AFC West Breakdown, Hunches & Haunches - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/16

The Ultimate Draft Kit is live right now, and it is still being updated. In fact, this thing will be updated to the point of NFL kickoffs. Get ready for your drafts, sleepers, breakouts, busts a bunch of tools on here to help you make the best decisions you can make for your fantasy football team. Get in on the action right now, Ultimate DraftKit.com. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host. Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in. Tuesday, July 16th, back in the building. Welcome in, Footland. Back in the building. That's going to be what a lot of NFL players are saying this week as rookies show up. Training camps are kicking off, boys. The rookie dates are approaching? Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

Which means we will have more camp hype and the hype train will be riding through. They're laying down the track right now. It's a good time. It's a great time. I have been watching receiver on Netflix. So I've seen three episodes of that. I know the hard knocks thing is going on right now with the Giants. And then camp's about to start. But this happens every year. Like, you know, the draft is very fun. Free agency is a good time. But right now, just watching three episodes of that show. Of receiver? Yeah. I've just seeing football. Oh, yeah. I'm like, you know what? I'm missed that a whole lot. Oh, for sure. I, whenever this time of year rolls around and you see a play, you're like, oh, man, I do love this game. I'm caught up on the hard knocks as well, the off season. Okay. And.

I think it's way better than the regular one. See? I'm so much more interested in all the off-season transactions. But we're the nerds. Right, yeah. But so are the people listening to this show. Yeah, I'm just saying like the mainstream. I don't, well, we'll see if they get enough numbers to keep this going. I mean, they're going for it because it's the, is it the Bears? Yeah. And then did I hear an in-season? I think there's an in-season hard knocks, too. Which there has been. There's been an official hard knocks? There's been an official hard knocks the last two years. Really? With your Arizona Cardinals. Cardinals were the first year. Oh, I didn't remember that's hard knocks. I thought that was I was thinking of flight plan, but that's our local thing. Yeah, there's local things everywhere. The point was there's too much hard knocks. This season, in season they're going to follow an entire division. Oh. Which we already covered on the divisional breakdowns, the AFC North. Okay. So they're going to cover multiple teams this year on the end season, which will be interesting.

But I've enjoyed that receiver show. I know a lot of people watch the quarterback show. I know Papa Josh, you are watching that as well. But, I mean, it's fun. You get to know players. You get to know the personalities and what makes them go. So it's been a good time. Today we're talking through the AFC West, which I believe if the Chiefs win it for two more years, they do have to rename the division after the Chiefs. Right. If it's 10 years, right? If you do 10 straight. 10 is naming rights. How many years was the Patriots? 150. Are you talking about the Patriots division? Yes, I am talking about the Patriots division. Yeah, I think it was 13 for what it's worth. But at the top, before we jump in, we got some news to talk about. I'll go unfortunately. The UDK. Mike mentioned it. Ultimate draftkid.com available right now. Go check that out. And if you are near the L.A. area or.

the United States or, I don't know, the northern hemisphere? Just like wherever there's an airport. The 10th anniversary Megalos show, our live event is Saturday, August 24th at the Palace Theater. You can get tickets to come see the live show. We're also going to do after the show is over, which that will be a podcast episode. So you'll be a part of a live episode. And then right after the live show, those that are there will enjoy a half hour. to an hour AMA with Brooks will be back in the building. So Brooks will be hosting that and you can get tickets at ballerslive.com. That is going to be super fun. We were at that venue last year and it was a great time. I wanted to do a quick question, but we got to talk about news. News and notes from around the league. Vikings wide receiver Jordan Addison was arrested on Friday on suspicion of driving under the influence.

