First MOCK DRAFT of 2023! - Fantasy Football Podcast for 5/25

Well, mock a lock a ding dong baby. We have a mock draft episode for you today. We've already done the episode. And let me tell you, it's fantastic. You're going to really, really like it. Subscribe, leave comments, and enjoy. To the fantasy footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright. Welcome in. Thursday, May 25th, the Fantasy Footballers podcast. Any Mike and Jason back with you? It's a beautiful day. It's the 25th of May. That means it's time to mock draft, everybody. Oh, yes. First mock draft episode of the year today. Nobody likes mock drafts, right? It's too early. It's never too early. Thank you, Jason. We're way late. Yeah, if anything. I mean, the NFL draft's been done for all of two weeks.

Right? Month? When was that? Yeah, who knows? May's a weird month around here. No, it's been a... It kind of just collapses upon itself. I mean, you got OTA starting up. You got people running around, injury scares already. Ah, yes. Football. I forgot the fun of football. Yeah, it's been a month. It's been a month since the draft. That sounds right. Yeah. But it feels like a couple of weeks. Time is flying. We'll have NFL football here soon. And we'll have the Ultimate Draft Kit here soon. We've got one more week left until the 2023 Ultimate Draft Kit launches. That means you've got a week left to get it at the lowest possible price. You got the UDK and the UDK Plus with all the Dynasty Pass Intel Ultimate DraftKit.com. We are very excited about what we're going to bring you. I do have a little bit of breaking news on that, and the number is going to change. But thus far...

We're at about 70,000 words of original analysis and content inside the UDK. Is that right? It is right. Remember Mike when you're like May kind of collapses in on itself? The reason is the ultimate draft kit. And it's 70,000 words. We're going through the tiered ranking. It's going to be over 80,000 by the time. It's launched. That's what I've been. That's what I've been. And that's, we did ask chat GPT to tell us what a full novel was. And it is qualifying. So, you know, all of the player projections are in there. Sleepers, breakouts, bust values, coaching changes, rookie report, target breakdown, market share. Summary of the draft from a month ago. 100 plus player profile videos, which I'm happy to say Jason has survived their creation so far. Barely.

You know what's sad is a lot of the things that we have talked about in those videos. I forget that they're not out yet. And it's like such good content. I'm waiting. Like, why is nobody talking about this great stat we shared? And it's like, it doesn't exist yet. It's in the secret places. And you know what I learned? I learned about the micro nap. Because I just, we finish a video. I'm prepping for the next point. We're like, who's up? All right. It's a Jamar Chase. I'm like, okay. Make sure I got all my stats ready. And I look over and then there's Jason just. Oh, he's got the eyes closed. Oh, snores, snores out. Power nap. And he just, he fits it in. Yeah. And then as soon as they're like, okay, we're ready. Then he's back. This is how I survive and thrive. I just. We know he goes to bed like he's a teenager. Very late at night. A lot of people don't realize that when this show, when we turn the lights off, I.

I just turn off. You power down. I powered down. He slumbered. There go the lights. Oh, no. And down he goes. Oh, wow. I didn't know we had that ability. That's probably less funny on the audio version. I don't know. My sound effect was pretty good. The sound effects were good, but people are like, what is happening? Well, go to YouTube and find out. which you can do YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. But yeah, the UDK, that's what it's all about right now. UltimateDraftCat.com. The cheat sheet creators in there too. So you're all ready to go. And let's talk some news. News and notes from around the league. I mean, I got to give credit to Al Borland on the gag. Yeah. That's a good bit. Because right before the show, he says to us, I'm very busy today. I've got to do two people's jobs. Brooks isn't here today. Inducers Alley.

handle everything. And then he jumps in with a good light gag. He's setting low expectations and exceeding them. So we think better of it. Oh, and speak better of them on the air. Yes. I'm going to jump in with the first bit of news. This is not NFL news, but it is the latest episode of the Fantasy Footballers Dynasty podcast came out yesterday. We talked risers and fallers. Another incredibly jam-packed podcast with a lot of really good conversation. So if you're playing, even if you're not playing Dynasty, It will help prepare you. But if you're playing Dynasty, it's going to be your James. That's a little cross-promotion news that Mike is sharing. Austin Echler will play for the Chargers in 2023. They tacked on some incentives to his contract. And he will be back, which is. This is great news for fantasy football for the year. Yeah. It's good news that they've come to some agreement where he seems enthusiastic to return. Aaron Rogers suffered a strained calf at OTAs. Should be fine. Foster Moreau.

