Fantasy Football - Stat Surprises + Bucky Hype, Purdy Gets Paid - Podcast for 5/20

Welcome to the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Andy. That's the best you've ever sounded. That was a weird one, dude. Hey, guys. Welcome to the fantasy footballers. Happy to be here. I'm... Glad to be back on the show. I don't know if Andy's happy to be. I sound great. Yeah. This is why we had a two-man show last outing and why we should have had a two-man show this out. Yeah. If you're like, hey, why was it? It was worse than this. Right. The bear was better. Oh, he had. He held it down. Excellent wisdom as to win not to speak. I mean, it's a May. It's a May episode of the fantasy footballers.

And we are like, what, 10 days away from 12 days? Oh, so I get to do player profile videos. Yeah, you do. Oh, that's cool. Over a hundred of them, Andy. Do I sound like a raspy, sexy scoundrel though? Like, is it like one of those? Yes. Not telling you which one. No. Welcome back to. But it's raspy. Welcome back to Arizona Jason. Yeah. No, I was, I had a weekend in Vegas. Bulk season? A little bit of bulk season. We ate. We ate our weight. Kings and Queens in Vegas. You were celebrating your 20th anniversary. Yes, sir. Celebrating with putting on six pounds. You, 20 for 20. You said something yesterday on your way back like you might move there. I don't think I'm going to stay here. I think I want to live at the win.

So can you get a year round at the win? I don't know, Mr. Mrs. Wynn, if you're listening, I am willing to accept a full-time residency. So we're doing, we're getting these messages from Jason, man, that definitely had the illusions that he was in Vegas. I mean, he was, he was coming after, he was coming after a my guy that I have on my initial list, just like, I want him. Somewhere, where were you when you're messaging me about a my guy? Were you in the middle of a... You better not have been at the tables. Is it at the tables? The aerial plane. No, no, no, no, Mike. I know better. Yeah, thank you. I know better. I step away. We don't know what's happening. But we do know the UDK is coming out in like 12 days. 12 days. And very, very excited about that. All the free rankings for 2025 draft rankings are initial set. They're up on the website, the fantasy footballers.com. You can go check those out. The communities that join the foot.com.

And, yeah, 12 days away. Very excited. Today we have some kind of stat insights, some initial thoughts from our rankings that we wanted to share. And we'll get into some mailbag. And, yeah, that's what we got going on. How are you doing, Mike? I, you're not coming back from Vegas or an illness. No, I'm good, man. You're just living life. Hey, everything is everything. Everything is regular. Which is a pretty great place to be. You don't want to be regular. Not too high. Oh, yeah. I'm just talking bowel movements. You know, I got there. I figured the joke out. Oh, we're doing great. We're doing. Deucer's Alley, the guys are there. Oh, no. Oh, no, miss. We got a bleeder. Oh, man. Andy's embarrassed. He didn't realize that he shouldn't have gone to the camera. But now everyone could go to YouTube and look at Deutzer's Alley.

So we're doing great. Thank you for supporting the show. The Falcon sword too high in the altitude. Oh, no. And got blood and notes. Yeah, I went to the Deucer's camera and forgot. There was a medical emergency happening in Deucer's alley. No one's going to screenshot it. Oh, man. Oh, no. What did I just say? Oh. What is happening today? What's happening is we don't know what's happening. Dude, I'm to commandeer their ship. We have a quick question, Mike. What are we doing? So the quick question today, the stats are done, the initial, I should say the initial stats for the UDK, where we go out, we rank the teams, we put in projections for the players. And people wanted to know, you know, like, what do we have surprise-wise? Because the initial set always has some.

very interesting things where it either confirms exactly what you felt in your heart or you find out that the heart has been overpowered by the mind and logic has prevailed and you're like, oh, well, I guess I'm not as high on that player as I thought I was. So we just say we all picked out, you know, some players that we thought is very interesting. I'll start here. And the Chicago Bears running back room is strange. We had the whole offseason DeAndre Swift's saga where he surely was going to be replaced in the draft. And Ashton Genty did not drop to 10. So they took Colston Loveland. They got their Sam Laporta. And then in the second round, right before the Chicago Bears were about to pick, Trevion Henderson, kind of the final of the like the real big boys, the real big prospects, he got picked.

