Sleeper Picks + Late Round Steals - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/22

What's going on Foot Clan? Great show for you today. I want to invite each and every one of you into the 2023 Megalobul. Yeah, you hear that? You hear that? The Megalibol is a tournament-style super league with over 20,000 foot clan players. We want you in it this year competing for the championship where you get to be the Megalibolable champ and you get into the 2024 listener league. Go to megalobole.com to enter. the fantasy footballers podcast with your host Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Another beautiful day in the neighborhood. Oh, Chubby, my neighbor. Tuesday, August 22nd, the fantasy footballers podcast, Andy Mike and Jason, Al Borland, on the switches and the dials, Papa Josh in the building, the Rapscallion as well.

fist pump, Josh? Okay. Overinducers Alley. A variety of sleep amounts in the studio today. You know, there are days when things just go according to plan. And we stroll in here and we all high five and, you know, share some donuts and then flip on the switches and we record a podcast. And everyone's got a good night's sleep. Those are great days. And then last night, you know, a myriad of our staff had things going on, but we're still here. We're here. We have, what, one, two, three, four, five, six of us, a combined 12 hours sleep. We should, this should be a great show. To be clear, the 12 hours is me and Mike. Yes. That's it. But we're excited to be with you. We have a sleepers episode today. We have so much going on in the fantasy football universe. You were just preparing for the show, Jay. That's right. That's all I was doing. Sleep, sleep. Sleeper. This show. Yeah. Oh, okay.

Oh, I get it. It was a real bad sleeper joke. My mind was not there, Mike. I'm sorry. It really was the backwards of what the joke should have. That's the problem. But we, that's Andy's fault. We lingered on it too long. I threw out the zinger. We had a chuckle. We could have moved on. We should have just moved on because it was so bad. But now here we are. It's getting worse. The more we talk about it. What a bad joke that was. It was the opposite. I want to welcome everybody that's brand new to the show. I've seen a lot of people on Twitter.

slash X that have reached out, said they just found us this year. Oh, what's up, everybody? Oh, man. Congratulations. Which means everybody, somebody broke the rule of not talking about us to their friends. And so I appreciate that. Everybody out there that is willing to tell other people about this show, you're a real one. Yeah, well, it's year two. It's year. All the you knew people, you don't have to tell anybody this year. You go and you win. Next year, challenge yourself. If you want to find us over on socials, it's at the FFF Ballers, at Andy Holloway, at Jason FFL, at FFF Hitman. We'd love to talk to you over there, follow the show. We've got a lot of good stuff coming as the season gets ready to kick off. But yes, thank you to everybody who is following the show, subscribing, leaving us a review, all the good stuff that helps us grow. Get the word out. The Foot Clan is mighty and strong.

The Ultimate Draft Kit is available right now. I know a few people. You drafted last weekend. I saw the roster starting to come through. Saw some people have some great success, I would say, based on diving in, building out that draft board, the cheat sheet, the, you know, picking up some of these sleepers, these late round guys. I saw some ninth round Jahan Dotsin flying on to people's rosters. Oh, yeah. Did you see my, see my boys'et flowers last night? Yeah. Oh, man. I could barely see them, but yeah, I did. Don't care. He was sneaking through the defense. Oh, man. It's good. The rookie, the rookie talent. I am so excited for Zay Flowers. I know you are. You really should have made him of my guy. He was on yesterday's breakout. Maybe something else. Yeah. But the Ultimate Draft Kit, you can find that at Ultimate DraftKit.com. Pick it up. You'll be ready to go for your upcoming drafts.

You heard it at the very top of the show. We've got the Megalobole right now. You can get there at megalobole.com. I feel like I'm just throwing URL after URL out, but there is a lot going on right now. There sure is. It's the season. You fill the utility belt right now for the season. With URLs? With URLs. It's figurative, Mike. Okay. There you go. So a quick question of the day comes in from David in Pittsburgh. With quite the greetings. So it's greetings and salutations. Isn't a salutation just a greeting? It's both. Yeah. Well, it's a double greeting here. So greetings and greetings. More salutations and salutations. First time commissioner here finally convinced my league to switch to Fab. Congratulations. Which is a free agent budget for those out there who have no idea what we're talking about. Two questions from David regarding.

