Ice & Fire Picks + Listener League, Little Giants - Fantasy Football Podcast for 8/2

You look at the Giants wide receiver room. You look at the targets that they have right now. It is almost impossible to define a leader in that. It also feels like they shouldn't be allowed to be called giants. Oh, boy. You know what I mean? That's a misnamed wide receiver room. Wow. The New York Giants have a bunch of slot receivers. They play big, Jason. They sit on boosters in that room, though. Oh, man. Hey, Foot Clan, the NFL season is here. Five days a week, we're here with you. Check out the Ultimate Draft Kit. Prepare for your draft. We've got it all ready for you at Ultimate DraftKit.com. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Oh, welcome in.

The Fantasy Footballers Podcast, Mike Wright, Jason Moore. I'm Andy Holloway. We welcome you in Wednesday, August 2nd. We begin the journey towards a fantasy football championship. We'll be alongside you all season long every single day. If you're into Dynasty, we've even got an extra episode. Oh, that's great. I am into Dynasty. Yeah. Yeah. And do I have news for you, Jason? What? You may be interested in something we're providing. Okay. Which also comes out today, right? Yes. So Wednesday's a double, double dose of the fantasy footballers. We've got the main show. We got the dynasty show. I believe Mike was on there with Borg and Betts. Yep. We were talking all about quarterbacks. I've heard of them. Yeah.

That sounds like a good discussion. Today we have ice and fire. One of our favorite episodes of the year we got news to talk about. We have so much going on. I just can't wait for the drop. I mean, that's all I'm here for is just when we get into that segment. But we do have something maybe a little bit more important. Uh-oh. Than that drop. Oh, I didn't even see this. Why don't you go ahead and take the mantle? This is the time. I mean, we are here. We are in August. Training camps are open and listener league entries. Oh, no. Are now officially open. So you have one week only to submit your listener league entries. And here's how you do it. You make whatever fun thing you want to represent yourself to say, I should be in the league. Put me in that league. And you're going to email that fun thing to listener league at.

Fantasyfootballers.com. I said it once and I'll say it one more time. That's going to be twice. Listener league at fantasy footballers.com. We are accepting entries for one week and maybe we'll play in a league together this year. And Mike, you know, we don't need the resume, right? That is correct. Look, we want to play with fun. People. You're going to be, like, we're going to be chatting and yucking it up all season long. So we want people. It's a good time. This show, hopefully you realize that fantasy football is about, look, we all want to win, but we also want to have a good time throughout the NFL season. So what do you do to get in the listener league? Just something that, that we know that you're a fan of the show. I think that's the big one there. And that you're going to have a good time with us. We don't want, don't just.

You know, like, you're too scared to let me in the league. No, we aren't too scared, but you're not going to get in that way and don't send us a wall of text. Yeah, if you love fantasy football and you love the podcast. I think Brooks, you put that well. Brooks should know it. Brooks was in the listener league. We met Brooks from the listener league. He's part of this show now. The biggest loser. Brian Catcher, listener league. This is, we, that one was an unfortunate. Oh, it sucks. I'm so, I'm so unhappy to have made his acquaintance and become close friends. Uh, but yeah, I mean, uh, we take the league. You just, you just said you were close friends with Brian. I know. He's, he's going to lose his mind. Yeah, but it's true. You can have donuts showing up at the office of the 15 minutes. Um, but yeah, that's a big announcement. I didn't realize that was dropping on today's show, but it makes sense.

The community? One week, one week, people. One week and. And don't endanger yourself because somebody, somebody reached out to me and let me know that this year's entry, like they almost drowned or something. Going through a river. Stay safe out there. So, no, don't, I don't think we need you to, like, is it fjording a river? What is that? That, fjording is when you take the raft. Yeah, don't do that. Not the, or, fording is just when you walk through it. With the oxen. And the oxen just, they disappeared. Yeah, no Oregon trail stuff. Like, we don't need that. But also, stay safe. And then last one. Don't ask us on. Oh, it's fording a river. Oh. Fjords are those things down in New Zealand or something. In, yeah, Norway and stuff. Last bit of information. Don't ask us on social media for where you send your entry.