And then the bears are like, okay, we're out of here. And then you kind of saw, like, you can follow a trail of breadcrumbs throughout the draft as well, seeing the bear's about to be up. And then a running back getting selected and they're like, uh, okay, move back. We don't care anymore. So the rumor as of right now, it's DeAndre Swift and it is Roshan Johnson. And after going through my stats and my projections, because like Swift is, he feels like it's way too high, but it. You're like, man, I don't know what you do with the, with the Ben Johnson system. But the point of the Ben Johnson system, at least in Detroit, was it was a time sure. It was a two-headed monster where the veteran, not Jamir Gibbs, you know, David Montgomery, often starting the game, often playing the bulk of the first quarter. And you're like, Ben Johnson already had the DeAndre Swift experience. And when he had DeAndre Swift,

That dude played a low amount of snaps. He caught a bunch of passes, but snap-wise, it's very low, and you're looking at the depth chart, who else can possibly step up? So I gave a healthy projection to Rochon Johnson, and he is firmly in the range of guys that I will be targeting as of right now. Yeah, I mean, that is late, late round sleeper cataport. Of course, yeah, I'm not, I'm not going to overreach for Rocheon. It's so, I did not know this was your, what you were going to bring up today. And so I will tell you, I'm not kidding when I made and retracted a trade offer for D'Andre Swift this morning because of how much confidence I have on what they've done on the offensive line. In fact, part of the news today was Joe Tooney signing another two-year deal. They have Jonah Jackson. A tune a year deal. Yeah. Swish. Oh, my gosh. Swish. No takesy-bexies. Jonah Jackson. Jason, you're shaking your head like you weren't thinking it. That was terrible. I beat you to it. It was terrible. I love their offensive line changes.

I love Ben Johnson being there. And so my first gut reaction was like, I just think D'Andre Swift's going to be better than people think, even though I don't think he's that good of a running back. And then I took it back. I literally offered the trade and retracted it because I don't want D'Andre Swift, which means that the, you know, the byproduct of that thinking is, hey, who can step up? Who can be a contributor? You know, Ben Johnson, I mean, this is a really good point. to bring up, Mike, is the fact that we have, this isn't like, oh, he's bringing his system over and he likes two backs. Okay, that's fine. We have literally seen this offensive coordinator, who is now the head coach slash offensive coordinator here for the Bears, with this running back as the lead predominant back.

The guy that we, the fantasy community viewed as the lead back. Back then we really wanted him to be something. Yeah, absolutely. And after that season, he went and got a big contract. So it wasn't a bad season. Do you know in his final year with the Lions, Andy, got traded after that season. You didn't get the money then. Fair. Do you know how many carries he had in his final year with Detroit? In Jeffrey Swift? 14 games. I know he was probably great on a per touch basis. He was pretty good on a per touch basis, but he had 99 total carries with that team. Well, he couldn't, yeah. I mean, they just had no confidence in him. I'd say, and in that year, that was the Jamal Williams year, where Jamal Williams goes from just a lovable backup running back who had a few opportunities in Green Bay. And you're just like, okay, he's not.

that dude. He's a, he's a fine player. But then he goes out for Detroit gets so many touchdowns. And then the, and then he's gone. And then Jamal Williams goes to another team and you're like, this is, Jamal Williams is toast. He has nothing left. And they were like they were just using this guy who was inefficient in the year, so 2022, that's the Swift year. Swift was at five and a half yards per carry. But they wanted to keep his carries low and just kind of. get as many chunk plays as they can, and they would go to Jamal Williams, who was inefficient, but they kept giving him the ball over and over and over. So this is not an anti-Diandre Swift thing. It is a pro-Roshan. A little bit, but this is your ultimate draft kit, surprise, was Rochon Johnson being higher than what you expect? Because if you look at ADP right now, Rochon Johnson is just left for death. Yeah, he's got to be close. He would be an undrafted player. Pretty much.

I'll talk about a player from Detroit. It's Jameson Williams. That was one of the players that stood out when I got through my initial stat projections. I have him at 11 at wide receiver right now. Some interesting things about Jameson Williams. I have always been a Jameson Williams fan, much to Kyle's chagrin. I feel like last year you saw a lot from Jameson Williams on that offense. He was over 1,000 yards. seven touchdown scored on the ground, missed two games. One thing that's interesting about him, I mean, this was a 12th overall pick, and he has progressed every year, the confidence in Jameson Williams, I think, and what he can do for this team. Like, we all like and understand Amman Rae St. Brown's role in this offense. I think we're always a little bit surprised at how many touchdowns Alman Ra manages to score for what kind of wide receiver he is. It's because he's got the dog.

