THE UNOFFICIALFOOTBALLERSFAN ARCHIVE↗Transcript links use the exact YouTube video’s clock. Machine transcripts can contain errors.
With Mike absent until tomorrow, direct video shows full-size cardboard Jay Griz occupying his host position for the entire two-man show. The hosts announce Jay in the house, tell Al to fire the ready cue, and say Jay gets his song once August begins; the animated I'M JAY GRIZ! card plays, but Jay never speaks live.
The show returns to five weekday episodes, adds Saturday research specials and Sunday Live, and describes the staff as content machines plugged into the Matrix to produce constantly.
Jason admits he has never won the Listener League, Andy immediately answers that he has won twice, and the surrounding announcement teases absent Mike as the usual standings straggler.
The 2025 submission window lasts one week and uses [email protected]. The hosts ask for a cool video or other unique idea that demonstrates a fun season-long league mate, reject standings résumés and two-paragraph essays, and note that hundreds apply for the fourteen-team league.
A creative submission can claim one of the fourteen seats, the Megalabowl champion also enters, and the Listener League winner automatically returns to defend the title the following year.
The hosts say they met Brooks through the Listener League and also met Bryan Ketron as the Biggest Loser through it, then note that several people became part of the show through those relationships.
After a quiet week, the recurring GroinIndex becomes active amid injuries to several players. The list turns into Groin City and a confused prescription for runner and butterfly stretches.
As the quarterback countdown closes, the hosts say Mike specifically wanted Justin Fields mentioned as the late-round option and explain the request with a simple recurring truth: Mike loves Justin Fields.
Complete transcript review, a full-runtime storyboard, and targeted direct-video checks show only Andy and Jason speaking live at the desk while the full-size cardboard Jay Griz bear occupies absent Mike's host position and microphone for the entire episode. The opening calls it a two-man show, names Jay Griz in the house, tells Al to fire the ready cue, says Mike will return tomorrow, and declares that Jay gets his song once August begins. Published video briefly cuts to the animated bear card reading I'M JAY GRIZ!, but Jay never speaks live or moves. The show also marks its August return to five weekday episodes, Saturday research specials, and Sunday Live as content-machine mode powered by the full team. The Listener League announcement is exceptionally explicit: submissions are accepted for one week, emailed to [email protected], and should be a cool, unique demonstration that the entrant will be fun to play with. The hosts reject standings résumés and two-paragraph essays, note that hundreds apply, and say they use a fourteen-team format to admit more listeners. Andy says he has won the Listener League twice, Jason admits he has never won, and absent Mike is teased as the usual standings straggler. The Megalabowl champion also earns a Listener League place, while the Listener League winner returns the next year. The hosts say the contest is where they met Brooks and Bryan Ketron—the Biggest Loser—and that several people became part of the show through it. Later, the recurring GroinIndex is described as very active amid a pileup of groin injuries and a Groin City detour into stretching technique. At the close, absent Mike specifically requests Justin Fields as the late-round quarterback mention, and the hosts say he loves Fields, reinforcing a fixation first stated years earlier. Routine quarterback rankings and camp reports are omitted except where they create these show-personality facts.
Well, that's what I was going to say. That would be the differentiator to me. If I'm sitting in the fourth round and I had Higgins or Chase, I'm taking Burrow over Hertz. I'm just going to do that because I like having a good time. The stack is so fun. I like that's the most fun time you can have. Yeah, that's fair. So I would do that. But again, I will highlight, look, you're a 200-yard rusher at best. So if you don't throw 40. You're not happy with where you draft Joe Burrow. He's so expensive for a pocket pass. He's just a good bet to throw 40 as good a bet of any money. Of any money. Of any money, bunny, bunny. He's as good of a bet as anybody. Number three. There is Jalen Hertz. Jalen Hertz is kind of a machine. And, you know, he is, he was the quarterback nine last year, missed two games.
obviously it was Saquan's incredible season, right? You depended on Saquan. The defense is fabulous. That's one of the bigger points against Jalen Hertz is the defense is so good that you need to do your damage in the first half or you did last year. But there is a lot of margin for the passing volume to go up for Jalen Hurts to need to throw it more and then he has the weapons to do it. So, you know, It's not 2022 where he's 25 points a game. He's been at 21 for three of the last four years. That's what you can kind of expect from Jalen Hertz. And that's great. Yeah, that's fine. And he is not going to cost you a second round pick like Josh Allen, but he won't be too far away from Josh Allen and in fantasy points. Like if I had to get a second round running back and Jalen Hertz versus a fourth round running back and Josh Allen, I will clearly take the Jalen Hertz site. So I think roster construction, fantasy football strategy.