Last summer, he was guilty to a misdemeanor speeding charge where he was driving 140 miles an hour. Not good. This year he was driving zero miles an hour and sold out on the freeway, passed out in front of his allegedly passed out on the freeway. Now he's been arrested. Now he has no signs of Vikings memorabilia on his Instagram. Yeah, I mean, it's a real knucklehead type of move a couple days after. losing a rookie teammate to a drunk driving incident as far as how this affects fantasy football. Oftentimes with these cases, they'll let the entire legal procedure play out and then the suspension. So it would potentially be the following season, assuming that he is guilty. But I think the fact that he had a driving incident.

last off season. There's really been a couple big spotlights on the NFL because of driving incidents recently, including the Henry Ruggs. I don't even know. Catastrophe? Yeah, I couldn't find the right word. Thank you. So the fact that we're now on number, a second strike here for Addison, they might come in early with the suspension, but yeah, Jason's right. They usually wait. But now, like, now it is up in the air of he could miss a handful of games to start. Yeah, so the legal proceedings will have to take place. We don't know if Addison would be pleading earlier or whether it's a long process. Just don't know a whole lot, but that has happened. Keaton Mitchell was placed on the PUP to start training camp. As expected. Yeah. And then T. Higgins did not reach an extension by the deadline. As expected.

He will be a free agent next year. He's going to play on the franchise tag. I believe he's already signed that, right? He's not going to be back in Cincinnati. Correct. That would be really, really surprising if they find a way to keep him in 25. It is one of the reasons why I think Jermaine Burton is really interesting. All right. Any other news that we need to discuss? No, sir. With the season approaching so quickly. Jason, has it given you time to kind of sit back and reflect on my title in League of Record? I haven't thought one moment about it. Really? I'm not even like. I hear many people are thinking about it. I'm still not thinking about it. Really? I think you are. It's not deep down. Not even rolling around in there. Mike's thinking about it. Jason, with the season approaching, has that given you time to like think and reflect of my dynasty championship? What dynasty championship? Oh, okay. Okay. Okay.

You did take a vacation this last three days. I'm assuming to kind of forget about it for a little while. But you didn't quite hit all the spots with the suntan lotion. No, my back. I've got two. wings um you got the devil's wings on my back there's just like you know the haunches i don't know i don't know what you call him i think you think everything's a haunch that's what i think but there's it's it's towards the back right yeah it's a hunched 10 to 12 parts of his body as his haunches over the years uh how many haunts you got yeah and uh they're very bright red that's a new nickname just little wings uh just two spots forgotten it was the spray areas right

Yeah, I think I just- You need a phone a friend. Yeah. You know what I mean for the haunches? It's said best that Sunblock is a team sport. Yeah. Like I thought I knew what it was, but I wanted to make sure, which it is a buttock and thigh considered together. So you are- That's what I thought, man. I knew it. He's talking about his tricep butts. Yeah. He's talking about way up where his shoulder blades are. Also known as Jason's haunchy. No, my back butt. That's what I'm talking about. My upper back butt. I thought he's been using different body parts for this. You like that word. I do like that word. It's a good word. When it's, you know, when it's thick, that's a haunch. Oh, boy. I guess we have to move on. Let's get divisional. All right. We are in the AFC West. This is our final AFC divisional breakdown. And we'll look at players, coaches, rookies.

offensive situations, how things can function for the upcoming year. Don't look at the show doc, neither of you. Okay. Okay. Tell me how the division finished last year. Oh, I am aware of this because second place was the... Las Vegas Raiders with a losing record. And you go, well, the Raiders were so, so bad last year. They had to fire their coach midway. And they were second place. That's how bad that division was. But they were eight and nine. They didn't feel like an eight and nine team. You're saying they felt worse than that. Yeah. Yeah, I think, I think both. Because of dysfunction? They got it going. Yes, they did. If you remember, over the back half.

Both the Broncos and the Raiders had such calamitous beginnings to the season that you didn't remember that they actually were getting things going a little bit at the end of the season for both teams. The Raiders 8 and 9, Broncos 8 and 9. Chargers were 5 and 12. Chiefs have won this division. Eight straight seasons. Six with Mahomes, and they had two with Alex Smith, the two. prior years to Mahomes existing. So it is their division. They've owned it for a while. They were 11 and 6th. That was a bit of a surprising year for them. They had some ups and downs. And when we look at Kansas City, we've seen the adjustment in the way the offense is functioned. Jason, you've spent the offseason talking all about Isaiah Pacheco. Yeah, I think, you know, this is a team that I expect to bounce back.

