NFC South Breakdown + Sweaty Hot Takes - Fantasy Football Podcast for 7/22

We are breaking down the NFC South, everyone's favorite division where the playoffs can be had with a good eight wins. But there is actually a lot of really interesting fantasy players available and we're going to break it all down for you. Make sure you like the video, subscribe, leave us a comment and enjoy. Footland, the ultimate draft kit is ready. It is available for you right. Now, Ultimate DraftKit.com. Look, you know you're going to be getting ready for those drafts because those are coming up sooner than you can imagine just a couple weeks away. Get the work in. Get our sleepers, our breakouts, our busts, our full projections, and these things are getting updated as soon as the news breaks. Get in there right now. Ultimate DraftKit.com. To the Fantasy Footballers podcast with your host, Andy Holloway, Jason Moore, and Mike Wright.

Oh, welcome in. Excited to be with you Saturday, July 22nd. The Fantasy Footballers Podcast. Oh, baby. Jason Moore, Mike Wright. I'm Andy Holloway. The deucers are here as well. It's a rag-tag bunch of deusers. Yeah, we took, Al Borland's here. The Rapscallion is here. And then we just found another bald guy. Yeah. Brooks had. A little too much hair. Oh. So we had to find someone who had less hair than Brooks. And that's a really. That's Josh. That was a really quick YouTube cut away from the baldness. Did you see how shiny it is? Was there a lot of reflection on the screen? Oh, he's back in the shadows. Papa Josh over there. No, we're excited to have you with us. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for listening to this show genuinely. Like, you're why we do this podcast. And that's not lost on us. Like without.

the listenership, the Foot Clan, we wouldn't get to do what we do. And you are our, in truth, you're our greatest form of marketing possible. Like we produced this show year round and you telling your friends, your family, you know, leaving the reviews, comments on YouTube, all of that stuff. Like, that genuinely helps the show. So we. It certainly does. We super appreciate it. We appreciate you and we appreciate your courage. You know who doesn't appreciate this show right now? The blades of grass that are getting annihilated because it's Saturday. Oh, because they're out there. Yeah. They're mowing the lawn. Unless they are in Arizona. We have to talk about it. We do. It's unbelievable. It is, it's bad. It's real bad. It's so bad that our studio air conditioning is given up. It's just saying, like, we can't do this anymore. So.

A funny aside, we're looking out in the backyard. And my wife says, did the broom melt to the grass? Oh, no. Oh, no. One of the kids had left the broom out. And I look out. And the broom definitely looks like it had melted. And I said, I. Oh, crap. I think you might be right. Luckily, it was not just attached to the grass. Like melted the plastics together? But the broom, the sweeping part of the broom was very wilted. Every state's got us, not every state. Most states have their challenges. Maybe you've got humidity. Maybe you've got blizzards. Maybe you have months where you can't go out in golf. But we're in the thick of our challenges right now. This is the hottest. Please have some respect for us right now. This is the hottest 20.

day stretch in the history of the state. We were at two days ago, 119. Our low temperature for the day. How low it got at night. The lowest of the day was 97 degrees. That's nice. I have under this table right now, if you're watching on YouTube, I have a fan blowing on my legs. It's just right here. It's the only way to survive right now. So, yeah, have some sympathy. Jason has said a lot of, I would say, just like not. He's pulling the fan out. It's so hot. It's really hot. We are stuck to the chairs, but we are here for you. And we've got another divisional breakdown show for Saturday. Very excited to get into it. We are in the NFC South. And we got a quick question on today's show.

We've got a live show coming up. Saturday, August 26th at the Palace Theater in Los Angeles. If you would like to come and join us, there are some seats remaining at ballerslive.com. The mezzanine is filling. The center is now sold out. Get in there. Yeah. It's going to be so much fun. We've got big things planned. Ballerslive.com. The ultimate draft kit, you heard Mike talk about it, available right now. prime up for your drafts, lots of cool tools in there, including the draft analyzer where we will break down your draft. If you're mock drafting and you want to see what we think of the decisions you've made, plug your team in there. And we will let you know which of us agrees with the decisions you made, the players, and it will help form your strategy for the upcoming drafts. And I will say, I don't know if we've mentioned it on the show on the podcast or not when we're talking about the live show. It's really a double show.

