Free Agent Frenzy! + Austin Ekeler Joins the Show

Yeah, I think this is still going to be Trubisky's team. They've said from the beginning they want to bring in a veteran to push him to compete. Their best case scenario is that they wasted money on Foles. I've seen that set on Twitter by inside sources and that's what they want and they're going to put themselves in a place.

to at least have the chance to realize that. The good news is Nick Foles, while not a great starter, has some kind of weird magic where when he comes in as the backup and takes over for a starter, then he's great. You know, he's a Super Bowl MVP type of great. So, yeah, go ahead and start Trubisky and then a couple games in, bring in the superstar backup.

I can't imagine how much money Foles will get because he restructured his deal where he can opt out. So if he comes in and is great, he's going to be like, okay. Get another starter deal. He's going to get another starter deal for massive money as the cap goes up. He's going to be the new Matt Flynn and his goal is just signing contracts. But I love Nick Foles, the dude. So I'm, I'm super happy for him. All right. I think we've exhausted the.

The actual quarterback news, some smaller stuff. Marcus Mariotto went to the Raiders. He could end up pushing Derek Carr out of a job, and the Browns grabbed Case Keenham as their backup. Moving on to the running back position, the Dolphins signed. Melvin Gordon. Oh, no, they did not. They showed interest, but they went with Jordan Howard. I haven't heard. I know.

now is when I'm supposed to talk about Jordan Howard, but I haven't heard one. But now I've piqued your interests. Yes, because where is the interest for Melvin Gordon? I don't. I keep messaging our Slack saying has anybody heard Melvin Gordon news. There are rumors about everyone. High level, low level, mid level. It doesn't matter. Everyone has news except him is just like crickets. There is no, it seems like there's no market for Melvin Gordon. But yes, Jordan Howard signs with the dolphins.

Look, I said this before the signing, and I believe it now, he will outproduce his average draft position. Jordan Howard is not a guy. People enjoy liking. They want to disparage him. They want to play the tuba sound effect and be like, oh, he's this non-pass catching trod down the field. And now he goes to the dolphins, which ensures his draft stock is not going to be high. Who wants the running game for the dolphins? Not me. Not me. But the point is,

where he's going to fall to. Look, he's been good. I mean, Jordan Howard is good. I believe that. Yes, Jordan Howard is a good running back, but his situation, I mean, this is grim. You're on the dolphins. I mean, who knows? Who knows? I mean, the reason why he was, he was becoming valuable last year because he was turned into this touchdown machine. He was getting all the touchdowns for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Ryan Fitzpatrick can run an offense. So maybe Jordan Howard has some touchdown upside at the beginning of the year. I'm just trying to spin it. Do you know how old Jordan Howard is? Not old. I would guess 26. Yeah, he's 25 right now. All right. I think he might be 26 when the season enters. But it feels like he's 32. He's just been out, you know, having a thousand yard seasons for, you know, the last.

better half of the decade. And teams don't want him. And teams don't want him. He's not a great pass catcher. That's been proven. That's not like opinion. Yeah, that's science now. That's science. That he is just not that good at that. So, you know, it's going to drive his fantasy stock down as well. But I think, look, at certain times last year, people were picking up and playing layered and belage. And, you know.

Jordan Howard. I do remember Patrick Laird's season. That was fun. Yeah. So if Patrick Laird can do a little bit of fantasy relevant work, Jordan Howard certainly can. And he'll be late in drafts. He'll be a guy where you can have as your bench running back where you're not talking about, oh, would you accept him as your RB2? I think you're going to have him possibly as your RB4 because nobody's going to want him. And I'll take him all day there because depth matters in fantasy.

NBC Sports reported that Jerich McKinnon. Oh my goodness. Agreed to restructure his contract with the 49ers. The 49ers placed a second round tender on Matt Berita. So if you don't remember, Derek McKinnon originally signed with the 49ers in 1992. He has not yet played a single game for them in real season, but he is still a 49ers. It's unbelievable. I mean, it's just, it's so surprising. Here's what, here's.

why we bring this up. I hope you had fun with Rahim Mostert last year. Because this team had three running backs last year. And if they're keeping McKinnon, because I mean, he restructured, that doesn't guarantee him a spot on this team. But if they are, if they have four running backs. He's a running back. So I'm pretty sure he's guaranteed a spot. I mean, they're going to with the 49ers. Four is not enough. Four is not enough. My name is Jeff is going to be back.

Is he what? Hold on. No. Jeff Wilson is back? He will be. By the time the season rolls around it, they're looking for 16 or 17 running backs led by my guy, Kyle Eusecheck, who is awesome. He'll be out there. Here's the truth. Every single game, someone is very fantasy relevant for the San Francisco 49ers run game behind Kyle Shanahan. It's going to be a great role. Derek McKinnon will probably be undrafted.

but could be relevant. It's just a crazy piece of news, really. It's too early to tell how that running back core is going to shake down. But it is, it's just funny because it's like people don't even remember he's there. Oh, yeah. So Brooks is letting us know that Jeff Wilson was in fact re-signed. That's right. March, just a couple weeks ago. They're like, yeah, let's get all about, bring them all in. I don't know. Maybe they don't know Melvin Gordon's out there. Oh, don't tell them. Please.

