The Fantasy MVP Episode! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/31

The Megalobole drafts are starting this weekend. That means there's still a little bit of time to get into the largest fantasy football tournament in the known universe. Come compete against thousands upon thousands upon thousands of foot clan members with the ultimate prize of the glory of winning the Megalabol and a spot in the listener league. Check it out. Megalabol.com. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore. and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Going with some Doppler effect there. What's going on? Thursday, August 31st. We don't do, we don't do sirens on an audio program. There is nothing I hate more than when I'm listening to a song or a podcast and any kind of siren comes on. I go, oh, no, they've caught me. So you think that our listeners, which I believe are, you know, it's a high 90%

located here in the United States of America are going to be concerned about that European ambulance that was on the way. I look, I took that as a compliment. That means that Jason thought my incredibly bad impression of a siren was so realistic on that drivers are pulling over. I got scared he thought he got caught sitting down. I was like, am I speeding right now? He got caught by an ambulance. That's what just happened. Uh, welcome into the show. They're on to me. They're on to me. They're going to haul me off to the hospital. Oh, give the IVs. Oh, yeah. You may choose prison over, over getting an IV or a needle. Oh, man. Um, welcome to the show. Yeah, I welcome in, uh, Jason Moore, Mike Wright, Andy Holloway, the fantasy footballers. This is the fantasy MVP episode, one of our favorite episodes of the year where.

The three of us, along with a large group of very smart people, share their fantasy football MVP picks. We also have a surprise special guest that will round out the group on today's episode of the show. And I'm excited. Deucers are in the building. Happy, healthy, present accounted for, ready for football. You're kind of my MVP back there. Which one? Yeah, I leave it. I leave it. I leave it right there. You're kind of my MVP and then they can fight over it. But we have NFL news to talk about as well. Lots going on. The Ultimate Draft Kit, if you're drafting this weekend, still available. Ultimate DraftKit.com. Still getting updated. And the Megalibol, which Mike just talked about, it's up over 15,000 entries now. I just checked it.

Megalobul.com. That's M-E-G-A-L-A-B-O-W-L. Megalobol. It's the easiest word in the English language. Megalobul.com for details, how to enter, how to join. We're drafting the 3rd through the 6th of September. So today's the 31st of August, so you still have time to basically you get in there, you sign up, you claim your draft date, and then the countdown begins to your Megalobole draft. And this year it's going to be fun. I'm in a league. Jason's in a league. Mike's. Again, I don't talk about it. Maybe in a league. And so you may end up playing with us as well. I'm very mysterious. And Jason, now you promised you would take it down last year. Yeah. I don't know what happened. Okay. But I did not. I did not win. But this year. This year I'll definitely take it down for sure.

You can find us over on Twitter at the FF Ballers. Mike is at FFFHitman. You can follow Jason at Jason FFL. Follow me at Andy Holloway. I enjoyed that our social media guru, the Rapscallion himself, posted some behind the scenes video of Jason testing out the t-shirt canon. Yeah, I'm really happy we got that because I want people to know that that t-shirt canon is a canon. Yes. And it could go through the back of that building. Just take out all the lights. You want them to know that you showed restraint when actually using it in the show? Yeah. Because you almost blew a hole in the back of the theater. I could have killed a man. You really could have. And some people were like, I'm really impressed that you spent the time making sure you didn't kill us. Did you guys hear about Bob? No, what happened? A T-shirt. Yeah, yeah. That would be bad. Okay. Anything else we got a cover here at the top? We're pretty good. I see nobody.

telling me I need to stop. Proceed. We're moving forward. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Yeah, the listener league draft was last night. So we got that in the books. I was drafting from the 14th spot in a 14 team league. Nice. So that was a bit of an adventure every round, waiting and waiting and hoping that somebody would make it back to me. But it was a lot of fun. We had a good time. we're planning on winning that league so that we can fit an extra person next year into the listener league. All right, here's some news. The Vikings and T.J. Hawkinson agreed to terms on a long-term extension, making them one of the highest paid tight-ins in football. So that old ear infection and that sore tummy or whatever else he was dealing with, I bet it's better now with four-year $65 million. $68.5 million.

Deal. Forty-two and a half guaranteed. The King of the Forest is now one of the highest paid tight ends of all time. The King of the Forest. I like it. That got me good. Thank you. Yeah. It's a little bit of a deeper cut. If you haven't seen a photo of T.J. Hawkinson lately, just know that he doesn't have courage. And if there is a wizard that can present it to him, he will accept it. Okay. He's doing good. All right. Here is some very important news. Oh, this one stinks. Yeah, but it is pretty relevant for fantasy drafts going on right now. The Dolphins have placed Jeff Wilson Jr. on injured reserve will miss at least four games. And Mike McDaniel's quote about the midsection injury and finger issue was that he couldn't protect himself. So they're giving him time to heal. He went on to say.