free agent budget or free agent acquisition budget. How often do I run waivers? So let's start there. How often do you run waivers when you are on a fab system, which I guess we'll backtrack a second. A fab system is essentially instead of open waivers, which generally is ordered by reverse order of standings. And when their waiver priority is spent, you go to the back of the line, which is the kind of default standard for a lot of leagues. Fab is different in so much as you have a generally, maybe it's $100, $200 budget. Every team gets that amount of money at the beginning of the year, and you can bid blindly. It's blind bidding on free agents every week. It levels the playing field. If somebody wants to spend 80% of the budget in week one, they have the right to do so. They have equal chance of getting a player. But that budget is spent out over the course of the year. So, you know, if you're not good at budgeting in real life, you might not be so good at Fab. Fair.

But how do you run waivers in a fab system? Sure. So I'll start it off as in like the games have happened. So waivers are closed on Tuesday. Give everyone a chance to recover from the weekend, recuperate, really dive into the information and know who they want to target. Then Wednesday through Saturday, have it be, Jay, what is it called when it does it? So we run it. So the fab runs at a specified time. But then it does not open. I think they call it continuous. Closed. I can't remember the verbiage for it. So then it basically runs once a day, Wednesday through Saturday. Then on Sunday, it's locked until waiver time. It runs, checks everyone's bids, see who gets to add which player who, you know, who spent the most of their free agent budget. It runs as normal on Sunday as well. Sunday the preferred is have it open, run the bids,

But then it stays open because every once in a while there is a situation on a Sunday where a late player gets scratched. There was no news about it. You were not planning for it. So we like to leave an option open for people on Sunday. And it doesn't run on Tuesday. I think we leave it open through Monday as well. And then they close on Tuesday. Yep. Do you still have a free for all period in which players can be picked up on a first come, first serve basis? Only on Sunday morning. Yeah. And then the same thing happens Monday morning, right? Do we run it as a normal fab and then open after that? Right. But of course on Monday, most players are locked because they've already played their game. So Monday, you just make sure it runs on Monday, but it's a real small pool of players. All year long, we have a waiver wire section on the website. We have a waiver wire. We have a segment on the show.

Yep, and we talk who our priorities are that we're really targeting. We do talk fab budget, what we're willing to spend, like what percentage of that. So just make sure you tune in on Tuesdays. You know what, Al? I wanted to talk to you for a second. I was thinking maybe you should hit the news and notes button. I think that's a great idea. Don't you think so? Yeah, let's do it. Let's do it. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. I was trying to get that producer job security. Yeah, you know, I'm feeling lazy today. I don't want to hit those buttons. We got a lot to talk about. Yeah. I think we're going to spend some time in the news because let's start with the big, big announcement yesterday. Jonathan Taylor has been given permission to seek a trade. Okay. Moments after Eursay said, we won't trade him and we won't trade them now and we won't trade them in October. Yeah, but.

To be fair, it's not right when he said it, and it's still not October. So I think he's pretty, you know, honest statement. It does sound silly, but yeah. What they're seeking, though, I don't think they're going to get. They're wanting a first round pick value or compensation that equals a first round pick value. And then John and Taylor obviously is going to want a new contract. That's the problem. That's the issue. So you have to find a team that is not only willing to, like if Jonathan Taylor was cut today, just the Colts said, I hate you, you're gone, and he's a free agent.

I don't know what kind of a contract he's going to find on the open market given this time of year and the teams are ready to go. I'm sure he would find one, but it's not a big bada boom moment. But then for a team to say, not only do I want to give you a big bada boom, but I'm also going to give up draft capital to that team to get you. It just, I don't think there's going to be much of a market. And we've actually seen this with other players. Austin Echler. When there was more time left in the season and teams could make plans, he was given permission to seek a trade. Sure, but he's also 28th. Yes, he's older. You know, Jonathan Taylor would, you know, be a much more reasonable player to get a long-term contract. They get that. But my point is, the market said to give you both draft compensation and a new contract at the same time for the running back position, I just don't think it's going to happen.