All right, moving on to wide receivers. We already exhausted the Stefan Diggs trade while we were between shows. The Cowboys figured it out. They got Amari Cooper under contract. Five years, $100 million. Good for you, Cowboys. This was the move that you had to make. And now you've got to figure things out with Dak, of course, who is currently on the franchise. He turned down more money.

from the Redskins. You're talking about Amari Cooper right now. Yes, Amari Cooper was offered more money to go to the Washington Redskins and division. He turned it down. He wants to be part of this franchise. And I think it's good. I know you and I disagree, right? Amari Cooper has every single year of his career been great at the end on paper. And great for 50% and great for 50% of his games. But he's been atrocious for fantasy. He has let fantasy players down because his consistency is...

exactly what we try to avoid. 50% of the time he's great, 50% of the time he's bad. Last year, looked like that was not going to be the case. Turned out to be the case because he was great in the beginning and terrible in the end. I believe it was injury as the reason that he was terrible in the end. I think his consistency in the beginning, I will be in on Amari Cooper this year. You will be out on Amari Cooper as if it was me with Philip Rivers. I, yeah.

I like to hate. I like to pretend to hate Amari Cooper. He is good. It's great that he's back with the Cowboys. A couple house cleaning notes here. The Bengals franchised AJ Green as was going to be expected. The Houston Texans, they found their replacement. Oh, yeah. For DeAndre Hopkins. They signed Randall Cobb to a $27 million contract. You wanted to.

Okay, San Francisco has all the running backs. Houston has all the slot wide receivers. Oh, my goodness. What are they doing? Here's the difference. San Francisco's great. They're running backs. They're banking on our man. Oh, yeah. Kenny Bill's, y'all. Kenny Bill's season, hopefully. Oh, yeah. My dynasty team would be very happy. Kenny Bill's season, let's get that done.

Now, my dynasty team would be very happy if it were Alan Lazard season because the Packers brought him back on a one-year deal. The Jags put a second round tender on Keel and Cole? What? Yeah, that was really surprising. What? Okay. Okay. All right. You really needed Keel and Cole. And in tight-end news, we were wrong. Well, I was wrong about Jimmy Graham. I remember you saying he's going to sign.

And he signed immediately. I said he would sign because there are poorly run franchises out there who would stupidly make a sign Jimmy Graham. And then the Bears, I said the team holding that bag, the Chicago Bears brought him in on a two-year deal. And the crazy thing to me is usually, usually bad franchises start at the top, like ownership. But the Bears are a storied franchise. They're a great franchise. But.

I don't know, man. It's like you win GM of the year and all of a sudden you think you can do no wrong. And since that time, I feel like the Bears GM has just constantly been making head scratchers. Well, because they want to compete. San Francisco's got the running backs. Chicago has the tight ends. I'm looking at our lads right now. And we have 10 tight ends on the roster. That's because nobody stays healthy. What is that?

And this doesn't even have Jimmy Graham on it yet. Well, the great thing is they've had a real issue with injuries at the tight end position. So they go out and sign Jimmy Graham. Yeah, that's the move. The Seahawks put a second round tender on Jacob Hollister, aka Abercrombie. So we're going to have a logjam at tight end up in Seattle. And the Raiders signed Jason Whitten.

For some reason. I think this was just a Monday night football connection. They wanted to bring Jason Witten and Gruden together because just imagine the hype speeches that they can give. I don't know if Booger is too far removed from his playing days, but rumors are maybe he'll sign. Fair enough. All right. The episode is going to run a little bit long today. But you know what? I don't think that matters right now. People need content. People need stuff to listen to.

So listen to my interview with Awesome Eccler. You talking to me? The fantasy footballers are extremely excited to bring in one of our favorite players for an interview here. Austin Echler, my friend, congratulations on the new contract. I mean, what you have accomplished from undrafted to this level of success. How are you feeling about securing the bag, my friend?

Hey, first off, I just want to start off by saying, thank you for having me on. I appreciate you guys in time. Of course. No, the feeling, man, the feeling's amazing. You know, just, like you said, for going from undrafted to finally, you know, coming my time of contract year and actually being able to secure contact with the team that I started with is amazing feeling. Personally, and just, you know, knowing the connection with me and the charge is just strong.

At what point throughout the year, or maybe it was in the off season, at what point did you start to feel confident that a new deal was going to get done? Not necessarily through the year. It was after the year. I had a pretty good year as far as what I was given for my workload. And it came up to the point where it's, okay, this is my contract year. And it's like, look, they can tender me, which is usually the option that teams go or, you know, if it liked me enough.

You know, we could have some negotiation. So when we first started out, you know, talking about just as far as my role on the team, we were kind of a different mindset, but ended up chisling down to an agreement. So at the beginning of our negotiation as far as a long-term deal, we were really far apart. So I figured, yeah, I'd probably just get the tender. But then, like I said, we ended up coming to an agreement just as far as, like, what type of player I am? Because it's kind of different. If you look at me, you know, I've been a backup for...

You know, on paper, I've been a backup for like three years. But to me, I've never really felt like a backup. I felt like I always had a position or a role on the team that was, and I was able to, you know, influence the outcome of games through that role. It wasn't just, oh, I'm a special team guy. And so, you know, I don't have a potential to have a decent size contract. And so we kind of got on the same page as far as, like, putting, like, an offensive weapon tag on me. It's like, that's what you are. It's like, you're not necessarily the start you're running back is going to take, you know.

40, 30, or 20, 30 carries a game. But, you know, you might get some carries here, some receiving yards here. So I'm just glad we were able to, you know, finally chriveled down to what we thought I was, you know, put into paper and gives them agreed on. Have they given you any, you know, implications, any commitments to what the backfield is, is going to look like this year? Like, are they kind of going to split with you and Justin Jackson or?