't happen in year one. When we were doing our dynasty startup rankings, which you can grab in the UDK Plus, I had a really difficult time with Bryce Young because it's, this feels very Zach Wilson, where rookie year you can watch Zach Wilson. It was, this isn't going to work. Like, this will not work. But then trying not to be too quick to bury the number one overall pick. Jack Wilson, he wasn't. I get it. But, like Jason, I think you're saying of, you got to make the call because right now he's in startup is number 19 for us. And I don't, is that being just too cautious and saying, no, you just, we got to dump it. Move on. Move on for fantasy.

I always want to see flashes like we did with Lawrence even in his bad season. Like we did it with Will Levis this last year. Correct. Yeah, which will, I mean, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson, Will Levis are the next three names we'll talk about here reviewing the quarterback position. I mean, you go from the lowest of lows in Bryce Young. The contrast between Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud is so profound that, like, on a normal year, you know, if you took C.J. Stroud out of the picture, okay, Bryce Young's struggle. Anthony Richardson. got hurt quick, not a factor. Will Levis flashed a little bit, wasn't good after that. Like Bryce Young in that landscape, we're not, it doesn't feel as bad. Carolina fans aren't, you know, as angry. But C.J. Stroud put up a top 12 fantasy performance, one of the best rookie quarterback performances ever. He supported two top 15 wide receivers in PPR leagues.

or rather in points per game and PPR leagues. But Collins was the wide receiver six, Tank Dell was 15, and he impressed on every single game, even when he didn't win. Even when he had struggles moving the ball, there would be a drive here or a drive there where he made a play, escaping the pocket, getting away from pressure, throwing on the run, throwing back across his body sometimes. showing the arm strength downfield. Accuracy was there for him on the move. I mean, I can remember Bryce Young blatantly missing Jonathan Mingo on a couple of, there wasn't pressure in his face. He stepped up, he threw it, overthrew him. This didn't happen to Stroud very often. And, you know, he threw the ball a ton, he led the league in yardage. The contrast is so vast. Yeah, I'm curious. I don't have your guys' rankings pulled up. But like, Will Levis or Bryce Young,

Who do you have, who would you rather? I'd still go Bryce. I'm on the Will Levis side for fantasy purposes. Okay. The draft capital will obviously give Bryce Young many years of being allowed to try. Is this for startup? Yeah. If you were startup dynasty. Yeah, I'd still bet on Bryce. But I'd expect. I think I have Bryce higher. I could be stuck in his first overall pick. Yeah, I've got Bryce higher. And I just feel like there's more security there. New head coach coming into Tennessee. Levis could fall out of favor quick and you never see him again. So, yeah, it's close. Richardson, we only got to see him for four games. I know Mike has been an early adopter, an early member of the fan club. Just excited about how awesome it was for fantasy of what we saw in the brief appearances. Again, the shoulder industry.

The shoulder industry is booming right now. Especially from him when they had to repair his throwing shoulder. So that shouldn't be taken lightly. I did see him throwing though. But yeah. We'll see some real NFL throws here soon. It's not a lot of games. That's the truth. Yes, it is not. You know, you played Jacksonville was one of the big games and the Rams were the other big game. And the Rams had a ton of young. defensive players that didn't do anything until the second half of the year. That's my only hesitation is it's like you had two games. Yeah. And I don't mind that at all. I don't mind people being hesitant. But in full games, we saw 10 carries in each of those full games, QB4, QB2. That's what's exciting, where CJ Stroud, I think will easily be the best, the better of real life quarterback over Anthony Richardson.