to scoring more points. However, not all the way back to where they were when they had terrible defenses. Their defense is legit. And they just won a Super Bowl on the back of a great defense. Like the number one points per game defense? Exactly. That seems pretty legit. That seems pretty okay. And so, you know, you're not going to need to score 40. And when you've got Pacheco and a strong offensive line as one of your best weapons. You're just going to run the clock out at the end of the game. It's going to be easy. I mean, just because you have Mahomes doesn't mean you have to use him downfield. He really didn't go downfield this last year. Only five of their games hit the over. So there weren't the shootouts of days of old. And so that was an adjustment. Now you went into your rankings. I know so far this offseason, Jason. You're very high on Patrick Mahomes. They added Hollywood Brown. They added Xavier Worthy.

first round draft pick Hollywood coming over from Arizona one year deal no more NBS no more Jared McKinnon don't know how long it'll be without Rashi Rice yep that's still up in the air and then obviously we've got Travis Kelsey signed a new deal obviously I got that done for him he's on my dynasty team still working on a couple more guys yeah good work but how do you see you know they're going forward three in a row Do we see some balancing here? I think you've still got obviously a great offense here. They're the Super Bowl champs. I want to read to you their points per game over the Mahomes era. In 2018, they were scoring 35 points a game. That's outlandishly high for an entire season. However, since that point, 28.2 points per game, 29.6, 28.2, 29.2. So they're always at the 28, 29 points.

per game as a team. And this past season, they were down at 21.8 points per game. We felt that in fantasy football. You felt that with Mahomes, especially the second half of last year. And while I don't necessarily think, I mean, I was just saying their defense is better. They're going to be able to run the ball more. I don't, I think they will be, you know, they'll land in the middle there. Their points should go up this season. And I think that most of the players on the Chiefs are a little undervalued right now. I think they are going to beat their current.

projections or their, you know, projections based on ADP. Same exact win total as last year, 11 and a half going into this season. It's just pretty, pretty massive. What are we, what are we thinking, Mike, about the emergence of the rookie? Xavier worthy, everyone wants the higher upside targets for Patrick Mahomes. Yeah, I kind of wanted to start the conversation with Rishi Rice, which the legal situation is as of, talking right now it is still all up in the air and we like we have no idea what the suspension is going to be right it could be i think what is the high end that we'd have heard i can't remember from davenport he probably eight so it's like anywhere from it one to eight which that's a huge variance but right now going as the the wide receiver 39 and like

Before all of this, if Rishi Rice were heading, had a clean off season, was heading into the draft this year, he's probably a, what? Wide receiver 15, somewhere around that. I'd say like a third round pick or so right around there. So at this point, if you want to take on the risk, like wide receiver 39, it is really, really baked in there. Like that maybe the suspension comes in and it's four games. And you're waiting just four games for a guy who really, really turned it on there at the end of the season when he became the primary guy. Yeah, he's not like an elite route runner, but he was an elite yards after catch guy. You know, only one of his touchdowns came from further than 11 yards out. And they just, they were utilizing him. And his yards per route run is at a place that is very exciting. So I think that's the, what is your appetite right now for?

for with with his suspension and where he is going let's have that conversation then let's have the conversation that let's go outside the suspension because let's pretend it's four three two whatever go outside of that scope because i'm telling you if it's two or three games the conversation about xavier worthy is completely different i agree and so let's pretend they're all on the field right that recipe because kelsey's still going to be your your premium target Rashi Rice, they utilized him in a ton of different ways. They brought back Nicole Hardman. Xavier Worthy is there. Hollywood Brown is there. Justin Watson is still there, right? Yep, and they're going to have packages for all these guys. You saw Rashi Rice get the pitches around the goal line and the end rounds and the little plays. I guess I'm just wondering how you would. Maybe the suspension is making it more difficult to analyze everything, which it obviously is, but just because you're never looking at it as one big picture.

