Undrafted Gems + Fantasy Fears - Fantasy Football Podcast for 9/5

Hey, this is Patrick Mahomes, quarterback for the Kansas City Chiefs, and you're listening to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast. To the Fantasy Footballers Podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. I liked it. It's a special week, Jason. It sure is. Welcome into the Fantasy Footballers podcast Tuesday, September 5th. Mike Wright, Jason Moore, Andy Holloway.

Very excited to be with you this fine morning, afternoon, whenever you're listening. Football is this week. Very soon. Very soon. And I find myself, dare I say, excited at the prospect of football starting. Wow. Just the prospect of it. Okay. Which has been there for a while. But no, Thursday. That's also known as the day after tomorrow. The day after tomorrow, we have real football that matters that will score us points in fantasy. Everyone undefeated right now. That will not be the case after the weekend, but we're there. And a lot's going on. We had our League of Record draft. I was going to say everyone is technically undefeated, but Jason and I, after the draft, we may already be 0 and 1. Yeah, we're, you know.

My goal is to not finish in last place this year. Once upon a time, some men sold their souls for a playoff run, something I respect and encourage. But the picks that you had yesterday in our League of Record draft, I mean, this was at one point in the draft, and I love this because there's so much to share from this League of Record draft. And the Rap Scallion is going to be sharing a bunch of. video and images from our draft because they are worth it. But my favorite part, I think, was when Jason had multiple consecutive picks really late that were clearly just players that would only be great if injuries to their major stars happened in front of them. Because he was grasping out a way to piece this roster together beyond his keepers. I'm going to need a little bit of luck. He filled out some insurance policies.

If you haven't heard us talk about the League of Record, we can trade picks. And often that leads to teams who are making a playoff run. People decide if they're in or they're out. And you swipe those credit cards. And I mean, it's interest free for six months. Yeah, like it feels good until draft day when the creditors show up. Oh, yeah. Start repossessing all of your stuff. We are a three-keeper league. So I have my three keepers, which are good. which, yeah, they're good and everyone has their first rounder. But before my second pick could be made, Kyle and I, which shout out to Kyle the Borgogan is in town. He's in the building, Ducer's Alley today. He flew in for the draft. Before our second pick could be made. Rahim Moster was already drafted. That's how dire the situation was for my running back room where it was just like, well.

I guess I'm not going to draft any running backs. Now, now Jason, I need to say this, and this is what will be shared on social. Jason is the defending champion. Yes. A long way. Jason did win the draft. He sold his soul and was rewarded with a championship. A bounty in this life. And he has a co-manager, Andy Schneider, who works for us. And Jason went full John Hammond at this draft. I mean, we showed up at the studio. And I didn't know any of this stuff. I mean, I knew he had spent some money. But there's a flag. Yes. Hanging in the parking lot, pointing to where the draft is with these pictures of him in the winner in championship jerseys. There's a balloon arch that we all had to walk through to get into the studio where a... Had to duck. Because once the sign was hung under the balloons, it was low clearance. Yeah, it was horrible. And then you walk into the draft room where a banner...

that was bigger than the, I mean, almost bigger than the wall here. It barely fit on the. I mean, it's a 15 foot ceiling in there, I think. And that was 15 feet of banner. And it's just both of their faces up on it. He brought cupcakes that we all had to make the decision to we eat these delicious cupcakes that are colored in the team colors for his stupid championship team that say eat it on top of the cupcake. And you think it's over. And then halfway through the draft. You get a ring at the doorbell. We're in the fifth, six, seventh round. And in walks Marilyn Monroe, the singing telegram who sings a championship birthday song to the champions. It was a shocking moment. I don't know how she showed up. It was like,

What is Marilyn Monroe doing here? But yes, you can sing to me. I am the champion. And so, yeah, we got all that on tape. And so he enjoyed that part, not the picks. No, the picks were few and far between. Mike and I had the same second pick. And then after that, I had to wait three more rounds for my third pick. So, yeah, my team is, it's going to be a little tough this year. But it doesn't matter because I got the ring on the finger. Mike. Did you get the ring? No. No, that's worse. No, I did not. I will say this. Al Borland had great draft. He had those pick. He had picks. Yeah. I said people decide if they're in, they're out. He decided he was out. Last year. Yes. So he's in now. Yeah, he's in now. And yeah, it was a good time. Hopefully, I mean, I know a lot of you drafted over the weekend. Hope your drafts went well. We've seen the rosters flying through on socials at the FF ballers.