We already said it twice. These are the rules. Yeah, I almost repeated it, but I'm not going to. We will not say it again. We're not saying listener league at fantasy footballers.com ever again. Okay. There it is. Jason. Quick question of the day. If I said it twice, I'll say it thrice. This quick question comes in from Dr. Kool-Aid. He says, how do I get my commissioners to get the ball rolling on leagues earlier without being too annoying? So that would be things like setting the draft order. which I did for our family league this morning, or setting the day for the draft, which I did for our family league this morning. How do you get them to do it sooner? I genuinely think that the best way is to offer your services to do it for them. I don't think that the commissioner of your league is like, I refuse to think about this until August 15th.

People are busy. So, you know, a lot of leagues that we are in have co-commissioners. That's every platform now will allow you to have multiple people with administrative access. And, and I think it's really nice when someone else can step up and say, hey, I was thinking about getting the ball rolling on this. Do you want some help? Do you want me to, you know, help set the draft order and stuff like that? And then it makes, yeah, it makes sense that you're in this position where you're very excited because you're listening to the show right now and you've probably listened for a while.

we go year round. So you've been excited. You've wanted the league and the draft order happen. I will say this. Setting the draft order, cool. If you want to have it happen early, you want to get the league going, you want to start chatting, that's great. Don't, and we're getting to the news in a minute, so you'll understand this even more. Don't push for your draft to be too soon, just because you're excited. because we're always trying to push our draft as far back as possible. We're on Labor Day for our League of Record, which is September 4th. I'm trying to sync it up with kickoff. Like right? Yeah. Like the final pick. Yeah. And then the final pick is in. You have 30 seconds to set your line off. Oh, that's true. Yeah. But it's just, look, the injuries, they stink regardless. But they stink a whole lot more when you already got the players on the roster. Yes.

We've had drafts where we didn't have a choice, obviously. It was the time people could get together. And we've had injuries happen literally mid-draft before because preseason games were taking place. So it's good to avoid that if you can. Let's jump into the news. News and notes from around the league. Presented by USAA Insurance. Well, there's some stuff going on. Let's start with the headline here. Cooper Cup left practice yesterday. Dealing with a, was that a horse, Jason? It wasn't meant to be. It was a sad horse. He left practice, hamstring injury, underwent an MRI. The team's going to be cautious. It's going to take weeks. Kind of sounded similar to the borough situation where you're probably not going to see any more Cooper Cup. You know, this data is interesting. I'm not saying it's prescriptive for Cooper in this situation. You know,

for sure, but Matthew Betts, our injury expert, talked about the fact that in his data set over the last two years, 60% of players who dealt with camp injuries failed to meet their ADP. Pretty hard to meet your ADP when you're being drafted in the top five anyway. You add to that an injury-laden season last year, going into the season with a hamstring. You know, Cooper Cup is a special type of player and athlete. We've seen him return from an ACL when people didn't expect them to produce, and he did. But I'm not excited to see this news. Our risk ratings in the UDK are going to rise on Cooper Cup. I'm sure of that. And he's moved from like one to four because I see those top four wide receivers so close that, look, if you have a hamstring injury, that's going to separate you a little bit.

in my rankings because I don't want that risk. Yeah, I have a rule that I've adopted over the last several years, which is when you're in draft season, don't, don't buy the ADP dip of currently injured players now. If he's totally back and healthy by the time drafts come around, you're not buying an ADP dip and there won't be one, but certainly it's unfortunate. Alvin Camara is going to meet with Roger Goodell today to discuss the Las Vegas incident. And so we will get an answer likely soon on whether he'll be suspended for one game, two games, four games. Yeah, we don't know. And we might talk about him today. Later. Calvin Ridley, this was, I guess, as good as it gets. Dealing with the toe injury, that was reported, a lot of sad faces. And then this morning we found out it's related to the cleats he was wearing. And he switched cleats today, and he's expected to be fine. Yeah, he was like.