Right. And, you know, it takes some of these wide receivers, like even Rushie Rice last year, took him some time to get used to this system and to be. Yeah, you've got to earn the trust of Mahomes. Get on the field, get in all those different snap packages. And so if he is there, I believe he's the clear number two target, Rushie Rice. Kelsey will be the number one target. Rushie Rice will be the number two target. Then you'll have packages for Xavier Worthy, who I really am confident is going to work. I think he is going to work. I think he's going to have a successful career. All the metrics, my personal belief on the film, everything was good. The only thing that was bad is he's a little bitty baby boy. But by good, do you mean a good NFL player or you think it will work for fantasy football? I mean that all the metrics that we care about for working for both fantasy football and the NFL, you know, breakout age, college dominator, touchdown shares, all those type of things.

He pretty much checks almost all those boxes. So if he is a successful NFL wide receiver, and he's with Andy Reid, and he's with Mahomes, he's going to be decent for fantasy football. Now, this season, it's going to be a little bit harder because you've still got Kelsey soaking up the number one targets, and he's a rookie. I can tell you real quick, with my projections, because right now I have him at 11 games. I just took the... I took the kind of the high and the low that we're hearing about suspension. So I took six games off. If I gave him a full season, he's in my top 20. So like, and if it somehow comes out that it's only a four game or fewer suspension, there people will have gotten a huge fantasy discount. Is there any chance that it's pushed into 2025? I probably. I mean, the NFL.

Sometimes they move quick, sometimes they move real slow. But this is, this conversation, we haven't even really discussed Hollywood Brown, who I don't know how much he has left anyways. But, you know, if he's in that MVS role, whether you're going in on Rushie Rice or whether you think Xavier Worthy is going to, you know, he's going to have his big plays, but maybe he won't be consistent. And you got Hollywood there and you've got. Kelsey, this is why I like Patrick Mahomes so much this year. He has significantly better weapons. Because you don't have to decide. And you don't have to decide who it's going to be. You know he's going to throw a ton of touchdowns. And he's discounted from the past few seasons. Hollywood's 27, just turned 27. He's been disappointing, man. That's an old 27. It feels that way. I mean, but he, he just hasn't been good in a while. He hasn't been healthy as well. Yeah. I mean, the last time he played a full season in Baltimore, he was a top 24 wide receiver.

Arizona, he played 12 games, and he played 14 games out of 17. And when he was on the field, I mean, he was clearly hampered by that heel. Yeah, for sure. I mean, if you look at the first five games before he got hurt last year, he would have been on pace for 85 for over 1,000 and 10 touchdowns. That's great. Which would have been, you know, a lot better. But I just wonder to see a dark horse in the whole equation. I think there's a chance, but I would put it very low odds. If Rice is off the field and what we've seen of rookie acclamation in Kansas City holds true, I think Hollywood Brown's first four or five weeks could be very interesting because where else is the ball going to go? You tell me where are these going to come in on day one? McCull Hardman? That's where it's like Rice looks like, or not Rice, Hollywood looks like a sneaky start of the year. I think you get just an absolute roundtable of.

the guys there, like everyone's getting snacks. That's what it's been. And then Kelsey, what are your expectations for, you know, he said it's, he signed a two-year deal in extension. He's getting up there. They're going to, they're going for three. He's going to have a worse season this year than he had last year. And last year felt really, really bad because it was the first time in however long that he wasn't the number one tight end. He still has probably the best odds to be the number one tight end. It's just going to progressively slow down a little bit. But he's,

You know, if you look at his, you know, his yards per route run, his average depth of target, his snap percentages, everything has come down a little bit, but he's still great. And right now he's at a discount from, you know, you were drafting him with the number five pick last year. And now he's not even the first tight end off the board. He only scored five times. He had 12 touchdowns the year before. That's an area where like you could have a similar fantasy fantasy, even if his total stats production wise go down. But the. Touchdowns come up. I guess do you believe in him still being a difference maker? For your fantasy team? Yeah. Yeah. Like at a onesie position. Yeah. So then, okay. I think he'd be worth the draft then. Baltimore, Cincinnati to start the year than Atlanta and L.A. on the road. But they're at home for the first two games. It's going to be a fun year to watch and see what happens with this offense with Andy Reed. And back to Isaiah Pacheco pretty.