The Megalobole drafts have started, and I've seen a bunch of those rosters as well. Hopefully you enjoyed, if you've already had it, you've enjoyed those drafts. We have drafts today and tomorrow. So if you are not in the Megalabole, which is the largest season-long tournament, you get placed in a draft and a 12-team. league. We keep track of the standings as a whole. We put them on the website at megalobol.com and you track along during the year. And then there is a tournament style finish to the season where, you know, from weeks 15, 16, 17, we eliminate half the playoff teams each week. And the winner gets a spot in our listener league and the title of Megalobole champion. And you can still get in.

Like I said, drafts today and tomorrow. You pick a spot, megalobole.com. Jason is drafting today. Oh, I'm tomorrow. I literally just like, oh, shoot, I drafted 43 minutes. I am tomorrow morning. Oh, all right. Oh, you said you wouldn't say. I did. I did, but I felt like I had to share it. Yeah. So that's going on. There's a lot going on right now. The draft was a blast, and we are into our quick question. What is your biggest fantasy fear? heading into the 2023 season. So is this like get it at like speak it right now so maybe it doesn't happen? Yeah. For me it's it's a positive fear. But I'm like I'm terrified. Well, this will make sense. I'm terrified that Bruce Hall is going to be.

Unbelievable. Just so good. Because he's always been my dude. I love Brees Hall so much, but because of the injury, I have kind of decided I didn't like where he was going in draft. You decide he wasn't your guy anymore. No, don't you say that. That's what I heard all offseason. No, how dare you? I love him so much. And thankfully I've got him in our main dynasty league if he does well. But there's a part of me that just goes, he's so good and so special that even though Dalvin Cook is there and even though he's coming off in ACL.

He's got the talent to just Adrian Peterson this thing and come off of the ACL and be a dominant great fantasy asset this year. But I do not have a ton of shares of Breece Hall across most of my leagues, my best ball leagues. Like I just didn't scoop him up enough. And I feel like I'm going to be punished for my, my lack of true love. Yeah, exactly. Conviction, strength, confidence. Those type of. Those type of words. Cowardous. So, like, it makes it really hard because I want him to succeed. That's a weird fear because it's entirely, I mean, I guess it's a fantasy fear because you want to see him succeed. Yes. You want to see him succeed for other people that drafted him. Yes. But you didn't get enough of him. Right. And then I'd be like, you would, so what do you want to happen? I guess I actually do want him to succeed. That's what I was going to say. I do want him to succeed. So maybe it's not a fear. But I.

You just don't like how you're going to feel. I don't want to have been out on him. Oh, this is. I'm really afraid that I'm going to find a briefcase of a million dollars. And I'm just, I'm not going to know how to feel about it. Right. See, you get it. Well, because he didn't put any deposit down on the briefcase. It's going to someone else. Ridiculous. It's FOMO. Mike, what do you got? I got that, uh, my boys in purple. are going to end up letting me down because I have backed Alexander Madison and I have backed J.K. Dobbins, JK2L, very much this off season. I think that they're both going to be fantastic. Huge opportunities. But this is the NFL. This is fantasy football. Things don't always go as you have seen. The probability hits the other side. So I'm still in, but that's like the biggest fear is those two guys.

are not who I hope and dream. And then Purple pain. And then I am standing inside the restricted area. And Andy just dunks. Oh, man. Because I'm not, I can't draw the charge. I mean, if, if it goes down for Madison, we are, I'm going to actually need to set up a dunk on you. Like, I think so. I think we'll have to get out of my house. I will lower the hoop a little bit. And I will dunk on your face. Yeah. Or vice versa. Oh, no, I will. I will do no such thing because I'll just say, yeah, expected. Breaking news. I don't know. This isn't Alexander Madison. No. Alexander Madison torn ACL. Dung the dunk right now. No, I, look, I couldn't help but break this news. Al Borland. I just found out through Slack, you ate a beetle? Almost. Drink. You drank a beetle?