He does. He's got the dog in him. But I think Jameson Williams is going to take another step forward. You know, when looking at his numbers, I haven't projected for a 19.4% target share. Last year he was at 17%. 19 is fine. So I've got him at 19% this year. I have him scoring eight times through the air. There were only four players. I'm sorry, there were only, yeah, there were four players last year with four or more games with 20 plus fantasy points. Jamar Chase. Mike Evans, Brian Thomas Jr., Jameson Williams, and he missed two games last year. He is that kind of player. He is the out of nowhere 178-yard type of game. He's actually one of only nine players in the last decade with 1,000-plus receiving yards on fewer than 100 targets. To me, that is headroom for him to become more integral in this offense. There's a lot of things that, you know, when you look at Detroit, they have a tough schedule, their offensive efficiency without Ben Johnson. What's that going to be?

Will Jared Gough be a successful? But I do believe in the system. I do believe that they're a top 10 offense if they're not the number one offense. And I think Jameson Williams is just one of those players. He gives you, like he's going to get the ball 15 times on the ground, on end of rounds. And he's got that explosive speed. I was not expecting him to end up in my top 12. But I feel like I sat in him out for a really reasonable season. I lowered his yards per reception to down by a yard. He still. I think it's a big surprise for fantasy players because he's still, with 66 completions, his level of explosiveness puts him into that category where, like, he can be a weekly game changer for you. Yeah. I mean, there was, he had those four games for sure. There was some weird disappearing stuff, but he is a player who my, like in my ranks, he's not nearly as high as he is for you, Andy, but he is a player who.

I was pleasantly surprised to get the projection out there and feel like this is a player who, because when we're doing projections, we're not necessarily, or I'll speak for me, I'm not projecting ceiling case for any of these guys. I'm going with more of a, okay, things go right. You know, they play 17. Well, health. We project for help. Projecting health, which is very difficult to do because you have, most players miss a few games, but then you get. But then I don't want to project missed games unless I know for sure. This dude just never plays a full season. Here's what fantasy players are going to have to decide with Jameson Williams. Because I have them ranked ahead of like four names that I would say are illustrious but older. So you're thinking about players like Devante Adams at this stage of his career, right? Tyreek Hill at this stage of his career. Mike Evans at this stage of his career. Even somebody like A.J. Brown who is not too old, but.

You know, that offense will see. Those are players that you're going to have to look at James and Williams, who, again, very young. Does he have more headroom? Those guys are, those other guys are not going upwards. Tyree kills, he's not on the way up. Yeah, no, some of those old guys. You know, I have AJ Brown still in a different tier than those other guys, but. Yeah, and that's understandable. Obviously, this is why in the ultimate draft kit, we have an upside. meter and a risk meter attached to these players so it's not just you get our tiered rankings and you know you get our stat projections everything but then there is also like what is the upside case for these players jamison williams i i imagine for all three of us is very high in the upside uh rating because he has physical ability and speed on a great offense where he could pull away and make a make a big difference of fantasy um my the things that i saw when i was statting out the

One thing that wasn't surprising that is fun, and one thing that was surprising, the fun, not surprising thing to me, last year I did not have a single rookie, which this felt so weird and bad, but I didn't have a single rookie running back in my top 30 last year, which I didn't see Bucky Irving coming, but outside of that, I was like, okay, well, that makes sense. The math checked out it was right. Yeah, we had what, like March, um, Tyrone and Tracy was okay. Well, no, I mean, before the season, we were looking at Jonathan Brooks. The big names were looking at Marks on Lloyd. Yeah, Marshawn Lloyd and Brooks were hurt. Yeah, so it wasn't good. This year, I have six rookie running backs in the top 30, six of them. And I will be blown away if we don't have six rookies in the top 30 at the end of the year. I've been telling people, you know, if you're drafting draft rookies, if you're going deep.