Just real quick. Because he's being drafted as the running back 12. I'm with Jason, and I think that he is being under drafted at the running back 12. He's at the back of the third right now on Sleeper. Over the second half of the season, he was seventh in running back red zone touches. And he was seeing so much work. As of right now, Jared McKinnon is not back. That was in games played. McKinnon was at about 7% target share. I think there is a world where Pacheco gets the, like that huge, that the Kareem Hunt-sized workload. They won't be a complete and total run first team like some of the Kareem Hunt years. But just I think there's a chance that he is everything for this team. It is. I think the reason as ADP is there is because there are people like me that has this, I have a weird hesitation giving him the.

push up into the upper echelon because it was you know he was 20 opportunities a game after the buy we only got to see five games of that before the buy he was 17 opportunities and he wasn't the player that people hoped he was going to be fantasy wise before the buy week so I have this like I think it's because it was such a small run obviously the playoffs are involved and that that is that's part of the picture but because it wasn't a full season sample of that kind of a workload obviously you guys are saying hey we're going to get there

Yeah, that's the bet that's being made. Is he going to become the real true, like, bell cow usage? And I believe he is. And should he receive that in this offense, he'll be great. I'm looking at, I'm trying to look at the postseason stats here. I guess he was all right. He got a lot of work. 24 for 89, 15 for 97, 24 for 68, 18 for 59. So majority work. So there you go. Let's take a quick break. Come back with more of the AFC West. All right. The Las Vegas Raiders just talked about him, eight and nine. Started out three and five. If you're watching a receiver in Devante Adams, he was unhappy. He was as unhappy a person as we were fantasy managers of Devante Adams. And then they went five and four with Antonio Pierce. Then they started.

hyper-targeting Devante Adams. He is a really, really interesting conversation, in my opinion. Adams? Yes, Adam. Yeah. I mean, you're talking about the alpha of alphas at the position who came there, who had the famous comment about it. It's not just wins and losses. I'm about greatness. Which, you know, some people turned on him because of that comment. I'm probably not on that side when your offense was as bad as it was before. The transition, you know, they have a great defense. Last year, they were 11th in points per game. People need to associate the Raiders and a good defense. They need to associate those things in their minds when you think about them going into the year. If you believe that the Jets are going to have a competitive season, right, you're believing it on the back of that defense. Yes, I know Aaron Rogers, we hope he can be everything. Or why the Steelers? You believe the Steelers can have success. Well, last year they fought through.

horrible offensive play. Like the Raiders defense was elite over the back half of the year under Antonio Pierce. And so they're going to be in the mix to be, you know, who's your second favorite team in this division right now? Are you handing it over to the five and 12 chargers because of the head coaching change? Yeah. Well, was that rhetorical? No, it was real. I mean, I knew your answer ahead of time. Yeah. But I don't think personnel-wise there. I mean, the Chargers defense for years has struggled. You've seen the maturation, Max Crosby and this defense with Antonio Pierce. They bring him back. Yeah, I mean, the issue usually always in the NFL's quarterback. Who's your quarterback? I'll bet on the quarterback over a good defense. You know, the Jets didn't do well last year with their unbelievable defense when.

They had no quarterback to throw it. So is Gardner Minshu no quarterback? I think Gardner Minchu. Edna O'Connell and Aidan O'Connell are absolutely not good enough to, they're not good enough to give me trust that they're going to have a magical season. I don't think they've got the skill set and the tools to do it. They're able to manage a game here. Colts were nine and eight last year. Raiders are a better defense. And the Colts, the Colts had a decent offense last year. Not thinking magical season, but realistically, this offense, I think it's going to be Aiden O'Connell, but that could change very rapidly. But let's say it's Aden O'Connell. Are they a bottom 10 offense? Or are they in the middle? Like, where do you have them? Where do you think that could finish? Last year, they were 27th in points per game among Brian Hoyer, Jimmy Garoppolo, and Aiden O'Connell. And I bring that up.