What happened back there? Brooks was trying to cue me to change something on the back wall. I took a drink of my LeCroy and something didn't feel right. And I spat all over the desk and there was a beetle in it. Just now? Just now. Yeah. It's breaking news, man. This desk is wet over here. There's some water on the light board. So if the lights go out, that's why. Beetle get in the can. That's a quick beetle. I have no idea. Wow. All right. Back to the fantasy fears. Gross. That's a real life fear. That one is bad. I'll throw this out there. Poppa Josh. I'm good. We're all checking our drink. Mike did the same thing. Do we have a beetle problem? Put my hand over my cup. Papa Josh just said his biggest fear is that J.T. is out all season. Jonathan Taylor misses, which it could happen. I put this down. It's a bit broader.

than specific players, but just the idea that, I don't know, I was thinking this morning, if all the top running backs let people down again in the first round, are we going to be entering a new age formally in fantasy football of the workhorseless draft picks? I mean, are we going to be, like I love taking the powerhouse running back. I still believe, and we'll always believe that is the most valuable position to have because they're so scarce. But if you go a number of years where making that investment in the first round is not delivering the goods, I think it's going to change the dynamics of fantasy a little bit. And it is certainly possible. That's the way that coaches have moved. The like look at the early round workhorse running backs besides Bejohn, McCaffrey, he's getting old. Echler, he's getting old. Derek Henry is old. I mean, it's it's truly a.

conundrum for fantasy players. I just watched some social media video of people at one of these fantasy football conferences recently, and they were taking polls of people of who the biggest bust is going to be this year. And it was like, you know, Derek Henry, Austin Echler, Bijon Robinson. It was first round running backs that people had doubts about and is going to change the game, especially if like, what if Kelsey and Andrews deliver again? Yeah. You know, how high do those tight-in start to climb up or like the three big quarterbacks? What if it's the same three this year? Hertz, Mahomes, Allen. Yeah, and they're actually- They're going to climb up again. If somehow there's six points better again than like the mid-tier quarterbacks. It will be. It's going to be chaos. It'll be interesting. All right. Let's get into the news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance.

Sean McVeigh says he will have more information on Cooper Cups hamstring injury and week one status on Wednesday. He was visiting a body specialist. That's cool. To better understand the hamstring issue. This is, what degree is that? I'm not going to hit the panic alarm. But if we had like a slightly lower, you know how you go to like, what is that, the defcon levels? Yes. Or I don't know on the enterprise. What is the right before red alert? Oh, I don't know. Talk to the nerd over here. Yellow alert. I don't know. This does not have the right sound to it is all I'm saying. Body specialist? Do you don't like your wide receivers going to a body specialist? We've been around this game long enough to know that this kind of, this kind of language could mean a lot of things. I mean, this could be a player dealing with an injury for six, eight weeks or longer. It could be something wrong that is not being disclosed to us now beyond the hamstring.

I am just very worried. And, you know, last night we didn't have to draft Cooper Cup. He was a keeper for somebody. But what do you do here? Are you investing in Van Jefferson or, you know, Pooka Nakuwa or somebody? Or even Tyler Higbee, who we only saw one game where Stafford played and Cooper Cup didn't, but he had eight targets in that game. This is a big problem. It really, really sucks. And this is also why the later you can draft. in fantasy the better because, you know, I was in the middle of a draft where I had already taken Cooper Cup in a slow draft. And then it was like, oh, he had a setback. And when you have a setback on a hamstring at that age, it is not going to be a quick recovery. It's going to be a month. He will miss more time than we want. And then you just, you just pray when he's back that he can stay healthy at that point. And honestly, if you draft Cooper Cup.

You want him out. You do not want him rushing back. It's okay to have him miss a month. He is valuable enough to be a good pick. Like, for instance, if you guys knew for sure, he's going to play 13 games this season. He'll be healthy from week five on, but he's going to be injured the first month. Where would you draft him? Probably back of the second? I was thinking second round. That was my first thought. Second round, because once he's back, I mean, if you knew he was going to be healthy. That's the hardest part is he back back or is he half bag? And so that's where he's lower than that because you don't have a guarantee that he's going to be back and healthy. But certainly will, he'll change the landscape of fantasy by himself. He's the highest risk reward player now in the draft. Agreed.