Because we do, we record, you know, the podcast. And so you can be involved with that, the cheering and a couple mailbag questions. But then once the show is done, we do it in an entire Q&A where those are entirely the questions from the audience. And then that becomes our special footcast for the week. So it's, it's double, double trouble. Yeah. And Jason, you can bring your Gooch fan. Oh, I will have it. I always do. To keep you cool. And I, patent pending. Kind of regret saying that. Twitter at the FF Ballers. Quick question of the day comes from Mark in Sydney. Oh, bonjour. There you go. Wait, is there a Sydney in the U.S.? Unlikely. I would say that. There's only one. Unlikely. I would go very likely. Well, I feel like if you're in the U.S., I'm on it. You would say Mark in Sydney, Ohio.

You wouldn't just say Sydney because you know we're going to assume. Sydney, Florida. We're going to assume it's the opera house. Yeah, this is. He's, he's literally sending us a message from the opera house. It could be the bridge. Yeah. Mike's climbed that bridge. Yeah. Shout out to the bridge. I want to talk about problems with you, gooch. What? Oh, man. Do you mean like feeling nervous? Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Fear of heights. Yeah. I thought it was like sweat. No, no. Things, things clench. Welcome to the Goochcast. Hey, this one's three mentions. We need like a peewee's plate. It's not a good. Saturday has a feel to it, guys. Mark and Sydney. Hey, ballers, how much do you factor in the other team's improvement when you are making a trade, i.e. the trade will help your team, but we'll help their team as well. I can jump in. Sure. I have a, I have an answer, and I'm sure Jason does.

To me, there's two types of trades. It depends on your league format, of course. If you're in a complete 100% redraft where you don't keep any players, and this is simply, I'm trying to improve my team for right now for this season and you. I consider it a lot because I don't want trade offers coming to me where I look at them and go, why would I possibly? trade away my run. I have two running backs. Why would I trade you one of them and decimate my team? Okay, I improve at my wide receiver position, but it destroys the structure of my team. So I personally do factor in because I want people to factor it in when they're sending me a trade, but there's also keeper leagues and dynasty trades. And that is the, I am sending you a very lopsided offer because I know you don't want to trade this player. So I'm willing to pay up or, you know,

Pay the Piper, so to speak. Yeah, I mean, I don't consider it. I consider the story. I consider the argument of why you should do the deal. So in that sense, I'm looking at your team and I'm finding a reason. But I'm not actually, I don't want you to be better as an opponent, not in reality. I want you to believe you're getting better because that's how you. I think that means you factor in what their team needs are. Yes, I do factor in the team needs to make a strong case. for the trade. But, and I think that's really important to get trades through. So I think we're agreeing. I just, the net result is I want the trade to go through for me. Yeah, yeah. I don't really care. I'm never going to assume someone's going to take a trade if they don't think it helps their team. And they're probably smart enough to know whether or not it does or not, which means I am trying to improve the other team. I think the heart of this question is like, do you worry if a trade improves your team? Like you believe like this trade helps me.

But I think it helps them even more. Do I not make the trade? And I would say no. Your goal, no as in, yes, make the trade. Correct. Your goal is to just keep making your team better and better and better. Other teams, that's their goal. You worry about your team. The only difference, the only time that I hesitate at all is if it's with Andy. Fair. Because if you have a mortal enemy in your league, then okay, okay, maybe this time it's personal. And he is my, in our league of record. We're in the same division. So, Mike, it would be you, I'm sure, if we were in the same division. But it's just the fact that, you know, I, fantasy football wise and specifically league of record wise, I hate you. Right. No, yeah, yeah, yeah. Deep inside. No, that's, uh, and I hate you. And I'm so thankful for that. Good.

That says a lot. I mean that with lump. I mean, I'd consider it if it was like heading right into the playoffs and I knew I was going to face those teams in the playoffs if it really strengthened them. But otherwise, I agree. I think it's exactly like the idea where people say, well, I'm going to draft two tight ends so that I can go trade one to somebody. Like you just don't know all the possible outcomes. Like it just doesn't make sense to bank on one team. making them better is going to hurt you. And you don't know. Like Dynasty, Dynasty, you don't really, the teams are so deep. It's not an obvious, like everybody has players at every position. So even though there are strengths and weaknesses on your team, you can kind of mix and match a lot more in Dynasty. Picks come into play. Teams may have different goals. Like, in that situation, it's harder to know what the team's weaknesses maybe are, but you're not going to get trades through if you can't make a story out of it. If you can't.

paint the picture for somebody. I agree. All right. We don't have very much news to talk about. This is being recorded about a day early than when you're hearing it. So if there's something big that's transpired, we will cover it on Tuesday. Oh, something big happened, Andy. Oh, yeah. What's that? There was a big trade. Oh, boy. The Jets have traded wide receiver Denzo Mims to the Lions. There was a lot of rumors that he was going to get cut. but I guess in the 11th hour, the Detroit Lions came in, which is a fantastic bet, in my opinion, for the Lions, because it was, well, like a conditional 7th, MIMS and a conditional 7th for a conditional 6th. I mean, this is absolutely nothing, and they have Jameson Williams, who should be the future of the wider, I guess the field stretching future, because Amun Ra is there.