That matters a lot. Jalen Hertz is pretty much a lock for 10 rushing touchdowns. The tush push has gone nowhere. And when I say a lock for 10, it's probably a long for 15 rushing touchdowns. I, you know, we don't know. Sequin scares me on both sides, right? Because obviously, if he does what he did last year and get close to breaking the rushing yardage record and, you know, go out there and run the ball for 2,000 yards, that's going to hurt Jalen Hertz. But at the same time, That workload he had at his age, if Sequin were to go out and get injured and you've got to throw the ball more, you know, the passing work really can go up this year despite having a good defense. So I just like talented players. Jalen Hertz is talented. He's got a great receiving core. I wish their defense wasn't as good. But I'm totally down taking Jalen Hertz. Number two. Well, I've got him at one. Mike has him at one, Jason at three. So he comes in at two in our consensus rankings.
It's Josh Allen, also a machine. Excellent. The stallion himself. He is the QB1 off the board in ADP right now. He is the most consistent thing in fantasy football possible at quarterback. You've seen it for six full years now. The last four, even with the James Cook explosion, the rushing game, the change in philosophies. He's still barely. barely underneath his points per game of his number one overall finish in 2023 who is the MVP of football and so he's expensive right he's going to be a late second round pick if you want him you got to spend up starts the year against baltimore and the jets on the road but josh allen is just he's very very safe he's just not he's just not a value yeah that's that i mean i it's funny i can't imagine drafting josh allen in fantasy football right now
I would love to have Josh Allen in fantasy football. I just don't want to sacrifice a second round pick. So again, pay attention to your draft. If your league is pushing quarterbacks a little bit later, another round or two, go ahead and grab Josh Allen. When he becomes a value, when there's a drop-off in the elite running back and wide receivers, I personally can't see taking him over Lamar Jackson. I think that... if you look at how Lamar Jackson has leveled up in his system and how Josh Allen is leveled down in his system just from a statistic accumulation standpoint. Like, we know the bills really, really, really want to run the ball and, you know, they've done that. Like Josh Allen threw for 3,700 yards this last year. The new system has really incentivized that. He doesn't have great weapons. You know, Lamar Jackson.
I think he's going to throw for 4,000. Josh Allen has gone down in that category. The rushing yardage, you're talking about Josh Allen being at, you know, mid-500s probably, whereas Lamar Jackson could push 1,000 or should be in the 800s. Yeah, I mean, Allen's going to have double-digit rushing touchdowns. That's not something that Lamar is guaranteed to have. I will say this, like the bust rate, like for Josh Allen went way, way up. Last year. So even though the fantasy finish was pretty good, points per game was pretty good, he had a 25% bust rate, which was the highest since his rookie year and way higher than the year before, which was only 6% of the time. So even though the great was great, you definitely had a drop off at times. Whereas Lamar. Number one. Lamar Jackson was with Baker as 50% of the time finishing.
In the top six at the position, that is... He was so good. That's delightful. And he was the second highest points per game of his career, going back to his MVP season in 2019, which was 27.7 per game. Last year, he was 25.3 per game. He is also drafted behind Josh Allen by, you know, a few picks at least. And... It was his most consistent fantasy season of all time. 16 finishes in the top 12. That was the weird thing. And I want to make sure that we don't just see what he did last year and project that for this year on Lamar. Like we did in 2019 to 2020? Yeah, I can't imagine that it is this consistent. He's never really been the most consistent. He's got those massive boom games. Now, I don't know if having Derek Henry there.
You know, making defenders stack the box. Is that what really changed things for Lamar? If so, great. Let's keep that going. But also, similar to Jalen Hertz, if you've got a guy that's rushing for 2,000 yards, that could end up taking some of his workdown. But the rushing lanes were open for him. He's going to run for over 750 yards. So he's not going to have a bad fantasy season at all. These guys are safe. Just don't. I still wouldn't draft. one of these guys over the elite running back or wide receivers if they're still on the board. Yeah, no, it makes sense. And if you have a late round quarterback to throw out as the countdown comes to a close, Mike wanted us to mention Justin Fields. Yeah, for sure. He loves Justin Fields, who has always been good for fantasy. Even the first four or the first six weeks last year, he was pretty good for fantasy. For me, it's Jordan Love, 11th round.
you know, borderline free quarterback. He could go nearly undrafted in your league, has finished at QB5 before. Love the ensemble, love the Packers opportunities this year to be a difference-making team. So Jordan loves my late round guy. For me, it's Drake May. He showed enough flashes. He is a player that I think could go out there and rush for 500 yards, level up in year two. He adds Stefan Diggs. I think the receiving corps is going to be better and Vrable. is going to have a much better team and system than what Drake May had last year. All right. That is it for today's episode. Ice and Fire. Mike right back in the building tomorrow. Another mock draft this week and a bunch of great shows as we get you ready for the 2025 NFL season, which is coming quickly. One more reminder. Check out Ultimate DraftKit.com. Pick up the UDK with the new Value Scout tool and the draft analyzer and get yourself ready to.
Make your friends look stupid on draft day. Goodbye, everybody. Thank you for listening to another episode of the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Join our fantasy football community on join thefoot.com and follow us on Twitter at theFF ballers.