All signs point to Joe Burrow playing in week one, according to NFL Network's Ian Rappaport. All right. Shane Stuyken said the team would use a running back by committee approach to start the season with JT on the pup. Don't care. Dion Jackson, Zach Moss, Evan Hull. So they're working out James Robinson right now. Moss is likely out for week one. If you recall, he had a broken arm, but he will be back. I mean, week one. There are, there's definitely some league scenarios, like deeper leagues where, or deeper starting formats where Dion Jackson is worth the pick. I would think as long as Zach Moss is out, Dion Jackson is the first man up here. But the overall, I mean, even once Zach Moss is back, even with the addition of Evan Hull, who's a tremendous pass catching running back, this seems like a disaster that probably only ends up at clogging your bench. George Kittle.

Oh, man. Did not practice on Monday. Groin injury. This is not great. Here we go again. So monitor George Kittle. That's just like what you should do every week for the last three years. Yeah. I mean, we've already kind of expressed because of just how George Kittle works for fantasy that he's not a great draft pick right in the middle rounds. He's not someone we're targeting. And this makes him. Basically off my draft board. But does this do anything? You know, we talk all offseason about there's a lot of mouths to feed with Iyuk, with Debo, Christian McCaffrey. That was the argument against George Kittle. Sure. But if George Kittle is gone, I mean, you're your MVP's. But like week one, right out the gates, I mean, you could see really big games for Debo and Iyuk. All my teams with Debo would be pleased.

Because it's still a little scary because of the multiple targets there. But you're right. John Harbaugh said Mark Andrews will resume practicing on Wednesday. He had missed a bunch. A lot with an undisclosed. It's ominous. Don't like it. But as long as he's back practicing. Yeah, nobody had ever told Mark Andrews what the problem was. They just kept saying, Mark, don't practice. Why? We're not going to tell you. You're hurting. But we're not going to tell you where. Is it my need? But if he practices... Don't ask again. If he's practicing on Wednesday, I mean, it should be no problem. He was your first pick in the draft. He was. Devon A. Chay, return to practice. Dolphins running back. It's very interesting. They're beat up right now. Jeff Wilson's not going to be playing for the first four weeks. You've got Chris Brooks getting picked up in Dynasty leagues because Salvin Ahmed has heard as well. Chris Brooks beat out Miles Gaskin, who was cut.

But yeah, it's mustard and it's most dirt and a chain. Yeah. That was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. Quick break and we'll be back with the waiver wire. I have something to admit before we jump into the segment, which is I did eat the cupcake. Yeah. Everyone ate the cupcake. Not true. You didn't eat the cupcake? I ate half the cupcake. Okay. Well, that's eating some of them. And Kyle ate none of the cupcake. I would never. Oh, good man. Good for you. I would never have eaten that cupcake. If someone else brought me a cupcake that said eat it from the champ, I would take that cupcake and I would throw it in the garbage. Jason, my, you are lying in front of thousands of people right now. I genuinely would never, ever have eaten that cupcake. That's, that's. If it was a donut. Okay. All right. All right. I mean, look, I got limits. So this is a cupcake. Yeah, it's a cupcake problem.

It's just the cup. It's not principle. I will be bringing donuts for my championship. My tow manager would not eat it in your presence, but he did take it home. There you go. All right. Here we go. Welcome to the waiver wire, presented by NFL Sunday ticket on YouTube and YouTube TV. All right. We are one week away from a waiver wire segment with recommended pickups. But this week we are going to be talking about. undrafted gyms that you can pick up off the waiver wire. I plugged in all of our rosters last night in our League of Record. And look, I'm going to be browsing. Yeah. And making sure that I, you know, I don't have a better swap or sometimes you go grab a player that's on IR and you throw them on your, on your IR and then go pick up a player again. Every single league that you're in that you have already done your draft, you need to go and look at the waiver wire. I know there's claims already in on the League of Record. News changes.