But he's suspended for six games because of the gambling situation. So they need someone else. And Marvin Jones is, he's a little bit older. So Mims, I would say it's fair to say at this point, Mims is not going to turn into the player that we had hoped. He was the second round pick. I like them a lot. Yeah, he's, well, he's big. He's very athletic. But the Jets have seen enough to say. He's clearly not a future. But for the Lions to just rent a player who can run a nine route really, really fast and be tall, it's a great move. Who is the, who's the Lions receiver from last year that kept catching touchdowns? TJ Turk. No, that was one of them. Khalif Raymond. That's, that's it. Khalif Raymond. Yeah, if you have those guys that can go.

make a play here or there. Like his best storyline possibility as a player at this point because he didn't prove himself in New York is the Bershad Perryman type of narrative. Yeah. Come in and make an impact at some point. It's weird because like Mims didn't get a real shot and we liked him. And Elijah Moore didn't really get a real shot last year and a lot of people like him. So it's weird that the Jets would jettison those guys, jettison those guys. But also, Brees Hall. Randall Cobb, C.J. Uzama, all on the pup to start camp can be activated at any time. This was to be expected. This is not new information with Breece Hall, but when you hear it, you're like, oh, no. Yeah. New as in you expected it to be. Right. Yeah. This is. It's new as in they actually did it, but it's not new as in a setback or something. Correct. Let's get divisional.

Just looking at the standings from the NFC South last year, I'm just, I'm laughing because this is. It's the mucky muck? It really, it's the swamp, man. We're looking at these divisions. We've been going through the breakdowns. Tampa Bay won. Tampa Bay lost the division. They were the first place losers with a negative 45 point differential. Oh, my. Which was the most in the division at 8 and 9. As in the most negative. So they were the, yeah, that was the. The playoff. The playoff buccaneers were eight and nine. The Panthers and Falcons were seven and ten. The point differential in this division, everybody was negative. And yet all four had a shot to make the playoffs as late as week 17. You know, as we were working on the YouTube thumbnail for this episode. And I'm sitting there going like,

Who do I put up on that thumbnail? Because there aren't elite fantasy options, not a lot of them, not like a normal, like some of these divisions we've gone through. There are young rookies that, rookies or sophomores that are like emerging talents. But when you talk about, there isn't somebody that's gone out and established themselves for fantasy. There are players that we know will like Bijon. There are players with immense talent like Pitts and Olivae, but you've got Bryce Young, a rookie quarterback. You've got Miles Sanders changing divisions who's been inconsistent. You've got Drake London, who's been inconsistent. And you have, so you've got youth, but you don't have Sawworts in this division. And it's weird. Well, you got the old guys, but they've, and Chris Gobwin and Mike Evans, but they've moved from Tom Brady to probably Baker Mayfield. Yeah, I mean, the win total for the Buccaneers as we start this divisional breakdown was 11.5 last year.

Now, they did win the division, but it's down to six and a half this year at the departure of Tom Brady. And there's no way, I mean, nobody believes that Baker will play 17 games, right? I just can't imagine that. They're going to lose so many games. It's going to be one of those situations where you just are forced to throw things at the wall and make changes for changes sake, even if they still believe that Baker is the best option in week eight when they're two and six. Yeah, you don't stay as a starting quarterback. if you lose that many games. Yeah. You just don't because at some point in time you try something new. Yeah, and you go say, we're going to trask to the number one pick. Possible. And that being said, 8-9 won you a division. So can Baker get you to 8? Maybe. And this year, 8 might do it again. It might. So they were seven might do it. They were rough last year, 25th and points per game despite being second in pace of play. And so, you know,

They threw the ball 751 times. That was insane. I mentioned it the other day in the Tennessee breakdown. That's 20 times more than the Titans threw it per game. This year is going to be different. It just is. Tom Brady's not running the show. The pace of play is going to be different. You're going to have to depend more on your offense or on your defense because your identity. You can't come back the way that you could before. You know, Todd Bowles, good luck. Baker Mayfield, Chase Edmonds, new additions. Tom Brady and is 35 million counting against the cap. They have the most dead cap money in the entire NFL, $74 million. This looks like a full reset year. I mean, what kind of is troublesome about that, and we can start with the wide receivers is that, you know, Godwin and Evans are still very, very talented wide receivers. If they were in a better situation, we would be very excited about their potential.