If you're in a dynasty league and your rookie draft is over, go scour the waiver wire and pick them all up. Because the depth of quality of the rookie running backs coming in this year are outstanding. So that wasn't surprising. The surprising thing for me was Bo Nix. I like Bo Nix. I believe in him as a player. I believed in him after the draft. It was a great rookie season. But when I really break it down, I look at how the team is progressing, what I expect him to be able to do touchdown percentage-wise as far as just. what percentage of his passing attempts end up in passing touchdowns, his rushing ability that is, you know, I think not talked about enough. I was really, really surprised. He's currently my quarterback six. So, I mean, he was a top 10 quarterback last year, and the first month of the season, he really didn't do hardly anything despite starting. He was very handcuffed by the coaching staff and, you know, was used like a rookie.

quarterback where it's like, you know, the reins were on him. Don't screw it up. Yeah, but you know, the second half of the year, the whole, you know, last three quarters of the year, he was so good. So I've got him high. I, uh, Andy made me a ridiculous trade offer that I saw come through. Ridiculous. How? Ridiculous in the sense that it was terrible. Um, you offer. So the trade was basically. uh, Kyler and Picks for Bo Knicks and Picks in a dynasty league. The problem is the picks were on the Kyler side. Like, like I could trade Bo Knicks and a and sacrifice picks to receive Kyler Murray. My, my dynasty rankings, I have Bo Nicks ahead of Kyler Murray right now straight up. So when I saw the trade come through, I thought it was a one for one. And it was like, I thought about one for one. And I, and I literally was like, okay, push comes to shove.

Would I really rather have Bo Nix than Kyler? Because I've got Bo Nix right now. Would I really rather have him than Kyler? I'm not sure. And then I look at the picks. Yeah. And I'm like, wait a minute. That's the wrong side. Well, look, I don't think. I think we know that Kyler in the right season could be number one overall. He could be, he could finish it. I mean, he's finished it too before. The rushing upside of Kyler Murray gives him a different ceiling. But I'm with you. I like, the reason you make that offer is because inside you're saying like, well, Bo Nix longer term, more stable.

pocket passers that can be in the four to six range maybe long term. I mean, that's the thought process there. Some people are more tantalized by the ceiling with a running quarterback. And maybe that's a prescription for somebody to try out. Because I think in a lot of leagues, I think in the majority of dynasty leagues, people are going to look at Kyler Murray ahead of. Oh, yeah. I think that that will until, not me, but until the end of this season, I think Kyler will be ahead of Knicks in most dynasty startup rankings. Obviously, Kyler has more rushing upside than Knicks. But you look at last year, Kyler had 572 rushing yards. That's outstanding. I expect that to go up this year based on some of the offseason reports. But Bo Nix had 430 rushing yards. He is a mobile quarterback that's not, you know, Lamar and Kyler and Jaden Daniels, but he is, he's not like the, oh, I'm going to add 200 rushing yards. This is a significant fantasy tool.

You know what, just because of your negative comments about the trade, I won't be trading you anything for Travis ETN. You can keep them. I really need to get something from him, though. We'll take a break. We'll hit the news here in a second. A reminder, ultimate draftgad.com lowest price possible. If you pre-order before June 1st, get all of our projections in detail on June 1st. We'll take a break. We'll be right back. News and notes from around the league. The 49ers, they did it. They signed Brock Purdy. Five year, $265 million contract, 181 guaranteed. No trade clause. That one is, that's a, that's a big one. That's a brilliant one because Shanahan. Yes. He'll turn on you. He's cut throat, man. You know, players love Shanahan, but he will 100% turn. He will throw you in the doghouse. He will cut you.

either from the roster or with a knife. He's that kind of man. So this is a genius that they have a no trade clause. You are the quarterback of the 49ers for the foreseeable future. I cannot imagine the feeling of signing that contract if you're Brock Purdy. Oh, my last pick. You were the last pick in the draft. You went to a team where you seemingly had no chance. They had just traded their entire future for Trey Lance. Yes. And they had Jimmy Garapolo. right yeah so they had two people ahead of him on the depth chart and he just signed a piece of paper that guarantees him 181 million dollars congratulations mr purdy like and he wasn't i think he'll be successful i the the 49 we don't talk schedule release a ton we we mocked it a little bit in terms of just how they're doing it yeah but the 49ers there's a reason like we we kind of were like why why is this six win team

where they are with the Super Bowl projections in Vegas, their schedule is the best in football. Like the NFL believes in the 49ers. They're in prime time a bunch. This team is going to win a bunch of games this year again. They just signed Fred Warner. The offseason, yes, they lost some pieces, but you lock up Brock Purdy. Things are just looking really, really good to me for the 49ers. They're just such a tried and true organization. You can trust it. And Brock Purdy is he's locked up. I mean, that's another dynasty target. Oh, for sure. Brock Purdy is not given the allocates, you know, he is a wonderful fantasy asset. And he's not seen that way. You know, he was the quarterback 14 this current season and he missed the game.

his upside two years ago he was the quarterback six and still like he is not drafted i look at him like i mean he's not that far off of the bone nick's conversation yeah baker mayfield yeah i mean it's pocket passer it's four to eight possible finish um but look huge deal huge deal and the 49ers are locked up a quarterback so um congrats to brock purdy that's a one and a billion situation for him to come in and do what he did right Nick Siriani, multi-year contract in Philly. Makes sense. This is the time to sign your deals, man. Makes sense. I just love that he would, they want it on the hot seat last year. Like in season. Yelling at the fans. And then you, I look, you win the Super Bowl. He had to shave his head. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you had to do a rebus conference because it was like.