Things happen. Players are missed in drafts where you just, you didn't think about this player. I remember when you drafted Kyler last night, I was just like, oh yeah, Kyler was an option to draft. You know, that just, that happens. And so take a look and see if some of these guys were going to recommend are out on your waivers. And if they're better than someone you drafted, or like Andy said, if you were to have already grabbed someone that you could throw on your IR and need to pick someone up, we got some recommendations. Let's go ahead and share some undrafted gyms, and then we'll toss in some George Kittle tight-in pivots if you need some starts to start the year in case he misses time. Jason? Yeah, so I'm going to throw out Marvin Mims. Yeah, I like it. If you drafted in the last week, he might have been drafted. He's, he's risen significantly very recently. Denver Broncos rookie wide receiver. The first pick.

of Sean Payton in the Broncos era. This is a player who I loved. His production profile is great. Yes. Loved his talent, his film before the NFL draft. And I loved that he was drafted really high. He was a round two pick. He was the 63rd pick off the board, and he went to Sean Payton. The problem was it was clogged. You had Cortland Sutton, he's not going to play ahead of. You had... Jerry Judy he's not going to play ahead of, and you had Tim Patrick he's probably not going to play ahead of to start his rookie year. Well, Tim Patrick is gone, and Jerry Judy is gone. If Jerry Judy doesn't play to start the year, if that doesn't happen, that's vacating seven targets just himself alone. And you've got Marvin Mims now in a situation where he's in on two wide receiver sets. He is a talented rookie who is going to have to be on the field, even if he hasn't like earned his way yet.

It's going to happen. And so, you know, you look at these other great wider super. My guy, Jordan Addison. Jordan Addison might not have as much run on the field week one as Marvin Mims. And so I think if he's out there on waiver wires, I would pick him up over several guys. And you start the year against the Las Vegas Raiders. So he could get off to a quick start. And unfortunately, I do have to start him week one. I'm not like, I don't think you want to throw him in, but you can and I have to. Good rookie wide receivers don't really give the job back, especially when they're picked by that regime. Like if he does make an impact early, you know, that's the opportunity you're hoping for for these guys. So I think it's a good, it's a good player to be paying attention to. I've got one that'll gross you out. Yeah, it will.

And it does. It'll make you throw up any beetles you were eating. It'll make you a little bit older, yes. Adam Thielen, boo. Does someone say my name? I'm very hard of hearing because I'm so old. Yes, we know what that means. What? Old people just proclaiming how old they are. I love it. I'm almost 40. I think Adam Thielen will be the. highest scoring undrafted wide receiver in week one. He did not go in our draft last night. Good, good for us. Jonathan Mingo went ahead of him. That's right. It was in consideration for my final pick before Mike's undrafted Jim fell to me. But he's going to have six plus targets a week. He's going to be the top target for Bryce Young to start the year. Players of his caliber veterans, they are very helpful for young quarterbacks. And I think.

While the season may not progress in a way that you're happy with Adam Thielen, I think you could steal some starts in the beginning of the year. In fact, a good example would be like, you know, the Marvin Mims versus Adam Thielen week one would be a pretty tough pick for me. You know, Adam Thielen is going to get opportunities in this offense. He looked good in the preseason. He scored. That's what he's been doing his whole career. I think Adam Thielen against Atlanta to start the year. Seattle Week 3, Minnesota Week 4. You've got three or four weeks. I'm really excited about that schedule. And it is a worthy name to bring up. And I do think that when Adam Thielen has success, he will have some success this year. It will be earlier in the season. You know, it might get off to a hot start and then his body will clearly break down. Yeah, that was going to be my point of he just, we've seen veterans of his age start hot because.

Because he's healthy. Gerald used to do it at the very end of his career. He had a high target, high reception, start to the season, but then he kind of faded away. Yeah, the grind of the NFL season was too much. I got to look up his age again. He's 33, and he is. He's 33 years. And he signed a three-year $25 million deal. Yeah. Do you like Frank Wright? Do you like him? Do you think he's a good coach? I do. Okay. Why? I don't know. You just made a whole diatribe about Marvin Mims being the first edition of the era of Sean Payton and Frank Wright made the choice to go out and get Adam Thielen as one of the first moves of his era. Yeah, that's fine. But Sean Payton. Yours doesn't make sense, mind us. Well, no, Sean Payton is in control of that roster. I don't think Frank Reich is. Frank Reich is going to have a significant say on the acquisitions to start his tenure, including the quarterback that he had a considerable say in. But I think that's.