For sure. But that storyline is what we said about Matt Calf and Lockett last year, and we were surprised. Yeah. So you can say, okay, we've seen, let's paint the rosier picture because my current projection is extraordinarily pessimistic. I'll spoil and say that I think the Buccaneers are going to finish last in this division. But there is an outlook here where you say, well. Godwin, not only just Godwin, but he's 27 years old, and he's now in year two from a pretty devastating knee injury. We weren't believing he would be back by week one last year. He was. So he should be at his best, like peak Godwin. And you've got Mike Evans, who's obviously a dominant force, has never not had a thousand yard season. And Baker Mayfield, while he has been terrible,

lately, you know, one point in time, he was the future of the NFL, and that wasn't that long ago. So if he could put it together, there is a rosy outlook here where they can be okay. I think, I don't believe PFF's rating on this offensive line. I think the offensive line is going to be a massive problem. Where do they have? I think they've got them at 14 projected for this season. It's definitely healthy. Yeah, I mean, they lost some pieces last year to injury, but they've lost some pieces from that unit that they finished the season with last year as well. So to me, I don't think that with this offensive line, Baker or Trask can get the job done regardless of the weapons. Hopefully you have a Gino-Smith-style surprise, and if that happens, they could win the division. But I've got them finishing last. And it's a surprise for a reason.

You know what I mean? It's not the expectation because generally that doesn't happen. So you're right. I mean, it could be Baker and Kyle Trask, which casts some shade on Evans and Godwin's potential. Let's try to find some diamonds in the rough here. Where, you know, Rashad White is going in the seventh round, running back, third round pick, capable pass catcher, wasn't good on the ground last year, but you can chalk a lot of that up to kind of abysmal. play as a team altogether. I mean, we watched Tom Brady, 751 pass attempts. I'm not sure that their air yards on those past attempts were further than where Rashad White was running. No. So could it be better, more efficient for Rashad White, another year into the league, the opportunity, the pass catching? I think that's possible. I think he could, you know, Carolina wasn't a great football team last year, but you had Deont de Foreman that had a year where he was relevant for fantasy.

Yeah, the efficiency for Rashad White cannot be as bad as it was. I mean, it just would be nearly impossible. 5.8 yards per reception is abysmal. 3.7 yards per carry is abysmal. So his efficiency should go up. And as far as volume goes, even if they run a lot fewer plays without Tom Brady, which I would expect, without Leonard Fournett, his volume should be pretty assured. So if you're looking for a diamond in the rough, it is Rashad White. Can I ask a nonsensical question? I love that. It's Saturday. If you wanted to get that yards per catch up, if you start juggling the ball, when is the catch actually counted? So let's say Tom Brady dropped it to you at the two-yard pass. That's an interesting question. You just started kind of like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And then you catch it at the five-yard line. Is that a five-yard? Pretty sure that doesn't make any. That's not depth of target. It's yards per reception. So it's like how many total yards receiving did you have divided by how many? I don't think it matters. Oh, that's right. Because we're, yeah.

But that same question remains on average depth of catch. So would that? Yes, that would be how you pad your numbers. Just tap it to yourself further down the field. Got it. Yes. Coaches love that. I told you it was nonsensical. Okay. So right now, Mike Evans, seventh round pick, Chris Godwin, fifth round pick. To me, and in every mock draft we've done, I'm taking the lower guy. But you guys have not done that. You guys have been on the Godwin side. It's a trap. Which one's the trap? Mike Evans is a trap. And this, Mike Evans won me a championship last year. I don't understand how I. But I'm telling you, last year, if you didn't personally experience, like Mike Evans numbers last year seem fun. You know, you look at the season total. This is, you go back to the truth about wide receivers series. And the whole goal is like, well, this player might have finished.