Quote, I definitely wouldn't be surprised if he makes a return this season. We will let his body tell us. That is a quote I do not like for the prospects of, well, will he be back in week five? This looks like a long-term potential injury. I have been drafting Rahim Mostert for months. Yes, you have. Simply because. He can be taken with nearly the last pick in drafts. Now, that might change a little this weekend. But if you get Rahim Mustard in the 11th round, reach for him. You have a starter. When you get to double-digit rounds, to me, like you get to round. I think before. Sure, but I'm saying in round 10 or so, he's still going to be there.

Because he's so far down in ADP. If you're in a casual home league, you could still keep drafting other guys. Reach on Mostert. Mostert should start the season in an extremely strong position for fantasy. It's a great running game. Devon A. Chain is coming back from his own injury. They hope that he practices this week and is ready for week one. He's at practice wearing non-contactures. Right. So he's not going to just be. the guy week one by any means, which means it's Moster. Mosterts, it's not just Mostert, which. Ahmed, yeah. So in the listener league, I tried to play the ADP game last night. With Mostert? Yeah, with Mostert. Yeah, I did too. With Mostert. And I took Rashad Penny. And because he was at the top of the ADP, I want to take, I don't know what's going to happen with Penny with the Eagles, but I still want to take that chance. And I was like,

Moster will easily make it back. He did not make it back and that sucked. And it was even worse this morning. But, uh, Svon Ahmed, I like, you need to pay attention. It won't be just Moster. He's also hurt. Is he? Neck injury. Wait, what? Wait, when did Ahmed get hurt? Day to day. Okay. All right. Well, that's day to day with a neck injury, probably from, you know, that's swinging his neck so hard seeing Jeff Wilson land on IR that he's like, whoa. But the point is last year when it was Moster and Jeff Wilson. It was a little frustrating because it kind of went back and forth because both were getting worked. So I think that there is a, I think there's a strong chance that Mostard is the one, but it might even be a 1A1B with Ahmed until A-Chane's ready to go. That's the biggest point on Moster. He will not be deleted from the rotation at any point, regardless of these injury recovery situations. He had games that were great with Jeff Wilson last year. He'll have games that are good with.

Devon A-chain. He will also get hurt. Yeah, I mean, he will delete himself from the rotation at some point this year. He did pretty well for himself last year in terms of staying healthy. Last year was a great season. I also think this does bump up Devon A-chain. Devon A-chain is someone that I haven't been drafting over the last couple of weeks because of the shoulder injury that he's sustained in preseason. He's not ready to go. I figured he'd come along very slowly kind of buried to start the season on the depth chart. But. If the other guys ahead of him are injured and Jeff Wilson is obviously not going to be there, that'll just thrust him forward a little bit quicker. Yep. Joe Burrow returned to practice. Big fist pump from Mike's dynasty team. Let's go. We have Chris Ballard talking about Jonathan Taylor said he was still complaining of pain in the ankle, which led him to be placed on PUP. Which I did receive an update. Apparently the last year.

of a player's contract, the contract will not toll if they stay on the pup the whole year. So we will have a showdown at some point this season when Jonathan Taylor is ready to go because he has said, I'm not going to play for this team. I want more money. And the management has said, we will not trade you, even though that turned into it. Go ahead and seek a trade, but you're hurt. So something will happen this year with Jonathan Taylor. What else do we have Jay Lonnie Woods on injured reserve? Yeah, Colts tight end. And then Jets head coach Robert Salah said that the team would be smart with how they used Breece Hall early in the season. We've never been worried about his availability. We just have to be smart, said head coach Robert Salah. The excitement is well, let's just throw him out there, but we need to be smart, need to be diligent. So there you go. He feels like you can take 30 touches. We have to be smart with him.

You want to start week one with Dalvin Cook and Rahim Moster. You might have a good first week. Yeah, I mean, this was always the expectation. When you're drafting Brees Hall, you're hoping that he has big plays in these first couple weeks because he's not going to get the volume that is bankable. But towards the end of the season, I still think he'll take over him and make Dalvin Cook a distant second on the depth chart. Zach, or it's uncertain if he can play week one. Makes sense. So what? Who cares? Yeah. Agreed. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Who's your fantasy MVP? I missed a piece of news, Brooks. Oh, was there something that I didn't mention? Just enough if you want to mention the Chiefs wide receiver news there. Oh, just about Justin Ross and Rashid Rice being packaged players to start.