I'm a size 12? Yeah. He had no idea. Wait, did Cooper Cup try this? Yeah, you should like change his pants for the hamstring injury. He's like, my pants were too tight. I really doubt that one, Mike. We got to try everything. Well, you're in a good mood now, but what about this? Vikings running back Alexander Madison limped off the practice field. Well, like like pimplimp? No, not a pimplemp. Like a cool, like he hit a big play and he's like, look at that swag. Yeah. No. Pimplim.com. That's like the groin index, but it's for different injuries. No, don't go there, by the way. Who knows? I don't know what you're going to find. He stayed on the field to watch the remainder of practice. Okay. Unfortunately, this meant that seventh round rookie Dwayne McBride ends up with first team reps with Madison out and Kinay Nuwangwu also not practicing. So Madison, camp injury, didn't seem serious, but.

We'll have to pay attention. Yeah, you've got to pay attention. Garrett Wilson expected to return to practice with that low. All right. I want all my ankle injuries to be low ankle. Yeah. That's just, that's a lot better than high ankle. And then Trayvion Williams, who cares? I mean, I don't know why this is in there. I care. I mean, he's fine, though. So like, this is not news. Well, it was news because yes, this is, it's an update for me. Actually, I hadn't seen this part of it. I don't know anybody out there that probably knows where he plays.

So you might have to say that part too. The dynasty players know where Trayvion Williams is he's on the Cincinnati Bengals. He is fighting to be the backup to Joe Mixon, which could have some value if you are in much deeper leagues, of course. But he, it was, the report came out. He went down. He was carded off. But I guess it is, Ian Rappaport says it's believed to be a mild ankle sprain. But that this shakes things up. You have Chris Evans there. You have Chase Brown. who they drafted in the fifth round, I believe, this year. So it can potentially shake things up for who is actually the backup. O.J. Howard has been waived by the Raiders. I mean, unfortunate for him, but Michael. Mayor, Michael, Mayor. I keep wanting to go on Michael Meyer. I actually think a storm is brewing for Jason, by the way. Yeah? I do. Oh, no. I think a storm is brewing. For a rookie tight end. I think we're going to have three or four this year.

that you're going to have to talk about on waiver shows. I think it's going to be Dalton, LaPorta, Kincaid, Mayor, and maybe one of the Packers' tight ends. I don't know if it will happen, but I will enjoy every minute of it. There's certainly opportunity this year. Austin Hooper's still in Vegas. Yes, he is. He is also still Austin Hooper. Well, and it's worse quality. Oh, man. Oh, no. We, uh, Yeah, this year will be the real testing of the rookie tight-in. This is a great rookie tight-end class, and I have no doubt that there will be weeks. You remember Greg Dulcich last year as a rookie. Sure. I mean, he was really important for waivers on certain matchups, but obviously Greg Dulcich wasn't a good pick last year. No, you're right. Didn't win people leagues. All of them will have games. Kincaid, Mayor, you know, Leporta, but.

A lot of the musgrave. And don't forget, goon, man. Oh, he's on the pub. You're right. And I think the hard part is that it's for any tight end ever, it's very difficult to be consistent in any way, shape, and form. And it's so hard for a rookie to have earned the level of trust of the quarterback, playing time, the blocking assignments, to do all that so well as a rookie, to be on the field enough, to be consistent, to not just be a waiver ad that you pick up, you play, and then you're like, dang it. That's not it. So it'd be fun, though. It'd be fun if it happened. All right, that was today's news and notes presented by USAA Insurance. You can learn more at USAA.com slash insurance. You guys ready? Let me hear it. Ice and fire. All right. We have each selected an ice and fire pick for today's show. And we're going to tease them a little bit before we let you know.

what category these players are in. But Jason gets the privilege of beginning our ice and fire segment. Yeah, and I'm going to start us off with a tight end. We were just talking about rookie tight ends and how they are. And I'm going to talk about last year's tight end number three. Super, uber talented. He man has set at times the NFL record for yardage, George Kittle. Chops down trees between plays on the sideline. Just to stay warm. Yeah. That guy is awesome. I really like George Kittle. Unfortunately, he's not fire. Ice. Oh, George Kittle. George Kittle. George Kittle is my ice.