But with the pace of play that the Colts put up, which they still kept doing it with Gardner Minshu under center, and him running, I'm making the presumption that Michael Pittman will be back. That could be at my own peril, but that's how I see it happening. And Richardson was, and I think can be, a real impact player, where Stroud will be in that Joe Burrow camp, where sometimes he's going to go out there in games and he's going to have. 300 yards and three touchdowns, and it's going to feel like you're at the top of the world. And then there'll be games where he's at 250 and 1, where Anthony Richardson, as long as he's giving, if he's giving you 10 carries every single game, he's going to be, he will be an actual difference maker for fantasy. Yeah, I think, I think the question will be what, what is Richardson's tier of if he's a running quarterback? Are you, are you?

going to the ceiling level of Lamar Jackson from a few years back, are you getting Justin Fields where he's not as effective in the passing game? So the variability is higher, but when it's good, it's really good. I think those are all questions we'll get answered. And we have a lot of confidence in the offense, the head coach, pace of play. Athleticism. Yeah, I mean, the injuries are a problem. I mean, they could be. They could be a problem. They could also be a great, this could be a Henry Rowengarer situation where. This sole, you know, his throwing accuracy wasn't his strong suit. Now he gets this shoulder. That's good analysis. Yeah. Building up a brand new, a brand new shoulder for him. People are real big fans of this tweet. Oh, real big fans. The tweet from last Monday? The tweet from earlier this week, yes. So the, what we saw of Richardson was actually, and you can rewind the clock. I'm not running from it. I was.

very hesitant on Richardson making the transition to be a professional quarterback. Like I was the most outspoken of the show. I didn't think it was going to work. But then his first game, yeah, he's playing Jacksonville, but he's playing a professional football team. He throws the ball 37 times. He completes 65% of his passes. Then the next full game, 25 attempts only completed 44%. So that was kind of the Richardson on tape of, incredible play that few quarterbacks can make than just absolute boneheaded mistake of how did you airmail that ball but it's it's Richardson is risky business but I think the reward is actual game changing quarterback the way that Josh Allen is a game changing quarterback where CJ Stroud will be really solid but I think you know I don't you don't see a top three or I don't see a top three finish possible for Stroud.

Unless everyone gets hurt, which that can happen. All right, let's take a quick break, come back with the running backs. All right, let's jump into the 2023 rookie running back review. We had three rookie running backs finish inside the top 24 this year. That would be Bijan, Gibbs, and A-chan. At least two have finished inside the top 24 every single year since 2012. That's a long run. And I know, Jason, at the top here before we break down these names, I know you're not overly enthusiastic about the draft class, Jonathan Brooks, Braylon Allen. I know you guys like Benson, Trey Benson, but these could be picks that happened in the second or third or, you know, first pick could be third round for all we know for running backs. It'll be interesting to see how we project two finishing in that, you know, which two could be in that top 24. Yeah, I mean, it will happen again. It happens every year. Whether it's the guys you expect or not, like I remember.

2014. I believe that was the Bishop Sanky year where, you know, the top end was really, really bad. But you still had guys that came like undrafted Isaiah Crowell and, you know, you just never know where it's going to come from. But rookie running backs are a good investment in fantasy in their first season. And, you know, we'll continue advocating for you to draft rookie running backs. It doesn't always work out. You know, Zach Charbonnet was clearly and utterly behind Kenneth Walker. But at the same time, we're just looking at hit rates and good bets to make. Rookie running backs are usually a solid bet. Let's start there because, I mean, we talked extensively about Bijon and Jemir Gibbs on the running back truth episodes because of where they finished the RB 9 and 10. So we know, I think everybody out there who played fantasy this year.

This year knows what Bijon was about, knows the limited opportunities. We're all looking forward to the fact that his head coach brought his name up first and foremost in the players he's looking forward to coaching and giving opportunities too. Although if you watch Bijan react to that, first thing he does is bring up Tyler Alger, just so you. Stop it, Bijan. But Jamir Gibbs as well took over in the second half of the year was the RB3 from week seven through 16. But I do want to get your like, you know, your one year mark on Zach Charbonnet because. This was a player that both of you guys were just in love with the play. He didn't have a ton of opportunities at all. I mean, this was Kenneth Walker's backfield. He had 7.8 opportunities per game. It was a ninth round pick that we thought, hey, maybe you'd get to do what Kenneth Walker did a few years ago and make a huge mark on a fantasy team. It didn't happen. And you kept waiting for it. So what's your, you know, where are you with Charbonnet?