Look, Twitter, Twitter loves Justin Ross so much. But he made the 53 man roster, but it's going to take a while. Again, is that one of the fantasy bullet points for a player, made the 53? Yeah, well, it's certainly very important first step. It certainly starts with that. Skymore is going to be a starter. He's going to have the first opportunity. And Cadarius Tony is going to be there from week one. And we've been kind of, you know, necessarily ignoring him due to the injury. and the impending injury that he hasn't had yet, that he will. But those guys are going to have week one opportunities. Patrick Mahomes has to throw the football to some other players. Juju had a relevant fantasy season, which is where Sky Moore is likely to start. I've been drafting a lot of Skymore. Yeah, and Canaries Tony could absolutely have a surprise week one. What's funny is this depth chart at wide receiver has seemed like just hot garbage for, you know, since the last year since I got rid of Tyreek.

And now you're going, Rushie Rice has looked good. And Justin Ross has looked good. Now they've got two strong rookies coming in. You add Cadarius Tony, the year two, you know, hopeful leap for Sky Moore that probably won't happen. Yeah, Ross is a second year guy. Yeah, it's basically his first. Yeah, I mean, missed it. But this could end up being a really good depth trip. When I, I've been like going, man, Mahomes is just going to do it again, isn't he? Like, of course. It's good for Mahomes. I mean, but. but it's not, I don't think it's good for fantasy outside of like one shot on one guy. And if it doesn't work out, like you didn't even mention Justin Watson. Oh, superstar. Justin Watson will catch touchdowns and make you say crap. I played a different guy. All right. Talk to me about how you define a fantasy MVP because this is the fantasy MVP show. I hit that drop, which means we're going to start listening in on some of the fantasy MVP picks. So we reach out to our friends around the industry. Love this episode. Get, you know, some outside perspective.

And I leave it up to them. I say, hey, who's your fantasy MVP? And is that your favorite, just your favorite pick, your favorite, favorite value pick, your favorite sleeper, the player you think is most likely to break out? You know, who's your MVP? And it pretty much a guy that you are drafting everywhere you possibly can. And that's kind of the criteria that we give them. All right, we're going to kick it off with JJ Zacharison from, uh, At, well, it's at late round quarterback on Twitter. Late round.com. That's right. And here we go. Hey, nerds, JJ Zacharison of a late round fantasy football here. When thinking fantasy MVP, most people probably think biggest value. And biggest value is usually someone drafted in the late rounds. But I'm going to go with an early round pick. I'm going to go with Tony Pollard as my fantasy MVP. I know he'll be gone in the second round, but he falls off draft boards at RB5 or RB6.

He should be at least RB4 in my eyes. And that's a significant difference in the early rounds of your draft. There may be some concern about the Cowboys just not giving him a much bigger workload than he's already seen. But in three games without Ezekiel Elliott over the last three years, Pauler's running back rush share per game has been around 73%, which is what we see from top 10 backs. In those contests, he scored 31, 34, and 22 PPR points. Getting him in round two is amazing. He's the perfect mix of floor and upside within a running back landscape that lacks a ton of obvious league winning players. All right. Have we, have we talked too little about Tony Pollard? I mean, I drafted him for the first time in the listener league last night. I went back to back Pollard and Jamir Gibbs at the end of the first round early second. It was a juicy start. I think we've talked about him fairly. He, uh, I can't he.

Got featured in my one article that I do a year, my hit squad where I kind of look every round, my favorite pick, and that's based off of what I think is the best value. I love Tony Pollard. I keep drafting him in our mock drafts. I get him pretty much everywhere we can go or anywhere that I possibly can. Well, let's turn to Rich Rebar at Lord Rebes on Twitter. Works for Sharp Football Analysis. And see if he agrees. What's going on, fantasy footballers? This is Rich Rebar of Sharp Football Analysis, and my fantasy MVP for 2023 is Tony Pollard. It feels like people are trying to talk themselves out of Tony Pollard, the same way they did Austin Echler three years ago when the Chargers chose to extend him and let Melvin Gordon walk.