That's right. Yeah, he was hiding behind the kids. He was hiding behind the kids. He was on the hot seat. He's a weirdo, but he's a good coach and they won a Super Bowl. Yeah, they've been there twice, one, one. And if they lose a few games, they will turn on him too. Oh, they will. Yeah, but now he's going to be like, remember when that city hated Andy Reed? He was just saying, whatever, fire me. I was to say best job in sports is a fired coach. I'll sit on the couch and I will make millions. The NFL owners are scheduled to meet today and tomorrow to vote on a proposal to ban the tushbook. And it's going to happen, which sucks and is going to completely change my rankings. I mean, this is, I do not think, I do not think it will happen. Oh, oh, thank you for. The biggest issue with this is at least, look, the way that I am reading it with all the information that I have. And perhaps there's more that was not shared on social media, but it was a.

You know, it looked like a clear screenshot of this is like in a document. This is what the language of the rule will be. And my reading of it is it's not just get it. It wouldn't just get rid of the tush push. It was all those pile plays where you have a running back who gets stood up, you know, by a couple defenders. He's still kind of moving. And then the reinforcements come in. The O line comes in. They push. Sometimes the running back gets lifted up in the air. We've seen that a whole bunch. That's hysterical. And it's a play that people love. Crowds go insane. When you're the home team and that happens? Your team gets an extra five yards that you were not expecting to happen. When is the last time you've seen that play? Last season. And you've seen someone get hurt. Oh, I have never seen it. I don't know. I don't know if it has. But the point being.

They're trying to get rid of the tush push. But I think that they're going to bring in a headache of if they have to actually manage that as a rule. Let me give you a couple points of clarity that I believe will exist. First of all, all pushing of that sort was banned prior to 2004. And it was too hard to administrate. And so they got rid of that. And that opened the door for the tush push in its current form to happen. I still believe the stipulation that will exist on this rule if passed will be the term immediate. It will be immediate push. I think that is the term upon snap. Just immediate. Yeah, upon snap, upon snap, which will eliminate this play, but not throw into question the downfield, you know, dog pile pushing situation. We'll see. I'm fairly sure that if it goes through, that's the form it will take. Last year. I'm not confident it's going through.

But, you know, we don't want to overreact in the other direction if it does go through because, look, Jalen Hertz squats 600 pounds. The offensive line is what's doing the push the majority of the time. I still think there will be a tremendous amount of sneaks going on that are successful from Jalen Hertz. If they get to the one-yard line, they're not going to be like, oh, we can't do this now. I think they're going to give opportunities for players to get into the end zone that way. It's not like Josh Allen's been having a tush push, and he's scoring 10 times a year. If you don't put people behind Jalen Hertz to push him, he's still super strong. He's going to get there. Tom Brady had an unstoppable quarterback sneak. You know, you just need something. He could know when and where to line up, and Jalen Hertz knows how to lift the house with his legs. Yeah. Well, he's never been pushed correctly.

No, no, that's what I'm saying, but he still scores on the ground all the time. Yeah, we get stopped way more than Jalen Hertz does. So, so that will we, but we'll see. Look, by the time you're listening to this, we may have some more insight. It's just, we're recording this early on Tuesday. They're voting. I think that's the major news. We got, if you want off season, muscle hype, Marvin Harrison. Oh, you can go look at big Marvin Harrison. He's gained some weight. Hey, man, love it. The. My old adage is when a wide receiver puts on weight and muscle, I love it. When a running back loses weight, I love it. When a running back puts on weight because they're like, I'm going to bulk up for, no, I do not like that. That doesn't work out. I have, you know, Marvin Harrison in my top 12 as well. Please, please. I think that's all we'll cover today, newswise. Mike, you ready for him? Do you got something else, Jay? I was just checking. I've got Marv at 12.