It's something we'll have to budge, I think. I think the compensation costs will have to go down based on whether this team thinks he ever wants to return in play. There are vast fantasy implications here. Yes. It's not generally a good thing for a team, like for Jonathan Taylor to switch teams right now and find a good role on a good team. You know, we have a lot of stable situations. You know, I don't know if there are teams that pop into your head right now. Miami is definitely the team. I just don't see that making sense. Dalvin Cook is one thing. It's a one-year deal. It's a rental. You don't have to give up anything in terms of draft cost. But you just drafted Devon A-chain. You have a stable of other players in the backfield. And I don't think Jonathan Taylor is the prototypical San Francisco style running back for this team. He's not a speed to the outside A-chain Moster type of player.

He's not that type. I don't think Miami's a real possibility personally. I think I'm just, we're saying that should he go to Miami if Miami like ponied up the two second rounders or even a first, then it would be wheels up for Jonathan Taylor. Like I'm saying Miami would tell us with their actions. This guy's going to, he's going to be the dude. I mean, Jonathan Taylor ran a 439. Like he's not slow by any straight. Well, top speed, yes. Breakaway speed, yes. I'm talking about. You know, the San Francisco system, though, I don't understand why they would do that. It makes no sense to give up compensation in that when they could have signed Alvin Cook. I think they would take a significant step forward if they had Jonathan Taylor, assuming Jonathan Taylor was healthy. I mean, it's, you know, you talk about that San Francisco system. Christian McCaffrey isn't the straight burner. He's just a freaking great running back. And so is Jonathan Taylor. We forget how dominant he was.

a couple years. He ran for 1,800 rushing yards at 5.5 a clip. Like, the dude is awesome. There's questions about his health now. So that makes it even more difficult for a team to be confident to say, oh, I'm going to give draft capital money and everything. But I do think that if he were to go to Miami, he would dominate. Okay, we can agree to disagree there. The bears make more sense. They have actual cap space. They have actual compensation they can give up. It's a young team. They're not paying a quarterback yet. Right. You want to find that team that's, you know. Like the Colts? Yeah, just like the Colts. Yeah, but that situation is falling apart. Yeah, it has. I mentioned this in our slack. I think that Ursay is still mad about the Trent Richardson.

trade from years and years ago where he gave up a first rounder so he's like well you're going to give me a first rounder for johnny taylor which is also really funny of you're you're telling this guy with his actions like no we're with your actions we're not going to give you a contract extension right now we don't necessarily think you're worth the money okay trade me ooh we should we would get a lot back if we traded you right now well both of these things like they can't be running at the same exact time Yeah, I mean, it's just, I feel bad for running backs. If you're a fantasy manager of Jonathan Taylor or you're drafting this weekend, what do you do with Jonathan Taylor? Because, you know, he doesn't have a football team right now. Sure. The way I'm handling it right now is I, the same as it's been kind of for the last month or so. At his ADP, I don't like it. The.

The injury concerns, the contract concerns, mobile quarterbacks don't target their running backs as much. Rookie quarterbacks don't tend to have strong offenses and their running backs just don't do great. That is certainly balanced by the fact that Jonathan Taylor is an elite difference making running back. So he may be able to fight through it. But at ADP, I'm out. If he drops like maybe a round and a half, then I would. be willing to tick on the wrist. I think it's a matter of who's on the board. So for instance, right now he's falling. That's why I'm guessing round in a half. He's fallen into the second round now on ADP. He is at the 203. And when I look at the players and kind of the breaking point, for me, it's after Tony Pollard. Like I would rather take Tony Pollard over Jonathan Taylor right now. But the next running back is Najee Harris. And I think I would put Jonathan Taylor still ahead of Najee for that. I don't think I'm doing that. You're going to take Najee?

Well, I just don't think Jonathan Taylor is going to be himself, regardless of the roster in week one or week two. Like it's going to be a while. He hasn't been at camp. The injury thing, who knows how real it is? It's got to be somewhat real. Yes. And then he doesn't have a home. And I'm looking at like I'm looking at the entire landscape of the NFL. I don't think he gets traded. I don't either. I think the most likely thing is he slinks back into the Indianapolis backfield. Yep. And who knows how much work he gets in week one or week two? He could be.