Incredibly full participant running routes. That's wild. Two months from the day he was, it was announced that he had Hodgkin's lymphoma. That is just such a cool story. The fact that two months ago he found out he has cancer now, he's a full participant at OTAs. For fantasy purposes, I'm not in on Foster Monroe, but I do think he could muddy the water for Julian Edelman. Have you seen this? Mike. Jason Moore. All right. There was news about Joanne Johnson. You think I did not see it. You think I did not share it. Have you missed this news, Andy? Of course I've missed this news. I don't subscribe to Juan. His, the Dewan News Twitter feed. It was, I mean, it's hype trade season. So I'll share. But it was Mike Triplett that I get the, is that his name? Yeah. The beat reporter for the Saints. And Juan Johnson was saying, I.

that like they had the team prepare him a bunch of Julian Edelman tape so he could just study how Julian Edelman plays because he inferring that these are the type of routes that he will be running and a role he will play for Derek Carr. Is this the same kind of like core hype group that that is responsible for the absolute tragedy of Adam Troutman over the last handful of years in in the city? I'm not sure. Is Triplett, the one that was giving you a lot of Troutman news? To be fair, Juan Johnson has actually done stuff on the NFL field that has been good. I like Juan Johnson. I think he's a quality player, but I saw that. He's nothing without Andy Dalton. Nothing. I saw that he's watching Julian Edelman routes. And I went, that's not going to work for you. You're 6'5, 250 pounds. You can't run Julian Edelman routes. It's not happening.

Or is it, Jason? Oh, boy. Oh, boy. Kyle Shanahan said that Brock Purdy will start a throwing program next week. It's not in our notes here, but I believe the quote from him about whether he'll be ready for week one or for training. Oh, is it a classic? Essentially, he just said, only God knows. Yeah. Oh, the classic. I don't, I can't guarantee you we're all going to be alive tomorrow. Listen, if I was San Francisco with the injury problems that they've had. that's the only answer I would give. I would give God knows I have no idea and I'm going to hand it over to God. Yeah, that is not coach speak. That is legitimately how he has learned to think now. He's like, I have no idea. That being said, I think we all three have statted Brock Purdy out to be the starter week one. At least that's how I had my rankings from the get-go. So this hasn't changed anything for me.

It's just the expectation is that Brock Purdy will be the weak one starter. There were a couple pieces of NFL rule news that broke, one of which was that there is a third quarterback that's allowed to be active on game day without expanding the game day roster to avoid what essentially happened last year in San Francisco where, you know, Christian McCaffrey's warming up on the sideline to be your quarterback. They're going to put. teams into a position where you shouldn't be seeing position players accidentally take snaps. Yeah, it's great news. I guess if you look at it the other direction, they're like conceding that maybe multiple quarterbacks can be injured on one week. It's good for the product of the NFL because a positional player being forced into just a game in general. And I mean, like that. The Kindle Hinton. Yeah, like that type of thing or that the NFL game that we had to watch where it was Brock Purdy.

can't throw a football, but they had to put them back out there to hand off over and over. Because Josh Johnson got hurt, right? Yes. Or like the Broncos games we had to watch last year where Russell Wilson was quarterback. Right. We don't want, yeah, now we now we don't have to deal with any of that. In other, in other NFL news, they passed the rule as well where the kick returner can signal a fair catch within the field of play. And the ball will be brought out to the 25-yard line. So this is a player safety rule. They said the most concussions happen on those plays. It does eliminate the investments teams have made on, like, kickers that can do that well. It's also a little, and Warren Sharp kind of pointed out the hypocrisy of it, but like it also coincided with the fact they're going to allow flexing teams into Thursday night football games, which we know short rest and things like that are not also good for player safety, but one.