player, my ice pick. And I think that it is, it's a bad pick right now in fantasy football. All of us have him ranked slightly behind his ADP. I'm the lowest. I've got him at Titan 7. If you look at how his fantasy points came last year, it was an anomaly for his career. We're going to year seven here. And he had 11 touchdowns last year. And you think, well, yeah, George Kittle and tight ends, their touchdowns. Of course, George Kittle had 11 touchdown. Here's his career. season finishes a touchdown, two, five, five, two, six. He's never been a touchdown guy. Now, last year, 11 touchdowns. And we know we say this all the time and it's just proven year after year after year at every position. Touchdowns are not a sticky stat. There are extremely few players. I mean, you could count them on one hand that are like every year they're going to be double digit touchdowns. Even great running backs who do it one year, turn around the next year and don't have it done. The yardage.

wasn't really there for him. And I know at the end of the year, there's a lot of people really, really in on George Kittle because of what he did with Brock Purdy. He had seven touchdowns in his final four games with Brock Purdy. He was just a machine. He won people championships. He was awesome because he is awesome. He could do it. He could be the number one tied in in the league. If him and Kelsey switched teams. George Kittle would be drafted at the 105, and you could argue it's the best pick in fantasy. Unfortunately, he plays for the San Francisco 49ers. He is not the number one target. That's probably Diba. He's not the number two target. That's probably Christian McCaffrey. He's not the number three target. That's Brandon Iyuk. So you're talking about a fourth read in an offense where he is dominant, but...

He's not going to be able to get it done. He only had an 11.5% target share in the games where he played with all of those players. In fact, there were only two games where Purdy was playing and Debo was playing. And in those games, he had 22 yards and 29 yards. He can get it done. He's talented. He'll have monstrous games. But his bad games are going to be really bad because he's also... Just a kickbut blocker. I mean, he'll block people into the ground and set things up for their team in ways where he can have an amazing game for the San Francisco 49ers. But for fantasy football, not so much. Year seven, one complete season for George Kittle. He hasn't played every game since 2018. So that's another thing you need to factor in, right? Like last year 60 for 765 is not.

doing it for you if you don't have 11 touchdown. Right. You need the 11. In fact, over the last decade, there's only one top five tight end who is fourth on his team in targets. And that was Robert Tunyon, who only had 59 targets. I remember it. But he had 11 touchdown. So if you get 11 touchdown, sure, but that's not something we can predict in fantasy. But here is my biggest point. I think the biggest reason I'm super ice on George Kittle is not because I don't like George Kittle. I love Greg Dulcich this year. Of course I'd rather have George Kittle on my roster than Greg Dulcich. He's great. But he's a fifth round pick right now. Right now, in order to select him, you're giving up Justin Herbert or Justin Fields. Those guys are going to be every week difference makers. You're giving up Miles Sanders or Cam Acres or Alexander Madison right now. You're giving up Terry McLaurin or Hopkins or Watson or Judy. It's just not worth it. The inconsistency you're going to receive.

will not be worth it just because you're like, I want to fill my tight-in position and feel good about it. Don't do it. That's my case. Okay. Yeah, I mean, I think it's very fair. I saw those numbers. The target share when all those four guys are on the field. Now, look, San Francisco is going to go through their injuries because they do it every year. Sometimes it's kiddle. If you took one or two of those pieces out, you know, that's a trade target all of a sudden. But as it stands right now, we have not, I don't think any of us have even.

like thought about drafting him at that price point. Correct. And every name that you mentioned that you're choosing him over, I think every single one of those I'd rather have over George Kittle. Yeah, I genuinely would. I'm curious. I don't know what my exposure is. I wonder if I have any George Kittle. Yeah, I don't think so, not at that price. So I will, I'll take up the mantle next because we don't want to just, you know, poop all over the tight-in position. I mean, we do because we do it every year. Well, they do it. Yeah. Well, it's on them, yeah.