A mid-season trade. Maybe, yeah. I mean, the bears, the bears could really use a running back and have space. Obviously, Miami has been in the market for a running back. I'm looking at the rest of these teams and I'm going, the only other one that even comes to mind is Tampa Bay. And Tampa Bay is like, you only do that if you're in the comp, if you're competing for a Super Bowl. The only other team that came to mind immediately for me was the other team competing for Christian McCaffrey. And that was the Buffalo Bills. The Buffalo Bills were going hard at a superstar running back because they thought that would put him over the top. Yeah, that makes sense. You know, right now, I think they are very happy with what they've had from James Cook in camp. But again, Jonathan Taylor is a special talent. We forget because he was injured last year how good he is. Injuries. Let's talk about what happened yesterday. Terry McLaurin. Yeah.

He exited the preseason game against the Ravens with a turf toe injury. X-rays were negative. He's going to undergo an MRI. Our own injury expert, Matthew Betts, who's the co-hosts of the Dynasty podcast and the DFS show, you know, normally four to six weeks. Turf toe is a big time bummer. It, like, it lags or, like, it just lingers. Thank you. It stays around for a while, and it really hurts a, hurts a player. Like, you lose your explosiveness. So hopefully it's. I mean, I don't know the levels of turf though, but we're standing by for some good news, but expecting the worst. Yeah, that's not good. I mean, Jahan Dotson had a big game in the preseason game last night, and his average reposition is going to rise just based on this news. After this news, I put the risk up a little bit with Terry McLaurin, took a few targets down because it's realistic that he might not even be there week one. And if he.

is there, he's not at full strength. And actually, I have Terry McLaurin, who everybody knows I really, really liked this year. But after those changes, Terry McLaren is not that far ahead of Johan Dotson to me. He is an ADP, but he's just not in end of season rankings. Sam Hal looked good again. He did. He did. And then we found out moments ago that Seahawks wide receiver, my breakout name yesterday on the show. Jackson, Smith, and Jigba undergoing wrist surgery today in Philadelphia could still have a chance to be ready for the start of the season, but surgery is going to determine how long he will miss. This is bad. Yeah. But the, yeah, so let's say, let's say he's back week two. We don't, we miss one game. What are you doing with his ADP? Like, are you, are, do you need it to go down?

One round, two rounds? Are you just, are you fine saying, no, this is a truly special rookie. I'll still willing to take him at ADP and just hold. I'm seeing seventh round right now? Yeah, he will probably drop because of this news. And I don't know that he necessarily should. If you believed in him as a talent. You're taking Dotson? Are you taking Jackson Smith? I would take Dotson. Who's going a round or two later? Yeah, I mean, so. Obviously, where he's going in general, I haven't been taking it. But my point is, wherever you have been drafting Jackson Smith and Jigba, I don't believe it should be viewed significantly differently. He got in the entire training camp. He's probably not going to play, you know, what is he missing game-wise? Like a little bit of the third preseason game. Sure. And then you didn't really draft. Like when I love Jordan Addison. He's my guy.

I'm not starting Jordan Addison in week one. I'm not even expecting him to play the majority of snaps. This is a season long rookie wide receiver pick. So I'm not allowing how the beginning of the season might be slowed to rob me of the talent that you could see the second half of the season. If you draft him and he doesn't play, you will get to put him on an IR and you will get to pick up another player. True. Todd Bulls announced that Baker Mayfield is the team starting quarterback in Tampa. And you know what? Man, dude, I love making fun of Baker. He hasn't looked that bad to me. Like, I've seen some, the preseason early training camp was comically bad. Yeah, but it was a few plays, you know? Yeah, but those are, I mean, all it takes is one hysterical looking play. Yeah. To fulfill our biases against the player. But he's actually, he's actually looked pretty good. Yeah, week one, he looked like week one. Oh, this is done. I mean, he had this strong end of the season in a handful of games for the Rams too.

You know, especially that amazing game that he came in. That was so cool. He got traded and then two days later was starting. And then had a great game. Jason, you wanted to talk about this in the news, just the Damian Pierce preseason usage situation. Yes, we didn't talk about it coming in off of preseason action yesterday, and I think that that is doing a disservice to the foot clan, because what we saw in the preseason game and the utilization was that he was used completely. It was like 12 of the first 14 snaps with the starters out there. It was Damien Pierce.