earns them more money than the other. Yeah. Also, I imagine Bill Belichick is furious somewhere. Honestly, every coach that I've heard from. I imagine that all the time. That's true. They're all upset. No players, no coaches, no head coaches, no special team coaches. Nobody wanted this rule. It was one of those things where the competition committee wanted it to continue to put effort towards player safety or at least a good press release for player safety. Something you can point to at the end of the year. The kickoff is gone. They should do the XFL rule. Mike and I were talking about this, where, you know, the kickoff happens. Both the offense and defense are starting at, whatever it is, the 20 and 30 yard line, and they cannot move until the player catches the football. And the teams are spaced out by, I don't know, 15 yards or so. It's not the 50-yard head start that the defense usually has, which-

causes the concussions and no it's more like if you snapped it to a punter and then told the punter to start running and then everybody's just trying to tackle him yeah i mean it's why get why even have the play anymore that's i think that's what the the argument is at this point where they're what the the big pushback to this is is this feels like the beginning of or not the beginning because they've already started to tweak it but a real start to the end of the kickoff. And Jason would say maybe the end of kickers. Oh, man, that'd be great. They'll still have the field goals. But when you're the league and you've already been just taken to the cleaners for concussion problems, I understand it from the NFL's perspective of they're going to, if they identify to play that really has a higher percentage of concussions, they want to get rid of it because they don't want to keep paying out money to guys.

Donnell Mooney is still progressing from the ankle injury, not participating at OTA. Also, not great news. Something to pay attention to. I assumed he would be participating. So no other news I think we need to cover right now. I'm looking over there at Al. He doesn't have anything for me. I did have this requested. Yeah. I mean, that wasn't for me. I would never play that. That was for the people. That was for the people. All right, let's. Let's do it. Let's mock draft. The fantasy footballers mock draft. Talk a little bit about why we mock draft, Jason. I know it's fun and everything. It is a blast, but it's also one of those things where...

As you mock draft, you get used to different strategies where you're at in the draft. In fact, we pulled randomly today our draft spots, and it's really nice. Andy, you're at four. Mike is at seven. I'm at 10. And you really do implement very different strategies based on that. And if you aren't mock draft, if you show up to your draft, having listened to some podcasts, but you haven't actually done a mock draft. It is a disservice to you because having the experience of saying, well, this is what I'm going to do if this happens or this is my idea of going, you know, if I'm at the turn, at the, you know, the one two turn, I'm going to try to play it this way or, you know, anything like that. And we're going to experience that today and show you how to draft in 2023. You would never show up to a game of any type.

A competitive game without having practiced that type of a game. Yeah, you want to experiment with different strategies and get a lay of the land of where players are going. Like Jason said, I was placed at the four spot. Tough decision for me right out of the gate. Mike at seven, Jason at 10, 12 team half PPR were mocking over on sleeper. So one quarterback, two running back, two wide receiver, one tight in, one flex, four bench mock draft. I have clicked the button. gentlemen. And here we go. Christian McCaffrey off the board at 101, Justin Jefferson off the board at 102, and Jamar Chase off the board at 103. I already see the dilemma. Well, you already see the pendulum having come back to what happened with running backs last year. Yeah, I think it is part what happened to running backs last year and part there are some kind of stone.

cold locks at wide receiver. Not every year's like that. We've had years, okay, it's Antonio Brown is there. But then the other players, maybe they bounce around a little bit. You know what you're getting in Justin Jefferson, Jamar Chase. And for this mock draft, oh, baby. You know what you're getting with the number one player in points per game last year at the wide receiver position. My pick, Cooper Cup. Off the board at 104, going to give it a go. Echler, obviously a decision I could have made there. But I'm going to see what this, you know, with three wide receivers going off in the first four picks, I want to see what the running back position looks like on its way back around to me in the second round. So I'm going to take Cooper Cup and know what I am getting there. Now, your decision was between Cup and Echler. Is that what you were trying to decide? That is correct, yes. In this format, we're looking at a.

Half PPR draft. I have Echler ahead of Jonathan Taylor or any of the other running backs. So that's what I would have done at running back, but I went with Cooper Cup. Echler went next and so did Jonathan Taylor. So Mike is sitting there at 107. What are some of the decisions you're staring down? It is wide open to this point. This is a Travis Kelsey spot where I am personally 100% fine. If you're like, nope, I'm not going to worry about my tight end position. I'm going to take the guy who continues to be number one, who I project still.

will be the number one by a significant margin, a margin that is enough to take a difference making tight end this early. Do it. Do it, you coward. I'm talking through my stuff here, man. I just don't want him to get to me. So you have to make that choice? Right after you talked about it, you don't want to be staring down that decision. And then Tyree Kill would be my highest rated wide receiver. He seems incredibly safe. Another lock. Yeah, he feels like another lock. And then the. I guess it would be the riskier pick, but also the ceiling pick of Derek Henry is my highest ranked running back left on the board. We have some questions about who are the Titans. Do they stick with Ryan Tannehill? Do they make the switch to Banana Ram, aka Will Levis, at some point, which... Seriously? I forgot who it was for a second.