Among 42 running backs to 100 or more carries last season, Pollard was second in the rate of carries to go for 10 or more yards. He was first in yards after contact per carry. His yardage and touches have gone up every year of his career. And with 232 touches last season, that's set to happen again this year. He has just 13 games with 15 or more touches in his career. In those games, he's averaged 19.6 PPR points per game, 112.6 yards from scrimmage with 13 touchdowns. In three games without Ezekiel, he scored 31.2, 33. point seven and 21.8 ppr points and elliott is gone now so we have a full line to goal line carries the first time in his career don't be don't make the mistake of not drafting tony potter in the second round because he should be a first round fantasy pick this year so a lot of agreement

It's a lot of numbers. I promise not all the MVP picks are Tony Pollard, but this is a... Let me go next. My MVP is Tony Pollard. Welcome to the Tony Pollard MVP show. No, I mean, you do have agreement there between a couple of smart voices, just with the opportunity. And I thought the most astute point that I was nodding my head to is just the fact that we are trying to talk ourselves out of it. Right. Because, you know, it just seems like... It's almost like it's too juicy so we don't believe it. You know what I mean? The too good to be true situation, they literally drafted a five-foot, five-inch running back just to calm our fears that goal line could be lost to Tony Pollard. So, you know, we're sitting here having to explain who Rico Dowdell is to the listeners yesterday. Like Tony Pollard is set up to succeed on a team that, look, I think Dallas will compete for that division. I really do. You know, everything at the beginning of the year feels like.

Everything that happened last year will just happen again. This is a good football team with a great defense with a competent to great quarterback and a running back that has done nothing but impressive. So I think I understand the well-made points of these two gentlemen. I really like the comp of Austin Eccler because I've been too afraid of the Lamar Miller comp, the very efficient guy who gets the workload bump and the efficiency comes down. But the actual talent of Tony Pollard, just watching him on the field, you go, he is much more special than Lamar Miller was. All right. Let's go ahead and turn it over to Kendall Valenzuela, Fantasy Life Senior Analyst and Director of Social over there, one of our favorite people in the industry. Let's get her fantasy MVP pick.

All right, guys, this is Kendall Valenzuela, my MVP for the 2023 fantasy season. To me, it's got to be Calvin Ridley. Calvin Ridley, I am buying into all the training camp hype. I'm buying into all the electric videos we've seen posted throughout social media. I'm all in on Calvin Ridley this season. He is ready to be back on the field. And to me, he's going to make up for all the time that he's lost. In Ridley's last full season, he finished as a top five fantasy option. He had 90 passes, 1,374 yards. and nine touchdowns. So I understand people want to be cautious because his last full season was in 2020. I get that. I think it's going to backfire, though. I am so scared to leave drafts without drafting Calvin Ridley. It's hard for me to pass up on his name. Like I said, he finished as the wide receiver four overall 18.8 fantasy PPR points per game. I know skeptics are going to be concerned about the one and a half seasons that he's lost, but I'm scared to leave a draft without Calvin Ridley. He's my MVP.

Look, I'm pretty bought in on Calvin Ridley. He runs at a different speed. He plays at a different level than the other receivers on that roster. And so I'm very optimistic. I'm on board with this pick. From the get-go, you know, when ADP first came out and was kind of set early in the off-season, it was like, wow, Calvin Ridley, that high. That seems pretty crazy because he hasn't played football in years. We don't know how he is. I think it's the unique situation that allows the training camp videos to be important. You don't want to buy the hype of training camp and, oh, these videos look good. But when you haven't seen a guy on the field. Yeah, that's your only opportunity to evaluate them. Yeah, and he certainly has not looked like he's lost a step. I mean, the beat writers out there, there are beat writers that have worked there for 20 years that say this is the third best player that they've ever covered as, you know, a member of this organization. The what best? Third. Third.

Third best player. Yeah. That's still pretty high. Like of all time. Okay. But who were the other two? I do not remember. So covering the, covering Jacksonville? Yeah. Okay. I'm going to give one to MJD. I was going to go Jones Drew. Maybe Fred Taylor. Maybe. I don't know. I just would have, that would have been good information. The, well, we don't have that information. It's such a funny, it's a funny quote. Yeah. How far can you go? Like, this guy is the eighth best player I've seen at camp. To be fair, I think he was saying he's one of the three best. I don't know that it was ordered. I don't have the tweeting from it. No, it's fine. I was very hesitant to buy into Calvin Ridley at the opening ADP. And I have. I've changed my opinion on him. And surprisingly, where when we started actually getting evidence, oh, no, Calvin Ridley's looking real good. All the reports are great. His ADP didn't really move.