first thought when I looked at that was like, oh, did Devin Singletary not play? Was he, you know, rested as the veteran? No, he did play later. He came in behind him. It looks like Damian Pierce has a real stranglehold on that position. And I know I spent some of the offseason talking about my skepticism with Damian Pierce because of his lacking of solid draft capital, a new regime, and you add a veteran good running back in Devin Singletary. However, I think it is worth pivoting and changing your opinion when you see this kind of utilization. He was in on third downs. He was in on types of plays that he didn't play at all last season. It was all Rex Burkhead in there. And so I raised Damian Pierce up significantly. I am much more bullish on his outlook for this season. Grobin style. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Damian Pierce looks to be Belkow Central. And if this team has, you know,

I guess a little bit more ceiling in certain games with a different quarterback and C.J. Stroud, who he's going to have his ups and downs. But if Damien Pierce is on the field, then you're going to have, you know, he's going to be in contention for some nice finishes. Miles Sanders, George Kittle, Elijah Mitchell, and Isaiah Pacheco all returned to practice. Pacheco took over first string work. Anything else? Anything else going on? Everybody's staying healthy in the last 10 minutes. We're good back here. I'm seeing thumbs up. I'll tell you. Very talkative group inducer's alley. They should trade Jonathan Taylor for Clyde Edwards Allaire. Oh, your dynasty team. What? No, Jason, Jason. No, this is a football move. Let me ask you a question. If the NFL draft started like this last one that just went by. Okay. And Jonathan Taylor was just...

thrown in the mix with the rest of the rookie players. You know, you had Bijan, you had Jamir Gibbs. And he comes with a brand new rookie contract. Sure. Where does he go? He probably goes... Top ten? Yeah, top... He goes ahead of Gibbs. Does he go ahead of Bijon? No. Beijon would go first. I mean, that's a... I think the... With the fresh rookie contract, I don't know. I think... Are you saying, like, we know everything we know about Jonathan Taylor right now? I guess it's... Or the draft prospect, Jonathan Taylor. No, I think he said we know. Like if Jonathan Taylor was in the draft right now, because I'm trying to think of teams giving up a first. You know, is it going to be teams at the back of the first round? That would be willing to do it. I mean, without the contract considerations? Because right now it's a rental, right? Yeah, yeah. He's not going for a first. He might go for like, he might go for like a two and a three and a three, two years from now or something. I think he's playing for the Colts.

Yeah. It's a wild situation. I mean, Sequin, you got him back in camp. You were happy if you had the investment in him. Jacobs, it looks positive right now, although he's not there. So I am not like the amount of reports that have been like Jacobs will be back next week. Well, he's at the buffet. Stop it. He's coming back in shape. That dude works. Oh, it's a shape. It's a different shape. All right. That was today's news and notes brought to you by USAA Insurance. Learn more at USAA.com. slash insurance. Okay, I just took a glance over here in Jason's direction. Mm-hmm. Something I try not to do very often. Yeah. It's dangerous. It's Medusa-like. He's not... You don't want to get excited. I hear you. He's not one of the sleepers I'm talking about. I'm proud of you. I thought today, based on what happened to you last night, which you didn't get a lot of rest, you might actually be asleep by now.

No, no, I'm still awake. And I feel, I feel better now than I did at the beginning of the show. Rejuvenated with all those injury news? Yeah, they really pumped me up, you know. All right, into the sleepers we go. Sleepers. All right, we've all picked out kind of a main sleeper to bring to your attention today on the show, along with a couple of their names that we want to mention to you. We've got a bunch of sleepers, breakouts, bust and values in the ultimate draft kit. These are players that we're individually picking out for today's show. Maybe players that you aren't necessarily aware of their opportunity that may be kind of forming over the course of training camp. Different reasons why they might be able to excel. Jason, I am.

Certainly in agreement with yours. So why don't you give it a, why don't you start us off? Yeah. So this was chosen for me about a week and a half ago, you know, in preparation for this show. This was not a reaction to his incredible breakaway 60 plus yard touchdown run that we saw in week two of the preseason. But my player is Jalen Warren, the backup running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers, a second year player who was an undrafted free agent from Oklahoma State. He looked special last year on the field. That was the first thing I noticed. He reminded me so much of Austin Echler and just kind of whenever I watched him this smaller, and I don't know how much of the undrafted nature is like seeping into that evaluation where it's like it's rare for an undrafted free agent to look so good. Well, he has that quick, that twitchy type of speed and you were, look, Najee's not the fastest guy in the world. So I think it's, uh,