That is a terrible nickname, poor guy. It's his fault. He ate a banana with a pele on and acted like it was cool. You get nicknamed banana ramma when you are that dumb. Yeah, and you recorded it. And then you put it on the internet. It puts me in a position where I'm desperate for him to get starts this year because I need that name in my life. If he gets starts, it will be a cruel summer for the Tennessee Titans. But Derek Henry would be my pick. I think we still have another year. but there are like that's oh man so i'm going to take having said all those things i'm going to take tyree kill oh that's who i wanted to because i feel like of the three in the first round i want to chase the upside but i also do want to mitigate some of the risk of blowing up a first round pick well that makes sense and so you and i both went wide receiver to start this draft which

frankly, I don't love because I don't want you competing for running backs on the way back around. Travis Kelsey goes 108 right after Mike's pick. Stefan Diggs at 109. And here's Jason with running back options on the board, one of which I know you have Sequin very highly ranked this year. Nick Chubb, Derek Henry. Yeah, so I'm at the 10 spot. My hope and dream was that Tyreek Hill would get to me. I would have taken Tyreek at 10 for sure without question when I've been drafting. so far this year. If he's at the end of round one, he's my pick. It's really interesting this year. Usually at the 10 spot, there are more than three running backs that have gone. But this year, the wide receivers are pushed up. And so I'm sitting here, usually when I'm at the 10, 11, 12, and I'm so close to the turn, I don't like going double running back or double wide receiver. It gives me more flexibility the next turn if I split them. But.

I believe I am going to end up with two top five running backs in my ranking. And if that is possible, I will pull the trigger. So I am taking Saquan Barkley with my first spot. Andy, you can fill in the teams that drafted between. Derek, Henry went next. Devante Adams to finish the first round. Josh Allen with the first pick of the second round and then AJ Brown. I believe your prophecy. If I know the second name did come true, I'm guessing Nick Chubb was that name? That name was not Nicholas Chubb. But Nick Chubb does fit that bill. Let me see right now. Oh, oh, how funny. I was missing Nick Chubb. My actual strategy here was Sequin and Breeze. And the first and Bijan.

in the second. Bejohn Robinson has in the drafts that I've been a part of, usually been a first round pick. And I think by the time August rolls around, he will be creeping up to the first. I have Nick Chubb and Bejohn Robinson back to back in my rankings. So what do you do here? I'd be happy with either. I'm going to stick to the plan. First mock draft. Give me the young duo of Sequin Barkley and Bejohn Robinson, pass catching workhorse backs to start. I didn't know where that was going, Mike. Sequin and Bijam. What are your, what are your reaction? I figured it was Bijan. Yeah. And I don't have a problem with it. So that puts, so after Bejohn went, Patrick Mahomes, C.D. Lamb went. I am back on the clock with Tyreek Hill at a VX of like a very difficult decision to make right here. You're picking three spots ahead of me. And.

I'm very excited about the running backs that are on the board right now. So the decision, Cooper Cup, yours with Tyreek Hill, at least the way my rankings are, I'm very excited because I have got my number three and four running backs still on the board. And one of them is in consideration for me. I assume one of those is Joshua Jacobs. Correct. So he is in strong consideration for me. I'm struggling right now what to do with Brees Hall because. In my raw, you know, this initial draft of projections and statistics, he is a top five running back for me, but we still don't yet know for sure that he's going to be good to go week one. But I, but you know, just following the, the, the, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the, the, uh, the, the,

pretty high at this moment given the information that we have. And then there's another running back who, do I play the ADP game of perhaps they make it back to me? And the wide receiver wise, you know, it's like Higgins, Ammon Ra, Garrett Wilson is definitely an option for me at this point because I do have him inside of my top 10. So I think I'll narrow it down to Garrett Wilson and Josh Jacobs. One of those. No, both of those are upsetting to Andy. So that does give me, it gives me a good feeling inside. Yeah, I mean, that's the essence of what we're doing here. Let's, you know, let's, let's dance. Let's dance with the devil. I'm going Garrett Wilson. Wow. I'm going to, I'm going to start wide receiver, wide receiver and see what this build looks like. I was so hopeful you'd go Josh Jacobs because I knew Nick Chubb would be the next, you know, he's, he's already passed where his ADP is and the computer would take him. And then I wanted to see what.