You know, he finishes with wide receiver 16. Did he help you? Oh, my goodness, no. He was, I mean, he helped you win a championship if you had him in your lineup in a week 17. Here's the, I understand and relate to the net result of Evans year last year, not truly helping you. But I also watched the games. Tom Brady retired. Tom Brady was atrocious. Tom Brady missed a wide open Mike Evans a lot last year. Tom Brady last year was Big Ben with the Steelers where he sucked. And then you're like, well, it can't get worse than sucky Big Ben. Oh, yes, it could. Oh, yes, it will. Tom Brady last year is better than what they have now. But I think, I think I, I'm only saying that not because that you might be right. That might be the case. But what I'm saying is that Mike Evans as an actual talent, you know, I don't think I saw a, uh, uh,

depression on the field. I didn't see him decline in separation or in getting open down the field. He was missed frequently. He was a downfield target. Brady couldn't do that anymore. Do you agree with that, Mike? Or am I out of my mind? No, I'm in agreements. I think that it's still going to be a very hot, cold type of a season for Mike Evans. But you're drafting him as currently the wide receiver 33. This is not you drafted Mike Evans. Where would you have gone last year? Fourth, maybe fifth round. So your expectations are set much lower. And for a player who's always had 1,000 yards every year of his career to be available in the seventh round because the concern about the quarterback is so strong. Like that's just, it's fully baked into his ADP. And I think that I'm perfectly fine taking it. It was a seven game disaster for Evans.

last year because his first, if you look at the season, his first nine weeks he was on pace for, and that was with an injury mixed in, almost over 1,300 yards and seven touchdowns. So, you know, I just wonder if a seven, I think it's not fair to Mike Evans to have a seven game stretch in his career for a guy that's finished that consistently with his baked in ADP being, you know, Mike Evans in the seventh round? Yeah. This is crazy to me. And so I'm happy that you're listening. You get both sides, right? You get the value on Mike Evans of the seventh round, a guy who's never not had a thousand yards, didn't look out like he lost it on the field. And if you think that's a value, take him, I'll be passing on him because Mike Evans is a 70 reception type of player, right? This isn't a consistent guy. This is a guy who has big plays, big games.

And that's worked for most of his career because he's been a touchdown guy. I mean, he's, you know, you look back and it's like, okay, 14 touchdowns, 13 touchdowns, 8, 8, 12, 12. He's a monster for touchdowns. If those don't come, you end up with what you experienced last year. Last year he had three games, I believe, where he scored a touchdown. Yeah, three touchdowns in the first 17 weeks. Yeah, so 16 weeks. Right. And then he had the three touchdown game in week 17. And so you felt like when a guy like that who's not a volume player isn't getting the touchdowns, you end up with six fantasy points, five fantasy points, six point eight fantasy points. You just end up with like I'm disappointed every week. So the question to me on a low volume guy is, well, will the low volume guy get touchdowns? And on this team, this version with this quarterback player, I don't think he gets touchdowns. But he can. So he was more consistent than Chris Godwin. He was 47% of his games, he was giving you a meaningful.

fantasy performance. Godwin was at 41% of his last 17 games. So from a fantasy perspective, Godwin is not more assured than Mike Evans. He just feels safer because he'll be closer to the line of scrimmage for Baker Mayfield. And Baker Mayfield is going to take chances. If this was James Winston, how would you feel? Oh, I'd feel great. See, I think Baker's going to throw the ball more than you think down the field. I think Baker will not be given time in the pocket to throw the ball down field, just like Brady. This is a good debate, and that's what it is. We will see it on the field. I like the price for Evans. If I'm choosing between the two, I'm not spending two rounds earlier on Godwin personally because all your arguments I agree with in terms of the offense, not great, line, what's your running back? Your tight end is, you know, another story. But why would I spend two rounds ahead if both guys were disappointments last year?

That's the part that's hard for me. Right. And for me, it's simply the fact that if both of these guys end up with four touchdowns on the season, I want the one who has 100 receptions instead of 70. Yeah, it's fair. But 100 receptions is not going to be the same amount of yards. Mike Evans will probably have more yards. Is far more likely of the two to have eight plus touchdowns. All right, Kate Otten. Sneaky? Yes. Mike loves Kate Otton. I don't blame him whatsoever. I don't love Kate Otton. But I love the fact that this is a starting tight end. Yep. Who is being drafted as the tight end 33? 42 receptions last year. Jason, he's not a rookie anymore. You don't have to hit them by default. Second year tight ends are great. It's a good bet to beat their ADP and to have their win tight ends break out. It's more, it's commonly in your two now. But really what I'm getting out of this is there's like a Baker Mayfield poop smear across this whole team for you. Correct. For me, it's like, do you want the third target in pecking order?