And this guy made it easier last year because he wasn't participating a lot. I want to talk about the brand new tight end for the New York football giants. The offseason surprise edition, the tallest man in the receiver room. We're talking about Darren Waller. We're talking about a player that's made a huge contribution in the past, getting older, changing teams, Daniel Jones confidence. But I'm here to tell you. This is a fire pick. Fire. Darren Waller. Googgoo joob. Darren Waller is going to make a difference in your leagues this year. And you can look to the discussion that Jason just brought forth regarding the draft position of George Kittle. And then you can look Darren Waller's way. And you see him sometimes in the seventh, into the sixth round. So here's what I have to say about Darren Waller that I want to open your eyes to why I'm getting more and more.

I would say enthusiastic about his potential in New York. First of all, the last two full seasons he had, he did finish as the tight-in three and the tight-in two. It's been a while. It has been a while. Those two years, the average was 98 receptions, 131 targets, six touchdowns. You look at the Giants-wide receiver room. You look at the targets that they have right now. It is almost impossible to define a leader. It also feels like they shouldn't be allowed to be called giants oh boy you know what i mean like it's really they that's that's a misnamed wide receiver room wow the new york giants have a bunch of slot receivers um they play big jason they sit on boosters in the in that room oh man you're on you're heated today i don't know i've got a lot more caffeine in the system we're recording in the morning

Look, in fantasy football, there's a clear negative correlation between team wide receiver and tight-in shares. Historically, offenses without a clear wide receiver one see boosted tight-in target shares. They went out. They wanted to equip Daniel Jones, who they brought back, to be successful in this offense. And who's the wide receiver one in New York? Say a name out loud at the same time. But it's got to be a wide receiver? It's got to be a wide receiver. Three, two, one. Sterling Shepherd. Oh, really? The guy coming off the Achilles in the ACL who just came off the pup. Yes. So you got Wondale and Crowder and you've got Paris Campbell. The answer might just be Darren Waller. And so since, you know, Daniel Jones, since his entire tenure in New York, wide receivers have seen less than 60% of the targets every single year. And that's without Darren Waller in the equation. Look, Daniel Bellinger, who did not profile to be much of an impact last year, was getting involved in the offense as a rookie.

Very early. I'm seeing Kyle share the VHS cover for the movie Little Giants. Is that Rick Moranis? Oh, yeah. Thank you, Bruce. Little Giants. Oh, boy. But right now, Darren Waller, he's flashing in camp. He's a matchup nightmare. He's in a good place. He's happy to be in New York. Linebackers, we know they can't cover Darren Waller. And I think that the price is why he's brought up here as a fire. If you were, if you were building into his draft price in fantasy football, the fact that he has to reach these certain thresholds, it would be too scary to say, hey, new team, new quarterback. But the Giants showed me last year with very limited personnel. Brian Dable put his quarterback in a position to where they could compete regularly in games. You bring back Saquan, you take some pressure off the defense.

I don't know if Darren Waller, a healthy Darren Waller can't get, you know, eight or nine targets a game in this offense. He helps his quarterback so much. So I'm very excited about his potential. I wanted to take him in our mock draft yesterday, but he was stolen from me. No, it's, I'm all aboard here with the Walleris. It's going to be great to have him back. Thank you. I can't believe I missed the drop until the end. That was really, that was pathetic. We got there. Some of the quotes, some of the quotes coming out of New York are, they're just sensational. You have a quote here from Connor Hughes. It appears the giants have taken Darren Waller out. Some say for a breather, I think it's to force Daniel Jones to throw elsewhere. Like this is, they're just, the buzz out of there is incredible. If he is truly healthy.

He will be the top target for the New York Giants. And getting a top target for any team, it's a great thing to have when you don't have to spend a top five round pick on him, even better. And then it turns out it's a onesie position, a top target onesie position available at the back of the sixth round right now. That's beautiful. And I will throw in Darius Slayton, Jalen Hyatt. deep threats. Daniel Jones has had success there. If those guys can take the top off this defense and let Darren Waller run free in the intermediate routes in the middle of the field, I think it could be very, very interesting. Mike is going to share a player with us in a moment, but you're going to have to wait. All right, Mike, it's your turn to share an ice or fire pick with us.