Andy would have to do. But unfortunately, things worked out pretty well for you. I mean, they did. And Mike with the Tyree Kale Garrett-Wilson's start, that is some explosiveness on his roster. Thrilled he did not take my guy there. Nick Chubb did go next. I have Chubb one spot ahead of Jacobs in my rankings. Jacobs I have as my number four overall running back. And there are eight off the board at this point. So I feel good about that and a half point PPR. I am avoiding Breeze Hall myself. Because I don't understand. I don't like the beginning of the season combined with the injury. It's so hard. I think the second half of this year with what the Jets have on paper as a schedule and the recovery from the ACL. Like there's two sides to an injury like this. Side number one is is the player healthy. But side number two is does the team manage him to begin the year? Sure. For his own good. For the team's own good for what they have coming down the pipe. So I think that.

Both of those are risks of whether he's fully healthy and the schedule and whether the team manages him. I need a fast start. I'm going to go with the player that led the league in rushing last year. I'm going to go with Josh Jacobs. There's been nothing that's happened on that team that makes me believe he doesn't repeat what he did last year. Waddle, Brees Hall, and Jalen Hertz round out the second round. We'll talk third round momentarily. All right. Our first mock draft of the season, a half. PPR, 12-team mock draft. After two rounds, I have Cooper Copp and Josh Jacobs. Mike has Tyree Kill and Garrett Wilson, drafting from the 7th spot. I was in the 4th spot. And then Jason Moore, the only one of us with a pair of running back so far. Saquan, Bijon, from the 10 spot. Jason, you were, you let out a bit of a groan when you saw that you were randomly chosen to be in the 10 spot. This doesn't look that bad to me.

No, no, it doesn't. It really doesn't matter by the time it comes back to me. If there's, there are basically two wide receivers, three wide receivers I still love on the board. If those three are gone by the time I am up, I will be sad. And if one of them is there, I will be happy. Okay. That does make some sense. We are, we're in the third round and it begins with T. Higgins off the board at 301. He went up ahead of Amman Ra, Metcalfe, Devant de Smith, some other options at wide receiver, but that seems like about the right spot for him. Mark Andrew's still on the board. After Higgins went to his quarterback, Joe Burrow, 302, how do you react to see him Burrow go off the board that early? It's way too high for me personally. I've talked about this a little bit this offseason. Jalen Hertz, Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen, those guys have forced all quarterbacks ahead. What they did last year and the way that they lapped the field.

It made you to where if you didn't have one of those guys, it was very tough to compete in fantasy football last year. And when those three guys are going in the second round, that means everyone's starting to get afraid and they want an explosive quarterback to keep up. Joe Burrow could be that. But being more of a pocket passer, I'm not spending an early third round pick on them. All right. After Burrow was Travis E.T.N. running back for Jacksonville. And then I'm back on the clock with Cup, Jacobs. And like I said, Jacobs is sitting at four for me in the rankings.

My number five running back is sitting out there as well, and I'm going to take him here. Tony Pollard. That was my ADP game. See, that felt good. You're right. It does feel good. Yeah, you got me. Yeah, Tony Pollard is sitting there, and I will pair him with Jacobs. Love that backfield. Cooper Cup at the wide receiver position. I just want to draft the four spot every year. Tony Pollard is going to be fascinating. I do see his ADP. Where does he end up in the AP? I see it dancing around based on. where this team's what that backfield looks like in camp. Amun Ross St. Brown went next to team number five. Joe Mixon. Team six is a pilot on the running backs. Taylor, Chubb, and Mixon. Very high tea. Probably worth mentioning that if you are listening to this and you want to see the draft board, you can go do that. It's on YouTube. YouTube.com slash the fantasy footballers. You can watch it. You can decide what mistakes we're making in the moment and see the board.