It just locked right in. I'm surprised that he didn't skyrocket to the moon. So I think that he is a really good value where he's going right now. All right. Quick break and back with some more fantasy MVP picks. I would not have bought into Calvin Ridley if he was only one of the top six that that guy had ever seen in camp. It's kind of embarrassing. I draw the line there. All right. It's time to turn to a couple of folks within these walls. Let's get the. Editor-in-chief, Deucer extraordinaire, host of the DFS Embedding and Dynasty Podcast, Kyle Borgannoni himself with his fantasy MVP pick. Foot Clan. I'm Kyle Borganoni, fellow Deucer, editor-in-chief, DFS, and DFS for the Ballers. Okay, we said that, Kyle. And my fantasy MVP for the 20-23 season is Jackson, Smith, and Jigba, rookie wide receiver for Seattle Seahawks. This might be a bit of an unconventional pick for fantasy MVP.

But as the esteem, Jason Moore once said on episode 754 of the fantasy footballers. No risket, no biscuit, and biscuits can lead to diabetes. Yes, I get it. He recently underwent surgery to repair a small broken bone his wrist. But whether it's week one or after, I need to remind everyone, Jason is that dude. His over four yards per route run as a 19-year-old at Ohio State far surpassed teammates Garrett Wilson and Chris Olave. And the worry is that he's only going to be a slot-wide receiver behind D.K. Metcalfe and Title Lockett, but in preseason, he showed his versatility across formation. Keep in mind, many of the best wide receivers in the NFL came into the league labeled as slot-only guys. Cooper Cup, C.D. Lamb, Justin Jefferson. With rookie wide receivers, we have to draft with this question in mind. Where will these guys be taken next year?

Since 2014, we've seen 18 first round wide receivers have 50 plus receptions as a rookie, a number everybody in their mama expects JSN to hit this year. All 18 of them were drafted as the top 30 wide receiver the next year and 10 of them in the top 15. We will be talking about JSN next year in the same breath as his Ohio State teammates, a borderline wide receiver won for fantasy. But this isn't just a down-the-road dynasty take. JSN can be a second half hammer for your fantasy teams this year. We know rookie wide receivers often start out slow, but once the rocket ship takes off a rookie wide receiver, good luck trying to trade for them. Right now, you get to draft him in the eighth round as your wide receiver for and wait for him to just explode. The draft discount is glorious, the upside is massive, and the pick for MVP is obvious. It's JSN. All right, some fierce words on behalf of JSN. Do you buy it? I regretted drafting zero.

I mean, like every rookie wide receiver I drafted last year later in the draft, I did not regret any of them. Yeah. I think he's a great pick. Look, I'm still very pro team, Tyler Lockett. I think D.K. McCaff can have a great season as well. I think there's room for all three of them. It will be interesting to see how the season plays out if he really does replace one of those guys for some two-set wide receiver action for Seattle. But he's. It's talent. Draft talent. He is, I can't believe he fell that far in the draft. I think the NFL made a huge mistake letting him fall into the 20s or so for Seattle. It was a wild drop. And I think that that JSN is going to be fantastic. 20th overall. That's the 20s. Yeah, you got it. You're in. All right. He's one of the 20 top players picked in the draft. Okay. Yeah, Jason, it's hard for me to like.

Like, that's just not going to be a very fun analysis situation in future years breaking down Seattle. Like maybe it will, it's probably going to naturally happen with Lockett kind of going the way of the old man. Eventually he will. He will feeling. Because you don't, like, you lived with the Boyd Higgins, right? And then Chase arrives and you can't. Like no one drafts Tyler Boyd. I've watched him just trickled down into nothingness. So it's hard for three players to bring you the kind of consistency every week. And yet, you know Jason has to be one of them at some point here. It's certainly possible. And just since you mentioned it, like looking at the dynasty outlook, Tyler Lockett, they owe him a lot of money. So it's going to be interesting to see how Seattle handles it. Yeah. I mean, I hate to it.

tell you guys, but he is, I mean, he's not going to be your favorite forever. Lock it? Oh, I know. Oh, someday he'll join Adam Thiele. Yeah, yes. He will. All right. Matthew Betts's turn. I'm afraid of introducing all of his accolades and titles because he may just do it himself, but he's our injury expert. You can find him on Twitter at FantasyPT. And we'll just, we'll give the shout out the fun fact. Betts did send us a clip. Well, if Tony Pollard and we said, we can't have that. We can't have it just be all Tony Pollard all the time. So give us a different one. Yeah, I mean, mid show, I may have sent a trade offer for Tony Pollard. Oh, good luck. What is up, Foot Clan? This is Matthew Betts, the Ballers, injury analyst, and co-host of the Dynasty and DFS podcasts. My Fantasy MVP for the 2023 season is Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert. Look.